The soldiers’ squinty little eyes were about to bug out of their skulls. “{Impossible,}” one of them muttered. “{How can such a thing be?}”

And yet, there it was: one pony they had missed somehow. Which was just impossible! They had swept everywhere! Turned over every corner! Scoured the village and rounded all the ponies up, right here, in the town square! Could there methods of searching have been flawed? No, they were well-trained soldiers of The Ridchir! It had to be something else…

The pony stood in the middle of the street, apparently oblivious to their presence. It took a few awkward steps to the side and tripped over its own hooves, hitting the ground with a dull thud. The soldiers burst out laughing. “{A retard!}” One of them mused, “{God, I haven’t seen one of those in a while! No wonder it does not run from us!}”

The other ponies gathered nearby remained quiet as the other soldiers continued laughing. Only the commanding officer glared at the newcomer with suspicion. “{Privates Jones and Dietrich!}” He barked suddenly.

Immediately, two of the soldiers stopped laughing and ran up to him, saluting. “{Yes, Commander?}” They barked in unison.

“{Approach this newcomer, but be careful. Treat him as an enemy soldier approaching with a white flag in one hand: as though it could very well be a trap.}”

The privates didn’t question their orders. They simply saluted before turning to advance up the street, assault rifles ready. The pony paused, apparently taken aback by this change in events, unsure of what to do. The ponies in the square watched in dread, certain of the newcomer’s fate. How could this end in any way but with the strange pony bleeding in the street?

Rather quickly, Shining Armor answered this question by diving in front of the pony and producing a shield. “NOW!” He screamed, and the pony stood up as the pair of soldiers opened up on them. Unexpectedly, the pony dove to the side, muzzle flashes cracking out of its hooves. As the soldiers collapsed, clutching at the blood spreading across their chests, Shining Armor and the strange pony ducked behind a store front, just as an entire platoon of soldiers descended upon them, weapons blasting.

“Well,” Shining Armor sighed as rifle fire blazed by their hiding spot. “That could have gone better.”

“Eh, I wasn’t expecting that to work again anyway.” The biped with him replied, peeling off his paper-mache hooves. “You see your girl down there?”

“No,” Shining said, anxiety creeping into his voice. “But that could mean a lot of things, right? I mean, she could still be in hiding.”

“Yeah,” the biped said with a fake smile plastered on his face. “Of course it could.”

There were a few more awkward moments of silence before Shining asked: “I didn’t get your name, by the way.”

“It’s Ramirez.”

“Well, Mr. Ramirez, where do you think your friends are at?”

“Oh, they’ll be around.” The biped said with a knowing smile. “And believe me; you’ll know when they are.” Suddenly, a new string of gunfire sounded off, building to a crescendo as the soldiers in the square returned fire, all diverting attention away from the ponies gathered behind them.

“I take it that was them?”

Ramirez just grinned and replied: “I said you’d know when they were here. Now c’mon, we got a pretty little pony to save.”

“Watch it! That’s my wife you’re talking about!” Shining said half-jokingly.

Ramirez cracked a smile. “You ready to save her flank?”

Shining trotted to his side, readying another shield for them. “Absolutely.” Ramirez’s only response was to hold up three fingers in front of the unicorn’s face, then two, and at one, Shining dashed out into the street with the biped right behind. Almost immediately, a couple dozen rounds pinged off the shield as the small squad of men not focused on the rest of the SEALs opened up on them. Shining stood his ground, bracing his hooves to take the impacts as Ramirez ducked out from behind the shimmering purple hue of their shield, the short weapon he called an “Oozy” (which was a weird name for such a deadly weapon, Shining thought) barking at the enemy. After managing to take out a couple more soldiers, Shining screamed: “Enough!” And Ramirez immediately scooped him up and ducked back behind a different store front, this one across the street from their old hiding spot and just a few yards closer to the square.

“Jeez man, you okay?” Ramirez asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I…” he started to push himself up onto his hooves, only to have his wobbling legs buckle out from under him. His heart raced as he summoned every bit of strength he could to try and push himself back up, only to wind up flat on his stomach again. “NO! C’mon…”

“Dude, you need a rest.”

“I’m fine!” Shining barked angrily, a few pathetic sparks shooting wildly off the tip of his utterly-drained horn. “I just need…just…need…” his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he completely collapsed.

“Holy crap, you’re totally spent!” Ramirez said, loading a fresh magazine into his weapon. “Believe me, I know the look. We better stop anyway: with the sheer number of tangoes out there, we’d be turned into hamburger withoutcha!” As if to emphasize his point, a few wild shots thudded against the brick near his head, the bullets ricocheting on further down the street.

“Fine, but only for a second,” Shining relented.

Scanning around, the human managed to spy the sign for the shop they were hiding in front of, and he grinned. “How’s about some general goods and toiletries? Would that help?”

“What…” Shining gazed up and realized they had been cowering right by the front door of ‘Armister’s General Goods.’ It was almost a relief to see such a familiar sight: he and Cadence had stopped here for toothpaste their first day in town. She’d found some wax lips and tried them on, he’d cracked a witty one-liner about them not being as good at kissing as she was, and they’d made wild and passionate love that night. Celestia above, was that really just a few days ago? Felt more like a decade!

“So, whaddya think?” The SEAL asked, dragging Shining from the memory.

The unicorn managed to reach up and try the knob, rattling it a few times. “I think it’s locked.”

“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little head about a thing like that: every man in Uncle Sam’s army is given a special key for situations just like this one.” Ramirez winked and pulled out his sidearm, emptying a few rounds into the knob and blasting it into little pieces. He followed up with a powerful kick to the locking mechanism, shearing the door clean off its frame and shattering what little glass was left in it with a loud crash.

“Such subtle and magical wonders you people are able to perform!” Shining said, a weak smile crossing his face.

“Now, was that sarcasm I detected, Mr. Armor?” The human asked as he scooped the unicorn up and stepped right into the shop. “I think we humans might just be rubbing off on you ponies.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. If anything, you’ll be the one trotting around on all fours by day’s end.”

“We’ll see,” the human smiled as he laid his equine friend on the countertop and started walking around. He was surprised at the sheer variety available in the store, and at the fact that most of it hadn’t been looted. The Ridchir’s invasion must have happened so fast that nobody had time to even think about looting a little place like this. Keeping his weapon in hand, the SEAL clomped through the shelves, ducking to avoid hitting his head on ceiling fixtures. He managed to scoop up a few colored packages that looked like they might be food before he banged the top of his helmet against a low-hanging light fixture.

“OW! Sunuva…”

“Ramirez!?” Shining gasped from the front, audibly trying to lift himself off the countertop.

“It’s nothing, Shining! Just me being a goddamned idiot,” Ramirez replied, thanking God for the helmet protecting his big, empty head.

Immediately, he heard the unicorn settle and begin snickering. “Banged your head on something, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I banged my head on something, smartass!” The SEAL called back, almost missing the slight rustling sound from the back area. “Aw hell,” he muttered, his weapon rising to his shoulder in the same amount of time it took most people to blink. Immediately, he rushed back to Shining’s side, one hand on the Uzi and the other with his finger on his lips.

“What didja…” Shining started, but quickly zippered up when he saw the look on Ramirez’s face. Without a word, the SEAL handed the unicorn all the little packages of food he’d found, and silently pulled his pistol out of its holster and laid it on the counter by Shining’s body. The unicorn frowned and shook his head at first, but the SEAL mouthed: “You’ll need something to defend yourself,” and frowned hard enough for Shining to know this was not up for debate. Rolling his eyes, the unicorn carefully brushed the pistol down by his hips, still in arm’s reach but not within sight. He obviously didn’t even want to look at any of the humans’ terrible weapons while he could help it. Silently, Ramirez then removed one of the grenades from his jacket and pantomimed pulling the pin out and throwing it, following up by splaying his hand out and making a little ‘POW’ noise with his mouth. Shining frowned again, but nodded and allowed the human to lay a couple grenades by his body, next to the pistol.

Satisfied, Ramirez raised his weapon again and started easing his way back through the shelves, every creak of a floorboard and every scuffle of his footsteps causing him to wince slightly. Whatever was back there had to know he was coming. This was bad: SEALs were stealth warriors, meant to fight from the shadows. He was never meant to be in a situation like this! Come to think of it, he was never meant to be engaged in a firefight against a numerically-superior enemy, either! But then again, he was definitely never meant to fight in a world of magical, talking ponies. So maybe today was just one of those days where the rules went flying out the door.

Satisfied in his self-explanation, Ramirez continued toward the door. He tensed up as he approached and tried the knob with his thumb and forefinger, clicking it once to the left, and then to the right. Locked. Frowning, he silently eased back just a few steps and slowed his breathing. His heart rate sank almost instantly as an eerie calm washed over his body. He was used to this, had trained relentlessly for moments just like this, and so it was time for instinct to take over. His hands shook as the transition took place, and when they steadied, he knew he was ready for anything. Ramirez the Average Joe was gone, and in his place stood Ramirez the SEAL.

Rearing back, he kicked his way through as if the doorframe were being held together with popsicle sticks and chewing gum. His mind absorbed the scene and processed it for threats in milliseconds. There were none to be found: just a few mop-heads, a couple boxes of sponges, some assorted knick-knacks for the front window, and one scared little pony staring back at him with tear-filled eyes.

“Aw hell,” he sighed, switching out of battle-mode and lowering his weapon.

“You alright back there?” Shining asked.

“Yeah, just found some kid.”

“A what?”

“Eh…what’re they called; little horses, I mean…”

“A foal? You found a li’l filly!?”

“Yeah, and he’s scared shitless,” Ramirez took a few steps forward and the pony curled up even further into the wall, shivering in fright. It was a brown foal, no wings, no horn, nothing like that. His mane was an absolute mess, sticking up in places with little brown curls and twists, though how much of that was the invasion’s fault and how much was just from the kid being a regular, grubby little kid was up for debate.

Strapping the weapon to his back, the SEAL took a few extra steps forward. “Now, c’mon li’l guy,” he cooed. “I’m not gonna hurtcha: I’m one of the good guys.”

Not surprisingly, the kid just shrank further against the wall, knocking over a paint can in his desperate attempt to get away from the strange, two-legged creature. Sighing, the SEAL poked his head out the door. “Shining man, I could use some…”

Once again, he absorbed and evaluated the scene in a split-second: Shining, already on his hooves and trotting towards him through one of the aisles, the continued sniffling of the pony next to him, and the five gunmen standing in the street outside the plate-glass window with rifles rising to their shoulders; all of it was assessed and calculated by the human in the doorway. “DOWN!” He screamed, reaching for the weapon on his back as he dove into the safety of the storage room. Acting on instinct, Shining threw himself on the floor just as a hail of bullets shattered the front window and peppered the wall in front of him. The unicorn twisted and rolled behind a shelf as the bombardment continued, gunfire ripping the rest of the store to shreds. Back in the storage room, Ramirez readied his weapon as the pony next to him wailed its little heart out. “Don’t worry, kid,” he said, trying to smile like some big, strong hero in an action movie. Like John McClane! Shit yeah, it was time to go all Die Hard on some asses!

He smiled and winked. “I got this,” he said before ducking out into the doorway and lobbing a few rounds back, just to make sure the goons outside knew somebody inside was still breathing and still spoiling for a fight. He took the split-second of exposure to check on Shining Armor: he was alright, though a little bit worse for wear. He didn’t look all that tired anymore, at least, so his little pony adrenal glands were probably running overtime.

He ducked back in, checked his ammo, and breathed. Next to him, the kid was sobbing loud enough to rival Celine Dion in a duet with Pavarotti. It was gonna be a long night.