Oxon Hill Farm

Daniels rolled up to the barn and shut off the ignition. There was an animal control vehicle parked outside. He made a slow circle around the building, noting several sets of hoofprints.

Opening the door, he was greeted with two men in uniform. One from the National Park Service, one from animal control.

The inside of the barn was lit with a bare lightbulb. Two horses stood in their stalls. There was an ample supply of hay stacked against the wall.

“Who are you?” asked the Parks Service man.

“Tom Walker, NPS,” Daniels quickly improvised.

“Where’s your uniform?”

“I got a call from my idiot boss in the middle of the frigging night telling me to come down here and look for some technicolor ponies. My morning is already off to a bad start without some flakey giving me crap about being out of uniform.”

Without giving the man time to retort, Daniels turned to the animal control officer. “What’s the situation?”

“Mr. Avery here came in early this morning to open the park for the public and happened upon three —” the man appeared to suppress a laugh “— unusually colored animals.”

“I don’t know, maybe they escaped from the circus or something,” said the man named Avery. “That would explain the wings and horns.”

“What do you mean?” asked Daniels.

“The big white one had wings and a horn stuck to her. The purple one had just the horn.”

“I thought there were three.”

“The last one was pink.”

Daniels gave him a skeptical look.

“I’m serious! Here, look at this.” He gestured to the pile of hay. Some of the bales had been nibbled and a couple looked like they had been slept on. The man pointed to a few curly pink hairs.

Daniels sighed. “All right, where did they go?”

“North.”

Crime in Washington D.C. had steadily risen through the 1980s. In fact, some had called the city the murder capitol of the United States. Daniels had heard that much of the illegal activity was centered in the southeast of the district, particularly around the neighborhood of Anacostia…which lay directly north of Oxon Hill.

“Anything else you can think of?” he asked.

“The white one was a little bloody, and the purple one had a limp.”

It was too much to hope for that the ponies would be completely fine. “All right, I’m going to go take a look for myself.” Daniels turned, but stopped. “How long ago did this happen?”

“About half an hour.” Daniels nodded and walked out.

Interstate 70, Ohio

The little girl sat in the rear of the minivan while her parents talked in the front. She'd only recently graduated to big-girl seatbelts, and the shoulder strap was digging into her neck. She shifted uncomfortably. Her parents had told her that it was for safety.

The van pulled into the left lane and slowly began to pass a semi truck. The sides of the trailer were made of some thin fabric, rather than metal. It was not in very good condition and the truck’s speed certainly did not help things. There was a long vertical rip that revealed the inside of the trailer.

Deciding to risk her parent’s scolding, the girl pulled the shoulder strap away and tucked it behind her back. As she turned, she caught sight of something moving inside the trailer.
Pressing her nose to the window, her eyes widened in amazement. There was an orange pony with a cutie mark of apples.

“Applejack,” she whispered. She knew the pony on sight, and even had a small toy of her. Although she’d never seen Applejack wear a hat before, there was no doubt who it was.

There was something else there. Were there other ponies with her? She turned, trying to get a better look, but the van pulled back into the right lane after passing the truck.

The Pentagon

The transport vehicle had been pulled from the water and the body of the unfortunate driver had been recovered. The latch on the rear doors was found to have been broken open.

The NCIS scene report was dry and sparse on details. Mittal read through it slowly, looking for any small fact that he did not already know. Later, a more detailed report would be issued, but he doubted that it would reveal anything new.

He picked up the phone and dialed Crane. The transport for the other ponies should be nearly there by now.

He asked for Dr. Oswald. It took several minutes to track the man down and get him to the phone. He sounded panicked.

“The ponies are gone.”

“Did they go back?”

“I don’t think so. Somebody found tracks in some mud in the south part of the base. They must have slipped out early this morning.”

“Past the security and everything?

“There is no security at the moment. The base personnel command assumed that they were all here at Building D6 for the President’s visit, and after he left they were all pulled. I’ve been working to get some approved to come back.”

Mittal swore. “So we’ve got ponies wandering around the countryside?”

“We’re looking for them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I…I had to tell them. Everybody at Crane knows about the ponies.”

“Why didn’t you ask me first!?"

“I had to do it. This was an emergency, and they could be in danger.”

Mittal sighed. The situation was rapidly going downhill, perhaps even faster than he had originally thought.

“All right, do your best to keep the situation contained. I’m going to try to convince the President to move the press conference up and go ahead without Celestia. It won’t be as dramatic, but we’ll have the whole country looking for them.”

Mittal put down the phone a little more roughly than necessary. There were a number of reasons he didn’t like civilians working on military projects, and a breakdown in the command structure was one of them. Oswald shouldn’t have circumvented his authority.

Still, what was done was done. They had to look to the future and figure out what needed to happen next. The President would not be pleased with this new development. Mittal reluctantly picked up the phone again and dialed the White House.

Huntington, West Virginia

A man stood near the railroad tracks in the afternoon sun. It was a good day for pictures, and he had been photographing freight trains for hours. He had long ago discovered a spot to his liking, and his friends could often find him there.

He was part of a group known to the general public as a trainspotters, although the man happened to prefer the term railfan. He enjoyed learning about trains and comparing notes with others in the hobby.

Another freight came along, rolling past where his camera stood on a tripod. The lead engine was a brand new Electro-Motive SD70. He smiled at the thought that he was perhaps the first one to take a picture of it.

As the train continued on, the man noticed a boxcar with its door open. That was relatively rare, as a properly loaded cargo would never be left exposed to the elements. An empty boxcar was also unusual, because the railroad didn’t want to haul anything they weren’t making money on.

The man readied his camera as it rolled past. As the car went by, he thought he saw something even more unusual inside.

He pondered for a moment, trying to decide if he had really seen what he thought. He made the decision to leave his spot early.

Photography was a special interest to the man. Trains certainly provided him with enough to take pictures of. He’d set up a darkroom in his garage and through trial and error had learned how to develop his own photos. It was faster than taking them to a processing center.

He went to work mixing the dye couplers and getting the equipment ready. The liquids had to be at exactly the right temperature.

After the negatives were processed, he hunted through them to find the frame he was looking for. With a careful eye on his watch, he began timing the steps that would result in an image.

Eventually, the finished picture came out. Even in the dim red light of the darkroom, it was fairly obvious he was looking at some kind of small horse or pony. He remembered that it had been strangely colored.

The man hung the picture up to dry and debated what to do. He had the railroad’s phone number, and occasionally gave them friendly calls to tell about a problem he’d spotted with one of their trains. The boxcar’s identification numbers were visible in the picture, so he could tell them exactly where to start looking.

He decided that they needed to know about the animal. The poor thing could be in trouble.

When the picture had finished drying, he took it down and brought it out into the light to look at it more carefully. It was a light yellow pony with a pink colored mane looking around the edge of the boxcar door. The expression on the pony's face looked almost worried.

Animals were obviously not naturally that color, so maybe it had been a show pony or something. Someone was probably looking for it. He had a friend who worked at the local TV news station that might be able to help get to word out.

Southeastern District of Columbia

Daniels drove slowly, considering his options. He’d seen the tracks leading away from the barn, and knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up with running ponies. He had to anticipate where they were headed and try to get there first.

He glanced at a page in an old Washington visitor’s guide that was in his truck. Bolling Air Force Base and the Naval Research Laboratory were both located on the east bank of the Potomac. Directly east of those was I-295. On the other side of the road, there was a narrow swath of natural land known as Shepherd Parkway. It extended for a few miles to the north, and acted as a buffer between the highway and residential housing.

He figured the ponies would probably stick to the trees. The sun was fully up now, reminding Daniels that he hadn’t eaten since the night before. He grabbed a paper bag from the seat next to him and pulled out a sandwich.

Finding a place to park, he got out of the truck and made a sweep through Shepherd Parkway, soon arriving at the other side near the highway. Carefully backtracking, he spotted what he had missed the first time: hoof tracks. It was an encouraging find, but the only thing it told him was that he was still headed in the right direction.

He stopped a few more times and always managed to find tracks. It was slow going, though, and there was a lot of ground to cover.

College Park, Maryland

Two young men sat on a balcony overlooking a quiet street. Their appartment had strict rules about smoking indoors. What they were smoking was illegal.

If asked, they would probably defend their habit, but nobody had ever caught them. Some of their friends suspected what they did on slow evenings, but let it go.

They had been on the balcony for about forty minutes. "You hungry?" asked one.

"Yeah, sure."

The first turned to open the door, but his friend held him back. "Look at that!" He pointed.

Further up the block, they watched a large white and purple animal cross an alley between two buildings.

"Dude, was that a unicorn?"

They looked at each other. After a moment, both laughed.

The White House

Mittal was passed through security and made his way to where the cameras were setting up. The President’s address was due to start in a little over an hour. He had been invited for the event, although he got the impression it wasn’t because they liked him. He was due to meet the President for a briefing afterwards, and got the feeling that making him sweat through the address was punishment for everything that had gone wrong with the ponies.

Mittal thought back to the things that had gone wrong. None of them had been caused by him, although it was possible that with a little more action on his part they might have been prevented. He didn’t feel that he was at fault. Nevertheless, he was the senior man, and therefore responsible. He felt like his neck was on the chopping block.

There were a few people he recognized in the crowd. Some were military, some were politicians. As far as Mittal knew, the secret of Equestria had not been shared with Congress. There was too much chance that some Senator or Representative would reveal the information to make themselves look good. It had happened before.

Likewise, it was not known to the military besides senior Navy people. The sailors who had discovered the ponies had been censored as effectively as possible.

There were a lot of people, then, that were going to be surprised when the President revealed the ponies. Mittal hoped that his next statement wouldn’t be, “And then Admiral John Mittal of the United States Navy lost them.”

Andrews Air Force Base

A pair of F-15 Eagles leaped into the sky. Early warning radar indicated something was on a course to overfly D.C. That was always a major violation of airspace, but especially when the White House was crowded with people.

The Major piloting the lead airplane was experienced in interdiction. Idiots straying into protected air was a regular occurance. Malicious violations were more rare, but had happened. He wondered what he was dealing with this time.

The sun was rapidly setting, and it was difficult to pick out the target against the nearing dusk. Ground control told him on the radio that the Eagles were just about to make the intercept.

Something small blurred over the top of his airplane. He twisted his head to track it, and began to manuver to catch up. Against the setting sun he saw...feathered wings? The object changed course more rapidly than he thought possible and flashed past once more. He caught a blur of rainbow colors and then it was gone. A few minutes of frantic searching failed to pick it up again. Ground control confirmed that the object had dropped off radar.

Shepherd Parkway

Running from the barn when the man came in had been instinctive, and now Twilight wished they hadn’t. The sun was setting, and they were without shelter.

There was no way to know if the man would have been hostile. True, it probably would have taken some convincing, but he might have helped them. Now they were on their own again.

There had to be someone from the government looking for them. Twilight knew that the best way to be found was to stay in one place, but there was no way that was possible. Throughout the day, there had been a few close calls when they’d nearly been spotted. They’d managed to stick to the trees, but eventually their luck would run out.

Twilight looked at the other two. Pinkie’s mane had gone nearly limp. Even Princess Celestia looked gloomy. All of them were covered in dirt and muck.

Their pace was slow, and that helped Twilight’s leg. It was beginning to go stiff, although it had stopped hurting so much. It seemed that there wasn’t any permanent damage, and for that she was grateful.

Pinkie stopped suddenly, and Twilight, who was daydreaming about a hot bath, ran into her.

“Did you hear that?” said Pinkie.

“Hear what?”

“I think something is following us!”

There came the sound of footsteps. The noise was muffled by the snow.

“Should we stay and see what it is?” asked Twilight. It might turn out to be nothing, or it might be hostile. She thought she might be getting close to her breaking point, where she could not go on. If there was a chance of help, she wanted it.

Celestia debated. It was clear that she was getting desperate as well. “Stay.”

The three ponies faced the source of the noise and waited. Through the shadows of the trees came a silhouette, following their tracks in the snow. It slowly resolved into a human shape. A ray of moonlight fell across its face.

Pinkie Pie threw herself forward. “I’m gonna bake you ALL the cakes!” she said. She fell into the arms of Lieutenant Daniels.

He looked down in surprise. “I’m just glad I found you three.” He patted Pinkie’s shoulder as she cried happy tears on him.

Twilight’s tired face broke into a smile of relief. “We knew someone would find us eventually.”

Daniels shrugged. “A little skill, a little luck. Come on, we have to get you back to civilization.”

Pinkie reluctantly let go of him and the four walked together back to the parking lot where Daniels had left his truck. He pulled a large first aid kit out and tended to Celestia’s shoulder. She bore the pain without complaint, even the dousing of liquid from a bottle marked hydrogen peroxide.

There was not much Daniels could do for Twilight. He wrapped the spot on her leg that was most sore with a compression bandage, which helped a little. They began to get ready to leave. "Wait!" cried a voice.

Four ponies appeared. Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity.

"You guys! What are you doing here?" asked Twilight.

"It's a long story, sugarcube," said Applejack.

"Why don't we get everyone to a safe place and talk about it later? suggested Daniels. He produced a tarp and regretfully explained that the cab of the truck was too small for all the ponies. Celestia, as the largest, gracefully volunteered to ride in the back.

“Oooh! I want to!” said Pinkie. It’ll be like a tent and we can imagine we’re camping.”

"I'll do it," said Applejack.

"What!" exclaimed Rarity. "I believe we already picked the absolute dirtiest way to get across the country."

"Twilight's hurt," said Applejack firmly. "You get in the back. Come on, Fluttershy."

"O-okay."

It was a very tight squeeze, but the ponies managed to fit. Daniels covered them with a blanket from his cold weather kit and then the tarp. They looked reasonably well hidden.

He helped Twilight into the cab. Her leg was still causing problems. Once she was situated on the floor, he draped his coat over her.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“The White House.”

Author note:

Aw yeah, G1 pony reference.

For those of you who missed it, I briefly posted a chapter asking for help with plot troubles. I'd like to thank thewookie1 and spikeyblur12 for coming to my rescue.

Also, I'd like to introduce my new prereader, Scully!