Sons of Equestria

Chapters

Gohoritykah
Prologue, Part 1: Dark Beginnings
Prologue, Part 2: Onto a New Old Land
Chapter 1: Making Headway
Chapter 2: Forging Alliances
Chapter 3: Leaving a Colt, Returning a Man
Chapter 4: Reliving the Old Days
Chapter 5: Storming the Base
Chapter 7: Calling for Help
Chapter 8: The Battle Begins
Chapter 9: The Sacrifice
Rahgahgogarians
Chapter 6: Deciever's Reckoning

Gohoritykah

This chapter is not a real part of the story itself; instead it gives a bit of back story so the reader can understand a few more things about the creature in question. This chapter is not necessary to the story but if read will make a few things later on a bit clearer. If you wish to read than do so, if you rather not then do so.

Gohoritykah

History and General Details: Gohoritykahs, as opposed to Rahgahgogarian, are extremely hostile and war bent race. At an early time of their history they had developed energy weapons that were rather dependable. The planet they live on used to have four other races that lived alongside the Gohoritykah, but most of time preferred to keep a good distance away from them much less their very boarder. The Gohoritykah sprouted a war with them in year 456 of their recorded history and finished it in the year 457 and became the soul race of the world. After aligning themselves with the U.N. in the year 562 and learning of the Rahgahgogarians, they immediately sprouted a hate for them. Their reason for their hatred was the fact that in their ancient history there were records of creatures they called ‘Trail Blazers’ that matched the description of the creatures that the Rahgahgogarians killed in their early war. The Gohoritykah revered their ‘Trail Blazers’ as the founders of the people, and so much so they could say that the ‘Trail Blazers’ to them were as gods.

In their year of 564 they launched a full pledge war against them and seemingly destroyed them. But while they waged that war, they were being destroyed back on their planet. In the year of 565 their world was destroyed with the same violence they destroyed Zenkrad. Ever since then they lived with the humans as the third major race of Earth

Biology: Gohoritykahs as of yet have not been given a scientific name. Unlike what the U.S. did with willing subjects of the Rahgahgogarians, the U.N. launched no project to study them and learn of them; instead they simply embraced them into their ranks without so much as looking at a skin sample under a microscope. Gohoritykahs have the strange ability to seemingly talk to machines and metal and give themselves the command over them so they can mold metal without so much as a match or a mold.

Gohoritykah have keen senses, thus giving them an innate advantage in the battle field.

Gohoritykah can’t jump very high being as their legs are like humans in that they bend forward.

They have been noted to have very low social interaction, instead depend on themselves and care little for others, even if they are saved from certain death or have been treated with exceeding kindness.

Gohoritykah military is divided as their species is. The Forward soldiers, or grunts, are medium weight and have rather sharp senses. In battle they have small shields and heavy hitting weaponry. These troops depend on their weapons to save them from trouble and consider death after reeking havoc as an honor but death while running a dishonor. Runners are the class of Gohoritykah that has the second highest senses and greatest speed. In battle they are given light weapons and shields and depend on speed and agility to continue to fight. These troops have been considered to be extremely expendable since their reproduction rate is the highest among the classes. Aggressors, or Brutes, are extremely heavy for their size and have the lowest of all senses. They are given no shields, but only steel armor. They trust their own claws as weapons and have no long range weapon unless you consider their horrid breath as a weapon, being as it carries heavy amounts of sulfur. Elites are the all around best of the four groups. They have the highest amount sense; they have the second greatest amount of speed and agility, only bested by the Runners. They somehow overcome their sociopathic tendencies in battle and coordinate with their fellows and become the greatest weapon that the Gohoritykahs have in their arsenal. They are supplied with heavy shielding and high powered weapons with a lower power side arm, being the only class with two different weapons on their person. This class depends on their allies and their combined skill to defeat their enemies, although when alone they fight with even more rage powered force, making them deadly in any case.

Gohoritykahs have no wings or any very special body part that allows them to do something over the top, or better than all the rest of the species of the many universes.

Reproduction: No general difference to humans.

Prologue, Part 1: Dark Beginnings

I remember that day, that dark they that started me down the dark road I now am on. My father, mother, and I were in the Rift Maker Facilities. Two acres of computers with programs to aid in the transport, each backup half a dozen others to provide a fall back in case of failure, generators to provide necessary power without destroying the cities electricity grid, and one machine that received it all to provide only a traveling sequence of ten seconds, if not shorter. Ever since my father had built it, the other scientist had been advancing it, adding support structures, making the whole machine one giant thing of a teleporter. It had been two years since my father had gone to Equestria, and finally the moment arrived when my mother agreed to go. But that was two months ago. We had done the week my father had asked for, and my mother loved it. We had come back to pack a few more things and now we were ready to go to Equestria. My father had told me that we would be the last to go into Equestria from our world. He said that he would have it that no other humans could go to Equestria because he did not rightly trust most other humans to be civilized enough from Equestria. Baedeker had commented to my dad that the coding wall was complete and would activate after we were through. My father, mother, and I all walked to the Rift Maker and heard it start humming as the energy started flowing through it. The field of red energy formed around us as the machine truly came to life. At that moment I knew something was wrong. My father had said that the teleportation flow would start feeling like a crisp autumn’s breeze then shift violently into a hurricane like wind, all I felt was an earthquake under us. I quickly looked at the labs different sensors, mostly at the seismograph, and it was quietly tracing normal activities. Suddenly my father pushed me and my mother from the field. I looked back and saw him trying to run from the machine, but a beam collapsed and… I never saw him again. One of the lab workers grabbed me as another ushered my mother out the room and into the staircase that led up to the surface. My father had just died because of me, because I didn’t try to stop it. Ten days later we had a funeral. Being as his corpse was never found, we simply used one f his lab coat’s ashes and put his name tag on top of it in the casket. I watched as the four men lowered the memories of my father into the ground, and no sooner had the men finished filling in the hole with dirt did some men in black suits come up to my mother and ask her to sign away the rights of the Rift Maker to them. Those four identified themselves as Uranus Innovation agents, and since then I never knowingly bought something from them. A little back story to those guys is in order. See, Uranus Innovations was trying to buy the Rift Maker since before my father even built the first one. Uranus was very deeply involved in military operations and built a lot of the things that the military used. Uranus was deeply involved in everything from kitchen appliances to pizza in a can sold for three quarters in a cheap vending machine. Anywhere you turned they had a product in one hand and a money clenching fist for the other. Well, as you might imagine, my mother refused saying that it was not her right to sign over any of the rights since she was not one of the right holders. My father had mentioned that he had three right holders besides him. I could guess two of them were Baedeker and Hartman although I could never think of the third so I only naturally assumed it was my mother until she said she was not. These men were obviously going for my mom and Baedeker since Hartman was already one of their employees and only a slight adjustment to a pay check could get him to give it with a VERY large smile. I could see it in their body language and the way they whispered after leaving that they thought my mom had lied to them.

Two years later I heard a knock on the door and my mom answered as quickly as possible. I suspected it to be one of my few friends visiting like they said they would that day. I was finishing up a level in my game and I knew that they wouldn’t mind since we usually played the same game when we were together at my house. Soon enough I finished and went down the stairs. I was about to ask my mom who had come when I saw her crying near the kitchen’s island. I saw that there was a man in front of her a very tall man in front of her. I instantly recognized the W suit that my father had made a year after he had come back from his inter-universal trip, but I noticed that it looked different than the Mark III, which was the last version I had seen my father make. Suddenly the man saw me and started walk towards me, shaking the ground with every step he took. I fell backwards, petrified by fear. What was this man doing, and why was he even here, and why was my mother crying? All these questions and more were answered in a second.

“Jason Paladin Webster, you are here by entered into the United Forces as a recruit for a W unit. You are to come with me either by force or by will, which one is it going to be?” I chose force as I ran upstairs, only to be caught by the man quickly and slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He hauled me back to his jeep and strapped me in and drove off with me.

Ten years change a lot in a person, in my case it changed me on the outside, but as with many, my inside stayed the same as always, determined to return home. I was by that time twenty, and extremely tall and muscular due to the excessive training I had received to enter as a W unit soldier. Through those years I discovered that Uranus had taken over the W suit since my father was the only right holder on it. By that time I had heard reports of how the W units at the time were taking down armies at a time with their Mark V armor. Well, to continue, it is said that when you are twenty you reach full maturity, but in the army that isn’t all you reach. You reach the final augmentation process of your combat training. In my ten years previous I had thirty or so augmentation sessions preformed by mandate of the army, and Uranus for the cause of ‘maximum field performance’. In the last several times I had done this process before, then I had my bone density and height worked on for the most part. Now they said they would not only do that but do a muscle work out. The way muscle usually grows is it is stressed and then it gains more cells and fibers, and so becomes larger. In this artificial version of that process your muscles are shot by electricity and so are stressed, a while they regain themselves and become stronger the scientist inject each muscle with a solution that continues the work long after the process is finished. It is estimated that muscle growth will continue in this process for two years and then when those two years are done, these chemicals maintain your muscle bulk and make it increase twice as much as usual when exercised. Of course all the scientists knew that muscle is heavier than fat, but being able to lift three times the weight of a usual human your age could has its perks in that in the future you will be the one lifting a one ton suit of armor. I entered the machine as what many would call a half man, and left a full W unit worthy fighting machine, but even this augmentation of my body would not gain me entrance into a unit. Two more years of training were ahead of me, making full use of my already expanding muscle mass and adding to it by extra exercise. I was sent to a hangar to be shipped over to the north training camp. As always, the military wanted their soldiers to be able to handle anything, and polar training in nothing but your boxers is used to either make you a Nord or give you hyperthermia. I hoped into the jet-helicopter and waited as the engines fires up. A jet-helicopter is one of the few original ideas of Uranus where their scientists actually thought about something without using someone else’s work. The helicopter looks like any other at first glance, but if you look at it again who will notice the differences. The top propeller of a helicopter isn’t there; instead the four propellers are in twos on either wing. And under each propeller there is a jet engine. Since each propeller can move to adjust where the helicopter is going, when the copter is going forward the pilot turns on the jet engines and gets all people inside to where they are going in a flash. The helicopter lifted off the ground as the propellers fired up and lifted it slowly, mostly because of all the weight of the machine plus to men.

“I’m glad you’re my pilot today, Baedeker.” I said to the pilot over the radio. Baedeker had been drafted around the time I was first kidnapped, unless you are going by Uranus perspective which would say I went through ‘forced juvenile draft’. Baedeker was given a choice between two things they said he was good at, science or helicopter flying. Being as being a scientist would mean he would be under Uranus, he chose flying. Two hours passed and we already we’re almost there. Five hundred or so miles in that time was extremely fast, even for a jet-helicopter which was rated for two times the speed of sound. Suddenly the ship shook violently.

“I don’t believe this!” Baedeker yelled over the radio, “Either an engine on our right wing blew out because of nothing, or my radar isn’t malfunctioning and we got several tails on us. They all appear to be ground-to-air ballistic missiles, and in all likelihood their also shrapnel missiles. I’m tracing their launch location now. BRACE NOW HERE COMES ANOTHER!” I put my head on my knees and covered the top of my head with my arms. Once again a blast was heard and the ship shook with even more violence. Suddenly I felt the air ship rise higher into the air, only to be hit once more. By now my eyes were clenched shut, being as I was unwilling to open them. I could feel the ship leveling out, only to be shook by another blast. I looked up and saw both sides of the ship consumed in fire. “Grab a parachute, kid, we might need to bale.” I slung the parachute closest to me and put it over my shoulders. “Currently I’m trying to glide this thing to the camp; the landing gear is good so we should be able to land this thing.” I heard a bleep as Baedeker lifted his right hand to his ear piece. “This is Fulcrum Jet-helicopter 007896, come in landing zone 784 come in landing zone. Do you copy?” I looked at the radar and saw two more missiles coming our way.

“Baedeker, we got two bogies on our tail. What are we going to do?”

“Well there isn’t much we can do, kid. We are stuck in a glide with no ailerons for turning or adjusting altitude, and not only that but we’re stuck in a glide heading straight for the training camp. Son, I think it’s time to bale, those two missiles are showing up bigger than the last, probably the big boomers to take us down. Wait… that’s not possible!”

“What isn’t possible?”

“The scan on where those missiles are coming from says they came from a Uranus base not two miles from here! I’ll bet you they’re after me! Blasted idiots are willing to do whatever to get the rights on your father’s machine! Well they’re not getting them because we’re baling out!” I nodded and slid the side door open and prepared myself to jump. I could hear the proximity alarm going off, and because of it I gathered my courage to jump out. After three seconds of free fall I pulled the rip cord and felt the jerk of deceleration as the parachute deployed. I looked back up and didn’t see any sign of Baedeker baling out.

“Baedeker, what’s wrong? Why aren’t you jumping?” He heard the sound of something struggling on the other side of the radio.

“This dumb door won’t open! It’s jammed! I’ll bet you that when those missiles hit the damaged more than just the wings and engines.” I saw the missiles slowly gaining on the quickly descending jet-helicopter. “I’m sorry, kid; it looks like I’m going down with the ship.”

“No, Baedeker!” In that instant the two missiles hit and cause the helicopter to get knocked out of it glide and crash into the forest, soon to be met by three more ‘over kill’ missiles.

Two years later was my initiation ceremony along with around a dozen other soldiers. Since Baedekers death there had been claims that a group of U.N. had hijacked the Uranus headquarters that shot down Baedeker. To some it might be confusing why U.N. forces would hijack anything on U.S. soil, but you must understand that things have changed. No longer is the U.S. part of the U.N., the U.N. is our enemy and has been like that for fourteen years. Ever since China and Russia started attacking U.S. only to ask for forgiveness then do it again, we eventually caught on that they were trying to kill us off. And so U.S. disbanded from the U.N. and declared war. To get back to the ceremony, to be fully entered into the army you were to receive you’re A.I. and new unit. To say I was thrilled when I found out Orion, a remake of one of the original six, would be a mayor understatement. I was assigned to W unit A1, the first W unit to be formed primarily out of ‘infant’ trainees. Not only had I received an A.I. that was a remake of one of the original, but also my unit leader was one of the original six soldiers to be given an A.I. with the one A.I. that was considered the best of the batch. The soldier was Colonel Armando Sanchez and the A.I. was Draco. In the original six there was him and his A.I, brothers Kent and Marcus Jenkins with A.I.s Ursa Major and Minor respectively, brother and sister Logan and Bonny Connors with Lupus Major and Minor respectively, and there was Arnold Johnson with the original Orion. These six were the best of the best and were alive during the time that the Mark III as still in use, which was around ten years ago. I was also given my armor, The Webster suit Mark VII, a rather revolutionary suit actually, being as it came with more add-ons than any other suit before, it also was the first to use a E.E.R. (Energy Emitting and Restricting) shield producer. Before this suit they would use the Polarization Shield method with consists of your suit having an electromagnet that produced a field around you and when a bullet or another projectile came at you the suit would polarize the incoming object to be a like pole with your suit thus making it bounce back from the suit. However this method of shielding was very primitive and only was there to soften the landing of the bullet. It most scenarios the suits metal would stop it while the polarization field would just slow it down enough. But with the Mark VII it had a shield that was made to completely deflect a projectile. It would catch the bullet, at cost to shield power, and make it so the user would not be hurt but know where the bullet came from with the smart function of bullet tracing by using the same technology as the jet-helicopter or any other vehicle’s radar. The suit was also the first to allow you to have you’re A.I. with you at all times. Before the Mark VII the A.I. relied on you to tell it what was happening, thus making them more math crunchers of possibilities than preemptive warning systems and telling which way of two ways is better in an instant. To make it easy, the Mark Vii was going to be the favorite of many and was going to be standing in longer.

Even though I never stopped being amazed about how I got matched up with Orion, certain other things lost their splendor. One of those things was the fact of being matched up with Sanchez and Draco. It ended up that the original user of Orion had certain issues with Sanchez and Orion had a grudge match going with Draco over fact wars and who could out do the other. I would have to say that Major Johnson had a right to be upset with Sanchez. In the code of conduct it had certain things to say about how leading officers off a unit should act, and most of the time Sanchez broke them and got away with them. But overall, when it came to in action missions, I had fun. Working with my unit and Orion was completely immersive work. When in battle Sanchez and I could actually set aside our anger over a few cartridges at the enemy. Orion and Draco would assist each other and their two respective fighters during battles, giving info on enemy positions to the other so he could tell his fighter before it became too late for action, thus changing entire battles for the better.

Three years had passed and more changed than I would have had. Four years ago Uranus had taken all rights to the Rift Maker and were already sending out team to encounter other universes while computer scientist worked on finding the ‘Golden Line’, the one line of coding that would not allow any future Rift Probes to detect sector A1 and make it so that the Rift Makers themselves could not teleport there. Soon enough my team and I were transferred into being the first P.E.T. (Peaceful Entry and Treaty) unit, whose main mission was to make contact with other universes and forge alliances before the U.N. could make it to them. At that moment in time we didn’t know if they had a version of the Rift Maker, but we weren’t about to take the chance of finding out they did to late in the game to stop them.

Prologue, Part 2: Onto a New Old Land

It had been seventy-two hours since our supply lines with the main body of the army had been cut. Seventy-two hours of almost nonstop fighting with these beasts. Seventy-two hours of looking over your back and looking after your buddies. I was sitting at a small fire pit. We were in our Mark VII suits so it was for more long range visibility in all directions than heat. My assault rifle was attached to my back by a magnetic locking system while my magnum was attached to my waist by the same. My three grenades were on my belt sitting comfortably next to my two flash-bangs. My combat knife was strapped to my shoulder in a position where I could draw and stab in an instant. A belt ran from my left shoulder to the right side of my waist and was covered by six assault rifle cartridges and two magnum clips. My sniper rifle was in my arms containing its last clip of ammunition with around three more shot to let out before I would throw it to the side. We weren’t on Earth anymore; we were on the home world of the Gohoritykah race. Two days before we arrived, the U.N. had forged relation with them and had persuaded them to kill us. In between us five of us the only common weapon between us was our magnums. Major Zimmerman has a grenade launcher; First Lieutenant Henslowe had a second magnum; Lieutenant Colonel Perishing had a shotgun; while Major General Sanchez (who received his rank a few weeks since the five of us banded together) used to have a assault rifle until he gave it over to me when he picked up a turret a snapped it off of its stand and grabbed five belts of over two hundred rounds each, which all in all wouldn’t last long considering the firing rate that the gun had. Besides us were two other teams of five that were all over.

“What do you think those guys are doing?” said Zimmerman, breaking the eerie silence.

“If by ‘those guys’ you mean the Gohoritykah then I would say probably preparing for an attack. I you mean the other units, they’re probably sitting around a fire like us.” Perishing replied.

“Should we try to attack the enemy?” Henslowe asked.

“It is true, we were set to make peace or attack, I think the course of action that we were supposed to do would be to contact the others and attack.” I said.

“Webster, are you absolutely sure it wouldn’t be better to just stay until reinforcements come?” Sanchez said, veritably challenging me to make a mistake.

“The U.S. forces don’t even know we’re in trouble, sir, our best bet is to attack these guys, get our communication back up and running, and if not that, leave a sizeable bent in their forces. Remember we are all trained in direct confrontation procedures and up front battle situations. We were a battle unit before we were made into a P.E.T. unit.” Everyone nodded in agreement and put on their helmets. I tap the side of my helmet, and so turned on the systems. “All units, come in, this is P.E.T. unit A1, respond.”

“This is unit A3, what is it?”

“Unit B5 here, you called?”

“C2, you rang, sir?”

“This is D1 awaiting orders.”

“Alright guys, we’re going in. Get ready cause we’re heading into a direct battle situation.” I stood up along with the rest of my group and started out for the battle installment that was due north in about sixty meters with nothing in between except wilderness. I started off in a light jog, only to burst into a run. My scanner told me my buddies we’re a few meters behind me, while the rest of the units were several meters away, ranging from twenty to sixty in distance. We soon came to a stone filled field that lay directly in front of the building. We started walking through the fields on high alert, only hoping that the enemy hadn’t been listening in to our talking. Soon enough we stopped in a small clearing where we were met up with the other units. All the units were considerably normal, except D1 which was comprised completely out of Rahgahgogarians, an alien species that were quite... interesting. We had met them and forge alliances with them not two weeks earlier and already they had formed a good chuck of our military. They were outfitted in no armor, since their skin was already a type of chitin. Their weapons were plasma pistols, plasma repeaters (the plasma weapon equivalent to the assault rifle), plasma blasters (shotguns without the burst), and plasma beam-guns (shooting a solid ray of plasma at the target). We started moving through the rocks in a loose formation, hoping to get at any enemies before they could radio for help, unless they already knew of our presence to begin with. I soon saw three red dots on my radar’s screen, telling me that enemies were close by. I tucked my assault rifle into my shoulder and readied myself to unload a few round on them. Suddenly I was smacked by something behind me, which caused me to fall. Suddenly a plasma blade pierced the ground where I had been not a second before I rolled. I soon saw a Gohoritykah’s armor faze into view as his cloak turned off. Suddenly my radar was filled with red dots of uncloaking Gohoritykahs who started attacking the rest of my unit and the other units. I rattled of ten rounds at the beast. His shield caught five, but was already weakened to the extent that the other five pierced his armor and spilled his green blood. I jumped up to my feet and started unloading rounds at the charging Gohoritykahs, who armor was rather primitive considering. Suddenly I fell to the ground as one of the bolts from one of the guns of the Gohoritykah hit my shield. Truly their suits and shields were under developed, but their weapons were killers. My shield was completely drained by one shot and even allowed my suit to have to take some of the force, which in turn caused me pain. I flipped my assault rifle onto my back as I took out my sniper rifle. I shot three times and took out three warrior class Gohoritykahs. I threw it to the ground and picked up the dead Gohoritykah’s plasma repeater and slung his belt of plasma capsules around my back. I began unloading plasma at them that killed them on impacted. Soon the first plasma battery ran out and caused me to take it out and replace it with a filled one. I took out my assault rifle in my left hand and began laying seriously suppressive fire. I ran through their lines of warriors killing anything that got in my way. Eventually my assault rifle ran dry along with the plasma repeater, and when that happened I put away my assault rifle and took out my magnum and shot off three shots before it also ran dry. I grabbed a flash-bang and pulled the pin and threw it straight down. The flash stunned my enemies, but because of my suits brightness sensitivity being able to react with darker panes of glass covering my vision a thus shielding me from the stuff effect, I was granted enough time to reload all three of my weapons. By now my shields had recharged giving me more edge in the game. I continued to fight my way through the lines of warriors, only hoping my next shot would not be my last. Suddenly a Gohoritykah brute class jumped onto me, causing me to fall to the floor. I raised my plasma repeater and was about to fire but he was able to smack it out of my hand, along with my assault rifle. The brute screeched into my face, showing his long, slender fangs to me. I grabbed a plasma battery and slashed one end open with my knife and pointed the open end at the beast. Quickly his metal helmet melted soon followed by skin and muscle, leaving him dead with a bleach white skull. It was a gruesome death, but he asked for it. I got back to my feet and grabbed my weapons and started laying down fire once more. I slowly advanced to the complex and made my way up, littering the stair way with empty shells and clips. Eventually my assault rifle ran out of clips and so I discarded it and took out my magnum. Eventually I was left with nothing but my combat knife and a magnum with two shots in the clip and one full clip of seven rounds. I soon came to a hatch that led into a room above. I climbed up the ladder and took out the pin in one of my grenades and tossed it inside the higher room. After three seconds the explosion went off telling me all was mostly clear. I threw open the hatch and went inside. I found myself face to face with a Gohoritykah elite soldier. While warrior class had killer weapons and outdated shields and the brutes had no shield no weapons (besides their claws), the elites had killer weapons with shield to match. He took out his plasma blaster and charged me. I quickly shot a round off at the plasma battery, which caused it to burst and melt away the gun. The elite then tackled me and knocked my magnum from my grasp. I kicked him off and drew my combat knife and jumped on top of him. I raised my knife and brought it down on him, only to have him catch it and twist it out from my grasp. I punched him in the face, which stunned him long enough for me to draw his plasma sword, which I ignited into his chest. No matter how good his guy shields were, a close range activating plasma beam sword can’t be caught. I grabbed his energy pistol and spare cartridges. I activated some computers that were in the room, and with my rough knowledge of their alphabet and how to translate into English, I deducted that these were jamming systems and intercepting systems. I did some quick typing and received a message in the language of the Gohoritykahs which was ‘all jamming units disabled’. I tapped the side of my helmet again.

“Orion, are you able to make contact back home?”

“The last test I made was ten seconds ago, but since I see that it looks like communication aren’t locked any more, I’ll try.” I would have to say going through the battle I did would have been easier if Orion was helping me, but I had told him to try to make contact back home and that I could take care of myself. “P.E.T. unit base, do you read? This is Orion and Colonel Jason Webster, please respond.” we waited for a few seconds, and then heard a crackle on the other side of the radio.

“This is H.Q. Orion, what’s your message?”

“Send reinforcements to our current location, the Gohoritykah are in league with U.N> force, repeat, they are in league with U.N. forces, over.”

“Good job, son, that’s three times in a row that you pulled it off, alright, shutting down training simulator in ten seconds. Tell the guys on your side you won… again.” I was relieved.

“Hey boys, we won!” I said over the radio. I could hear cheers on the other side of the twenty some men that were with me.

I woke up inside the simulator pod and let out a sigh, another successful training mission. I grabbed the release bar and jumped out of my pod. Soon enough the other guys got out and stood in formation with me.

“Alright soldiers, we got the results of the test. It appears that three of you guys died rather quickly during the Gohoritykah ambush, we’ll need to work on perception, reaction, and the ability to see a trap. Some of you didn’t see the trap but your reflexes saved you. Some of you had the perception and stayed behind in case. Some of you out right saw the trap and counter acted it with your own trap. Some of you work with your A.I.s the whole way, other told them to try to find a way to contact home and fought the enemies by yourself simply relying on instinct to caring you through. Alright, as I said we got some things to work on and I want you all prepare tactics for the next mission; this will be part 2 of the Gohoritykah home world assault. Also, you’ll be a few men short and a little less muscle and brain behind you because P.E.T. unit A1 is due to report to hangar M2 as soon as possible. So the ones who are staying here head over to the tactics rooms and discuss what you are going to do and all members of P.E.T. unit A1 head over to hangar M2. Let’s get a move on, none of us want to miss lunch on a training mission and we got exercises in two hours, let’s go people.” I found it funny that I was doing a training mission based off of a mission I took part in the first time. But that was behind me, hangar M2 is an inter-universal transport hangar.

“Are you two Brigadier General Webster and Colonel Larzyhorintorhmax?”

“I’m Webster and this is Max, we were sent to hangar M2 for mission departure by my guess. Oh and by the way, it’s Major General.”

“Yes, you’ll get the briefing soon enough. And sorry for the confusion, sir, it won’t happen again, I promise.”

“Thank you, sir, we’ll see you later. And don’t sweat it too much, it’s nothing, really.” Larzyhorintorhmax, or Max for short, is a Rahgahgogarian that joined our army when our two civilizations first made contact and peace. He was assigned to my unit and we have become friends, in fact he was the one who played Perishing, rest his soul, in the simulator battle. I took a seat near the back, since I was one of the taller of the group, while Max simply stood beside me since there were no chairs made for his back bending legs.

“Alright team, you guys are leaving in ten minutes so I’ll try to make this short. The techs have come through and have found the Golden Line and we have set coordinates to sector A1. We have little to no idea what this place holds as far as peaceful or hostiles. Alright, hangar M2 is ready to go, best not keep them waiting.” We all stood up and headed out to the hangar. As they passed the doors to the hangars they each were given their armor and weapons. I was given my sniper rifle and magnum with enough clips to last me a while, the others had their preferred load outs and soon we were nearing the hangar.

“Alright gentlemen, put on your suits.” I looked at the chest plate and helmet I had received. “And in case you guys are wandering, you now hold the W suit Mark IX. Put the chest plate on and press the center of the suit and the owner identifier will begin. Oh yes, your A.I. chips are already in your helmets.” I put on the chest plate and pressed the center as I was told by the guard who stood in front of the hangar doors. Soon enough the suit began to vibrate as it came alive. Suddenly muscle like fibers shot out from it and wrapped around my body. Suddenly the metal on the chest plate shifted and moved into their positions across my body. When that was complete I put my helmet on, and without even touching it to activate it sprung to life showing me all types of displays. Orion’s face showed up on the top left of my screen and gave me a smile, as did I back to him.

“Alright men move in… wait… sorry guys, I just got called to tell you that you guys are only to bring the magnums as the lethal weapons and are to bring stun equivalents. So give me everything except the suit, magnum and its clips.” I handed him my sniper rifle and clips thereof, and soon received a stun beam cannon and some batteries. “Alright chaps, to hangar M2 with you all.” We walked down the lane of different hangars and eventually reached hangar M2. He stepped inside and found the ship we were going to the planet in, the ‘Sailfish’. It was thirty feet long and shaped primarily like a sniper round. On either side it had wings that came out from the side and jutted back at a 90 degree angle after ten feet. The wings had three propulsion units on them, giving the ship a good amount of speed. On the top of the ship was a dorsal fin like structure that had a propulsion unit at the base, and it is that that gave the ship its name. The back end of it was split into three boosters and the bottom had six boosters, one on the front and back and four in the center. The entire ship had no glass that came from the inside to the outside, instead it had glass on the inside as screens and small viewing devises that gave a clear view of the outside as if there was glass, and also this reduced the weight being as the thickness of glass necessary for not shattering in space is so thick that it is actually heavier than the very metal. Inside the ship were ten cryogenic-sleep pods that were used for extended trips from the outer region of the planetary effects (the invisible field that makes anything inside of it the corresponding form in that world) to the planet itself. Also there was a table with a few chairs that were stored in the cupboard until needed. There were also seat with high security straps for same inter-universal travel. There were four drop pods that lined the sides, two on both sides, and a backup generator in case of critical failure of the primary one. We all got inside and strapped ourselves in and then I ran the roll call.

“Zimmerman and Gemini…”

“Present.”

“…Henslowe and Taurus…”

“Present.”

“… Larzyhorintorhmax…”

“Present.”

“… Sanchez and Draco…”

“We’re here.”

“Then there is me and Orion and we’re present so for the first time we got a complete unit.”

“Well, Webster, unless I’m wrong the superior officer is the one who is to give roll call.” Sanchez said with a sneer.

“It is true; in the book of military conduct the superior is given the responsibility to give roll call in section E subsection H entry 9.” Draco said in his deep, husky voice.

“Well last time I checked the book it says superior officers are supposed to go on every mission that their team is charged with. The only two situation where he is permitted to not go is when he is either on his death bed or already dead and all you gave as excuses were the fact that your mother or father were dying and when I checked their records they were in perfect conditions. So you had no excuse for being absent the last twenty times.” I said.

“It is true; it is in section E subsection H entry 10. If you missed it, Draco, you should probably have your optical sensors checked or get yourself in order to be reassembled like I was, who knows, you might come out better then you are now.” Orion said with a smirk.

“At least I am able to keep my original fighter with me unlike a defective A.I. like you, who needed to be reconstructed after his fighter well just so he could even operate.”

“You keep him out of this, Draco, you know as well as I do that it was Sanchez’s fault because he didn’t even try to help him when he was surrounded by enemies.” Orion hissed back at Draco.

“Calm down you two; we’re going to being going soon so just cool down.” Max said to Orion and Draco who quickly restrained themselves.

“Alright men, prepare for launch to sector A1, same trip to all and let there be no Gohoritykahs. You’ll be in descent range of the planet so you can choose if you want to sleep through the trip or if you want to stay up through it all.” I already was planning to stay up through the whole thing, not many good things could come from cryogenic-sleep pods. “Alright, brace yourselves for departure, Max, take the wheel.” Max saluted and went into the cockpit and buckled into the seat. “Cabin pressure should be around Earth like, you should know what that is, Max.”

“Aye, we got correct pressure, oxygen levels, everything checks out alright, let’s get going.” Suddenly the ship lifted up from the floor by a net of electro magnets that kept it afloat upon nothing but the fields of the magnets. Another magnet behind us turned on and pushed us forward into the transport field. I felt the sensation my father had told me about when I was six, the sensation I felt when I went to the place where Perishing died, and the sensation I now had when returning to my father’s realm. Suddenly the ship shook from the front to the back as we entered the new sector. My vision cleared and found my body to be the same. I looked towards Max and saw him in his usual form, unarmored and covered in a chitin like skin.

“Alright, he who wants to skip a month of waiting can go into cryogenic-sleep pods, for those who wish to stay awake the whole way then do so, there are beds that fold out from the seats you are on now. Max, set this beast to full speed, I want to keep up to schedule. ” Sanchez gave the orders as quickly as his tongue could flap around. I walked over to Max who was manning the controls.

“Max, hit the artificial sun room, you’ll need it. I’ll take over here.” I said as I put my hand on his shoulder. Even though I had a sheet of muscle-like fibers and two and a half tons of metal between me and him, I could feel it as if I didn’t have my armor on.

“Thanks, Jason, I was feeling low on energy.” He said through his telekinetic voice. I sat down in the chair that was both suited for humans and Rahgahgogarians. It was weird even talking to a being that didn’t even have a mouth, not to mention that at that moment he could have had a tail to boot, but deciding to be a male canceled out that possibility quickly. I checked the radar and found all was silent. The radar picked up no life signals or mass signals except for the planet that was a little way off. It ended up that Sanchez, Max, Henslowe, and I stayed up while Zimmerman went into cryogenic-sleep, not being one to like waiting unless it was for his clip to run out so he could put another clip in to unload at his enemies. Max and I took turns at steering the ship, one sleeping or standing under an artificial sun while the other steered the ship, while Sanchez, for the first time in a long time completed the requirements of the code of conduct of the military and monitored communication with back home, and Henslowe simply decided to play cards with Max or I when we didn’t sleep, or whatever we decided to do, while the other steered. Sanchez reported that back home they had five attacks within U.S. borders since we left and ten retaliation attacks on our part.

We now were in range of dropping down to the surface safely with drop pods. We waited for Zimmerman to wake up, which by the counter inside his pod was only going to be a matter of time, which meant two days and a handful of hours.

I was sitting at the front with Max in the back of the ship charging up under the artificial sun. Suddenly a blip showed up on my screen.

“Hey, Sanchez, did the army send a message they were sending extra troops in a space cruiser?” Sanchez looked at me, his expression hid behind his face plate.

“No, why do you ask?” He asked me.

“Because if they didn’t, it means the U.N. is up to no good in a space cruiser that is speeding towards us.”

“What in the world?” Henslowe said throwing his card deck into the air as he ran to my side. The blip on my screen turned from white to red as the scanner picked up a mixture of U.N. and Gohoritykah tech. Ever since our campaign against the Gohoritykah their only home was with the U.N., and by what we knew, their numbers were few, but even a few good brains could make a ship. I picked up a large spike in energy from the ship’s direction, and so turned the back cameras on to see what they were doing. The ship was very small on the screen, yet a bright yellow light screamed out for attention. Suddenly it turned into a spot, very much smaller than the large blob of light. I looked back at my screen and saw what I wished would not be. What I saw was a line of energy that was blazingly fast and concentrated. I widened my view and zoomed in and soon saw a beam of energy coming right at us.

“Hyper energy beam in bound, BRACE YOURSELVES!” I got out of my seat and activated the booster back to keep me above the floor. The ship violently shook as the beam rammed into us. My booster’s energy soon ran out and so I deployed my drop shield that came standard since the Mark VIII. It blazed to life but soon changed from blue to red, and then it was gone. I landed on the ground and watched as my shields died down as fast as my drop shield, but by the time it was gone the blast’s effects subsided. The crystal on my drop shield came back to life and turned back to blue, soon followed my shield as a yellow aura appeared around me as it regained energy and the bar at the top of my HUD filled up showing it was fully operational and ready to be used to their full extent. I walked over to Henslowe and shook him, only hoping that he was just asleep.

“Taurus, what is Henslowe’s condition?” Orion asked his fellow A.I. only to have no response. I grabbed his helmet and heard the click as the unlocking mechanism sprung to life. A plume of steam came out from the side of the neck cavity. I pulled off his helmet, only to reveal a petrified expression of fear and pain, burned to a crisp. His skin was black as the night sky outside and his face was as wrinkly as the oceans waves on a stormy night. His eyes were gone, leaving only dried, wrinkly skin that had lost all of its hair. I remembered his face before, it was as white as a clear day without a wrinkle to show any sign of age. Against most code of dressing of the military, he had lush orange hair and a good sized beard to match. It was all gone now, leaving only the charred crisp of a human being. “Taurus must have been destroyed in the process. Taurus was a good A.I., nice and sensible, and Henslowe, humph, he was always filled with life; he was what I considered that kept the team together as much as it had been. They both will be missed.” Orion said solemnly. I walked over toward Sanchez, only to stop. “I think we can both say that they won’t be as missed as that jolly joker, but he will be missed none of the less.” Orion was right, everyone on this ship was probably dead except me and maybe Zimmerman who had been in cryogenic-sleep, but there was no way of telling.

“Max!” I exclaimed as I rushed towards the back door that led into the cryogenic room. He might still be alive. He was covered from head to toe in chitin that in some cases was better than any metal around. I soon saw the lights flicker off as the ship’s main generator died out, only to turn back on again when the backup generator came to life. I made my way to the door, which slid open as I drew near. “Max, are you in here? Are you alright?”

“Aye, I’m alright.”

“Great to hear. Max, we need to get down to the planet as soon as possible, the U.N. is here and is charging this way. I don’t think this ship can survive such treatment, but it does have drop pods. I want you to get into one and wait for a few seconds for me to come; I have a plan to slow those guys up a bit.” Max nodded and entered a pod and waited for me. I got into a chair that had two handles on it, and when I pulled back on them the chair lifted to the gun chamber. I charged the cannon to full power and aimed at where the engines were usually place in those types of ships. The energy bars on the cannon blinked red signaling that the energy readings were rising passed what it was rated for. I pressed the buttons on the side of the handles and so released the pent up energy from the ships ion cannon. I stayed for a second and saw an explosion come from the ship’s hull as the beam hit. I lowered the cannon and grabbed some gear and ran inside of the pod. As soon as I got in, Max slammed the lock doors and launch button. I felt a jolt as the ship shot off the pods with a burst of electromagnetic energy. He soon ignited the main thrusters which were on the top and bottom of the ship.

“So what gear did you grab?” Max asked me.

“Let’s see, I got two magnums and ten spare clips, a stun repeater, and my stun focus rifle with the universal ammo for both amounting to twenty. Also I was able to grab you a combat knife. I was able to grab two gallons of water and some rations that should last us both.” Suddenly the drop pod’s shields flared up as the atmosphere began to burn up around our ship. I watched as the shields slowly turned from blue to yellow then to red, then it was gone, but by then they neared the surface. “Aim at the plain near the castle on the mountain.” I said pointing at where I was talking about. Max turned the wheel to get us in the right path and then he pressed the button that caused the busters to push us even faster. We grew faster and faster with gravity behind us and thrusters pushing us. Suddenly I felt the force of deceleration. I looked and saw that Max had yet to press the parachute deploy button. I looked back and saw the yellow aura of our ship’s shield coming back up, but when I looked at the bar of its energy, it wasn’t even starting yet. I looked again and saw the yellow aura joined by a blue one. Suddenly our ship was being lifted up. “Is the U.N. using a tractor beam on us or something?” Max shook his head and slammed the boost button, which caused for us to go the slightest bit faster. The ground was ten feet from us and I wasn’t one to jump quite yet being as I had no idea what was happening to the pod. Suddenly our pod was thrown. I noticed that the direction of the motion led us to the forest beyond. Suddenly the ship shook as we hit trees with nothing to protect us except the outside of the ship. Eventually we stopped. I slowly began to black out as I slipped between the living word and the world of dreams. My vision darkened as I fell into the comforting embrace of unconsciousness.

To Celestia it had been an uneventful day so far. No citizens came by when she held court earlier that day to complain but only to praise her for her wonderful job ruling the land. Luna walked beside her to the balcony to look over their kingdom. It was something that produced no beneficial effect for Luna in the way of knowledge on how to rule a land, but it gave her confidence and a reason to fight on in some cases. It had been years since Luna returned yet still she had to read dozens of books a day to even try to catch up with where they were at the moment and how they had gotten there. But today’s trip to the balcony was to see a strange thing that had been reported by some of the guards, and even had been deemed worthy enough for Twilight write a report to Celestia. Twilight had said that the thing shone with some luster that was impossible for rock and ice of a meteorite. Celestia didn’t take too long to find the black spot on the sky. It wasn’t all that big so it posed less of a threat by size, but still something large enough to black out a section of the sky like it did would be worth looking into. Luna walked up to the telescope and peered into it to see what this thing looked like. She continued to zoom in until see made out something far too regularly shaped to be a space rock.

“Sister, look at this, it is so strange.” Luna said giving Celestia the telescope. Celestia peered into it and started to zoom in more. She could make out yellow lines of something jumping now and then across the surface then disappear then reappear somewhere else.

“What in Equestria is that thing?” She zoomed in more and reached the instruments limits, but she was able to zoom in just enough. She saw some strange writing that looked like a bunch of lines.

“Sister, what is it, are you alright?”

“Yes, Luna, I am fine. Could you fetch me a paper and quill quickly? I see something that looks like writing on the side but it isn’t Equish.” Luna prodded her when she returned in a second with what Celestia asked for. Celestia grasped the quill in her magic as she wrote on the paper in an exact copy of what she saw. ‘USS Sailfish’ is what it spelled out to be, but being as she didn’t know English alphabet it was about as understandable as Morse code to someone who only knows English and had no code paper. Luna looked back into the telescope and saw something fly off of the thing.

“Sister, look at this, something is happening again.” Celestia looked into it and saw a dot that slowly grew bigger then turned red as it caught fire in the atmosphere. Celestia looked closer and saw it had two blue lights, one on the top and bottom. It was growing larger and the two light only glowed brighter.

“Oh no…”

“What is it, Sister?”

“Luna, whatever this thing is, it is heading straight for us.” Luna’s eyes widened at this statement. “It comes down to us to stop its decent towards our city.” With that Celestia and Luna lit their horns and reached out to the object and started trying to slow its speed. The fire dissipated from it and revealed a shiny surface beneath. Suddenly it gained a boost of speed as the two lights became even brighter.

“How should we deal with it, Sister?”

“I think for now we need to put all ponies out of danger so I think letting it land in the Everfree would be best, but do try to avoid Zecora’s house, I hear it is rather well into the forest.”

“Aye, Sister, let us dispose of this thing.” With that they threw it into the forest.

From a two story house a pony watched as the pod was thrown into the forest where his house was. He smiled and almost began to jump around like a little school foal.

“Finally, after these years of waiting and watching they have arrived!” With that he charged deeper into the forest to see where the pod had landed.

Chapter 1: Making Headway

I woke up and saw Max already up, typing away on the drop pod’s boards.

“What happened back there?” I asked.

“Oh, you’re up, well by the readings the ship was quickly surrounded by an unmatchable energy reading and then thrown into a forest.” Max replied. I slowly tried to get up but found my suit lock up.

“Sorry, Jason, but your scan isn’t done yet, I’m not sure how you faired in the crash. So hang tight until I am done.” He relaxed and allowed Orion to scan me. “Alright, you check out, you’re good to go.” I got up to my feet and looked out the monitor’s screen. All I could see was a whole bunch of trees, not really a surprise being as we were in the middle of the forest.

“What is our best course of action, sir?” Max asked me as he continued to type a few things.

“Do we have contact with P.E.T. H.Q.?”

“Negative, sir, it fell just as the bolt hit our ship.”

“Crud… well still the best thing to do would be to contact the locals, our mission was to making peace with them, now it’s only changed to a race against time where we still need to make peace, but now we have to do it before U.N. can get here, which all in all won’t be too long.”

“Then let’s go, this pod is basically dead, I’ve been trying for the past few minutes to see if I could revive it, but being as it is the Gohoritykah that can talk with metal and machines and I cannot, I doubt my efforts shall prove fruitful any time in the future.” With that he slammed a button that caused the door to fly away from the pod in a jet of air.

“Taking air readings, if negotiations ever begin I bet the locals will want to be face to face with us.” I said as I took out a scanner from my chest plate compartment. “The readings show Earth-like environment. Alright let’s head to the castle, come on let’s hurry.” With that Max crouched down and preformed a powerful jump that send his flying forward, and using his wing his controlled his movement through the trees wing no difficulty. While he flew I decided to just run old fashion style. My life detecting radar was going crazy as the forest life flew off in every direction. I had to turn off my mass detecting radar being as it would be useless in this forest.

We continued to run through the forest that seemed t never end. Several times Max had to touch down to perform another jump to keep himself going. We soon reached a clearing and decided to rest up a bit. Even though we probably ran five to ten miles or so we weren’t really exhausted being as during training I had to run several laps around the track in my suit of armor when it wasn’t on, meaning two and a half tons of metal were on my shoulders. We stopped more for Max to have time to absorb some sun light to keep him going since the last time he did so was a few hours ago. I handed him a jug of water while I simply saved mine for later. The bottle’s neck was too thin to fit a wrist through it, but Max simply grew out and exposed finger that touched the water and lowered its level rather quickly until a quarter of it was gone.

“I should be good now, I got a good amount of sunlight and enough water to give me enough sugars for a little while, but for now we need to push on.” I nodded and got to my feet and began to walk. Being as Max was Rahgahgogarian, it meant that walking took a very, very small amount of energy in contrast to running, unless it was in the open sunlight then he could do either veritably nonstop. Even though we were in the forest and it was to be expected, I had the feeling that we were being watched. My life force radar showed that there was a living being moving along with us. Being as the Rahgahgogarian genetic research project was a success, I was able to talk to Max with my mind, although I rarely ever did since it felt weird, but this instance was good enough for me to want privacy while we talked.

“Max, I think something is trying to follow us, my radar is saying that he is keeping a certain distance from us, basically observing us. Here’s the plan…”

The pony walked behind the two giant, every so often swinging to the side to have a better view, but for the most part he preferred to stay directly behind them. He knew that they probably were already aware of his presence, but he didn’t much care. He noticed the one in a metal suit walk in front of his friend, and being as his friend was bulkier than he was he was fully hidden. He continued to walk behind them, trying to observe them until the time was right. Suddenly he was grabbed by nothing and dragged behind a tree, soon the nothing around him fazed into a metal suit as the cloak wore off. One word crossed the pony’s mind ‘Amazing’. The other one came back met up with them. This one had no mouth, but his eyes were red and looked as if they were single eyes instead of compound, its skin was like that of a spider in that it was hard and shiny.

I held the pony in my arms; I quickly noticed it had a horn and what appeared to be a branding mark, which was to test tubes, one pouring into the other.

“If you are trying to impress the locals with how passive you are then you aren’t all that impressive as you think you might be.” The pony said to me. I let him go and instead of running as I expected he simply stood where I had left him and shook off some debris and swiped his mane’s bangs to the side.

“But it isn’t very polite to sneak behind someone.” I said back at him.

“And it isn’t very polite to use active camouflage to grab an innocent observer, especially a college graduate who has his Masters in science.” He shot back at me with a smile.

“Well I don’t take to most scientists.” I replied bluntly.

“Well aren’t you a fine fellow.” He said with a smirk.

“Well, if you can’t get us an audience with you leader than run off and find someone that can. We need a talk.” I said getting to the point.

“Well, I do know the personal student of the Princess; I guess I could put a word in for you.”

“Tell her that we’ll be there before she knows it.”

“Yes sir.” He while striking a salute. He suddenly charged off in some random direction, I could only hope he knew where he was going. I looked to Max, who simply shrugged. We both had no idea how things would go. Max and I set off again towards the city on the mountain.

It had been a few hours of walking and for the most part it had been uneventful. We walked through the forest as we had done for hours before, and again my life detecting radar picked up a large group of things coming up behind us. I pulled out my stun focus rifle as Max took out his stun charge shotgun. I knew these were predators, mostly because their walking patterns were circling us and drawing closer with each pass. Whatever these things were, they were asking for a fight, and if that is what they wanted then that is what they’d get. I couldn’t say I saw any creatures; all I could really see was trees and an occasional shifting bush. Suddenly one of those bushes jumped out at us. It landed on top of me and opened its wide mouth exposing its teeth. I slammed it in the face with the back of my gun, thus getting it off of me. I noticed that all the bushes around us were now these ferocious creatures. If these were to be given any nickname it would probably along the lines of deceiver or cunning. I pointed my rifle at one of the beasts and squeezed the trigger, setting off the shot of electricity which I expected to stun it, but instead caught it on fire. I set the blaster from focus beam to repeater and started to let out round at the monsters, that decided to run after the violent death of what I expected to be something of a leader. I locked my rifle back onto my back, and in response the suit encompassed it with some of the suit’s metal so it could still perform active camouflage.

“Time to run; we might get late if we keep up this pace.” I said to Max who nodded in response. He both took to our ways of getting places fast, and being as the forest began to fall into a plain; it became much easier for Max to keep up the speed. I activated the boot boosters that caused me to run increasingly faster. Soon we were in plain sight of anyone who did as much as glance our way. We came to the foothills of the mountain on which the city was founded. The mountain was as big as any mountain I had seen previous to this. Suddenly we were approached by a line of ponies in armor; I could only guess that this was going to be our escort for the day.

The pony ran on until he reached the library, once again the ringing of the bell was absent, making him feel a pang of disappointment.

“Twilight, are you in?” He said as he came through the door. Twilight appeared around the corner that led to the kitchen.

“Oh Doctor…”

“Cut the pleasantries, Twilight, they’re here!”

“Who’s ‘they’… oh wait… you don’t they ‘they’, do you?”

“Yes I do, and they are requesting an audience wish the princesses. I told them I would see what I could do. Can you send a letter quick?”

“Yes, yes of course, I just can’t believe that they are here. It took them long enough.”

“Yes it did but what matters now is that they are here! Let’s get a letter together and send it off!” With that Twilight grabbed a quill and parchment and began to write her letter to Celestia and soon gave it to Spike, who quickly sent it by flame to Celestia.

Celestia was in her private study when the letter arrived. She opened it and read over it and lowered it and looked into the distance in thought.

“Sister, what is wrong?” Luna asked, who at this time was reading a few books on the progress of Equestria during the five hundredth year of her banishment.

“Do you remember back when I told you about how my student said she had been in contact with a being from another planet, or should I say, universe?”

“Yes, Sister, I remember.”

“She says that another pony went to the crash site of what we thought was a meteorite and found two strange bipedal creatures, one matched the description of the beings true form and the other was completely different. It ends up that the meteorite was a hollow space craft that they call ‘drop pods’ which they use like row boats except for planetary based travel and not aquatic travel. It appears that they ask the pony to find a pony who could gain an audience with us for them.”

“So are we going to allow them an audience with us?”

“We have no real choice in that they already said they are coming and we have no way to contact them.”

“What should we do?”

“I want you to go to Shining Armor and ask for a battalion of his finest troops to rendezvous and the base of the mountain. If anything we want as few ponies to hear of this as possible until we hear what they have to say. While you are doing I am going to write a letter to all of the minor princes and princesses to tell them to come here. You and I should be there when the two creatures come so we can properly introduce them to Equestria.” Luna nodded and unfolded her wings and took off towards the military complex while Celestia started writing letter to the minor princes and princesses of Equestria.

Luna and Celestia waited in front of their mountain city with their battalion of guards, which included Captain Shining Armor himself.

“Princesses,” Shining said, “what are we to expect from these guests of ours?”

“That depends on which of the two you are referring to.”

“Well, the troops would like to know about both of them.”

“Both of them are bipedal, and by all reports, taller than both Luna and I. The human is wearing some sort of full body armor that doesn’t allow you to see any of it, the other creature appears to be in no armor and completely reliant on its tough exoskeleton. The human’s suit allows him to turn invisible and possibly many other things we cannot fathom, while as the other creature’s abilities as still uncertain as of yet.”

“To sum it all up, we are about to meet up with two gigantic warriors from another universe, who if they chose, could kill us all right now.”

“True, these are warriors who have great potential, but by all signs they are being as passive as possible towards us, in fact I can say it is likely they might want to forge an alliance with us, but only time can tell.” Suddenly two gigantic figures appeared over the horizon coming towards the group at a great speed. The two slowed down when they came closer, giving the ponies only more time to let the realization of how tall and muscular they were.

A soldier ran up the stairs to the main deck in his search for the captain.

“Damage report, sir, we sustained heavy damage to the hull and minor damages to the engines.” The commander continued to look out at his view of the cosmos, looking as if he ignored the minor officer.

“Estimated time until we can sail on, we are in a high priority mission.” The commander said, not even looking over to his inferior.

“The Gohoritykah and human engineers are working at full speed and saw it may range from three days to two months, sir.” The commander walked towards his minor, who so happened to be a Gohoritykah trainee.

“Then tell me, will the drop pods launch?”

“N-no sir, the engines were damaged in such a way that all power was cut to the pods.”

“Then tell me, how did a disabled ship that had been hit by a full power, focused energy manages to return fire and much more penetrate our double shields?” At this moment the towering human superior gathered the trembling Gohoritykah into a corner as it shivered in fear.

“It was an ion canon blast, sir, very few, if any, shields are rated on either side of the war to be able to stop them, in fact for the most part ion blasts warp the energy field causing it to breach without losing any power, sir…”

“This is agent 7860 reporting in to U.N.S. Hailstorm, come in Hailstorm.” a voice echoed from the speaker that the commander had been standing by. The commander, still referring to the cadet said, these final to the Gohoritykah before it ran off,

“Tell the men to repair things as fast as possible; we can’t afford any more mishaps.” At that he sprinted off as the commander walked up to the sounding speaker. He laid his hand on the module, causing an image to appear. “Agent, how come we received fire from your end?”

“My apologies sir, I was trying to convince them I was dead releasing all suspicion. It ends up that two of them survived and dropped to the planet below.”

“And yet you did not shoot them down?”

“No sir, I did not, the ship only had enough power for one shot and to continue running the ship’s vital systems. But I did make sure they would be unable to contact U.S. headquarters.”

“You did that right at least, tell me what you know, when you know it. This is U.N.S. Hailstorm out.” With that the commander turned off the screen and walked into the council room. In the room were eleven other of the ship’s commanders from the different decks, all of which were mixed humans and Gohoritykah. “Hello gentlemen, let us begin.” With that he took his seat at the head of the table.

The different commanders gave their reports of damage to their sections, it ended up that every layer of the ship had some damage done by the blast, while most decks that were farther away suffered things more like shattered windows while closer decks had collapsed roofs and crumbling floors. Fortunately for everyone on board, the ship’s artificial atmosphere was rated to expand twenty feet from the ship’s walls.

“Well men, I do have good news amongst all this disaster. It appears our inside agent on the U.S.S. Sailfish has remained undetected and unexpected. The two survivors don’t expect him of treason, only of death, thus giving us an edge in this race yet. I do expect that U.S. forces will make contact and alliance with the dominating race of this world, but as shown in sector ML16, we can still beat them and gain the races of the world.” At that the ships commanders cheered and quickly returned to their places of command on the ship before all fell to complete disorder.

Chapter 2: Forging Alliances

I stood in front of a line of armed ponies. If I had not been a military in the time I was I might have been impressed. Three of them broke rank and approached us. I could tell the two taller were of high social ranking and that the other might just be a leader of their military since he had the armor like the other, only slightly more elaborate.

“Welcome to our land, travelers, please, come with us.” Max and I nodded and followed them and soon were surrounded on all sides by guards. We were quickly ushered into a train, which quickly was found much too small for Max and my tall and bulky structure. Max, the captain of the guard, the two taller ponies, and I entered the slightly taller caboose while the guards stayed in the next cart over.

“I am Celestia, ruler of the day…”

“And I am Luna, ruler of the night…”

“Why have you come to our lands?” the two rulers stated.

“I am Major General Jason Paladin Webster and this Colonel Larzyhorintorhmax, Max for short, and we are representatives of the U.S. armed forces. Our mission is to make peace with your people.”

“It would be at least polite to show your true faces, don’t you agree?” I nodded and grabbed the sides of my helmet. I pushed in slightly and the sides of the helmet released excess gasses. I slowly lifted my helmet up and set in on my knee.

“Max isn’t wearing a helmet so don’t expect him to take off any.” The white one nodded. By the expression on her face I could tell I looked strange to her, not surprising since we had detected no human life signals.

After a while in the train, in came to a stop and we were guided off of it, and into a group of soldiers. I put my helmet back on and activated my cloak when we entered the town. The guards around us were a little spooked when I disappeared, but more so when Max basically turned into a green pony with a black mane. He might not have a suit, but at least he has some things to help him. I could probably guess that every pony in the city was slightly concerned when they saw a battalion of troops marching a rather interesting pony down the street and occasionally running into something that wasn’t there. We eventually reached the inside of the castle where I deactivated my active camouflage and Max showed his true form once more. We were quickly ushered into a room where a rather large assembly of ponies was together. I guessed that these were the Lords and Ladies while the two others we had met were the greater two of the kingdom. The two ponies we had met earlier walked to the two biggest seats at the end of the table. Max and I preferred to stand at the end of the table instead of trusting two tons or two hundred pounds onto chairs meant for a hundred and maybe a little more. I removed my helmet and placed it on the table and folded my arms behind my back while Max simply stood straight as lower officers do when the higher officer is present. The room was silent for a little while. In most cases I was accustomed to having the natives speak first, but I could only guess that they wanted us to go first. I cleared my throat, whether by luck or the fact they thought I was yielding the floor to them, they started any way.

“Please state your purpose to us, travelers.” said Celestia, most likely trying to speed things along a bit. Being as I was not a fan of dragging out P.E.T. missions myself, I happily obliged.

“I am Mayor General Jason of the U.S. armed forces; our purpose here is to make peace with your kind.” This statement brought a few odd stares from the ponies at the table.

“You must know that this is a rather strange request being as this is the first well known encounter that we have had with your kind, where do you come from, and what exactly are you would be questions I would like answers to.” A particular grey pony said.

“We come from the planet Earth, I am a human while Max is a Rahgahgogarian, and we came here through inter-universal travel. In correct speaking, we are not only not of this world, but also not of this universe.”

“Princesses, if I may be so bold, I see no advantages or disadvantages if we join ourselves or no. I see it would be better to simply reject them and continue since, for all that I see, there are no bonuses to gain if we join or negative results we couldn’t handle if we refuse.” said a white pegasus.

“Sir, who are you and what is your rank in this government?” I said sternly to the pegasus. The pegasus turned to me and lifted his nose at me.

“I am Ironside, a minor prince of the Manehaten area.” He said in a voice that yelled out snob to the high heavens.

“Well, Ironside, under army protocol, all beings who see the alliance we offer you as you do we are to show a small sign of our force to you.” I grabbed my stun rifle and set it to repeater mode and aimed down sights at the pony that stood ever snobbishly at his doom, or temporary removing from the world of the awake. “Don’t worry; this won’t hurt that much.” I said as I pulled the trigger. A single shot of energy was released and slammed right into the stallion’s chest. The force of impact would be enough to make any person lay on the ground for a while, but behind that force was a shock that over loaded any person’s nervous system until they just fell down into the embrace of sleep, and this pony certainly was no exception. The other ponies in the room stood up room their seats, some rushing to the unconscious Ironside, others yelling at me for shooting him, and others still pleading that the princesses dispatch of Max and I. The guards came in and raised their spears; one even attacked me, only to find my armor very much superior to his weapon’s abilities.

“SILENCE, BE STILL PONIES!” Every single pony stopped in their tracks and turned towards me. Although the voice had come from my direction, I had not been the instigator. I tapped the back of my helmet and removed Orion’s chip and placed it on the table, and when it was stable it projected Orion’s small form. “Your fellow is not dead nor will he sustain permanent damage, he simply will be unconscious for a few hours.”

“W-what is that… thing?” One of the ponies stammered.

“I am the A.I. Orion I assist Jason in his missions.”

“What is an A.I.?” Another pony asked.

“A.I. stands for Artificial Intelligence, I am not a real living being but simply a program that is designed to be able to think and assist his partner, who in my case is Jason.” Celestia and Luna calmed down the ponies and sat them down once more and had the guards take Ironside to a room where he could be tended to.

“Now, travelers, what is this treaty consist of and what will happen if we accept and what will happen if we refuse?” Celestia asked us.

“In our world we are at war with a faction of our own kind, this war is no longer just ours but now has spread across the universe. In some people’s eyes the only reason we are going through the universes is to forge alliances with other kinds before our enemies do. Basically, if you accept we promise to protect you and to aid you in any way possible. The basic risks of joining us are our enemies will most likely try to attack, but if you are with us we will not let you fall without a fight. But if you refuse this treaty then we will be forced to wage war on your world as well. If you refuse then our armies will attack this world, killing all men, women, and children alike, because if you are not for us, you are therefore against us and need to be killed. You have seen yourself what we can do with the demonstration that Stonewall allowed us to see, but trust me, that is nothing compared to what we are able to do. That dark spot on your horizon is just one of our entire fleet of space traveling vehicles, and that ship is but a small transport. And believe me when I say we have ships almost as large as this planet ready to be launched. But all this war and death can be avoided by accepting our treaty.” All the ponies at the table were quite shook up when I told them of their fate if they declined and how bluntly I placed the answer in front of them. Even though I knew what their response would be, and what they would do next, which would be rather unnecessary considering, I smiled expectantly on the inside while keeping my outward appearance as blank as possible.

“We will need a few moments to consider, please, stay outside until we send for you.” Celestia said with as blank face as mine, but to any military her poker face was as legible as a book, and showed deep signs of worry and strain.

“Of course, but before any of you say which option you would take, let me make it as clear as crystal that you are not deciding your fate nor your kind’s fate, but the fate of the planet. Your planet’s entire existence is in the balance and way it will go is up to you. Choose not with your own interests in mind but in the interests of the entire planet.” I grabbed my helmet and inserted Orion into the slot and went outside were I placed my helmet back on.

“I guess we can start thinking on how we are going to contact base. The terminal has been shut for too long and I can’t find a way to fix it and get a message through.”

“Don’t worry, Max, if we can’t contact them they’ll send a troop here in a week according to protocol so whether or not we make contact is a matter of preference.” Max nodded but continued his work of breaking interference with H.Q. terminals of communication on his holographic wrist pad.

“So, Orion, any chance you want to help him?” I asked Orion with a smile.

“My abilities would be put to better use if I was.” I nodded and ejected his chip from my helmet and handing it to Max, who inserted it into his wrist pad, which cause Orion’s image come up and begin to shuffle through holographic pages of information. To tell the truth, Max and Orion were the two greatest technicians our team has, and when our two greatest minds combine on a task, it won’t take long to get a verdict.

“Jason, we got something.” Right on schedule,

“What do we got guys?”

“It seems that the U.N. ship we got shot by is also jamming signals, we can only hope that our troops are coming soon, and in a good size ship.”

“Alright, at least we got some results; we can only hope to be able to set up a beacon to H.Q. and get a cruiser class over here, whether for the U.N. or the natives and hopefully not for both.”

The ponies inside the hall were quiet for some time. Even after the new comers had left the room they just didn’t know what to say. Celestia finally regained her composure and began.

“My dear ponies, I think we can agree with what the human said to us, we must not think in our own interests and must think for our entire planet. What are our thoughts on this? Do we join then or do we fight them?”

“Well, princesses, I for one think that if we join them than we would be better off. If they have weapons like they do, armor like they do and the ability to travel through universal boundaries and through space itself, we would be very foolish to reject their alliance.” One unicorn said, only to be cut off by an earth pony,

“But what of Stonewall? He merely doubted the value of the alliance and was attacked! You can’t say that that incident doesn’t deserve considering in this affair!”

“But you heard their reason, it was protocol for them, I for one am glad they showed us a little of their power to give us a small insight to how we might fair if we decide to refuse. Although I am not thankful they harmed a fellow pony I think they had our best interests in mind.” The same unicorn replied flatly.

“All ponies who wish to reject the proposed alliance raise your hoof.” Celestia said disrupting the argument quickly. Seven of the fifteen present minor princes and princesses raised their hoof. “All ponies who wish to embrace these strangers into our kingdom and in so doing accept the alliance they have proposed raise you hoof.” Seven again raised their hooves. Celestia always hated things like this, whenever big decisions were t be made it always fell upon her to make the final vote.

How would she vote? Would she join herself and her kingdom to these travelers or would she shun them from her realm? In reality she knew there was only one choice. The choice she knew was right for her ponies and her world.

A guard had just told us that the leaders had come to an agreement and were waiting for us. I mentally prepared myself for the questions they would give. I knew the outcome would in all likelihood would be a yes since our tech was greater than theirs and I doubt any smart leader would put their kingdom into a fight they had no hope of winning in a century, much less than the usual two month campaign we give to worlds that decline, after those two months we usually nuke the planet and harvest al the metals that start floating around in space. Although there was the small possibility of refusal because they thought they were better, but I doubt after all the demonstration we gave them that they would possibly think that, not to mention we were two times at least as tall as their leaders, who seemed to be the tallest of the kingdom. We came to the two tall oak doors; the two guards at the side pushed them open and let us in once more. Max passed me Orion’s chip back, which I instantly pushed into its slot. His face came up on the screen, at first his expression was extremely serious, but slowly lightened until it was a smile. He lowered his head slightly and did a small salute. I only smiled back at him, this was it, either these ponies were with us or against us. And I could only hope for their sakes and ours that they were for us.

“Travelers, we have come to a decision.” I took a deep breath and looked at the princess of this world through my visor. The status my screen gave me showed she was calm, too calm. “We have made the decision to join your alliance.” I removed my helmet and held it to my hip in normal pose. I slammed my foot into the ground and gave her a salute, with Max following suit. I relaxed after a minute and gave her a smile.

“Thank you, you are most gracious to accept our alliance.” If it had been said my attitude suffered a slight change, it would have been a very severe understatement. Under a part of our code of conduct we treated any before accepting our alliance as if they were either same in rank as us or lower in rank, but if they accepted then all respect due to them was to be given. I would bet she was slightly concerned by my conduct, but after a few days of humans around I bet she would get used to it.

“I would like to ask you two a few questions, you understand?” I nodded and popped Orion’s chip from my helmet and set it on the table where it once more projected Orion’s image. “First, why do you wear such heavy armor?”

“Orion, pull up all files on W suit from model Iv until present model.” Orion nodded and flipped up a few screens from seemingly nowhere and began to shuffle through them. “Our suit, the W suit as it is called, is an advanced military exoskeleton, only a select few in our army use them since they are high value and we don’t want our enemies finding out how to make one if one of our men falls and they get the suit.”

“The current total of men, women, and beings from other worlds in the U.S. military amounts to approximately 1,010,550,230, humans comprise two thirds of these numbers while Rahgahgogarians comprise three fourths of the last third and other species comprise the rest. As of yet, only humans wear the W suit and only 60 men and women use them in active missions.” Orion said as he pulled up a few records.

“Only ‘W’ soldiers wear these suits. W’s are already some of the most fit and physically capable humans and the suit simply compounds that. This suit originally was used for extremely difficult missions, but for those who have proven themselves capable fighters, we get to wear them each mission. The army will only give these suits to those men and women who are the best of the best already so a stray bullet or misdirected attack doesn’t kill them. With that background I can say your question is mostly answered.” Celestia nodded as I finished.

“Second, who exactly are you fighting?”

“Orion, all records on U.N. and current fighting forces gathered from intelligence we gained.” Orion saluted me and shoved the old files away and popped up more new ones. “We are fighting an organization that at one time we were a large part of. It was called the United Nations and was formed when the League of Nations failed.”

“The United Nations was formed in the year 1945 and was majorly funded by North America by over twenty-two percent while China had three and Russia one for over twenty-seven years.

In the year 2017 the U.N. established bases in all official countries that were part of it.

In 2021 Russia and China became the new major funders of the U.N. as the United States of America slowly suffered a economical decline and dropped from its twenty-two percent to seven percent, while Russia leaped up to thirty percent and China went up to twenty-three while the other countries either had one or two percents or half of a percent.

In the year 2023, Russia attacked the state of Alaska and later claimed that they had received intelligence that a terrorist group had been stationed there. After two months of searching the Russians left and the search ended with the claim that false intelligence had been given to distract the U.N.

In the year 2034 Johann Webster created the Rift Maker and traveled to a sector that was called A-1 since it was the closest to Earth, or Sector 0. This caused a race to begin within Russia and China to create a better version even though they had no idea how to create the base model.

In 2036, after three more attacks on American soil, the U.S. declared open war on Russia and China and disconnected all ties to the U.N. At this point in time the U.N. declared, under the provocation of Russia and China, that U.S. was therefore a terrorist nation and a threat to the mission of peace that the U.N. sought to uphold.

In the year 2038 the U.S. began recruiting young boys and girls from eight and up to become ‘infant trainees’. These soldiers became the W soldiers later on, joined by normal recruits who had proven themselves.

In 2048 the first fully trained group of W soldiers was given their A.I’s and W suits and put into active duty.

In 2053 the U.S. discovered that indeed the U.N. had Rift Maker-like technology in their possession and had been sending troops to other worlds when U.S. troop traveled to a universe that housed the species of Gohoritykah and were attacked upon landing. Upon this attack the U.S. set a two month campaign against it and ultimately destroyed the planet and harvested two tons of metals, only in the shadow of the same doom for the planet of the Rahgahgogarians. Since this point on the Earth has been the home for three major kinds of people.” Orion said as he shuffled through more files.

“That is basically what we live through in a day by day basis.” I could tell she was surprised by what Orion had said. I had to say that anyone who had some knowledge of war would be. In WW2 the death toll on all side was said to be around 60 million, military and civilians combined, and lasted around six years. This war wasn’t over and it had already lasted seventeen years and counting. The death toll is estimated to be 40 million on the U.S. side, and we can only imagine how many the U.N. has suffered.

“Do you have any sight on a near victory?” Luna asked, looking rather worried.

“Sadly, even after these seventeen years of all out wars, we are at a vicious stalemate, on Earth, we are only one nation against the rest of the world, but in the cosmos we fight as well. All worlds where a U.S. or U.N. soldier has stepped, there is conflict. I, along with many other men and women who I fight with, am afraid that if this stale mate were to be broken, it would be broken in the U.N.’s favor. You have heard our army is rather massive, but the U.N. has an estimated 10,780,920,370 men and women in their army. If I was to say what is keeping us from falling is these suits and men and women who are trained to their limits, while the U.N. war machine shoves every man or woman into battle with a bullet-proof vest, a gun, and sometimes a suicide mission. But even untrained men and women make a difference in war when they can shoot right and take down even one man before they are brought down.” The room was silent. I knew the feeling, the feeling of awe and despair. To the military, and the men and women who comprised it, it was seventeen years of looking over your shoulder, seventeen long years of listening for the next mortar, seventeen long years of shooting and being shot at, seventeen long years of separation from family and friends, seventeen long, long years of a seemingly unbroken routine of wake up, kill and survive, sleep, repeat. But to the civilians it was seventeen years of waiting, hoping, praying, seventeen years of seeing how men and women leaving home to the local draft office, seventeen years of uncertainty, seventeen long years of looking up for the next bomber plain to come into view, seventeen long years of letters saying apologies for the death of a loved one in service, seventeen long years, wandering, waiting, hoping for the end of the war. Seventeen years of tears, loss, and little gain to show. Seventeen scar leaving years from which few expected to come out of.

“Jason… we are truly sorry for you and your kind. Our ponies haven’t seen war in millennium, and even after hearing all this, of how you feel as if you are losing, and how you suffer, we WILL stand beside you in the fight. We WILL fight with you, we WILL help you, we WILL comfort you in times of sadness, and we WILL be beside you in the end.” At this I could only start to clap my hands slowly, followed by Max and Orion, and soon, all the ponies in all of the room, who slammed their hooves against the hard stone floor. Very few, if any, of the other worlds had a leader who had the strength and leadership abilities to make a statement like the one I had just witnessed. “Just one last question for you, sir.” I nodded, hoping this question to be quick; I had a few questions of my own to give. “Do you know of a human who came to this world a few years back, left, then came back with to others, then left again?” I was stunned; my mind froze at what I had just heard, but it slowly began to recover, and when it did I fell to my knees with a fist in the floor and a hand at my chest with an intense pain growing. It wasn’t just pain; it was a mixture of pain, regret, and sorrow.

I walked along side my father and mother in the new town we had come to. It was kind of weird being in a different body, but it was also kind of cool. I had little wings, which I used to buzz in the air for a second or two, while my mother had no wings or horn like my dad did.

“Hey, Dad, how long until we get to that candy store that you talked about?” I asked my dad as I continued to bounce along side of him.

“Not too long now, it’s right around this corner.”

I fell to the ground as I finally came to myself. Max grabbed me under my shoulders and helped me up. I nodded at him and put a hand on my forehead, even though I was still wearing my helmet. I looked at the table of ponies before me, all looking at me with concerned looks. I took a deep breath and removed my helmet and placed it on the table before me.

“Aye, Princess, I know of them. I of all people should know of them being as I am one of them. The original human who came here was my father, then when he returned he brought my mother and I. We originally were planning to live here and that last visit was a visit to show my mother this land so she would know what it would be like beforehand.”

“Then why didn’t you return until now, and with a treaty?”

“We were going to return, but something went wrong. We were in the machine, ready to come back, but the machine was falling apart, my father saved my mother and me, and I can only guess he was crushed under the rubble before he teleported back. It has been seventeen years since that time; we were coming here just before the war between the U.S. and the U.N. started. Two years after he died I was drafted as an ‘infant trainee’ into the war effort. Three years later my mother died and the body was never found, and I was only told ten years after the fact.” I could see the tears forming in Celestia’s eyes.

“But how have seventeen years passed with you and only five years for us?” Luna asked me, with pain in her voice.

“Time between universes passes slightly different, some universes differ by minutes or days, and others are off by millenniums.” There was a pause for a while, but eventually the silence broke as Celestia began,

“You have my sincerest apologies for the passing of your mother and father. Shall I arrange a train ride for you and your friends to go to the town you live near in your visit?”

“Yes, if anything so I can tell a few ponies of his… passing.” She nodded and called too one of the guards and gave him instructions to tell the conductor pony that we were to be given a free ride to Ponyville by order of the Princess. Then she turned to us,

“You need not be afraid of showing your true form in public, soon enough we will tell our ponies of your coming and our alliance.” I nodded and followed the guard out of the palace and towards the train station. Being as tall and as menacing as Max and I were, a few ponies screamed, others fainted on the spot, and others simply were petrified by fear. We eventually reached the train station, where a train bound for Ponyville was ready to leave. The guard gave the conductor the message, and soon Max and I were seated in the caboose as we were before. I was gathering on how I would proceed through with my plan, how would I tell the ponies my father was close to about his passing? I finally came to the plan that I first would visit the old house and see how it faired in our absence. Then after visiting there I would tell the six mares that he had made friends with about his passing. I wasn’t about to plan how though, I knew that all plans of telling them would fall through once I found them. I could say that the one who probably would react less emotionally would be the blue rainbow pegasus, and the one who would react greatest would be the yellow pegasus who lived with all the animals. This was going to be one tough day, something that even the first and second parts of the Gohoritykah campaign would have a tough time competing with.

Chapter 3: Leaving a Colt, Returning a Man

It had been seventeen years of living and growing up in stature and in wisdom, but in this world only five years had passed. The alteration of time did cancel out one problem from my list though, having to tell old ponies the bad news with the risk of causing them heart attacks.

The train had arrived and I had left it along with Max. We instantly headed for the town, the only place I could get my bearings from. But as for finding my way, I could only hope that the roads had not changed in five years.

As I had suspected, a few of the ponies ran and screamed, of course it was to be expected, but it didn’t help the pang of anger and frustration. Even back on Earth towns were probable to clear when a W in uniform or not was coming. People would part like the Red Sea when one of us nearly seven foot giants with hulking muscles came within a ten foot range, but that was if they were in jeans and a T-shirt, the fear only multiplied when we were in armor. Even though our own people who knew what we were and what we were meant to do, and how we were to be saviors and war changers, and the fact that many had seen Rahgahgogarians just made the fact of being scared of another human even more ridiculous. In truth, the only humans who came even close were other militaries, other W’s, or scientists. No one else liked coming close to us, but with five years of active service I was at least slightly more used to it than I was when I had just put on the suit.

I passed by a bakery and a few other shops, like what my father had told me was the ‘Quill and Sofa’, and I finally found my way around to the correct path to the old house.

Soon enough I came to a fork in the path, I turned left, and after coming inside the forest I was met by a cobblestone path with flowers lining it and a white picket fence on either side, still surprisingly well kept.

After walking for a while I came in sight of the two story house. When I had been in the body of a pegasus colt it had seemed almost massive, but being nearly seven feet tall, it seemed just right for a single story house for a normal human who didn’t have my rather broad shoulders. But one thing that surprised me was the fact that the door that had been a single one was now a double one, even big enough for Max’s extremely large Rahgahgogarian shoulders.

I grasped the door knob with care and turned it slowly, it was unlocked. I slowly opened the two doors and crouched down and fit inside.

“How is anything supposed to fit inside of this house? It is even smaller than that caboose we came in!” Max said to me.

“I do agree that it is rather small, but remember the average size off the locals. This would be a rather good size house for them in truth.” I replied.

“Glad you are at least that observant.” A voice came from in front of us. I looked and only saw a tall back chair, the chair my father always sat… laid down in.

“Who are you, and why are you in this house?” I asked rather harshly. I had lived in this house for only a little while but I wasn’t about to let some random pony of the street take it from me being as technically it would be mine.

“I could ask you why you are here as well, but I think we can give a guess, although I rather not make a fool out of myself if I am wrong. Tell me, how many years on Earth have passed since Johann Webster left with his family?” I found those questions rather weird. Why was this pony asking questions that only a human might now about and have doubts about? I didn’t much care so I could only comply.

“Seventeen years in total; and I have already gathered it has only been five years on this end.”

“My how time flies, I never thought our time was that different. Tell me, do you know of…”

“I’m asking the questions now and you are going to tell me why you are in this house right now or you are going out on the street, immediately proceeded by a boot out into the forest, and I know you’ll get far enough away from civilization and deep enough into the forest until I doubt you’ll make it out quite as healthy as you are now!” I cut the pony off in mid sentence. The pony got out of his chair and looked at me without fear, truly a first. I recognized him as the pony I had met in the forest. “You, how come where ever I go I end up bumping into you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Fate maybe, there just isn’t a way to tell, now is there? And as to why I am in this house, it is mine, I own it, I built it by myself, I live here, I could say I own this land except nopony owns the Everfree as a true property, which also might explain why I built here originally.”

“That, sir, I know to be impossible. I know the pony who built this house personally, more personally than any other I might say.”

“Why, who was he to you? A friend, just someone you knew off hand, a person or pony you bumped into one day and became friends with?”

“No, none of those things, he was much more than that, much, much more than that. He was…my… father.” At this his eyes grew large.

“J-J-Jason, is that… really… really you?” I looked up at him, slightly surprised to see tears forming. “Jason… Paladin… Webster… is… that truly you… is it really you?” He placed his hooves on the sides of my helmet and pressed in slightly, and removed it slowly. He placed the helmet to the side and examined my face. “My how you have grown. You look so different, the only thing that hasn’t changed is that… that spark in your eye. That flare of light and determination, it’s still there like always.” He then flung his arms around my neck; I could only feel comfort in this, so I could only return gesture. I suddenly heard Max’s voice in my head,

“I’ll be outside if necessary, sir.” I didn’t move but stayed in the pony’s embrace. He shifted from the hug and looked at me.

“I always knew that someday some human would come here, whether to see this world or to come for me… I just don’t know what to say.”

“Why would humans exactly come looking for you?” He only smiled.

“I could only expect you not to remember my face, you little bugger.” My memory flashed in front of me, only one person would ever say that to me.

“F-father, is that… you?” He smiled and returned into the embrace. I quickly relieved myself of the embrace. “But how is it possible? You were killed when the building collapsed.”

“Not really, I was teleported just after I pushed you and your mother out. I wasn’t sure how things would turn out so I didn’t take the chance. Ever since then I have been here, waiting, hoping that someday someone would come, but I never thought it would be you!”

“Call it chance, I was sent here with anything but you in mind. Back on Earth it is generally accepted that you’re dead as of seventeen years ago. I was sent here to make peace with the natives as a P.E.T. unit.”

“P.E.T. unit, what is that?”

“Peaceful Entry and Treaty unit, we are sent into the different universes to make peace with their native kinds. To explain further, just a little after you left war started up.”

“Who’s the enemy this time?”

“The U.N., we split off from them seventeen years back, and in doing so were accused of being a terrorist threat and since them we’ve been at war for these last seventeen years. I was drafted into the ‘infant trainee’ program when I was ten and for ten years I trained to be a W unit, three years of active service in the front lines and then I was transferred to a P.E.T unit.”

“Infant trainees program? I thought I told them that in any case that would be a horrendous idea.”

“Then I can agree, I have to say the physical and mental strain was great, and the only real benefited was extra strength and a better soldier, I can be a testament to that.” We both smiled, even though the matters we were talking about were less than pleasant, it was a wonderful time for both of us because of seeing each other after a long time.

“So who was your friend?”

“That was Max, he is a Rahgahgogarian, well, technically he is a Devogagorian. The Rahgahgogarians as a whole were one of our greatest allies and now are the second largest major species on Earth.”

“Interesting, yes, very interesting indeed, a new main species on Earth, I never expected that one.” We walked outside and met up with Max.

We were soon on our way to Ponyville with my father at the head. The walk was filled with questions from my father and answers as quickly as Max or I could muster them, although eventually I popped out Orion and let my dad have the well of information he needed.

“Do you have access to files containing information about the ancient Gohoritykah scrolls or whatever they had?”

“Unfortunately the Gohoritykah either destroyed them or escaped with them since they thought them to be holy artifacts that no other species should touch being as they were, as they called themselves repeatedly, ‘the highest ascension of life in all the universes’. The only case in which a Gohoritykah might submit to a human or any other is if they are Runner or Grunt class, being as they consider themselves expendable in any case.”

“Truly that is a pity that you don’t have any records on those. Do you have access to any deeper information on Rahgahgogarians and their history?” Orion popped up a file and lowered it into my father’s view so he could read. Being as the panel was slightly transparent he was still able to see even when it was in front of him.

Eventually my father was up to date in every point and we were in the boundaries of Ponyville. Besides taking a trip through a literal physical lane, I was also taking a trip down memory lane as I was met by sights and smells I found familiar even after seventeen years of smelling or seeing them last. I saw what I remembered as the bakery, and the clothing shop in the distance. It took me a matter of second to realize where we were going, the Golden Oaks Library. My father had told me that the most intellectual pony in town lived inside when I was eight; I never really met her, but instead decided to have fun with her dragon assistant… Spike was his name if I remember correctly, so all in all this would be the first time I was properly introduced to her, although I probably leave the technical talk between her, my father, Max, and Orion. I removed my helmet as my father knocked on the door. I could only hope she wouldn’t run for cover at the sight of us. The door opened and revealed a purple unicorn, well, actually she was more lavender than purple but the two colors were close enough.

“Oh, hello, Twilight, glad to see you are still in.”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well one might never know.”

“So… they did come?”

“They’re right behind me, so I should think they did. Uh… may we come in?” After peering behind my father her facial expression changed to an emotion I couldn’t quite identify.

“Of course you can, please mind the door frame; it’s quite low for those two.” Max and I were quite able to slip underneath the low riding frame, and were found with the excellent prospect that was the fact that the library had a rather high ceiling, although it would be expected that the tree being large and carved out would have a high ceiling.

“Hey, Twilight, who was at the door… oh no, ALIEN ATTACK, Twilight, run!” With that the dragon came and went like a flash. I was able to grab him quickly, being as the distance from one side of the library to the other was around two short steps, and being as he probably wasn’t expecting me to have long arms as I did.

“Now, Spike, you know better than to judge by the cover. Especially when it’s an old friend of yours paying a visit after several years.” Spike suddenly stopped struggling and just looked at me with his arms crossed, being as I was holding him by his tail. I slowly placed him down onto the ground where he sat for a few moments.

“Well, Twilight, to continue, this is Jason Paladin Webster and this is Max.”

“Larzyhorintorhmax is my full name in reality.” Max’s voice echoed in my head, and I could only guess that it had done so in the other’s heads as well.

“H-how did you do that?” Twilight asked.

“It’s called telepathy, miss, it’s the way all Rahgahgogarians communicated being as they don’t actually have a mouth.” I replied for Max.

“But then how do they eat, how do they breathe, how do they replace the other functions of the mouth?”

“Orion, pop up those files about the Rahgahgogarians, will you?” It really was an easy fix over telling the whole story again and again.

Orion’s image popped up from his inactive chip. He quickly shoved the file image over to Twilight so she could read.

“Uh, slight problem here, I don’t read this language.” I looked and saw the letters and words in English, I only naturally assumed that since we spoke the same way that we read the same.

“Hey, Max, mind telling Twilight here about your kind, being as the language bridge has not yet been made?” He nodded and knelt towards Twilight and began the dialogue about the Rahgahgogarian according to his own knowledge and the knowledge of Orion’s text. The library was silent for a while being as Max was explaining to Twilight about the Rahgahgogarians in a private conversation, meaning no one else could hear it, well, I could if I tuned in but the speech on the Rahgahgogarians was rather extensive, and because of a few thick skulled hard listeners I had to hear it five times in a matter of two days.

I was broken from my thoughts when I slowly began to hear a rumbling sound in the distance. I put on my helmet and put out a scan for miles around and found nothing. And as suddenly as it came it faded out of hearing. What had it been? Only time would tell, but I was determined that it probably wasn’t good.

The crew of the U.N.S. Hailstorm was greeted by the sight of their sister ships, the Hellfire and the Bermuda, both of which were also cruiser class battleships, although they were much smaller than the Hailstorm. The two sister ships had just jumped through inter-space and were coming in to aid in repairs on the Hailstorm.

“Admiral Sandusky, Admiral Khan and Admiral Norman are sending you messages; do you wish to commence open speech, sir?”

“Yes, open the line immediately if not sooner.”

“Yes sir… line open, sir.” The Admiral stood up as the two images of his fellow Admirals appeared.

“This is Admiral Khan of the Hellfire, do you read Hailstorm?”

“Yes, Hellfire, we read you.”

“This is Admiral Norman of the U.N.S. Bermuda, do you read Hailstorm?”

“We read you as well, Bermuda.”

“What seems to be the trouble, Hailstorm? We were going to sector G-32 to stage an attack on U.S. forces when we received message from home you needed help.” said the commander of the Bermuda.

“We received a heavy ion cannon blast to the hull, it caused damages to several decks and the engines, we sent word that we needed extra repair crews.” replied the commander of the Hailstorm.

“Who shot you?” asked the commander of the Hellfire.

“The U.S.S. Sailfish, we had shot a concentrated beam at them, but somehow two of them were able to survive. They used a drop pod down to the surface here,” he said as he opened a map of the surface and put his finger on the location, “we have an inside agent who is still on the Sailfish who is waiting further orders while keeping the grounded U.S. soldiers from contacting their H.Q.

We are sure that this is their first contact, and with all the time they had they must have already made contact and peace with the major people of this world.”

“Then why don’t we just fix you up, shoot the ‘D’ beam at them and collect what we need then leave.” The commander of the Hellfire said.

“I agree with the Hellfire, if they are already allied with the U.S. then why not destroy them, they would be minus one allied world and two soldiers.” The Bermuda’s commander said.

“Because we plan to use the ML-16 tactic on them, although they are already allied we can still convince them to join us.”

“I doubt using the same tactic will get us anywhere, I bet you that those people down there know what this war has been like and have been given their reason to not want to join us!”

“Bermuda, have you lost faith in our battle? Do you now think like a U.S. soldier and think US to be the enemy and the devil? The U.S. is the terrorist organization here and we are the exterminators of the terrorists, it is our duty to protect peace on Earth, and now across the universes.”

“I might think like you, Admiral,” The Bermuda commander said with his head lowered, “but I don’t see things like you do.” He slowly lifted his head. “If I really was on your side I might agree with you, but being as I’m not, I can’t.”

“What do you mean, Admiral Norman, you have always been for the U.N. why change now when the tides of war are in our favor?”

“Because I’m not Norman, I’m Lenard of the U.S. army. Men, fire at the Hailstorm when ready, the party is over but the fun has just begun.” At that the Bermuda let loose all its cannons at the Hailstorm and the Hellfire.

“This is Commander Lenard to H.Q., do you read H.Q.?”

“This is U.S. army H.Q.; go ahead Lenard, did you capture the Bermuda?” Lenard heard his radio crackle back in response.

“Yes, sir, I’m using it right now to take down the U.N.S. Hailstorm and Hellfire. Send reinforcement to current sector as soon as possible, repeat, as soon as possible, we got two boys down on a friendly planet and all our men up in the sky, beware, the U.S.S. Sailfish had a traitor aboard and is in current possession of all systems.”

“Say that again, Lenard, did we hear you say a traitor on the Sailfish?”

“Yes, sir, that’s what I said. Please send us a few cruiser class battleships quickly!”

“We read you, Lenard, we’ll be sending a few troops your way, just send us a beacon so we know where you are.”

“Right away, sir, this is Lenard out.” As Lenard ran from the radio, an explosion caught him off guard and knocked him down to the lower deck along with burning ruble. He stood up and charged off to the main deck, where as he had been in his quarters when he was talking to the two other Admirals. Lenard ran towards the ships transportation shaft, only to find it broken down in flames.

“Eridanus, find me a way to main deck!”

“Aye, sir, bringing up the ship’s lay out on screen and plotting best alternative route to main deck.” Lenard’s A.I. replied. After a matter of seconds his A.I. spoke again. “Follow the directional beacon on screen.” Lenard ran after the blue beacon that appeared on his less able version of the H.U.D. that he had on his small flip down visor. He ran up several stairs and came to the big doors of the main deck. The doors weren’t automatically opening, and several pieces of flaming ruble were in front of it. Lenard kicked and shoved the ruble to one side and slowly pried the doors open with all his might. The doors creaked open, then jammed in place. The dedicated crew members were still inside typing away on their stations.

“Defensive manager, what status do our shields have?”

“Both of our shields are dead, we are currently trying to charge them up.”

“Activate armor lock of the ship if you can!”

“Aye sir, we’ll try!” Lenard ran up to his station.

“Sir, we have an incoming heat beam! I don’t think our shields can take that kind of beating no matter how quickly we can throw them up!” The secondary defensive manager shouted to Lenard.

“Throw up as strong of a shield as you can in the time we have!” Lenard said as he turned the beacon’s dial to U.S. standard frequency and activated it. The beacon’s main crystal light up as it started to issue forth a beam. Suddenly the ship shook as the foretold beam struck them. “Try to hold that beam for a few more seconds, we need H.Q. to send us some men and we need to confirm location to them! Quick, where are we in this place?”

“We are N-23, E-54, Z-43, Y-24, X-87, sir!”

“Thank you Navigator, now we wait. Battle Systems manager, how are we fairing?”

“All cannons are blasting at full power every 2.34 seconds, sir! The Hailstorm’s shield generator was down in the first place so we have been making direct hits each time, the Hellfire has brought itself about and is firing from the other side, its shields are down and we are making damages!”

“Try to raise firing speed to at least 1.5 seconds at full power; I want to lay as much damage as possible.” Suddenly the ship shook again.

“Sir, two direct hits to our hull, the engine room just rang and said we are approaching maximum amount of safe heating, we are approaching full overheating at a very rapid pace!” The Engineering manager shouted to Lenard.

“Launch some pods at them; I want inside ship support now!”

“Aye, sir, ten pods ready to launch… now!” At that a flare of energy was seems from the monitors as five went to one ship and five to the other.

“Slow firing speed to 5 second intervals; make sure to miss the pods we’ve launched!”

“Sir, two pods have been shot down by the Hellfire.”

“Maintain 5 second interval speed of fire!” Suddenly the ship shook once more.

“Sir, they’ve breached the side of our ship!”

“Throw up atmospheric shields on all breaches of the ship. Make us air tight once more.”

“Yes, sir, I’m starting up on the shielding process at once!”

“Engineering manager, start up the electromagnetic joiners of this ship, keep us together!”

“Aye, sir, I’m starting that up.”

“Shields manager, what is the status of those shields?”

“The one shield we threw up earlier is at five percent, the second one is at fifty seven percent and slowly rising.”

“Throw up the second shield when it reaches sixty percent and the next one when the second dies out! Keep us safe man!”

“Aye sir, I’m on it.”

“Weapons manager, charge up one row on each side of our ship to overloaded status and let loose at those guys!” Suddenly the ships shook even more violently then it had before.

“Sir, they took out our booster systems, we’re dead in the water.”

“Fire the two ion cannons at the Hailstorm; she has the most men to worry about! Aim for the main deck and engine systems, if they are nearing fixing them we want to stop them and put them back a while! When they cool down enough, then fire at the Hellfire’s battle systems and engines we need her dead in the water as the Hailstorm!”

“Aye sir, the ion cannons are locking on and firing and will fire again when minimal cooling has occurred, estimate time is 10 seconds after blast is clear of cannons!” Lenard heard his radio crackling a little as a message came through.

“Lenard, is your ship within N-23, E-54, Z-43, Y-24, X-87 and N-27, E-59, Z-52, Y-30, and X-95?”

“Yes, yes that is us, send troops quickly; we’re in a losing battle here!”

“We’re sending troops as quickly as possible, how long can you hold together?”

“Engineer, what’s our answer!”

“At most we can make it around 2 minutes, and if we get extremely lucky maybe five!”

“Did you get that, H.Q.?”

“Yes, and our minimal time would be ten minutes, just do as much damage for as long as possible, over and out.”

“Alright man, you heard them, let’s start hitting hard. I want every capable warrior who isn’t already in battle stations in pods and on those two ships stat!” Suddenly a voice boomed across the intercom of the ship.

‘All units not currently in battle stations go to drop pods for launching by order of Captain Lenard, repeat, all troops not currently at battle stations go to drop pods for launching.’

“Sir, shield reached sixty percent and now is up, second shield is reaching twenty-five percent.” The Shield manger said.

“Good job, let’s keep it up!”

“Sir, we got, five missiles inbound!”

“What type are they?”

“They appear to be ballistic\shrapnel class.”

“Fire the electromagnet cannon; redirect those missiles at the Hellfire if you can!” The Battle systems manager nodded and got to work. Suddenly the ship shook, and instead of stopping after a while it continued. “What’s happening out there?”

“We’re getting hit by a concentrated beam coming from the Hailstorm, sir.”

“Shield manager, what is the status of our first and second shields?”

“The first it’s falling passed twenty and the second is at fifty-two and rising, sir.”

“Throw up the second one and continue to charge it as much as you can, I don’t want that beam hitting us!”

“Understood sir, I’m putting up the secondary shield and charging it for impact in… 5…4…3…!”

“Sir, our pods have reached their targets, ten on the Hailstorm and fifteen on the Hellfire!” Suddenly the ship shook again as the impact that the first shield was taking was given to the second shield.

“Weapon systems manager; are the ion cannons ready for another round?”

“Yes sir, they are fully cooled down and ready for another round of shooting.”

“Fire at the Hailstorm’s concentration cannon and engine again, I want their power cut off along with that beam!”

“Yes, sir, I’m firing now!”

“When the cannons reach minimal cooling launch the beams at the Hellfire’s and the Hailstorm’s booster systems, I want them even more hopeless than they are now.”

“Aye sir, first shots released and cooling down for second round of firing, also the beam cannon was destroyed and won’t be firing for a while.”

“Does this ship have a docking bay and minor ships?”

“No sir, it only has ten simple ballistic missiles and two nukes.”

“Fire five of normal missiles at each ship’s side and send those nukes behind those missiles, I want maximum damage.” Suddenly the captain’s radio went off again.

“We are two minutes from estimated arrival, what is your status, captain?”

“Engineer, how long do you think we have?”

“Two minutes sir and that is a great stretch.”

“Do you copy H.Q.? We have two minutes of expected fighting left in this ship.”

“Understood, Captain, we’ll try to be there in time. This is H.Q. out.”

“Men, it looks like we’re going to make it, keep it up!” Suddenly a loud boom was heard, but the battle systems said the missiles were yet to leave the ship’s energy fields.

“Sir, we have ten light U.N. cruisers coming from the port side! What is our course of action, sir?”

“Redirect the ten smaller missiles to intercept them, let the nukes have the other two ships.”

“Sir, their firing at us, our shields can’t take it!”

“”Then bid them a farewell with a massacre beam, Weapons manager. It has been my greatest honor serving with all of you.” The captain said as he removed his helmet and lowered his head. The ship slowly began to shake as ruble fell and holes formed into spaces, quickly sealed by atmospheric expansions. The shields slowly gave out as the enemies’ firing continued unrelentingly. Slowly the crew members were either killed by being sucked into space or being hit directly by lazars. The missiles hit their targets, but the ten new ships withstood the force with only damage to their shields, while as the Hailstorm was left with a great chunk missing from it, while the Hellfire was never to be seen again. The massacre beam met its targets and jumped from one ship to the next as the voltage zapped through each shield and into the ships themselves. Two of the ship crashed in the chaos, destroying both ships, while three others were now disabled. Suddenly a fleet of U.S. ships flooded into the battle field in a blaze of lazars and missiles, destroying five of the remaining ships, leaving only two heavily damaged ones and one disabled one. Suddenly a ship twice the size of the Hailstorm came through the teleportation sequence with bold letters on the side reading ‘U.N.S. Brimstone’, the crown jewel of the U.N. had been released into the fight. The Twenty U.S. ships began firing, quickly destroying the three ships left from the original ten of the U.N. little cruiser fleet.

The U.N.S. Brimstone quickly was able to destroy seven of the U.S. fleet with very little damage on its third shield among its total of five. The U.S. Fleet eventually was able to deactivate the Brimstone’s shields and begin direct firing and launching drop pods directly inside. All this time the Hailstorm was being repaired by Brimstone crews that were able to completely repair it before the Brimstone was destroyed. The Brimstone was destroyed, but was able to destroy the American fleet until two very heavily damaged crafts were left, which were quickly destroyed by the Hailstorm.

“Admiral Sandusky, the U.S. ships were able to send one last message to their H.Q., and we were able to catch the response which was as follows, ‘we will be sending a cruiser in two weeks, we are currently stocking it up for battle.’ What is our course of action, sir?”

“We must send a drop base pod down to the planet, even if we can’t convince them, we can attack them better from there.”

“Aye sir, I’ll have the drop pod base ready for departure. Who will take part in the launch, sir?”

“Vice Admiral Genjalkrahd will assign the troops, including himself.”

“Yes sir, I’ll inform him right away. He is the Gohoritykah Vise Admiral, correct?”

“Indeed he is, now go before my patience runs out for your sake.” With that the human recruit charged off towards Genjalkrahd’s station.

My radio set crackled inside my helmet as vague signals were passed to and fro. I made out the words ‘traitor’ and ‘sailfish’ I guessed that meant there might be a traitor on board the Sailfish, and inside job for the U.N., but the more I thought on that, the more I disregarded it a impossible. Max and I were completely loyal to the U.S. army, even though I had my differences with their methods. Henslowe was too cheery to be a rough and tumble U.N. man and Zimmerman had been in the infant trainee with me. And Sanchez, well, Sanchez had been in the army since the start and had been in every mission possible and had been noted for taking down a good number of U.N. men and women, and saving the lives of many U.S. soldiers in so doing. Our entire team was rock solid U.S. army men.

“Hey, Twilight, I didn’t know that Luna arranged a special nighttime show.” With that we all looked out to the night sky. To any casual observer it might appear to be a firework show or maybe a very rare supernova event, but to a trained military as Max and I, it was a war.

“Luna had no plans for this, I assure you.” I said bluntly.

“How can you be sure, you’re relatively new here and all.” Spike said to me.

“Because that isn’t a light show that she would want anytime of the year in any sections of the universe. That is the sign of an inter-space combat. We’re witnessing a battle that I wish never to happen.”

“Shouldn’t we be concerned, taking cover in fact?” Twilight asked warily.

“No, they’re far away enough that nothing is likely to come here, shrapnel or otherwise. But let’s just hope our troops end up on top.” all of the other nodded as we all continued to gaze out into the battlefield in the middle of space.

Chapter 4: Reliving the Old Days

It had been a long night. After seeing the signs of interstellar combat over a rather peaceful planet that had only two U.S. militaries on it, I decided to spend the rest of the night on a nearby hill and watch over the village from a little distance to truly have an eye over the whole place while Max stayed behind and waited for me to radio in case of trouble.

The sun slowly inched above the horizon and it was just as pretty as it was on Earth. As I had thought, no shrapnel had fallen from the sky, but ever since the battle, the radio silence from our few access points on U.N. communications channel turned from their original silence to a buzz of constant talking. By what I could tell, the U.N. ships had won out but a larger ship from U.S. forces was coming; I only hoped it was the U.S.S. Piranha that was gearing up for the fight. With the capacity to hold over two hundred soldiers and full equipment for all of them, with two thousand total standard broadside lazar cannon and five ion cannons, fifteen backup engines, thirty shield generators making the five shields the best of the best, and the ability to board and take over a vessel ten times as big made it the best thing possible in this situation. But then again any Cruiser Class ‘Super’ of Cutter Class ‘Forward’ would probably do fine, all in all those two classes were meant to take on anything of anything.

I watched the sky for some signs of a possible drop pod from the enemy ship, although I hoped their ship was too damaged to launch one it would be foolish not to at least keep some caution about oneself.

So far in our stay I had scanned every being I met and assigned them blue if they were just wild life, as I would do with any being that wasn’t a major species, or at least unable to speak, and green if they were pegasus, unicorns, earth ponies, and alicorns, although I had been told there were many more kinds I had yet to meet. So far all wild life I had met were already catalogued because they also lived on Earth, although phoenixes and such were not.

The sun’s bright yellow caught the morning sky ablaze as it turned shades of orange and red, only once before had I seen the Equestria sun rising, and that was a long time ago, and back then I was different, life was different, the world was different, the universes were different. War changed everything so terribly; I guess I knew why my father had been so desperate to separate this world from the rest.

We I first came here I made friends, true friends. This world was a paradise with no violence; no robbers to really worry about, but now that the U.N. had its sights on this place everything would change. Ever since the war started we shot for the stars and brought every universe down with us. The peaceful realms that once were abundant in the cosmos were now war torn lands of destruction. I knew this land before the war, and if I could I would stop it from falling, and if the U.N. turned the cities and towns into rubble, after we beat them off I would rebuild those cities, by myself if necessary, but no matter what happened to this world I would make it go back to the way it was. Lives might not be the same because of the war, but the world would be the same, and if I could the generations that followed would forget about the war and would once again live peaceful lives. All in all isn’t that what most heroes in stories do? The come to a paradise and bring conflict with them, they beat it, then rebuild. But being as life isn’t always a storybook I couldn’t suspect every circumstance to work out in my favor, although my secret should help me in the instance I might die, I could only hope it wouldn’t be necessary to do.

The sun eventually rose to its full height where the sky lost the spectrum of colors to become a simple blue, a blue that brought a smile to my face.

It had been seventeen years since I had lived here, a technical five in this world but no difference to me. A question came to mind, ‘why only enjoy the world after the war and a little seventeen years in the past’? I could possibly try to enjoy this place while the U.N. was gearing up to attack. But what would I really do? There were three fillies I enjoyed being with, then there was Spike, while Pinkie and Rainbow were also options in this situation. But what would we really do? It had been five years for them so not much had changed in their view, but I had grown up completely, and the only ponies or otherwise who knew me in both forms were Twilight and Spike, and I didn’t really know if they knew I was both. Being as my father was he probably say something along the lines of a spell gone wrong and my bodily and mental maturity gain rate was compounded upon greatly and also I was given a new body as a side effect and because of it I was tossed into some foreign army and I was now serving as a peace making unit. I probably should ask him, but knowing his style he would do something like that.

My most likely course of action would be to meet up with those three fillies from before, and knowing them they should be in or heading to their club house.

“Orion, I’m doing some local bonding, if we are to fight together we need to be comfortable together.” Orion smiled and nodded at me.

“Or you could just be meeting up with some old friends.” He said after I placed his chip down and activated the mini-shield it had.

I arrived at the little club house and heard that they were already in session, and the ladder was closed, perfect. I activated a little hologram in the shape of my pony self, only a tad bit bigger so as to give room for a five year difference in growth. I slowly moved forward and backward and made sure my hologram responded, and it did. I turned on my active camouflage and got ready. Knowing my voice had changed incredibly since last time I just had to wing it on the pitch by sending a message to all inside by Rahgahgogarian style, but I could only hope that they didn’t try to fly over me because if they did I would be found out before I could explain.

“So let me see… we have… waterskiing?” Sweetie Belle read off their list, while casting a glance at Scootaloo.

“No, we did three weeks ago.” Applebloom replied, annoyed at the repeated request.

“How about… fencing?” Again Sweetie Belle shot a glance at Scootaloo, who at the time was scratching her chin.

“Nope, did that the day before we did bowling.” Scootaloo replied after her rare moment of prolonged thought.

“Well I’m plum out of ideas! How about today we just see if we can get our Cutiemarks by doing nothing at all!” Applebloom shouted out in frustration.

“Hey, sounds good to me!” With that the three crusaders hit the floor and started a starring contest with the ceiling. But in a moment a voice came from in front of the club house, well, actually it sounded like it came from all over but it seemed a bit more concentrated in that direction.

“Hey, you guys going to let down the stairs or what?” Applebloom lifted her head. She thought she recognized the voice, but the face wouldn’t come up. Applebloom trotted out to the railway in front of the club house, and saw a face that she knew well.

“Jason, you’re back, finally!”

“Hey, I said I come back, and don’t think I was lying, it just took a while.” Suddenly Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were right beside Applebloom.

“Jason, you’re back!” The two newcomers shouted in unison.

“Yep, now can you guys lower the ladder?”

“Sure thing, I’m lowering the ladder, watch out bellow!” With that, Applebloom bucked the ladder and allowed me to pass.

I stepped inside the club house, but had to crouch all the while. I made sure my hologram wouldn’t do that, but I found out that I would have to lie on the ground to make it crouch. Eventually I sat down and slightly surprisingly so did my hologram.

“So, why were you gone for so long?” Scootaloo asked me.

“Well, actually that goes along with something I got to tell you all.” The three crusaders drew closer. “I’m about to do something that might scare you, but please, tried not to scream.”

“We’ll try, Jason, what is it you got to show us?” I took a deep breath. I turned off my hologram, which earned a few gasps from the fillies.

“I know this might scare you but that wasn’t really me.” I said this in my real voice and not through Rahgahgogarian methods, which also made them shake. “Get ready for the surprise of your life.” With that I removed my helmet, which disrupted all commands to my suit and so turned off my active camouflage. The girls squeaked, Sweetie Belle even screamed, and I made no attempt to silence them, being as I knew that it would be best to let them carry on as long as they liked, which was a long time.

“Alright, why are you three screaming about? Did you try to get your Cutiemarks in something way to dangerous and are in trouble or something?” a voice rang out in a rather thick southern accent. I recognized the voice as Applejack, the older sister of Applebloom and the one who took care of the farm for the most part. I decided she would find out soon enough so I decided to go out and tell her.

“Oh, nothing much, just a startling transition of a friends form, that’s all.”

“Well if that’s it then… wait… what are you and what are you doing here!?”

“Oh me? I’m Jason, remember? I’m that pegasus that used to hang out with these guys. I’m just dropping in for a friendly visit but my appearance is a bit concerning too these three.”

“Who are you kidding, Jason was a young little pegasus colt, you’re some older… thing.”

“Actually, I’m the same pegasus colt at heart, but after some freaky spell my father goofed I became this, not to mention I got slung into another universe, was shoved into the army and now I’m back and I made peace between the two peoples!” Applejack simply looked at me strangely. I had to admit I toned down severally my usual seriousness and instead was acting as childish as I knew how, a small attempt at convincing her. She squinted at me; I flashed a smile I always had given before as the pegasus colt, man oh day was I making a fool of myself. Applejack starred at me a little more.

“If you were that pegasus colt then tell me what your Cutiemark was.”

“Are you kidding me? I didn’t have one back then.”

“Ah still don’t trust you.”

“You’re choice, Applejack, but I’m telling you, you can confirm with Johann and I have nothing to fear.”

“I might just do that.” I nodded and went back inside to the girls. The three weren’t yelling any more so that was good, but they were clutching each other, but small steps were expected instead of large leaps. Scootaloo finally spoke up for the whole group, as was usual when I first came here.

“Are you really Jason?” I just looked at her and the two other fillies.

“Is there any way I could convince you?” They looked at each other. I had to admit I had few memories left from back then because of my intense training, but if necessary I could fall upon my characteristics that I had back then. Sweetie Belle was the first to speak up.

“What is something I hate?”

“You hate… being teased by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, and Opal as a general being.” Sweetie Belle smiled as I mentioned Opal the cat. At this correct answer the girls started to smile, and they also stopped holding each other.

“I think I can say he’s Jason, even though he looks nothing like the one we know. Hey, how come you look so different?” Scootaloo said.

“Well, to tell the truth, it is because this is my real form, the form you saw five years ago for you was the form I had seventeen years ago. See, I am a human; my father brought me here with my mother seventeen years ago in my world. And when we came we had to blend in with you guys. My pegasus form was just a way to blend in.” They all looked at me in disbelief at what I had just said. “I decided to visit you guys once again, and maybe relive some old times, probably for the last time.”

“What… what do you mean the last time?” Sweetie Belle asked me.

“Never mind that, I just wanted to visit and maybe have some fun.” The three fillies looked at each other and shrugged. They all smiled and filed out of the club house, with me at the back of the group.

“So, what do you want to do first?” Scootaloo asked me. I turned my head to her and frowned.

“It has been seventeen years of long war with no brakes, I don’t think I can begin o think of how it feels, much less how to have fun.”

“Whoa now! You mean you haven’t had fun in seventeen years? You haven’t had so much as one party through the whole thing?” Sweetie looked back at me with a concerned look on her face. I shook my head; truly I had no real interests any more.

Those seventeen years of war had taken their course and had slowly warped and twisted us to the point of breaking. Those seventeen years had made it so an entire generation knew nothing but fear and war, how life could go back to ‘normal’ I could never know, much less how the war would end with our current stalemate.

My thoughts were broken when I noticed the silence of the ponies as they smiled at each other.

“Well then, I think we got just the thing to start us off!” Applebloom shouted as the three preformed a three-way high-hoof. With that, they darted off, although their visual speed was great, their actual speed was rather low considering what I could pull without the Mark IX weighing me down. I quickly darted into my fastest running speed, and even had to slow down to match, and yet follow, the three crusaders.

We dashed through the many streets of Ponyville, and eventually came to the front of the Sugar Cube Corner. I slid to a halt, and while still under the cover of the dust, I activated my active camouflage. The three crusaders entered and began talking to somepony. I turned on my listening booster so I could hear what they were saying.

“You mean there’s a pony you hasn’t had a party since he was a foal!?” A rather concerned voice said.

“Yeah, he said that he hasn’t had a party in SEVENTEEN years, I think he would like one of your parties as the first he’s had in a long time!” Applebloom said to the pony that I didn’t recognize by voice. I heard what sounded like a small explosion, and reacting by instinct alone, I took out my rifle, deactivated my active camouflage, and jump-rolled into the shop, quickly clearing all corners, only to notice nothing but a plume of confetti, and a frozen pink sculpture off a pony, that to me looked rather realistic, until I realized it was breathing that is. The pony unfroze and bounded right up to me with the biggest smile on her face. It was that smile that reminded me who she was, Pinkie Pie, party master of Equestria.

I removed my helmet and placed my rifle back onto my back, and extended my hand in greeting. She put her hoof into my hand and shook it.

“Nice to see you again, Jason! It’s been a while since we last saw each other! I know it’s been five years on our end, but I can’t believe that it’s been seventeen on your end! It’s time for a party!” With that she jumped from my grasp and pulled the cord on her cannon, that somehow was able to fire out all the party decoration in an organized way. And at the same moment a horde of ponies flowed in and crammed into the space as if draw in by a magnet, only to freeze when they saw I wasn’t a decoration. I only smiled at them.

“Don’t worry about me, I’m just here to watch, it’s too small in here for me to do anything else.” The ponies looked at each other and shrugged and continued along their merry way. Suddenly I had a face full of Pinkie Pie.

“You mean you can’t dance?” Pinkie said nearly shouting at me.

“Not in here, the roof is only about three feet from the floor at most and I’m budging on six, if not already past it.” Being as I was already crouched and still almost touching the ceiling, I thought it might be obvious what I could and could not do.

“Then we need to take this party outside! Come on everypony! Let’s move this outside!” With that the ponies grabbed what they could and ran outside, while some of them just moved outside without helping at all. I, of course, gathered and carried most things with a greater carrying space in my arms and strength which I could use.

Pinkie switched the track to something more upbeat than I knew how to dance to, being as I had only taken a class in formal style dancing when I was six. So pulling out something rather basic and ironic all in all, I started to o the robot, out of nothing else I could do. After doing a quick check by searching for certain brain signals, I concluded that my father and Max were at Sweet Apple Acres, being as their signal came from the direction where I saw the orderly group of fruit bearing trees.

“Wow, you dance pretty well, Jason!” Scootaloo said to me as I used my boosters slightly to cheat myself into a proper moon walk, whereas most could only achieve the result with socks and a verily waxed floor. “”Do you think you can teach me?”

“If you could stand on two legs I might be, as most movements are exclusive to bipeds.”

“Hey, I could try, can’t I?”

“I never said you couldn’t.” I said shooting her a smile. She wobbled up into an upright position on two legs, which caused most other ponies to look her way. “Now, spread out your forelegs like this.” I said while showing her the starting position. “Now the next movements consist of a few basic and simple adlibbing to your balance and position after your last trick. As if you are falling you can either try a few handstand tricks or do a back flip, no general preference is made, but the more complex and better executed tricks are the best. Now here are the basic movements to know, the rest should come from instinct as you carry on.” With that I did a few of the more basic moves of the most simplistic dance ever made, now a slight correction, the simplest on sight, some of the more complex in acting out right. Soon enough Scootaloo was dancing and staying upright with her wings, and soon the whole group of ponies was trying the dance out. Eventually some of them experienced a newbie’s mistakes, when they try to do a trick that they weren’t set for, but after a few brief lessons and demonstrations, they all were the best robot dancers I’d seen since I was five.

“Hey, Jason, would you tell us what you want to do next, the party is nice but I think we should move on.” Sweetie Belle said after nudging me a little.

“I think lunch is in order, a small reason, I guess, to stick around a little longer.” Pinkie smiled and an inside the shop and came out with a platter filled with a rather large cake, that is, by pony standards, but to my militarized mind, it would serve as an energy source for a few minutes and to fill my stomach until my next meal, being as a military as myself can survive to the next chow time without complaining. I grabbed it and took a bit out of it, followed by several more, until it was finally gone from sight, except for a few crumbs around my mouth.

“Whoa, you ate that cake almost as fast as Pinkie!” Suddenly the ground under me shook violently. I looked and saw a drop pod base slamming into the ground.

“Everypony! Get inside, stay away from windows and enter any tornado or any other emergency shelters!” With that everypony looked at me and ran to their houses. “Applebloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Pinkie Pie, go into Sugar Cube Corner and wait for me to get you out, and don’t even think of coming out until I do.” The four ponies nodded and ran inside. I tapped the side of my helmet and activated direct link to Max’s radio headset.

“Max, U.N. just made their move, meat me five clicks north of drop pod base.”

“Affirmative, I’m moving out, meet you at rendezvous point”

Chapter 5: Storming the Base

I trotted down the lane to the school house; it would be one of a short series of lessons at the building before I would return home.

I entered and took an empty seat, and soon the lesson started.

“Good morning class!” said the enthusiastic teacher to all of us.

“Good morning Miss. Cherilee.” sounded for the reply from the class.

“Today we have a new student! Will you please come up to the front, Jason?” I hopped out of my seat and walked over to the teacher. “This is Jason Paladin Webster, say hello everypony!”

“Hello, Jason.” The class said, although for the most part it was unenthusiastic.

“Wait, Jason Webster, as in your father is Johann?” a certain white unicorn said.

“Yeah, he’s my dad.”

“Great! Another weirdo came into town. As if one more geek wasn’t enough, now we have a whole family!” The white unicorn exclaimed as she performed a face-desk

My flash back ended this the sound of Max’s footsteps. I could only guess being in a place like this would stir up memories of itself.

“Sir, how are we to proceed?” Max’s voice echoed in my mind as he put his back against the boulder I had been waiting behind.

“We don’t know what defensive or offensive abilities they have, so I would guess the best plan in most cases would be to wait for reinforcements to make sure we win.” I said over the radio.

“Most cases, that is.” Max replied. His voice could have been paired with a smile, if he only had a mouth.

“Aye, most cases, but this planet is currently high priority and arrival of reinforcements coming is unknown so the plan for this one is to make a two man confrontation with a probably high defense rated base.”

“Just like at Paris, aye, Jason?”

“Aye, just like Paris, let’s do this.” With that we ran out from the boulder and ran straight for the base, only to stop a few feet away behind a few more boulders created by the crash of the pod. I looked beyond the boulder and saw the door of the pod half submerged under the soil. This meant that their systems were all booted up quite yet; otherwise they would have raised their drop pod base above the surface so that their door was full accessible.

I turned back to Max and motioned for him to go around the other side of the boulder and cover me. I jog past the boulder and stopped in front of the door and waited for Max. I grabbed the lock of the door and pulled it up, opening the door for both of us, although the aperture was smaller than what I would have liked. I slid in, soon followed by Max.

I turned by closed-corners sensor on, which basically was a type of radar that detected life-signals within ten feet of the user. I continued to check my corners as we gained ground towards the power generator room. Interestingly enough, there weren’t too many guards; in fact we hadn’t even seen any.

I found the door with the lighting symbol on it, and pressed the open button, which caused the door to slide to the side. I walked inside and saw the rather small room with an even smaller machine inside. I took out my magnum and placed it against the machine’s side and let the round fire, followed by two others in different areas.

I looked at the display, all power units disabled in this one, and by the read out the backup generator was warming up, and soon the loud groans of the less efficient gasoline generator was heard nearby. I walked into the next room and shot it out as well. Unfortunately for us, the generator had a shield that detected incoming projectiles, and it set of an alarm. The pod plummeted into darkness. A visor slid in front of my screen, turning on the night vision ability, while as Max had a flip down attachment on his headset. I walked out of the door and saw no incoming guards, but my radar told me they were closing in, also the fact that there was light streaming from their flashlights was coming from one of the adjoining hallways. I turned on my active camouflage while Max hid in one of the darker rooms.

“Who do think destroyed the generator?” One of the engineers asked as he poked his pistol around the corner into a dark living quarter. Genjalkrahd rolled his eyes at his less brave human helpers. Although some of his fellow Gohoritykah would cower under the gaze of a U.N. soldier, he was Elite, and was trained to be fearless through whatever, even death. Even though he had spent two years with humans learning English and many other languages, he still slightly depended upon his translator unit to help him.

“Whoever it is, they are very foolish to attack this drop pod base.” Genjalkrahd growled. He was being followed by three engineers and ten soldiers, three being humans, two brutes, and five elites as himself. Genjalkrahd rounded the next corner and saw something that made him smile. Even though U.S. active camouflage could conceal them from human sight, a Gohoritykah’s eyes could see the small shimmers in the suits system, weather just energy waves or the movements of the soldiers. He also saw a form hiding in the closet nearby.

I stayed as still as possible, looking at the Gohoritykah smile in front of me. The Gohoritykah smile was truly always something evil in intentions and appearance. The Gohoritykah would draw back its lips and expose its teeth, which were as sharp as military issue combat knives, while its eyes would turn from blue to red. The Gohoritykah drew out its plasma pistol and pointed it at me. I pulled up my rifle and let off ten rounds at it, while jumping backwards to avoid the plasma bolt it had fired.

The Gohoritykah shouted commands to its lesser, and soon the small hallway was a battleground. I fired off several more rounds from my rifle, until it clicked dry. I ducked into the generator room and took out the empty battery and replaced it with my second one. I set the rifle to ‘full use’, and with that the front of the gun split open to expose the cooling racks for quicker cool down time than usual. I came out from cover and let of my one shot, which hit a brute, killing it instantly while knocking down two others with the whipping energy that splattered off of the collision. My rifle started to cool down, but soon proved to be too slow for my liking. I replaced batteries and left my rifle to cool down on the ground. I took out my magnum and started to shoot of rounds at the U.N. troopers.

Genjalkrahd put him back to the wall; already the U.S. men had killed one of his brutes and injured the other two so much that they couldn’t fight.

“Elites, move up and take down hostiles, we will provide cover for you!” He spewed out the order too his men in their native tongue. They nodded and began to slowly advance. “Try and handle that U.S. scum!” He started to fire into the closet as he said this.

I saw the advance of the elites. I fired at their heads, hoping my magnum could break through, but the cover fire and suppressive that they had was too much to take them all out, and I ended up only taking down two, while Max took one of them. As they drew near the two Gohoritykah warrior elites took out their energy swords, which actually looked like our old medieval blades turned into energy weapons with retractable blades of white light. When they drew near they put up their rifles and charged into our two rooms.

The elites tackled me, and forced my magnum out of my hand, he quickly stabbed it, making sure to not let me use it, and with one quick slice he destroyed my rifle. I punched him in the face, trying to get him off, but he wouldn’t give. I drew my knife and jammed it into his chest, which caused him to stand up off of me. I grabbed my last two energy batteries and threw them at the elite, one taking down his shields, the other killing him, although unfortunately, also welding my knife into his burned carcass. I grabbed his rifle off of his back and charged the rest of the enemies, hoping my shield could keep me up.

I let loose two rounds and the humans, which sliced through them like butter, killing two of them. I grabbed the last of the less armored humans and threw him at the human soldiers. I blasted the other two with my newly acquired rifle, slicing through the shields and metal armor. I grabbed one of the dead soldier’s knives and stab the last soldier in the back. I grabbed the last unarmored human and used him as a shield while firing at the last elite, who displayed much more athletic abilities. I shot the human, and also hit the elite’s shield.

He shouted into his transceiver and then ducked into the generator room, and I soon heard the sound of his camouflage activate. I turned on my heat vision sensor after turning off my night vision. Soon enough the heat from his suits compact generator showed. I fired of a few more shot, and proved that I was right as his heat signature moved in a rolling motion.

I continued to fire, and soon his movement stopped in a corner, leading me to believe I had hit. I turned back on my night vision and saw his form. I let off several more rounds at him, and soon his emerald green blood leaked onto the floor as he slumped over dead. His life signature faded from my sensors.

I turned to the closet room where Max had fought the Gohoritykah, I found the body lying in the front of the room with Max sitting there still, probably absorbing more oxygen.

“Max, we need to get out of here before more guys come, he got a better chance outside.” Max shook his head while he looked down.

“I took a plasma round to the leg, I’m not going to be going anywhere for a while, just leave me.” I grabbed his arm and lifted him up.

“Not happening, you’re coming with me.” I slung him arm around my neck and began to help him to the door.

I had been making my way to the door when a line of Forward Soldiers and Aggressors came out. The Aggressors charged us, fortunately the fact they only had metal covering them made them prime targets for my plasma rifle, allowing me to take down all five of them. I let Max down against the wall, and charged the Forward Soldiers, and if it wasn’t for their ‘loyalty until death’ policy they probably would have run from my charge. I shot one up the chest and grabbed his plasma dagger that he had been holding at ready and jammed it into the other’s back. I grabbed one of the Forward Soldier’s neck and slammed him against the wall and grabbed his pistol and turned to the last two of the Forward Soldiers and shot off three rounds, which finished them off. I then turned to the last and blasted his pistol’s last shot into his shaking body.

“Don’t forget to loot them. My stun repeater got destroyed and my magnum is out of rounds.” I nodded let the Forward Soldier I had been holding up drop to the floor. I popped out my rifle’s empty battery and put a new one in. I grabbed two belts of plasma batteries that some of the Forward Soldiers had been carrying, I also took the plasma knife and turned off the beam and placed it inside my knife holster on my shoulder. I grabbed three plasma pistols, one for me and two for Max, being as there was no rifle in their mix. I also grabbed Max a belt of plasma batteries. I tossed Max his plasma battery belt and pistols. He put the belt on and placed one of the pistols into a holster and kept the other out as I continued to search for anything useful.

The Forward Soldier who had the knife also had three plasma grenades, which I placed onto my tactical belt. I lifted Max up and began to start making progress again. We finally made it to the door, which still was mostly underground. Suddenly a troop of Gohoritykah Elites came out with a bunch Forward Troops, Runners, and Aggressors.

I shoved Max through the hole and turned back to my new enemies. As tradition, the Aggressors took up the first line as a wall of anger and power; the Runners stayed kneeled, firing and yet ready to run at the enemy; the Forward Soldiers were right behind them with their pistols or grenades; while the Elites provided suppressive to all with their plasma rifles and full-use plasma pistols.

I sprayed the Aggressors with a battery’s worth of plasma, and after quickly reloading; I tossed a grenade and the rest of the line. Five of the ten Runners fell dead, while all of the Forward Soldiers died because the blast was right under them, however, the five Elites still stood and fired. My shield meter was flashing as my shield fell to 25% capacity.

Max began providing support, and took down two of the charging Runners, while I shot the three others down. Now came the hard part.

As the final Runner fell dead, the five Elites jumped behind cover and began giving me heavy suppressive fire. I grabbed my second grenade and jammed it into the wall as I activated my drop shield to a smaller, more concentrated field. As I had planned, the grenade blew a hole I the wall and provided me with some smoke for visual cover and some metal and concrete barricades.

I sprayed plasma at the Elites’ general direction, hoping for the best. I ducked behind my newly made cover and switched out batteries, leaving me with only three more batteries on my first belt and five on my second, thus totaling eight more volleys against the Elites.

My radar showed one of them dying as his life signal faded out. I turned on my active camouflage and started to sneak through the smoke in a crawl. I soon made it in front of one of the bunkers, but as usual, the Elites started firing right at me. I came out from my cover and took out my plasma pistol in my left hand and began to let out my rounds at the Gohoritykahs. My shield dropped to zero and I began directly receiving hits, first to my left shoulder, which sent a jolt of pain that caused me to drop my pistol. My armor’s status started to flash red as I continued to receive fire.

Suddenly an icon flashed up on my H.U.D. signaling my drop shield was fully charged.

I jumped backwards and threw it at the Gohoritykahs and hoped my plan would work. The fragile crystal slammed against the solid group fast enough to shatter the crystal and leave a dent in the panel. The massive energy field contained inside suddenly whipped out in a vortex, draining the energy from my suit, and by the looks they bore, the Gohoritykahs were probably having the same problem. Slowly the Gohoritykah began to be dragged into the whipping vortex of plasma energy combined with controlled electricity set on the loose. I was able to get behind my bunker and waited out the energy flux.

Slowly the energy faded and the area again was darkened. I looked over my cover and saw no sign of the Gohoritykah Elites, apparently the vortex of energy had done its job. I took a scan of my condition and saw that my armor’s right side had sustained heavy damage, so much so that I could see it by just looking at it. My shoulder pad had several holes in it and my right side was bleeding through the damaged armor.

“Max, go to my father and see what he can do, Orion is on the hill I was watching the town from.” Max nodded and stood up and began using his wings to help him on his way. I stood up and began walking through the maze of hallways. Even if the generator was off, it was possible they were going to repair it, and it was my job to make sure they couldn’t.

I had been fighting my way through the base for some time, and my wound was beginning to inhibit me. My left shoulder also received an injury that only began bleeding after I had been jogging for a while. Usually being a W unit as I was, I would carry a small medical kit with me, but because we had only so much time on our hands after I shot the Ion cannon, I never picked one up.

I rounded my next corner and found a door that had a cross above the frame. Usually this would mean relief, but being as I was in an enemy base, I still had to take caution into this place of sanctuary. I opened the door and quickly found no one inside. I found the medical robot, and quickly flipped him on.

“Medical robot EDG-764, how may I be of service?” The robot said in an obviously robotic voice.

“I got some wounds that need some tending, no stitches, just some heal gel.” I told the robot, knowing stitches would take too long for me.

“Aye, sir, here you’re, healing gel, have a nice day.” I turned the robot off and took the gel and put it on my shoulders and side, and as I did the bleeding stopped. I snuck out of the medical office and started down the hall.

I had just dodged around a corner as I tried to shake of a group of Aggressors that had chased me for around twenty minutes. I saw a doorway leading to a dark room on my left. As I came to it I jumped towards the doorway and shoved the door closed, and as soon as I did, several dents appeared as Aggressors either ran straight into it or began beating it down.

I turned around to see what type of room I had gotten myself into, and upon looking around, I decided it was the best place for me to be, the explosives store room. I smiled as I pocketed a few more grenades and two flash bangs. I also grabbed a few more batteries for my current weapons that were lining the walls in several racks that were almost ceiling high. I grabbed a few pounds of C-4 and slammed them into one of the walls, and did so as well with the others. I also placed the detonators with a few primed, yet not activated, grenades into the explosive plastic compound. I placed a large lump of C-4 in the center of the room and stuffed it with detonator, grenade, and every other type of available explosive, and stepped back from my master piece. I set the master control to detonate in one minute, giving me time to run away from the base. After I made sure all timers were ticking, I crushed the controller insuring no interference could be run on me.

I walked up to the door a placed a small piece of C-4 on in and pressed a smaller controllers detonator, setting the charge to active and blasting the solid metal door out of place with a group of Aggressors being smashed behind it. I ran out the door with my rife in my arms, hoping no interference would come.

My H.U.D’s timer counted down and showed me ten second were left to escape, but apparently it was well off by the sound of booming explosions that echoed throughout the halls. I crawled out of the door way and began running away as fast as I could.

I had only made around three feet of distance between me and the ship when the fuel supply was struck in the raging explosion and caused the entire ship to blast apart. I was thrown off my feet as the shock wave threw me off my feet and into the ground. I rolled across the rubble that the pod had made upon its crash, and soon was assaulted by more rubble as a pod crashed not ten yards from me, accompanied by the explosions after affects.

I looked up and saw a man working a few yards from the pod with what appeared to be a beacon. I got to my feet and started to sneak up to him as I turned off ‘close quarter’s radar’ and turned on my ‘all-out radar’.

I peaked around the pod to see what I could see. The man who I had seen earlier was talking over him radio, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t find which frequency he was using. I stood up and began to make my way closer. As I did, he turned to me and simply starred at me.

Chapter 7: Calling for Help

“Come in, come in. Do you read, over?” I said into the mass communications device. “This is Jason Paladin Webster of the U.S. army, come in. Do you read?”

“Aye, this is Commander Sheppard of the Normandy. What do you need, over?” I heard the voice come from the other side of the channel.

“Commander Sheppard, we need you to come to our coordinates, make sure to come in out of planetary effects, over.”

“What you need us for, over?”

“We have a grade 10 universe here, repeat, grade 10. U.N. has also found it and is suspected to send in troops. We need you here to help hold them off, over.”

“Alright, we’re coming, over and out.” With that the line cut off.

I took a sip from my mug of tea and scanned down to the next name. I pressed in the numbers and sent off the call, which was responded to quicker than Sheppard had.

“This is John 117, Master Chief, what is it?”

“John, we need you to ship out with a good amount of troops to our current universe to assist in a war to come. We got a grade 10 planet here, repeat, grade 10.”

“Alright, we’ll be shipping out soon, over and out.” The other side once again cut off.

I checked off the universe and dialed in the next set of numbers.

“This is Jason Paladin Webster of the U.S. army. Do you read, over?”

“This is Heavy Weapons Guy. What is it?” I heard the thick Russian accent come through.

“Heavy, we got a grade 10 planet here and we need you and the other team to ship over here quick. Call all the other bases and tell them too.”

“Alright, we will be there soon.” again the static returned as the call ended.

I sipped some more tea and looked at the next name and address. I pressed in the code and waited for the other end.

“This is Alex, what do you need?”

“This is Jason Paladin Webster of the…”

“I know what you are from, just get down to it and tell me what you need!” I heard Alex shout on the other end, causing me to jump and juggle my tea for a few seconds.

“Alright, alright, no need to yell. We got a grade 10 planet here and we need you to ship out over here as fast as possible.”

“Alright, we’ll be there. Come on Gordon, we got work to do.” Alex said while the sound of clinking metal, probably a weapon loading, registered over the system.

“Yes, good luck Mr. Freeman.” I heard a new voice say just before the line closed.

I stood up from my seat and downed the rest of my tea. After whipping off the moisture from my lips onto my sleeve, being as my suit had not been replaced yet, I stepped out of the small building and out into the newly militarized Ponyville. Changes didn’t cause too much difference in looks, except the fact that several energy cannons and improved howitzers were scattered around it, along with a few huts. My father approached me with his usual calmness.

“Are we ready?” I asked him rather cryptically.

“Yeah, I told him that the rocks over there shifted now and then, just like you told me to. I think it was just barely enough to get him going.” He said as he gestured with a hoof to a pile of stones a little distance from the town.

“Good, the planted alien life forms we put there should keep him there until we arrive. Max, it’s time to head out.” Max came out from the cabin next to mine at him summon. I couldn’t help but smile at the Rahgahgogarian resilience. Only two days ago all his leg below the knee was nothing but cinder and ash, and now a thin leg like structure reached all the way to the floor, and in a few more days the structure would expand like it would for any Rahgahgogarian.

“We better move quickly, unless he leaves the spot.” Max said. My father and I nodded as we all set out.

The pace we had kept up was nothing but a brisk jog for a human and a light trot for a Rahgahgogarian, but for a pony, it was a full out run. My father, not being the most athletic for a human or a pony, was left farther behind, so much so Max and I arrived at the location a good minute or so before my father made it.

“I… know… time is of the essence… but… couldn’t you have… slowed the pace… a bit… for me?” my father said breathlessly.

“Sorry, we’ll try that next time it happens.” I said with a smile. My father grunted slightly and quickly shook off the fatigue, which is much to his credit. I did a quick sweep of the area for a mind signal, and quickly received something in return.

“AGAIN! Who keeps scanning my brain? Am I really that interesting to them?” The three of us look at each other his raised eyebrows.

“Well they never said he could detect brain scans, but at least we know he is here.” I said pushing it off quickly. “Dad, you go first, I’ll go next, since he knows humans, and Max goes last since we have no idea if he has seen your kind before.” We all nodded, and soon my dad climbed up the slope.

The Doctor was enjoying another outing. After being tipped off by a pony he considered to be a lunatic, he had been having a day of fun exploring a patch of creatures that looked a lot like rocks, well, it was fun except the brain scans that washed by him. The Doctor shook off the chills the last scan had caused and scanned the rocks again. The creatures were like nothing he had seen before, and that certainly is saying something.

Suddenly a shifting was heard off to the right. The Doctor jumped into a position where he could see who it was.

“Hello, Doctor, how’s it going?” A pony said after ganging its hoofing.

“Oh, it’s you. Well, surprisingly enough, some of these rocks aren’t rocks at all, but some sort of alien species. And even more surprising is that I’ve never seen anything like them. I mean, sure, camouflaging creatures are common because creatures that need defense are common, but these are different than anything I’ve ever seen!”

“That is certainly interesting, especially since I thought you’d seen most everything, being a Timelord and all.”

“I know, but the kicker is that you noticed. I spent my first several minutes watching these things and nothing happened, I would have walked away had it not been for my screwdriver falling out of my pocket and bumping with the ground in such a way that it activated for a second long enough for the creatures to be slightly agitated and begin moving slowly. This is truly remarkable. How did you notice them?” The Doctor asked, rather intrigued in what methods the strange pony had used.

“To tell the truth I didn’t.” The pony said in a deadpan voice.

“The how did you know these rocks weren’t rocks? You had to have found out somehow!”

“I believe I can answer that question.” A new voice arrived as something tall, very, very tall arrived. “Hello, Doctor, I’m glad we finally meet face to face.” The thing said as it knelt. When it finally reached a kneeling position the Doctor could actually make out what it was, since before it stood in front of the sun and the brightness of the sun in contrast to the shadow over its face made it hard to recognize.

“What is a human doing in Equestria?” The Doctor shouted.

I could only help but smile slightly. The Doctor used to live with humans, but after being stuck in Equestria for so long, seeing a human must be something as astounding as when I found out my dad was still alive after years of thinking him dead.

“Simple, we used a trans-multiversal transportation device, or a Rift Maker.” I replied rather nonchalantly.

“Alright, I get that. But how are you still… human?” The Doctor asked rather questioningly and in fact in a position where he could bolt away at a moment’s notice.

“We came in past the planets effects on us, and so we did not change into equines.” The Doctor still looked hesitant, but he was calming down a bit.

“Then, why are you here? As in with me here in this rock bed.” The Doctor said, still looking up and down at me.

“Easy, we need your help.” I said with a smile.

__________________

“So let me get this straight, you brought war to Equestria and now you need me to help you fend off these forces?” The Doctor said after I explain what was happening.

“About right, we need a good tactical mind in our ranks to help us win so that Equestria is safe from harm that would come to it otherwise.”

“Well the fact that you thought to ask me and were able to lure me in shows you at least have some brains.” The Doctor said with a small smirk painted across his face.

“Will you join us then?” I asked finally.

“I guess I should. By the way you explained it; it seems that they really have no reason to be slaughtering you… just like the Darleks.” He said rather sadly.

“Well we aren’t dealing with organic beings that have been turned into stronger, emotionless, copies of their former selves; these are actual humans whose hatred runs deeper than I like to think. But in the root of all things, their motives are the same. But at any rate, we’re glad to have you aboard sir. Uh… do you wish to transfer to human from or stay as you are?”

“Well, I guess I could… wait. Do you mean you could turn me back into a human like form?” The Doctor added the last part nearly shouting.

“Well yes, all we have to do is send you via Rift Maker directly onto Earth and then bounce you back here, and presto your both human and in Equestria. Although, one thing. I suggest taking the Tardis to the Piranha, supposing it is still out of the effecting range, if not then we’ll have to send her a line to back up.” I said, explaining to the Doctor exactly how easy it would be, being as it was an easy process.

“Alright, I guess I’ll hop on over to this ship of yours, see you chaps later!” The Doctor said as he dashed off.

“And remember, it’s the smaller of the two ships you should see!” I shouted at him as he ran away from us.

Soon enough the Doctor was gone, and we left for the main center of our operations. The short time we had spent away showed its difference on the camp. We now had several more Howitzers and plasma cannons laying around then there were when we attacked the Gohoritykah home world, which was a full on assault. A man approached me and handed me a small pad. I tapped the screen and a message popped up… well, it was a hologram of the man who had sent it.

“Major General Jason Paladin Webster, Come to the council room, the board of generals is waiting.” I flipped the device off.

“Well, it’s about time to put my actions on trial.” I said after a sigh.

“What do you mean? What did the message mean?” My father asked.

“Well, the board of generals are the guys with two more stars on their sleeves than I do. They’re the head of the army, being as no one man can be trusted with all power. Well, my actions of permitting the Doctor to change into a human again or at least a simile thereof was a large stretch on my part, of the authority I can exert, not to mention doing things a member of the board would do and not some lower grade general like me. It’s likely they didn’t like me doing what I did recently and are either stripping me of a rank or discharging me. We’ll just have to see.” I said, hoping for the best outcome.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

The commander of the U.N.S. Hailstorm walked into the main deck, which was filled with people attending to their tasks.

“Sir, we have received line from Grey, he says he accepts and will send all necessary robots to us for deployment.” A man working one of the communication areas shouted to the commander as he took his place.

“Very good, at least that means we will have infinite amounts of the robots.” The commander said with a small smile.

“Sir, the Forerunner commander has sent line and says he will send all the units he can muster. Also the covenant has sent line saying their finest armada will come soon.” Another man shouted to the commander. The commander’s smile grew at the news of two of the strongest forces ever mustered joining them for this conquest.

“That is very good, yes, very good indeed.” The commander said as his smile grew larger.

“Sir; Sontarans, Darleks, and Cybermen have sent line saying that they will join forces for now and fight together to help capture our newest acquisition.” A man shouted again.

“Good to know we have them together and not fighting for once.” The commander smirked.

“Sir, we have a line from the Reapers. They say they were in the middle of a battle with the enemies in that universe but are more than willing to send several of their own forces to aid us.” A man said to the commander.

“Very god, be sure to send them a few ships for assistance in their cause after we are done here.” The commander ordered the man. A Gohoritykah ran up to the commander and said,

“Sir, the U.N. H.Q. said that they are going to send a large number of ships and units over, estimated time of arrival is in a few minutes.”

“Very good, now go back to your station soldier.” The commander said as he sent the Gohoritykah back to where he came.

“Sir, we have line from the Combine forces, they say that they will come with a few Vortegon slaves to help fight.” A man shouted to the commander.

“Very good, we’ll certainly have enough men for this attack.” The Commander smiled and walked off of his platform and back into the council room, a few rooms away. The commander entered the room and took his seat.

“Sir, engineers have reported in and say the ship is completely rebuild and is even better than it was before. Our crew has increased by fifty thousand members, of which three quarters are Gohoritykah.” The Rear Admiral reported to the commander.

“That’s good to hear. And this is our one advantage in this war, besides numbers and brains, U.S. forces believe that Gohoritykah numbers are low, but in reality they are in great numbers than they were when they were still in their home world. So tell me, what are the recent activities of the inter-multiversal division? Are any U.S. people coming besides those that are already here?” Admiral Sandusky inquired.

“The only known forces of U.S. that are coming are home land support. The Piranha lives up to its name though. It’s small, fast, and packs a punch. Our shields are holding up nicely, but their Ion cannons are almost cooled down, and we are dealing with ultra accelerated ion blast cannons, instead of the normal ion cannon.” One of the commanding officers stated to the Admiral.

“We’ll activate shield-lock when that happens, we’ll be fine.” The admiral replied confidentially, “Besides, reinforcements are coming soon enough, and the Piranha will be no more.”

“But sir, what if the U.S. sends for more troops and they arrive before our allies?” A man asked, not so sure of their situation being the best one.

“Soldier, we are the U.N.S. Hailstorm, now second only to the Warhorse. Anything those U.S. scumbags can throw at us, we can more than handle. This meeting is over, no more things to discuss, so head back to your stations.” With that the members went back to their stations of command on the ship.

The commander walked into the command center and went onto his platform. He looked onto the massive screen that gave him a massive view of the surrounding space. Suddenly the multiversal disturbance alarm went off. In an instant a blue gateway-shaped aura formed. It warped and twisted as I began to take a more definite shape. Slowly it shifted from blue to purple, and from purple to red. Suddenly the portal seemed to snap as it took a much more rigid shape.

“Sir, our forces have arrived.” A soldier shouted to the Admiral.

“Which ones, soldier?” The Admiral asked, wandering who he would see first. Suddenly eight more portals formed and began shaping the same way as the other had. The soldier turned to the commander as he removed his headset.

“All of them, sir.” The Admiral then smiled as the news of full forces coming through all in one go. Truly, this is what they needed. Slowly the portal began to act as if they were pools of water with a stiff rim around them, as they began to shimmer as things began to emerge from their centers. The portals began to widen and spread farther apart as the objects they transported came closer to that side of the portal. Slowly, but ever so surely, the portals began to fade from view as the object entered the junction of space, and soon the ships were inside the material universe, but not the visual spectrum. Then, the creeping images of appearing ships came to view. Bright, bold, white letters stood out on the sides of the U.N. ships, and soon the light of the host star shone on their metal surfaces. Their shield flickered back from being the visual guardians of the ships, reacting to the strange forces of the U.N. equivalent of the Rift Maker, and becoming again their invisible protectors, until something caused them to react again that is. Suddenly the ships of the other worlds appeared. The black metal Sontaran ship appeared next. Then the Darlek fleet, the golden metal ships, and the plain Darleks simply floating in space. Then Cybermen fleet, made of shining, metallic ships, with no outside optics, then the Combine ships, the semi-biological abominations, began to appear. Then the Reapers and the robot ships, although the robot ships were usually ground based. Then the two crowning jewels, the Covenant and the Forerunners. The Covenant had their gigantic purple colored monstrosities, and the dark blue energy flowing through the visible pipes. Then the Forerunners orange based theme ships, each stocked to the brim with fighters.

At this the commander smiled widely. Truly this is what the U.N. needed. First they find a world covered with magic wielding creatures, and now they had the force to back up their claim on it, and as long as one creature with magic made it through, it would be all they needed, for this was the age of the United Nations, and the United States of America, would fall under their crushing grip.

Chapter 8: The Battle Begins

“Doctor, we are in trouble!” The Russian yelled to his German friend to was riding shotgun in their oversized van.

“Vhat is it now, Heavy?” He said while rolling his eyes.

“Well, one of the things wrong is this: We are falling past any speed limit.” The Heavy said while tilting his head to the Medic, but not looking away from the windshield.

“Heavy, the speed limit does not apply in falling.” The Medic said huffing.

“Well, second is that we are going to land.” The Heavy said while turning his head back to facing completely at the relatively thin glass in front of him.

“And, vhy is that bad?” The Medic said with his arms crossed.

“Because van is going very fast, and Heavy can’t slow it down.” The Heavy said growing slowly more concerned as the ground grew closer.

“VHAT IN ZEE VORLD!” The Medic said as he looked out the windshield at the quickly approaching ground. “Everybody, buckle up quickly, we are going to be landing shortly!” The Medic said shouting into the back of the van.

“AH!” A unanimous yell erupted from the back of the van as the members of the different teams charged to their seats and buckled up as quickly as they could. Suddenly the whole van shook from the front to the back as they made impact. The empty airbag compartment flung open, but the air bag, as usual, was missing.

“Doctor, stop the car!” The Medic sighed and peered out the window with his needle gun out. He shot several times at the tires, which caused them to pop. The medic then grabbed Heavy by the collar and dragged him from the driver’s seat. The Medic planted himself on the seat and slammed his foot onto the break while veering the wheel in the opposite direction of the popped tires. The car came to a skidding stop, right in front of a Rahgahgogarian.

“Alright, everyone out of the car, now, come on!” The Medic shouted as he stumbled out of the huge van. The two color teams came out of the van in all of their numbers, with the red Heavy driver falling out. “Let’s see now… do we have all our troops?” The blue Medic shouted.

“Yes, Doctor, five red scouts seven blue scouts, six red demo and three blue demo, five red soldiers and two blue soldiers, three red spies and six blue spies, four red engineers and five blue engineers, five red Medics and one blue one… you, two red snipers and six blue snipers, seven red pyro and three blue pyro, five blue heavies and me, red heavy. We all made it!” The red heavy said as he did a makeshift roll call.

“Very good… that would be a first.” The Medic said; with the being last part under his breath.

“This is a large group, 76 units, very impressive.” The teams turned to the Rahgahgogarian who had spoken.

“It is rather large; we only usually have around 12 units on either team, but with all our bases and the number of units that actually could come.” The red Heavy said proudly. The Heavy walked down the line and counted slowly his teams, and eventually came to the last unit. “Wait… we only have 75… something is wrong here.” He said looking side to side to see if someone had run off.

“Heavy…” The blue Medic said, at the point of face palming.

“Yes, Doctor?” The Heavy said while looking at the Medic.

“You forgot to count yourself.” He said, causing one of the red team scouts to fall down laughing. The red Heavy motioned with his finger as if counting again, and at the end pointed at his chest. Immediately his eyes light up.

“We do have 76, VERY GOOD!” He said as he ran to the truck and lifted a large crate from the back. “Come on tiny baby men, start hauling out the crates!” Soon enough the Heavies began to carry the crates, while the Blue Medic handed out the weapons and odds and ends. The red Heavy grabbed his Sasha, Sandwich, and fingerless gloves. The blue Medic had his Medigun, Crusader’s Crossbow, and Bone saw.

“Alright, where are we going to set up?” The blue Medic asked the Rahgahgogarian.

“Well, you and the rest of the incoming men will be held up in sector G-27, follow me.” He said as he began to walk toward the site, but before they got too far, the roar of engines was heard as a ship commenced touchdown. The group turned and saw the ‘Normandy’ land. The ramp opened and let out a group of people and aliens.

“Hello, you with Jason’s group?” Sheppard said to the Rahgahgogarian.

“Yes, but he is in the council room right now. This group and I were heading over to the place where you guys are holding up while in your stay.” The Rahgahgogarian said back to Sheppard.

“Well we better wait a bit; I saw a few more ships coming down.” He said pointing upwards at the several looming shadows coming closer. Soon the alternate U.N.S. ships landed and let out their troops, including several Spartans, with Master Chief amongst their number. Suddenly a Combine Ship crashed into the group, and all guns automatically snapped to it. Slowly Gordon Freeman and Alex came out with a few rebels.

“Not the best entrance, but it does for getting here in a hurry.” Alex said as she took out her shotgun. The group of rebels wasn’t as large as every other group, but they had some of the most varied weapon types and skill sets around.

“Alright, all of you, follow me, Jason has a part of camp set up just for you all while you are staying here.” The Rahgahgogarian said as he started off towards the camp.

I walked through the doorway into the council room where a group of some of the most trusted generals of the U.S. sat in a meeting.

“Major General Jason Paladin Webster reporting as requested, sirs.” I said as I assumed my position in front of the table with my arms crossed behind my back.

“Thank you for coming with such speed, please take a seat.” I pulled out one of the chairs. I folded my hands and placed them on the table as I leaned forward. “Jason, we are gathered here to discuss pressing matters that have happened of late. Firstly, concerning the status of the newly found traitor, General Armando Sanchez, how exactly did he die?” I began to tell about how Max and I stormed the base and how I had run into him while covering myself from the blast.

“It is very unfortunate that he was a traitor. Undoubtedly, he was sending vital information to the U.N., that means that now they have one less supplier of info, so good job in that respect. Now it’s time to move onto the second concern of this meeting, one concerning you, but more specifically your rank. Please make you way over here.” I stood up and walked to the other end of the table. The well aged man stood up, his features slightly damaged by scars, his gray beard and head of full hair gave him an air of respect. His four stars that decorated both his chest and shoulder pads gave me all the more reason to respect him. I noticed his name tag and was shocked to read ‘General Logan Connors’. This man was truly a soldier from the past, one of the first six to have A.I.s, he truly was something amazing.

“Before you left for your mission the board of Generals has approved for you to gain a rank, but now we have changed our decision.” with the way this conversation was going, I’d still be honored ever if I was stripped a rank, as long as it might be an iconic soldier, which was a rather pathetic thing on my part. “After some words to the President and several other members of high ranking offices we have come to the decision that these should be taken from you.” He said as he removed my two stars from my sleeves and chest. “And give you these.” With that he placed something a bit bigger than one star on my chest and sleeves. I looked down and saw the gleaming five stars looking back at me with the twirling vines under them. “Jason Paladin Webster, for acts of bravery, extreme prowess, quick thinking, for going above and beyond the call of duty, for over all doing what some may consider the impossible, The Council of Generals, President and Vice-President of the United States, Senate, and House of Representatives declares you to now be raised to the rank of ‘General of the Armies’ and to be the head of The Council of Generals.” I was completely shocked as he saluted me, along with the rest of the council as they stood up and raised their right hand to their forehead. I looked to the war worn man in front of me.

“It is an honor I cannot say I deserve, thank you all, I will try to live up to your expectations of me.” They took their hand out from salute and began to clap as General Logan led me from the room with a firm slap to the back and a smile.

“I believe you’re needed outside. Larzyhorintorhmax communicated with me in the middle of the meeting saying that all of the people who you had called have arrived and are being led to the reserved area. Also, take this jacket; it looks like it’s going to storm out there soon enough.” Logan told me as we passed through the door way. I nodded, grabbed the jacket, and walked towards the outside.

The air was fresh and was rather chilly, even though by what my father had said only a little while earlier, we were only in spring, but then again, spring is rather cold. I ran towards the separate camp, while zipping up the jacket Logan had given me. I soon found the men organizing their things. Max walked up to me and handed me a pad that gave the number of troops.

76 fighters from Red and Blue teams, 100 rebels including Gordon Freeman and Alex, approximately 235 with Sheppard including several army regulars, and +1000 from U.N.S.C. making a total of around 1500 men if not more.

I was rather well pleased with the number of units we had present.

“Sir, have you contacted the Princesses yet?” Max asked me. I turned to him and nodded.

“Aye, just before I entered the meeting I had Spike send off a letter to the Princesses, we should be hearing from them soon.”

“Speaking of the meeting, what happened?” He said as he slightly cocked his head. I unzipped my jacket slightly and showed my five stars to Max, who stumbled back slightly and stood up extremely straight and did a salute.

“At ease, Max, we are still friends and part of the same unit, no reason to start abrupt reverencing now.” Max released his tight stance and return to his normal relaxed stance. I zipped up my jacket and breathed in deeply releasing a puff of steam as I exhaled. Suddenly a burst of magic energy came from behind me. I whipped out my magnum and aimed at the materializing being. The being slowly stood up to its full height and released a huge sigh as it finished stretching. Even though he lacked his usual lightning bolt effect, I recognized him in an instant.

“Discord, what are you doing here?” I said as I adjusted my aim to point right at his face. Discord looked taken aback, and maybe slightly scared.

“Put that thing down! I’m here to deliver a message from the princess.” He said while recovering from the initial shock of having a heavy-duty pistol loaded with anti-personnel rounds.

“Fat chance buster, now stand down.” I said as I flicked my pistol down, signaling him to get down on the ground.

“Wait, Jason, he’s a friendly!” I heard my father shouting from behind me. I turned and saw him coming up quickly. “Discord is on our side, he’s good.” I turned to the draconequus and eyed his suspiciously.

“Are you sure, dad? Last time I checked Discord was one of the bad ones.” I said as I continued to be alert.

“Yes, ever since season three he’s been good.” I put my pistol back in its holster and addressed Discord.

“Sorry about that, last time I knew about you, you were against the ponies.” I said extending my hand to the now kneeling creature of chaos. He grabbed my hand and shook it as he stood up.

“I understand I haven’t been for ponies for all that long so I am still mistaken for wanting chaos to spread.” Discord replied with a facial expression I could label as a smile, although it was on the edge with a sinister grin.

“So what is the message from Celestia?” I said as I folded my arms behind my back.

“She says that she awaits your arrival, and that I am to teleport you to your destination.” He said as he again stretched his back, creating a rather loud pop.

“Alright, I’m ready to head out, Max, keep these guys in order until I’m back.” Max saluted and walked away towards the large group of men attending to their weapons. Discord snapped his finger while he had his hand on my shoulder, and quickly a flash of light enveloped us. We soon stopped moving, with another flash of light letting us loose from a slight limbo state. Discord pointed towards the great door at the end of the hall, I nodded and walked up to it. I pushed open the door and found the two princesses sitting at a table, much like the first time, except this time I actually sit down, being as my weight was reduced to around 170 pounds, a rather manageable weight for a chair.

“Your letter said that you needed to talk urgently with us. What is the matter and how does it concern us, also what were all those things falling towards the Ponyville?” Celestia asked me, getting right down to business.

“The things descending towards Ponyville where drop pods and ships here to help us, and the reason we need their help is tied to why I asked for this meeting. We have found out that the U.N. is here and needs something that is abundant on this world, magic. Knowing the U.N. they are going to fight to the end just to get any measure of the stuff, even resorting to kidnapping a unicorn.” I said as I leaned forward, folding my hands on the table as I usually do.

“Oh my, this is not good at all is it? What do you suggest we do, being as you are the one with more experience with these people?” Celestia asked, growing rather concerned.

“We have called in aid from several sources, and we are still expecting several units. But until U.N. makes it move it would be best if we hunkered down and prepared for the battle ahead.” I said, and would have continued had it not been for Luna interjecting quickly.

“Wait, you mean we are not going to attack them now when they are not at full strength? With the assistance you have now you could…” I stopped her by slamming my hand palm first on the table.

“We could die and not be able to stop them. Luna, with all due respect, but you have not seen even one of the past seventeen years. We have the greatest group forces on the ground, and stand the greatest chance of winning if we stand our ground and get ready to hold them off. Trust me, if this battle had ponies out of the equation, I might just send up an attack squad and try bringing them down, but considering we are here to protect you from any harm I can’t do that.” I said, slightly angered at the nighttime princess. I sighed and looked at her. “I have fought against the U.N. a few more times than most, I was on the team that attacked the Gohoritykah home world, and trust me, it was living hell there, and I can expect no less for this world if we attack now and weaken ourselves potentially more then we could weaken them. My entire reason for building up strength here is all in the best interest of every pony in Equestria.” I said sitting up straight as I relaxed.

“Then what else do you have to suggest? You couldn’t have asked for this meeting just to tell us this.” Celestia said still rather concerned for her ponies.

“I… I request for you to provide us the assistance of your Equestrian Guard, and to give us right to draft any pony into the war effort.” I said, rather hesitant to make such a bold request to a princess entirely in favor of peace.

“Seeing as… seeing as war is upon us as we speak, and that our ponies would have fought this war whether they wish to or not, I believe that you may be able to provide them with training and resources to help them stand a chance against the U.N. soldiers. I entrust you with the care of our dear ponies, treat them well.” Celestia said halfheartedly. I understood her entirely; this was a choice only a Gohoritykah could take lightly. I admired her courage above everything.

“Thank you, I’ll make sure they are equipped as best as they can be and trained to the height of their potential.” I said as I began to stand up.

“I trust it to be so. I’ll send word to Shining Armor to send our forces to Ponyville.” She said in the final conclusion.

“Also, I’ll be shipping over a few units and defense mechanisms to the city; I suggest telling your ponies in a conference about what is happening so they aren’t in the dark.” I said before I turned to the door and walked out. I looked at Discord you nodded and snapped his fingers, sending me back to where we had stood before, but he was not with me.

“Sir, how did the meeting go?” I heard Max say just as I came back.

“They accepted and are going to send over their guard and give us the right to enlist the ponies necessary. I don’t want to drag to many more ponies into fighting so enlist them sparingly.” Max saluted and walked off towards the town. I walked over into the main building of our operations, and found Twilight with her friends talking to a guard.

“Orders are orders ma’am, you’re not allowed in unless you have proper identification or are accompanied by an escort, of which we don’t have to many of.” The guard said to Twilight and her friends.

“What’s going on here, soldier?” I said to the guard, who was a First Lieutenant. The guard turned to me and saluted.

“These ponies are requesting admittance but don’t have proper identification on any of them, much less an escort.” He said pointing towards the colorful quadrupeds.

“These ponies are to be granted full access, excluding the Council Room, give them their I.D. tags later, until them, I’m taking charge of them. Understood?” I said to the soldier.

“Sir, only a full grade general can give that order, you are only a…” I stopped him by unzipping my jacket slightly, exposing my five stars. He saluted immediately, in a rather stiff pose. “I’m sorry, sir, I wasn’t informed earlier that you had been given the rank.”

“It’s alright, I haven’t had for too long. Carry on.” The soldier stepped to the side, allowing me and the ponies through the door.

“Thanks, Jason, he was rather obstinate.” Twilight said as she trotted up next to me.

“Well, he’s supposed to be, it’s protocol to have correct identification, and I’m sorry I hadn’t given you it earlier.” I said without looking at her.

“It’s alright. And what do the five stars on your shirt mean? I get they symbolize a rank you have, but what exact rank?” She said, taking a glance at the five stars.

“The rank they signify is General of the Armies, the highest possible rank in the armed forces, except of course President and Vice-President, but they run the country so, General of the Armies is the highest enlisted rank possible.” With that being said, all eyes stared at me in disbelief. I interrupted their daunted gaze by entering a chamber and motioning for them to stop. The door slowly closed behind me, and I pressed the communications link button to the outside hall. “This place is where I am going to get suited up, you need to wait outside, but there is an observation area where you can watch the process. I’ll call a guard for you so nothing bad happens while you watch.”

Twilight her friends looked at each other for a moment, but soon a guard came up and directed them to the watching area. He walked up to the pad, and after pressing a few buttons a little man popped up from the screen.

“Confirm selection, H-W suit operation for civilians.” The little man said to the guard. The guard pressed a button and the man nodded. “Welcome all to the presentation of the Heavy Webster, or H-W, suit up operation. The person who is going to be suited up today has not yet entered, so until then, let me explain a few details over the H-W suit’s origins. In the year 2035 Johann Webster created the first model of the W suit, which in later years became the base model for the L-W, the Light Webster suits. After a year, Johann created the Mark III, his last model, which became the base model for the H-W suit. After one year Uranus Innovations took over the creating of the specialized suits. When they had created the Mark VII They began creating both L-W suits and H-W suits. The L-W and H-W suits began receiving many more upgrades in a shorted amount of time, and as an example of that, the current model of the normal W suit is the Mark IX while as the L-W is in the XIX model and the H-W is in model XXVII.” At that moment Jason walked into the room, his stars removed from his shirt and his jacket taken off. He walked up onto the platform, and soon four robotic arms came out from the floor and ceiling and placed metal rings on his wrists and ankles. Suddenly he began to float upwards as a low humming sound began.

“The metal rings on the man’s wrist and ankles are small electromagnets, the room is equipped with several electromagnets, and so with the aid of these devices he is able to be elevated to the correct level where the robotic arms can suit him up. To begin, the first layer you now see being placed on him is a composite of rubber interwoven with aluminum for both protection and flexibility. This layer’s back is the thickest since it is this layer that contains the shield generators and the power supply for all the suits vital functions and add-ons, all except the helmet’s systems which are powered by an independent lithium ion battery rated for use up to ten years.” The arms twirled around towards a hatch and picked up the next layer, that looked like a black latex suit with blue spots scattered across it.

“This layer is made up of tough fibers that have energy absorbing gems implanted at regular intervals, being the blue spots. This layer is responsible for absorbing a good amount of the energy from plasma weaponry and most shock weapons, and not only absorbs them but uses the energy obtained to help power the generators. The crystals are the strongest energy absorbing matter, but if too many impulses are making impact at a time the crystals may break, causing a failure in that region of the suit.” The arms again reached into the small cabinet and grabbed something from it and swung it towards Jason. The layer itself looked like a suit made of thousands of threads bundled together, much like a suit of exterior muscle. One thing distinct about this part of the suit, however, was the fact its collar reached the base of Jason’s head.

“This next layer is a rather important layer for every user of the H-W suit and most every model of the W suits. This layer is special technology that increases the wearer’s strength greatly; this layer also has special metal strands in each bundle that help ease the striking force of any type of impact.” The arms stopped moving for a second, but soon a humming sound started up, and soon a human model rose from the floor with heavy metal armor being worn by it.

“This is the last and heaviest part of the suit.” the little man started again. “This layer is not only the primary protection for the unit when the shield fails, but also is the layer of the suit that contains all of the add-ons, except armor lock, which is housed in the first layer of the suit.” The arms swung from the dummy to Jason, taking armor from the model and placing it on Jason. Jason slowly was lowered to the floor as the arms placed the final piece on, his helmet which was very different from the regular W suit. While as the regular W suit’s helmet was mostly metal with a visor about 3 and a half inches tall and 10 inches long, the H-W suit was mostly glass. The only metal on it was on the bottom side, which slowly sloped up as it went farther towards the back.

Jason stood on the platform as the arms removed the electromagnetic rings from his wrists and ankles. Then the arms placed on each layer suit layer’s gloves and boots, and soon he walked out of the room and out the opposite door than the one he had entered.

I walked out of the doorway with the familiar weight of the suit on my shoulders. I grabbed Orion’s chip from an alternation tower, which had transported and changed certain information and placed it onto a new chip suited for my new helmet and suit style. I placed the chip into the slot on the back of my helmet, and quickly Orion’s face popped up, along with the suits several systematic that had finally powered up.

I looked towards the six ponies, which starred awe struck at my huge armor. I pulled of my helmet and looked at them.

“Now we are ready to begin this fight.”

Admiral Sandusky watched with, what can only be described as, an evil grin. He watched as the Forerunner, Covenant, Reapers, Combine, and Robot ships quickly approached the planet. The Cybermen, Darlek, and Sontaran ships had been held back as the backup, if needed, although it took a lot of convincing to keep the Sontarans from charging.

The U.N.S. Hailstorm’s inter-multiversal disturbance alarm went off and soon several ships zipped by. The ships were easily spotted to be a high jacked Combine and Robot ship and the U.N.’s multiversal inverse twin, a U.N.S.C. fleet. Quickly following them were several U.S. space craft.

“Sir, fifteen cruiser classes and five cutter classes have just breached the gap, their coming to engage.” A man shouted to the Admiral from his station.

“Get to battle stations!” The Admiral shouted to all the ship over the inter-com. Soon the plasma turrets were manned, and several small battle pods were ready for launch. “Plasma turrets shoot at the cruisers, battle pods, go for the cutters.” Soon the side of the Hailstorm was light up by launching pods and firing turrets.

Admiral of the Fleet Johnson stood at his battle platform. Around his men sent signals to the other ships and received signals from others.

“Shoot down the Darleks; we can’t have them join the ground battle.” The Admiral shouted. Soon enough dozens of high accelerated Ion canons launched their deadly beams and the one point, along with energy bolts hurtling towards the individual Darleks. The Admiral soon saw the U.N. battle pods screeching through the fleet. “Tell the Piranha to shot down the pods but mind its aim.” The Admiral ordered.

“The Piranha is setting in motion and is sending out its own pods, sir.” A man shouted to the Admiral. The Admiral nodded and watched as volley after volley of bolts of energy were sent towards the Darlek fleet. The Darleks could stand most of the energy bolts, but the occasional Ion blasts assured great damage for their targets, if not death.

“Helm’s man, steers us towards the Hailstorm and direct our gunners to attack it, but make sure all other guns in the fleet are on the Darleks.” The Admiral shouted. The ship slowly turned as the Helm’s man directed the ship towards the looming U.N. ship. All the guns turned towards the ship and began unleashing a barrage of energy bolt with a few intermixed Ion blasts. The ships shields flared up, catching most energy bolts, but let the Ion blast along with the energy bolt that traveled close to them. The Hailstorm began unleashing missiles, which the energy bolts were able to destroy.

Suddenly a flash of red light came into view, and several ships exploded as a bolt of energy slashed through them. The Admiral looked and saw a lone Reaper shooting at them.

“Keep the energy bolts going where they are, redirect all Ion cannons towards that Reaper!” The communication station came alive as all lines were used to send the message, and soon twenty Ion blasts charged at the Reaper, and were quickly able to destroy it, but soon three more came into view and began launching their deadly attacks at the fleet, destroying ship after ship. Soon the Ion blast came again and shot down another, but again the Reapers let out a large roar and released their massacring beams. A beam passed closed by the ships view, causing the shields to flare up and fall quickly.

The Admiral looked at his display and saw massive damage coming on all sides. He looked up at his crew.

“Aim all weapons at those monsters! Take them down at all cost!” The fleet turned towards the two remaining Reapers and unleashed all their missiles, energy pulses, and Ion blasts possible. And in an instant both Reapers were dead, but before the crews of the ships could cheer, on last, huge, Reaper came up.

The Admiral flipped a few switches and directed himself towards the Helm’s man.

“Full acceleration at that Reaper, we’re going to ram it head on.” The crew turned to him.

“But, sir…” one man began.

“Do it, this ship can’t take much more anyway, tell the other ships that if they are at critical to ram into some ship and bring it down with them, that’s an order.” The Admiral shouted at his crew members. The Helm’s man turned to the wheel and assured a true shot at the Reaper. He warmed up the booster for what would be a sub-warp speed ramming. “Set the ramming timer to thirty seconds, Helm’s man.” The Admiral said as he moved his finger towards the ship’s inter-com button.

“Aye, sir, thirty second timer set.” The Helm’s man said just before Johnson pressed the button. The button sunk under the man’s finger, and soon the ship was alive with his voice echoing through the halls.

“This is Admiral Amos Johnson, the ship is at critical, and we are going to ram into the remaining Reaper. Any man who wishes to drop pod down to the planet may do so and have nothing held against him. To those who are to remain, please make your way to the Ion cannons and hope for the best. That is all.” The Admiral let go of the button and the channel was cut off. He looked out the window and saw several drop pods already going to the surface. He turned to his remaining crew members who sat at the positions as usual. “You all may also leave.” A man turned to the Admiral.

“We are with you until the end, sir.” The Admiral smiled. He looked down to his pad and pressed the last button and soon the ship’s automated voice rang out through the ship.

‘Self-destruction Nukes armed and ready for use.’ The crew members did not flinch, and no more pods were sent down to the surface as any member of the crew might have made his last attempt to leave behind this death.

“Ramming commencing in 3...2…1.” The Helm’s man said, and suddenly the ship jumped into motion, as several Ion blasts were released at once and slammed into the Reaper only millisecond before the ship ran into it insuring its death. The ship jerked violently as they came to a sudden stop as it hit the Reaper, but not in a solid stop as the front of the ship exploded violently as it continued to strive through the synthetic beast. The Nukes suddenly let loose, and everything was evaporated inside the ship.

The Admiral tilted his head back as the heat ripped his apart. He felt no pain, he had no regrets, he only had peace, the one thing he had ever sought to have. He smiled one last time as his last breath escaped his lungs.

Chapter 9: The Sacrifice

I hopped into the jet-helicopter along with several other men. I took my seat that faced towards the outside. I saw several transport pods taking of carrying their cargo of land based Ion cannons. Our vehicle lifted up, and soon we were speeding towards the attack zone. In the short time before now the ponies had been trained enough to be left with the care of Ponyville with only a few humans on hand.

A few minutes after I had suited up, the Doctor had arrived and told us that several U.N. ships descending on what Twilight identified as Trottingham. By what the Doctor said, there were a large number of ships, larger than the number in the fleet we had.

The helicopter stopped with a jerking motion as the engines pointed down to ease our descent slightly. While we were still five feet or so in the air, the unit jumped out and the helicopter zoomed of to pick up the next unit.

The scene we were met with was worse than that of the Gohoritykah home world. With Max at my side, we charged up to the nearest cover, which appeared to be a ruined house. I shouldered my sniper rifle, while Max made sure his energy repeater was properly loaded. He both came out of our cover and began charging towards the main hub of the disaster.

I fired of several rounds at the different assailants, and soon I had to release the clip and slam in the next.

“We need to clear out a landing zone for the jet-helicopters so they can evacuate the civilians.” I said over the radio. Max nodded and began to shoot off move rounds as I began to shove away several boulders that littered the area. Suddenly a blast of energy slammed into the ground, causing Max and I to fall down.

I looked towards the crater, then up to what had caused it. It was a covenant ship that was activating its levitation and lowering fields onto the site. I unpinned a grenade and set it to ten seconds and threw it into the levitation field. Soon an explosion was seen and both fields turned off, but that didn’t stop the covenants from coming. Soon a black field was seen as they jumped out from their ships.

“We need to get rid of these guys and clear the area as fast as we can. I’m going to set up a support beacon.” I said as I grabbed the blue beacon from my pack and placed it in the ground and activated it, which caused it to send out a radio signal.

I put away my rifle and took out my heavy energy repeater. I pulled the second trigger, which caused it to launch an extra battery like a RPG with about the same effect on those who were unfortunate enough to be in the area of effect. I loaded in another battery into the compartment as I pulled the first trigger, causing it to unleash a swarm of energy bolts.

Max and I jumped behind the same cover as several Combines, robots, and Forerunners joined the field. I looked over our cover and unleashed some more energy bolts which killed a few Covenants, Combines, and Forerunners, but only succeeded in charging the robots. I ducked behind our cover and replaced one of the three batteries plugged into my gun. I checked my ammo stock and noticed it has running dry, only five sniper clips and six batteries.

“How much ammo you got?” I said to Max. He checked inside his pouch and counted the clips as fast as he could.

“Seven clips for my assault rifle and two for my energy repeater.” He said looking around our cover and releasing a few more shot, only to be quickly met by several clicks of an empty clip. He threw the dry clip away and took out another clip and slammed it into place. “Make that six for my assault rifle.” Suddenly several drop pods slammed into the ground, and released several U.S. soldiers that all either had L-W or normal W suits on. They began making their way towards our position while firing at our enemies, and soon ten other men where with us behind our wall.

“Glad you could make, we were in a slight pickle for a second.” I said to the men who had joined us.

“We you aren’t out of it yet, we didn’t get to stock up so well back on our ship.” One of the men said to me.

“What do you mean?” I asked, just before an explosive round landed near our bunker.

“Our ship was falling apart and as a last desperate attempt of fighting, our captain charged into a Reaper, we were given thirty second to get out, and that didn’t really give much time for us to stock up on ammo. We got a total of ten batteries and seven normal clips.” The man replied after the shrapnel stopped falling. I sighed and lifted my gun out from cover and shot at the enemy line once again.

“Well at least we can fire from more angels.” I said as I came back into cover and unloaded an empty clip and replaced it with a full one.

I looked in one of the building that still stood and saw a sniper scoped in, but where exactly, I couldn’t tell. I switched from my heavy energy weapon and to my sniper rifle. Suddenly the sound of a sniper round going off was heard, and I was the muzzle flash coming from the guy in the building. At the same instant I was Max fall down to the ground in a puff of white. I quickly scoped in, and without calculating for more than a second, I pulled the trigger and was met by a red mist as my target fell.

“Max, are you alright?” I said as I turned to him. I was him taking out his hand from the hole made by the sniper round, and as he did, he showed his finger to be covered in something white.

“No, I’m not alright. Death pollen is coming from the wound.” Max said simply. I knew instantly what he meant. The reason a Rahgahgogarian can regenerate his body part is because of his pith, but when it is destroyed or damaged severely he can no longer regenerate damaged part and will slowly decay. Death pollen is the body’s last attempt at rebuilding itself, but instead it releases white pollen like substances being as all regenerative cells are now dead cells, being as all regenerative cells are generated in the pith and since the pith can no longer sustain them, they die before they can regenerate any part of the body.

Max sat up and looked at me one last time, then he vaulted over the wall. I jumped over the wall and watched as Max ran towards the line of enemies, unloading his assault rifle as fast as it would go.

Max slid under several U.N. allies and sprayed them with lead. He rolled into a crouch and released the clip and slammed in the next clip, the last clip. He fire at the units around him, but soon he ran dry. He then grabbed a shotgun that a dead man had been holding, and released all of its rounds as he grabbed a Forerunner repeater. The shot tore through all of the surrounding men, covenants, robots, Gohoritykah, and Forerunners. Max then threw it at a Heavy robot. He then jumped over a U.N. regular, and grabbed his assault rifle. He landed and grabbed the plasma repeater that lay beside him. He aimed one to his left and the other to his right as he mowed down several more units.

“I’m sorry, Jason, but I’m not about to simply fall apart in some bed when I could have aided you. Take this action as my final gift.” Max said to me, and to me alone, as he continued to fire at the U.N.s around him. All the men, including me, where so shocked we didn’t move to assist him; instead all of the men, except me, crouched behind the bunkers.

Max threw the Plasma repeater at a nearby U.N. regular and slammed the assault rifle over a scout robot’s head. Max grabbed a plasma sword off of a dead Gohoritykah’s belt. He squeezed the handle’s two parts together, and the beam came alive with a hiss. He slashed a Combine in half and grabbed its pistol before it hit the ground. Suddenly a plasma bolt sliced through his left arm, the one that held the sword, and caused it to hang from his main body in a grotesque manner. Max knocked off the useless appendage and continued to fire, but soon several more bolts hit him in the chest, but he did not care, this was his last battle any way, and he might as well make it a good one. A Covenant Brute swung his hammer towards the Rahgahgogarian’s face, but Max was able to jump back, increasing distance between him and death, but it was still able to scrape across his right cheek, causing several plates to fall off, exposing a pink tissue that soon morphed into small scales and convert into a darker shade of green.

Max turned to the Brute and shot off several bullets into its chest, causing it to fall dead in a heap of blood. Max shot off the remaining bullets from his pistol, then threw it at a Covenant Elite, who would have cut off his head with his plasma sword. Max punched a Gohoritykah Elite in the chest and grabbed his plasma repeater, and quickly fired of several rounds until the battery has empty.

He grabbed a Jackal and punched it in the face. Max then grabbed its Needler and quickly finished of the Covenant soldier. Max let go of the pistol and grabbed one of the sticky grenades it had been carrying. He primed it and lobbed it at a Gohoritykah Aggressor, who was soon reduced to rubble. Max then grabbed the dead Brute’s gravity hammer and slammed it down on a group of Gohoritykah and Covenants, causing their quick demise.

The man beside me grabbed my shoulder and whispered into my ear.

“We need to go; he’s holding them off for us.” Almost as if I was in a trance, I turned and ran towards the jet-helicopter that hovered only a foot above the ground. I climbed in with the last man only steps behind me. I reached out and grabbed his hand, but just as I was pulling him up, a sniper round went off, and he slumped over as the round pierced his chest, with the round lodged deeply in the helicopter’s floor. A man grabbed my forearm, causing me to let go of the dead man. The man slumped over into the pool of blood, amongst the rubble and all the other dead corpses.

I looked back towards where Max fought on with his adversaries.

Max grabbed a plasma grenade and charged a Brute, and with one surge of strength, he lodged it deep within its armor. The Brute’s tiny eyes grew slightly larger with fear, and he ran as he tried to pull the heavy piece of armor off, but soon he was destroyed along with many who were close to him.

A Covenant Elite sliced at Max’s head with his energy sword, but only succeeded in cutting his chest as he jumped backwards. Max landed and grabbed his wound. He grabbed a combine focus rifle and shot off several blasts at his enemies. He then flipped it in the air and grabbed it by the shooting end, and used it as a club as he brought it down on a Covenant Grunt.

Max punched the Gohoritykah Runner and grabbed its light pistol, and shot of as many shots as the battery contained. A Covenant Brute slammed its hammer down near Max, causing him to fly a distance.

Max landed a skidding stop, but he soon got up. He grabbed a drop shield from a dead Gohoritykah Elite and attached it to his chest belt. He then grabbed the same dead body’s sword, and sliced at the charging Gohoritykah Runner, who soon lost his life.

Max sliced and hacked, but soon the battery of the sword died, and he was left with a hilt. A Gohoritykah Runner with his plasma knife charged Max and stabbed his several times in the chest. Max kicked the little warrior in the chest, and then stole its knife, only to throw it into the chest of a Combine.

Max readied himself in a jumping position, and with the power of his reversely jointed legs, propelled himself into the air. He then spread his wings giving himself a little more height. Bellow him the combined forces of his assailants rushed to be nearer to their target, and pointed their weapons up to destroy him. Max unclipped his drop shield and threw it as hard as he could at the forces bellow. He then looked up and closed his eyes as the crystal slammed into the ground and exploded, releasing a wild field of energy that quickly expanded towards him.

“I’m sorry, Jason, sorry that I couldn’t see this war through until the end with you, but it is my time. I’m sorry, so sorry.” With that the field of energy reached him, and quickly made work of him as he turned into ash.

I walked through the halls of the base. I did not feel, I did not see, I did not walk, and I did not care. Max was dead, and I was still retracting from this event. I had just watched him run into the enemy line and die. I couldn’t even help.

I walked past the Doctor, who asked me a question, which was left unanswered.

I had just seen him sacrifice himself for me and the rest of the men. I had just seen him charge the Gohoritykah’s and the U.N. lackeys plasma and bullets, and destroy them all, as he fell apart. I was there… and did nothing. I had my rifle, and shot at nothing, I had my wits, and thought nothing, and I had a friend, and did not help him in the moment of need. I had shot and fought with anger before that point, but I had frozen when the white powder was revealed. I had seen the sniper… I had seen him aim for him… and yet, I did nothing.

I turned the corner to walk down the hall where my room was.

I… I had failed. Equestria may live on, we may win the war, but I had failed where it mattered most. I had… let him down.

I opened the door and walked inside my room, the door closing behind me with a soft thud. I took off my helmet and tossed it on the chair that was nearest to me. I walked over, off-handedly hearing the dull thuds of my feet striking the metal ground under me. I reached my shelf, and grabbed the holographic frame that contained the last memory. It was a picture of me and Max. I looked at it, tears forming at the corners of my eyes.

“Why, Max, why?” I said in a whisper. I touched the place where Max was in the picture. The picture morphed around my finger as it attempted to make contact. And the tears finally let loose as the dams behind my eyes broke forth.

“WHY! WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE HIM AND NOT ME?” I shouted as I crushed the pad.

“NO! PLEASE NO!” I shouted as I realized what I had done. I fell down to my knees and searched the bits and pieces of electronics, searching for the info card… which I did find… in three pieces.

“NO! WHY? WHY DID I DO IT? WHY OH WHY OH WHY?” I screamed in agony as the last thing of Max in this world was gone. Gone… why does a word like that exist? Is it to torment a soul and give a word lacking so much to give the feeling of despondence at the thought of how something is no more?

‘Why… why did it have to end? Why did anything have to end? Why couldn’t those blasted Russian and Chinese idiots have to start this war? WHY!’ I thought to myself as my agony grew tenfold and my hands met my eyes as I cried and cried. A puddle formed around me and the small pieces of hardware that laid in pieces on the floor in front of me.

If I had strength I would have made the floor in front of me a crater, but my arms lacked the power and I lacked the will. I fell face first onto the bits of the broken pad and cried harder. The world slipped away as all this around me faded to black. This was not sleep… this was despair. I felt the floor soaking under me, yet I did not feel it. I felt a tap on my shoulder, yet I lay motionless, except for the occasional skip in my breathing as my lungs tried to give me more air, while my brains systems asked for less to ease itself with death.

‘Gone… why…how… no.’ I thought slowly. My mind began to kick, as it had all the way down the hall.

Max: the one who had filled the gap of Pershing. Max: the one who had saved me on several occasions. Max: the one who I considered my best friend. Max: The one who I did NOT repay the debt to. Max: the one who died… because of me. Max: the one who died as I watched.

A poke touched my side, but I did not feel it. All I felt was sadness and it consumed my whole.

Max: the one… the one and only… the one… who will never be again. Sanchez: The unseen traitor who killed two of them, the one I could have and should have seen. Pershing: The one who had died on our tenth mission as a team… the one who died by a plasma rifle that I saw and could not stop. Zimmerman: the one who I loved as a brother. Henslowe: The one, who I hated to play cards with, yet loved to be with. Max: the one…. who I cared most for. All of them were dead… because of my inaction or own actions.

Why… why was my pain so great? And why must I alone feel it… why oh why oh why. Why was there no shoulder to lean on, no voice speaking words of comfort, not presence to drive the shadows away from my mind?

Again, something touched my side, and this time I felt it dully pestering at my mind to respond. I wiped the tears from my eyes and looked too had been touching me. My visor cleared out, and I was the Equine face of my father. He looked at me with watering eyes, almost as if he had been feeling my pain. I grabbed him and brought him into a hug.

“Why, why did he have to go, and why must I stay here?” I whispered into his ear as I continued to cry.

“I don’t know, Jason, but what I do know is that he made this sacrifice so you could continue on, and not to wallow in the bogs of despair. We need to pick ourselves up and fight on for what they sacrificed themselves for, we must continue.” I pulled him away, feeling a flicker of anger in my chest.

“He sacrificed himself so I could live, they all did. I could have saved them, but I didn’t. Father, you have no idea how it feels to have been able to save a person and…” He put his hoof over my mouth before I could continue on.

“Yes I do, son. I could have stopped yelling at the doctors and spent some research time to develop a cure for my father. I could have been there for my mother, but I was being useless in the lab instead. I could have saved you from the torment you now feel, but I was to scared, I was afraid you and your mother might not make it through the portal, so I pushed you out.” I grabbed his hoof and shoved it aside.

“I could have saved Max. I saw the sniper scoping in, but I didn’t take the shot. I had suspicions about Sanchez, but I didn’t act, and now both Henslowe and Zimmerman are dead along with him. I could have… I could have shot the Gohoritykahs as they charged Pershing, but… but I didn’t. I could have saved Baedeker by staying inside that jet-helicopter, but I got scared by the missiles, and jumped before I could help him.” My father’s eyes dilated slightly.

“Baedeker is… is dead?” He asked, gulping about the probable answer.

“Yes, he’s dead, along with Hartman… and… and Mom.” I said crying even harder. I fell on my father’s shoulder. He tried to comfort me as best as he could as he patted me on the back.

“It’s alright, but there is something you are wrong about.” I pushed him away to see him face to face. “You mother is not dead, far from it, see is alive and… slightly well.” I looked at him in disbelief. “I had told Baedeker to tell no one this, and it seems he stay true to his word. I told him that if for some reason I or one of you made it, and the others did not, to release he code to teleport them through as soon as possible. Your mother came through two years ago, and I had expected you to come soon after her, but it seems that Baedeker wasn’t able to fulfill his promise before the war got to him.” I looked at him, wandering how it was possible my mother was alive.

“Where… where is she?” I said through the knot in my throat.

“She is in the Ponyville hospital; she was due to give birth to your sister today or tomorrow.” He said with a small smile. “But you can’t visit her quite yet, you need some rest before you do anything.” I smiled at him and hugged him one last time.

I walked down the hall of a ship of some sort. The hallways were dark except for the red light that appeared ever so often down the hall. The place was filled with dead bodies and was covered in the stench of decay. I walk lowly, having no weapons or armor on my person at the moment, but still hoping for some to be looted from the bodies. I entered a doorway that had a picture of a rifle above it, signifying multiversaly that it was the armory, and if no weapons or armor where inside this room, there none to be found anywhere. The room usually would have racks that were lined with cartridges, guns, and suits of armor, but instead of those things, they were covered in heads, other body parts, and blood. A figure slowly rose from the thick pool of blood on the floor. I readied myself for a fight, but soon recognized the figure.

“Max, what are you doing here?” I shouted to him. He then grabbed an energy sword from off the floor and a rifle in the other. He was shot in the arm, and he knocked it off. I looked towards the approaching foe, and saw Sanchez with his full armor and heavy duty plasma cannon.

Sanchez fired off several more rounds at Max, but Max dodged them with ease. A figure rose from the blood and revealed it to be Henslowe, who quickly attempted to tackle Sanchez. But even though Sanchez had a heavy weapon, he was able to swing it up and catch Henslowe, who turned into a red pulp and faded back into the mulch that covered the room. I ran to attack Sanchez, but was tackled by a Gohoritykah Aggressor, who proceeded to shred me into confetti. I punched the Aggressor in the face and quickly chocked him in the blood that covered the room. I looked up and saw Max slicing at Sanchez, but missing terribly. Sanchez ducked to the side and swung his hefty cannon into position, and blasted Max to bits. I screamed as Max was torn apart. Sanchez turned to me and opened his mouth.

“Jason, Jason wake up! Wake up, Jason!” He shouted in a voice I recognized. But despite the new feminine voice he had, his face still had murder painted all over it. He raised his cannon and released its bullets at my chest.

I woke up with a start, gasping for air and sweating profusely. I looked beside me and saw Twilight looking extremely concerned for me.

I sighed; it was a dream, and a terrible one at that. But since it was a dream all of its parts were false. Then it hit me like a train at full speed, Max WAS dead. With that I broke down into tears.

“What’s wrong, Jason?” Twilight said trying to comfort me. I looked up at her.

“In these five years, did my father ever tell you why he cried under the tree by the path to the Everfree forest?” I asked her. Twilight was silent for a moment.

“No, he never said why he was crying, but I know if he was crying and doesn’t want me to know why, it’s for a good reason.” She said with a small smile.

“Well, I’ll tell you why. He had held in the grief of years; almost decades of sadness, all bottled up. Then it broke open on him that day.” Twilight’s eyes watered slightly. “But we are two different people, he bottled up his grief for later, but I suffer it now. Twilight, do you remember the Rahgahgogarian that was with me and who told you about his kind?” I asked her, with my eyes slightly drier.

“Yes, I remember him.” She said as she nodded. I sighed as I whipped the tears from my eyes.

“He was killed yesterday in battle…” I said as I felt a pang of guilt shoot through me.

“I’m… I’m so sorry, is there any way I can help you?” She said as he climbed up on the bed beside me, being as I was in a sitting position now.

“No, I just need some R and R for now.” Twilight nodded at me and headed out the door. She turned back before she was completely through.

“If there is anything, just tell me, alright?” She said to me while looking back. I nodded and stood up and whipped the pieces of metal of the floor. She smiled and walked out the door.

The door closed with a dull thud, and I was left with the pieces of metal scattered on the floor and my lonely thoughts.

I remembered the first time Max had joined our unit. We had just come back from the Gohoritykah home world campaign. He was young and his dark chitin plates were more of a lighter green than the dark green they shaded to be later on. He was a lot more reckless back then than we had been in recent memory, but then again that recklessness might have been the cause for him to charge. I chuckled as I remembered our first training battle. He had challenged us all to fight him with our favorite weapons with him only having a practice knife and a stun pistol; of course he lost in the end.

I tossed the pieces of metal into the can in the corner of the room. I walked over to the chair where my helmet still laid. I placed it on, and saw Orion’s face showing unnatural compassion for an A.I., especially for Orion who had been made steelier than any A.I. before or after his recoding after the death of Arnold Johnson, the original soldier to have Orion.

“I… I don’t even know what to say.” Orion said with his voice faltering slightly. I sighed and walked out into the halls. They were empty and cold as ever, most soldiers having been tiered or injured from the last fight. I walked outside into the fresh air. I popped out Orion’s chip and attached it to my shoulder pad and pressed the wide display, which caused him to appear full body beside me, almost as if he was a human. I put my helmet under my arm as we walked towards the Ponyville area. By what my father had said, my mother was about to give birth to my extremely little sister.

I chuckled as we walked, approaching the Ponyville hospital. Because of the time difference between the two worlds, I was only missing around ten to thirteen years on my parents, and my sister would be extremely younger than I was, being as I was already closing in on my thirties.

I opened the door and Orion quickly walked through, with me right behind him.

“We are here to visit Miss Rose Webster, which room is she in?” He asked the desk manager, who for the most part flipped through her books.

“She is in Room 212, second floor, on the left side of the hall.” She said rather plainly as she closed the book and went back to reading her ‘Daring Do’ book.

Orion and I soon arriver on the second floor, much to my concern because of my large amount of weight, but Orion calculated my weight was one and a half ton short to make the solid oak floors collapse.

The numbers on the doors went by quickly, and soon we were at Room 212. I knocked on the door, and soon motion came from the other side. My dad opened the door and smiled at us and allowed us to enter.

“Who is it, a doctor? I think I’m fine for now, also I think little Erika is also fine, aren’t you?” I heard a few squeaks and squeals replying to her in a happy tone. My father walked into the room, and motioned for us to follow.

“No doctors, just two visitors.” I heard him say as me and Orion ducked under the doorway, even though Orion could have just walked right through it seeing as he was not truly tangible but merely acting like it. My mother looked at me with a little unicorn filly in her hooves.

“Oh hello there, I heard humans had come to Equestria. How are you two?” My mother asked, cheery as ever.

“I’m fine as I can be.” Orion said as he stayed by the back wall.

“I couldn’t be better.” I said with a smile. I placed my helmet on the floor as I knelt beside the bed. “May I?” I said motioning to the little filly. My mother looked over at my dad, who nodded with a smile.

“Alright, but be careful with her, she is only a day old.” I scooped the little filly up in my arms. She was so small and fragile, yet so cute. She blinked her brown eyes at me. I smiled at her as I held her carefully in my arms.

“I want you to know you have the best Mom and Dad in the world. I should know I had them for ten years myself.” He squirmed and giggled at me, while my mother gapped at me.

“J-Jason, is that you?” I looked up at her and placed the little filly back into her care.

“Yes, it’s me, Mom; it’s good to see you too.” Tears formed at the edges of her eyes. We both smiled at each other, and cried for the years we had missed.

Rahgahgogarians

History and General Details: The Rahgahgogarians are a race of mostly passive creatures that live in the sector DM56 on the planet Zenkrad. As for military advancements, before the U.S, forces arrived their civilization was more in the industrial revolution, meaning their technology was comparable to nineteenth century of Earth. Initially the U.S. forces only advanced their medical facilities, but when they were attacked by the more advanced Gohoritykah of sector GA67, the U.S. was forced to give them more advanced tech including the rarer energy weapons and the more common standard bullet using weapons. As of yet the Rahgahgogarians do not use any form of the W suit because of their unique biology and physical form.

In the first century of this civilization’s recorded history, it depicts a world bathed in blood. Until this time the world of Zenkrad had been inhabited by two races that got along rather passively with each other, besides the occasional boarder battle. At that time neither race had a name except for ‘eastern’ and ‘western’, but their two peoples were not the same at all in their bodily forms. Descriptions of the second party depict a creature that ranged from ten to fourteen feet high. They had six arms and four legs and were truly the world’s strong arms. Besides the fact of having two heads and two brains, they were not so bright at all. The war of the Rahgahgogarians and the other party started officially in year 21 of recorded history, widely excepted by the public to be caused by the second party attacking a mining operation within Rahgahgogarian boarders, and ended in year 43, when the Rahgahgogarians laid waste to the underground city of the beasts with the aid of explosives. Since then the Rahgahgogarians have been the soul populous of Zenkrad.

Humans first set foot on Zenkrad on the year 192 and peace was made two weeks later in the year 193. A human embassy was erected near the capital city in the year 210, but was laid waste by the Gohoritykah in the year 221. When the embassy was destroyed the casualties were five Gohoritykahs for each human but one Gohoritykah for ten Rahgahgogarians. The official training camps were set up in the capital city in the year 223 after all Gohoritykah threats were eliminated. In the year 234 the Gohoritykah attacked with much more power and veritably annihilated all inhabitants of Zenkrad, only to blow up the planet itself later. After that the Rahgahgogarians have lived in Earth as a refuge from their destroyed home world. Since then all Rahgahgogarians have been the second intelligent species on Earth.

Biology: Rahgahgogarians have been given the nickname ‘sentient plants’ mostly because their bodily functions resemble that of a plant. Rahgahgogarian or Eumycota Sapiens as their scientific name is, feed by photosynthesis and communicate through telepathy, thus eliminating the need for a mouth not to mention they don’t have one. Their eyes do not see color, but instead are extremely sensitive to motion, even though their eyes are not compounded like most creatures that detect motion extremely well. All of the Rahgahgogarian have red eyes and the only feature that makes each unique from the other is their thought waves. Each Rahgahgogarian has its own special thought wave pattern that works like a face to them. Rahgahgogarians stand from five to seven feet tall and have been noted for their bulkiness in both genders. Their legs bent backwards as the legs of cats that also gave them extra running speed.

Unlike most creatures that are born with one gender and follow through life with the safe, excluding a special fish that turns from a female to a male when its group’s male dies. With Rahgahgogarians, they are born with a nature of both genders meaning they are both conceivable male and female. Upon reaching a suitable age the Rahgahgogarian chooses which gender it will be for the rest off its life. To become a male they will cut off their tail, disconnecting themselves from female reproductive organs that have yet to develop fully, making it harmless to the creature. To become female they simply rip a certain shell, called the hormone cap, from their head, which separates them from male reproductive organs. Being as there is no real provocative nature of body structure between genders, it is simply the choice of preference of the being, completely separate from any provocation by body form or any other reason, being as the only difference between genders is the tail or lack thereof or the hormone cap or the lack thereof.

Although the gender choosing process seems straight forward, at a time there was a war brought by the fact a group of Rahgahgogarians decided to keep both tail and hormone cap and thus be able to fertilize themselves. This group of being began to be called Flagahtorians, which in old Rahgahgogarian can mean a good number of things according to some. This word ranges from a less demeaning term as idiot to such words that should not be said in the company of children. These bi-gender Flagahtorians were banished off world and have been massacred by both Rahgahgogarians for being traitors to their honor and by Gohoritykah for being related in any form to the Rahgahgogarians. Also there are those who have severed their tails and removed their hormone cap, these are called Devogagorians, who are not shunned by society, instead, are embraced by most. Devogagorians is also a word coming from old Rahgahgogarian that can mean devoted, separated, divided, etc. Devogagorians are usually scientists or warriors, since being unable to reproduce removes that distraction from the mind of warriors and scientists. This category of Rahgahgogarian is greatly revered in society as a whole being as they deprive something of themselves completely to help others without many rewards to be offered them.

Reproduction: When two of their beings mate the process is rather different from most. The male remove his hormone cap and attaches it to place where the female would have hers and so transfers hormones into her body. For the most part, the male and female will leave each other, only to meet each other again when tending to the young, but until they arrive the female is given the responsibility to hold herself. After the hormone cap has transferred all hormones into the female, it degrades allowing for multiple reproductions. The male eventually grows back his hormone cap allowing for his part to also be repeated. The female’s tail eventually falls off, and when it does, the female must quickly pace it in water. When placed in water it will swell and brake open revealing the number of eggs that were enclosed. After her tail detaches it also regenerates like the male’s hormone cap. After a matter of ten months the eggs will hatch releasing the young Rahgahgogarians. When they are born they have wings that allow them to run from their enemies with more speed than an adult. When they are young, these wings along for flight but as they age the wings become more of a utensil for slowing ones fall or preforming a running technique.

Chapter 6: Deciever's Reckoning

Chapter 6: Deceiver’s Reckoning

“Jason, I thought you didn’t make it.” I starred with my mouth agape at recognizing the voice as Sanchez’s.

“Sanchez, is that actually you?” I said, still trying to overcome my shock.

“Yeah, I made it alright.” with that Sanchez took out his magnum and shot at my chest. Fortunately my shield caught it, but the force of the impact knocked me back.

“Sanchez, what are you trying to do?” I shouted in confusion as he let off another shot that drained my shield’s energy to 25 percent.

“Doing what I should have since the beginning.” He fired again, but I dodged so that the shot merely flew past my shoulder. I took out my plasma pistol and flipped a switch to set it to full-use. I fired one shot, and I saw the sign that Sanchez’s armor was all the way down. I took out the dead battery and placed a new one in and prepared to shoot again, but just as I started to squeeze the trigger Sanchez shot the battery and caused it to melt down. I drop the pistol and brought out my rifle and began firing, but of course Sanchez had had enough time to recharge his shield slightly.

Sanchez brought out his sniper rifle and blasted by rifle out of my hands. I drew my plasma knife and charged Sanchez and stabbed the gun’s main systems, and effectively destroyed it. Sanchez also took out his knife, but I was able to pull out my knife and cut the blade just at the handle, but in doing so wasted the last battery power in it. I slammed my fist into Sanchez’s visor, and received a steady kick to the chest in turn.

“So you’re the traitor I heard about over the radio chatter. For turning on the U.S. army you will die, and I’ll be glad to execute punishment.” Sanchez extended his hand and beckoned for me.

“Well you won’t get it easy; I’ll make sure of that.” With that I charged him and punched him in the gut, only to have him upper cut me. I backed off slightly. I knew I was being reckless and acting as if I was invincible, I knew my shielding system was made to keep attacks from that close from hitting me.

I ran up to him and landed another hit on his visor, and this time I saw a crack form. He then punched me in the shoulder, causing me to spin. Taking advantage of the momentum I was given, I preformed a round-house kick directly to his side.

I grabbed a grenade off my belt and slammed it into his shoulder pad. He then ripped off the metal plate and threw it away.

Suddenly a large red beam slammed into the planet and I instantly recognized an apocalyptic beam, a beam that caused the planet’s destructive forces, like earthquakes and volcanoes, not to mention all out weather disasters as tornadoes and hurricanes.

“What are you thinking? This world is full of creatures, smart and sentient creatures!” I yelled at Sanchez over the beams horrific noise.

“So is Earth, and yet see what fate has faced it.” Sanchez mocked me with scorn echoing in his voice. My anger now was raging through my veins like fire through a forest, uncontrolled and not stopping any time soon.

I charged Sanchez and laid a punch to his chest, then an uppercut his my other arm. I spun around and slammed my leg into the side of his chest, then I slammed my fist down into the side of his helmet, then I slammed another punch into his visor, making it crack even more. Sanchez was able to smash a punch into my visor, causing it to crack like his. I recovered from the blow quickly and preformed a two-handed-sledgehammer punch to his face, causing his helmet’s visor to shatter.

Sanchez pushed in on the sides of his helmet and pulled it off revealing his scar ridden face.

I began to launch a furry punch-fest. I finished off my round of beating up with a solid kick to his chest.

“Why is this world so important to you? All we found special were some unidentified energy signals.” Sanchez said as he whipped some blood from his jaw.

“Those signals are actually magic signals; this world is filled with magic wielding creatures.” The beam of energy began to take its devastating effects on the planet as the ground rumbled and split revealing a sea of lava where ground had once been. I could see tornadoes spawning around the area whirling lava around the landscape, as well as several volcanoes that weren’t there a second before spewing forth lava.

“You mean that there actually is magic on this planet in great amounts?” As he finished his face, no matter how scarred, was conquered by the most devious of smiles. He slammed his fist into my chest and so made me fall back on my back with the wind knocked out of my lungs.

Sanchez picked up his slightly damaged radio and spoke into it a few words in Gohoritykah, which only left me to guess he was stopping the planet’s destruction so they could do the one thing that might give them the definite victory in the war; harnessing magic for their purposes.

Sanchez opened his chest hatch and took out a magnum, something that I thought he would never put inside such a place, since if it went off it would only have a layer of muscle-like armoring to slow it down. Sanchez lowered his aim to be and readied to fire one last shot. I jumped up and knocked his aim to the sky, making the bullet shoot into the sky.

I slammed my right fist into his right cheek and then did the same with my left, and proceeded to beat his face in. Sanchez put the gun up to my chest and pulled the trigger sending the shot into my suit without my shield to try to catch it.

The bullet made it through both my metal and muscle armor and lodged itself into my chest, but so deep threatening my heart or lungs, just causing me a whole new world of pain. I slammed my elbow into his armpit and then with the same arm grabbed the back of his head and slammed it into my extended knee. I then preformed an upper cut to his chest, causing him to stumble back.

Sanchez raised his magnum again and sent a bullet flying to me; fortunately we were at range, allowing my shields to react and catch the shot, making it so that only a crumpled piece of metal struck my suit with little to no velocity. But being as close as we were my suit’s shields took more of a beating than they would if we were farther apart.

I reached into my chest capsule and found the only thing I had placed inside, a spare flash bang. I primed the leaver and then pulled the pin and threw it at Sanchez. Sanchez turned away and shot as he did. The bullet struck the flash bang, causing it to burst, fortunately for me, my suit’s lighting adjustment feature was able to shield my retinas from the harming effects. I charged Sanchez and kicked him in the chest, which caused him to lose his breath. I then slammed my elbow into his back, which made him fall to his hands and knees. As I did this, the ground shook again and the level of the lava fell as a chasm formed where a plain had once been, leaving us two alone and very much so stranded on an island in the middle of a sea of lava.

Sanchez was able to aim up at me and fire off one more shot, which depleted the rest of my shield’s strength and still left my suit to block a rather fast projectile. I stumbled back and tripped and landed on my rump. I grabbed a stone and hurled it at Sanchez’s face, which didn’t hit but merely gave me time to get back up.

Sanchez aimed at me, but I was able to knock his arm up once more, but this time he simply swung his arm around to press it against my chest and release the final round in his clip. I fell back onto my back and remained on the ground looking up to the sky. Sanchez walked up to me and flipped his empty clip out and put a new one in. I sprang up and punched him in the face. Sanchez fell back with a bloody nose and a face that was beginning to swell and turn black and blue. I would have followed through, but my wounds were holding me back.

Sanchez walked up to me and grabbed my side and ripped out the healing gel that had sealed the wound, causing me to yell out in pain and stumble farther back, but his cruelty to be did not end there as he walked up to me again and ripped out the gel in my shoulders.

I fell to my knees in pain. My breathing was labored and my heart rate monitor was showing that my system was on overdrive to stay alive, not that the feeling of pumping of blood in my temples hadn’t told me the same already. My wounds were now releasing blood down my suit as the blood flowed freely as rivers from my shoulder and side. I knew that I couldn’t take too much more of this, but I doubted Sanchez would give me time to recover.

I looked up and saw him pointing his pistol at my helmet. My shields were at 0 and being as my helmet was the weakest point in my armor, I knew that his shot would end me. As this thought came to mind my body’s ‘fight or flight’ adrenaline boost kicked in, and being the military I was, I chose fight.

I punched him in the arm, causing him to drop his pistol to the ground.

I began slugging him once more as the adrenaline in my system gave me renewed vigor and strength with each blow I delivered. Now fuelled my adrenaline and hate, my vision was turned from the full picture I had prior to a hazy red, narrowing my sight to just my target.

Suddenly he shoved me back, and after looking to my chest, I saw the one thing that cleared my vision and turned me on to panic mode, a timed, and high powered, plasma explosive.

Sanchez smiled at me with another one of his malicious smiles.

“No matter how hard you struggle, you never could win.” I then found a plan that could save me and beat Sanchez all in one.

I unstrapped all my belts of batteries and grenades and such. I unstrapped everything and then I pressed in the lock of my suit, causing it to fold up as it had been before I put it on, except with a ticking explosive on it. I hurled it at Sanchez; at with him having little time to react, it slammed onto his already attached suit, which also nullified his shielding system by the fact that it had another shielding system of an opposing frequency so close it.

I charged him and took off my helmet and slammed it onto his head. Sanchez punched me off of him, only to slump to the side as the bullet he had fired finally came back down, and by some miracle, slammed right into his shoulder. This gave me the chance to charge him, after grabbing one of my belts, and press in the lock to open up the suit on him.

The bombs system was reaching its critical moment as its beeps grew higher pitched and closer to each other. I primed one of the grenades I had in my belt and slammed it into the release mechanism of the suit, making it so Sanchez had no chance of getting it off.

“A little gift from me to you, hope you like it!” I yelled at Sanchez as I released the grenade. Sanchez then slugged me in the fully exposed face I had, sending me back to the stop I had charged him from. I grabbed the magnum that I had forced Sanchez to drop and shot at Sanchez three times.

The sound of the glass of his visor shattering reached my ears, and the shocked look on his face was fully exposed for all to see. I released the clip and grabbed one of the one I had still attached to my belt from my previously destroyed magnum, and slammed it into the handle of the pistol and let out all six shot into Sanchez’s chest, causing him to stumble backwards from the force of the shots.

Sanchez’s face was over taken by the wide expression of fear as he tumbled over the edge of the cliff that had formed. I shuffled to the edge and watched as Sanchez plummeted farther and farther down. Suddenly the explosive charge went off with a burst of blue and red energy mixed together with the sight of a classic grenade explosion.

Anything that was left of Sanchez, and some debris that had been knocked off the side of the cliff face, fell into the sea of lava, insuring that the once great warrior was dead.

I looked up and saw the red apocalyptic beam dissipate and proceed to be replaced by a beam of green energy that caused the planet to heal. The chasm rose and the lava were returned to its place at the core while the weather evaporated and the volcanoes fell back into being plains or hills.

I looked around the area and saw everything as it should be, green and living. I fell to my knees and gripped my side as the adrenaline rush subsided and left me to deal with my pain.

“Max, where ever you are, I need you right now.” I said verbally and to all thought signals in the close proximity of my area. My vision blurred as I fell to the ground and drifted off into the blackness of unconsciousness.

I awoke in a small hospital room, in an even smaller bed. I saw that they had tried to adjust it to suit me better, but it hadn’t been enough to fit my frame inside of its boundaries.

I sat up in my small bed, only to regret it a second later as pain shot through my side. I slammed back into the embrace of the tiny bed and took a few breathes towards recovery.

“It is good to see you alright.” I heard Max’s voice echo in my head.

“I am as well, it wouldn’t have been good to die so close to the conflict and yet not be able to help fight it back.” I turned slightly to Max who sat in a rather small chair beside my bed. “Max, U.N. is inbound to this planet. They have found what they wanted so desperately and I can only guess they aren’t going to give it up very easily.”

“Well fortunately for the U.S.S. Piranha has entered our air space not two minutes ago and they are sending troops and materials our way. We’ll be fully suited for battle soon enough.” I smiled at this information and laid back into the bed.

“Make sure they have a medical pod on board.” Max nodded and stepped up from his chair and made his way to the door.

Suddenly a group of three fillies busted through the door and rushed by Max, and in an instant they had jumped onto the already crammed bed.

“Jason, are you alright? We heard your voice asking for somepony named Max. Did you find him; are you going to be alright?” The three fillies shouted in half unison, with Applebloom lagging behind in speed and Scootaloo rushing ahead of the rest.

“Max, help me up in this blasted bed.” I told Max through the classic Rahgahgogarian way. Max walked over to the bed and helped me up with as less pain as he could cause. “Girls, this is Larzyhorintorhmax, Max for short. I was calling for him and didn’t have the time to pin point him so I simply called everypony near my area. As to the question of how I am, terrible. I suffered a lot of wounds and lost a good amount of blood through the whole thing, but soon enough adequate medical assistance shall arrive. So all in all, I will be fine.”

“That’s good to hear, Jason, we were really worried and we started just looking everywhere for you. Then we heard you were in Ponyville hospital, we galloped here as fast as we could.” Applebloom said after a sigh of relief.

“Hey, Mr. Max, you’re hind legs bend like our but Jason’s don’t, how come?” Scootaloo asked with her head cocked at an angle.

“Mostly because he is human and I am not. Our autonomies are rather different in contrast although certain body structures are similar.” Max replied nonchalantly. The three fillies looked at me with the look in their eyes that pleaded for the answer to be put into simple terms.

“We aren’t the same type of creature, we may appear to be the same, but we really aren’t.” The three fillies moved their mouth in an ‘oh’ and good down from my bed.

“Well it’s good to hear you’re alright, so I guess we’ll be moving along, see you later, Jason.” Sweetie Belle said as the Crusaders trotted out of the room.

Again, Max attempted to leave the room, only to be stopped as two other ponies rushed in.

“Jason! Are you alright? How bad are you hurt? Is there anything I can do?” The pony said as he rushed up beside me in an instant.

“Hold on now, dad! Look, I got injured slightly; I just need recovery time, alright?”

“Are you sure you are alright?” my dad insisted. I sighed lightly.

“Max, you can leave now.” I said to Max through mind waves. He nodded and headed outside of the room. “Dad, I am a soldier in the United State’s armed forces, I have had worse injuries than these, so believe me when I say that I am fine.” My father sighed and nodded as he admitted defeat.

“So, Jason, was it? What exactly happened?”

“Oh, Twilight, I didn’t see you over the intrusion of my father.” I said as I realized who had entered with my father. “To be blunt, I was betrayed by a person who was, as I thought, on my side of the war. He turned on me, and eventually I received these wounds, while he received death.”

“Oh, that’s terrible.”

“Indeed it is. I never thought he would be a traitor.”

‘Jason, come in. This is Piranha landing crew, come in.’ I heard a radio crackle.

“Hey dad, can you give me the radio.” I said as I motioned to the object that rested on the nightstand.

“Sure…” My father replied as he handed me, with his magic, the small box. I grasped it and pressed down on the side lever.

“This is Jason, go ahead.”

‘We are landed. We have a healing pod ready for you. Should we send up some men to get you?’

“Yes, get some men up here to get me down; I don’t think I could get down there by myself.” With that the other end of the radio cut off. “Well, I’ll be getting proper care soon enough.”

“Well, I guess we better head along, see you after you’re better.” My dad said. I nodded and waited for my escort to arrive. My dad went outside and down the stairs to the lobby, while Twilight merely stayed behind.

“What are you staying around for?” I asked her.

“Well, I just wanted to make sure you are alright. I’ll also accompany you and your group down the stairs. I just don’t want to leave until I know you are going to get what you need.”

“Thank you, but it is unneeded.” I replied.

“When you are friends, nothing is unneeded. We all need help once in a while, and I just want to be absolutely sure you will be fine.”

“Well it is nice to be care for by a princess.” I said with a light laugh.

“How did you know? Did Johann tell you?” She asked, surprised I knew she was a princess.

“No, it’s just I knew you were from the start, not to mention I know that only the princesses have wings and horns.”

“Oh, well, alright, I guess.” I smiled at the stuttering Twilight.

After a little wait, I had been escorted down the stairs and to my new healing pod, and being true to her word, Twilight walked the whole way with me and my escort. I was swiftly placed into the cushioned pod for a speedy healing session.

“I’ll see you soon, Twilight.” I said as the glass shield slid into place. As I faded into unconsciousness, I saw her smile back at me.