Equestria, Canterlot, December/19/2010

It was winter in Equestria and everything was covered in a thick blanket of snow. Canterlot was bustling about with ponies shopping for gifts for Heart Warming's Eve wile others arrived by train to visit relatives. Princess Celestia was in her throne room with a list of preparations for the Hearts Warming Eve Ball. She was checking to make sure everything was in order when her sister busted in the door with a note that was being held by her horn. Celestia was so startled by the sound of the door smacking into the wall that she hid behind the paper, she looked up terrified. When she saw her sister, she naturally smiles, but seeing the worry in her eyes quickly changed from happy to concerned . "Dear sister, I have urgent news from the west coast. Let me read the letter I have received in the mail room." She clears her thought as she flips open the letter.

"Dear Princess Celestia, We have terrible news, an old enemy has rose from the shadows and has attacked one of our guard strongholds, we can't find any survivors, not even bodies, and the building is completely totaled. I don't know how to say this any other way but, Changelings are back and there heading east. My scouts saw them coming when we were trying to escape. But be careful we don't know why, but, there taking the corpses of ponies and storing them in containers, please do what you can. Don't bother sending guards to Las Pegasus they have already taken it and the surrounding villages including Wingdale were my stronghold is. They have built walls around the city and aren't letting anything near it. By the time you read this me and my men will be long gone. Arm yourself well,

Captain Star Crasher.

Luna finished and looked up to her sister with questioning eye's. Celestia now hearing the depressing news pardons her guards with one swoop of her arm. The guards leave and shut the doors behind them. Celestia gets up and moves to a statue of Star Swirl the bearded and flips up one of his hooves up to revile a small red button. She waists no time in pressing it as his statue begins to shake, it falls beneath the floor boards, and few seconds later a post with a bottle comes up, Celestia takes it from it's place. It then falls back down and moves back to Star Swirl.

"Do you know what this is Luna?" Luna moves over to the bottle.

"It is a bottle with a note inside, what does this have to do with-" She's cut off by Celestia.

"Don't be so quick to judge. Yes this is a bottle with a note inside, but not just any bottle. This is a cry for help. I made it for just this occasion. Their army has grown, I can tell because that stronghold was 1,000 strong with the latest technology. If they can over run them, they are going to over run us. All I need to do is send this bottle to the nearest planet that can respond and if they agree to help us a portal will open from their world to our world."

Luna looks at the bottle and gives a stern look to celestia. She nods her head as she opens the balcony window, the coldness from outside comes in with a swooping blow that blows her hair in the opposite direction. Celestia walks over to the balcony and goes outside as Luna follows. Her horn begins to glow as does the bottle. The bottle begins to spark rapidly as celestia's magic hardness and focuses. And with one great flash the bottle disappears form there sight. and turns into a few glittering specs that fall from where it last stood. They both walk back inside with blank looks on there faces, Celestia knocks on the door and guards come back in and resume there place at her thrown. Celestia looks over to her uneasy sister, she comes over and puts a hoof on her shoulder, "Luna, sister of mine, If they take me, I want you to take over in my place, but if they take you I wont stop till I free you." Luna begins to tear up as she cringes trying to hold back to mountain of tears as she nods, before nuzzling her head into hear shoulder. Celestia wraps her arm around her and completes the hug,

"Please, sister this better work, they almost took you last time!" Luna said as she was choking on tears.

"Have faith, that won't happen again." Celestia reassured her. They squeezed each other for a few seconds before Luna straightens out, wipes the tears from her eyes, and heads for the door with her head held hi. Celestia stays there of a moment then comes back to the balcony and looks to the west. "Who ever gets that note, must come quickly." She says as her hair blows in the breeze as it catches drifting snow flakes.

She looks down to the streets bellow as she quickly spots a pack of ponies that she knows good and well.

"The elements are up in Canterlot for the ball, I must tell them at once." Then she stops herself. She didn't want to scare her friends right now, not yet at least. She needed to wait for the right time to tell them but she wasn't to sure. Before long Celestia was pacing back and forth on her balcony thinking of the possible times to tell her students friends. "I know, ill tell them at the ball that way I can inform everyone in Canterlot of this grave news. Are reinsure that, not all hope is lost, that letter will save us all. Who ever gets it, they will save us. But they better come soon or else all hope will be lost and Equestria will fall. Along with all my subjects." Celestia shakes a image out of her mind and recollects herself. "No, no don't be silly Celestia we will survive and we will teach those changelings who's the boss around here, and send them back to the deepest darkest pits of hell where there mistake of a race was born." Celestia, now feeling good about herself she goes back inside and shuts the doors to the balcony and resumes her business on her thrown.

Private First Class James Taylor was a modest man. He had two friends that's names were Tommy and Michael. Both of them were Lance Corporals and they might have out ranked him, but that didn't get in the way of their friendship. James had a family of two back in the states, his wife's name was Susan and his sons name was Dylan. James joined the corps when he was 21, he wanted to see the world for what it really was. He didn't feel like joining the navy though, he really wasn't to big on ships even if they had guns. But if he had to, he would do it for his country. He was stationed in a small base just outside of Afghanistan, about 500 strong, Some are Air Force, and a very small bit is the commanding office. They basically tell him and his friends what to-do. Like today, James, Tom, and Michael are going on a patrol with a NCO. They heard some radio chatter earlier that said the Taliban were scheduling a attack on the base. So, the commander deiced that they should sneak around a bit near there base and see if they could spot any movement. James hasn't gotten any action lately so when he heard he were going he was totally ready. The NCO went beck inside the office area for a small bit, wile James and the other guys waited at the gate.

"Finally, some action, even if the Taliban aren't moving I can still leave this blasted base." Said Tom as he swung his M4A1 and M203 set around onto this back and lit up a smoke.

"Yeah, this place was getting a bit, you know, boring after a wile. Stand guard, watch the road, eat, stand guard again, sleep, repeat". Michael said back to tom as tom lit up his smoke and took a puff. He motioned for James to have one, but he shook my head no. The gate behind them swung open and a M1114 rolled out. A 50. Cal Machine Gun was mounted on the top. The NCO was driving. He motioned for them to get in Tom called shotgun. ( No pun intended.) Michael got the back seat, James got on the Turret, and someone else sat next to Michael. They Didn't get his name though. All James saw was his tag, it read Herlong he doesn't remember him with them at the gate waiting but, oh well. The Hummer took off and headed down the road south of the base. Everything was quiet besides the hum of the Hummer, nobody was really talking until Tom noticed the forth soldier in the back.

"Hey, what's your name I didn't see you when we were at the gate." The man looked up at Tom, with questioning eye's.

"My names Peter, Peter Herlong, nice to meet you. I was told by command to tag along with you guys just incase you get in a sticky situation and need to be bailed out." Saying that he held up an AA-12 automatic shotgun. Tom laughed a bit.

"Nice." James said as he swung his 50. cal. looking for Taliban.

Michael looked over the shotgun and looked back to Peter.

"So, you are door breach then, you know when we need to get into door that got locks and shit you can blow them away with that." Peter shook his head yes.

Suddenly the NCO swerved the Hummer sideways and stopped, "Everyone out! NOW!!" The Hummer swerving took James off guard but he pulled himself from the turret and threw himself on to the sand beside the Hummer. They regrouped together just to see a flaming ball of fire heading down in front of them. It's flames were a mix with red and purple and it blinded James sand his friends so bad they all had to look away. When it struck the ground everything shook, the ground the Hummer, it even knocked them on their asses. The NCO got back up and motioned for them to stay at the Hummer while he and Michael took off toward the flaming hole. The radio inside the hummer came on.

"This is Command to car 23, do you copy over? We just heard a explosion is everything alright? James turned to the radio and went over, picked it up and gave it to Tom, him being a higher rank than him and all.

"This is Lance Corporal Tom Granger representing car 23, we are experiencing a problem, something has fallen from the sky. Over."

"Can you please describe the object Tom?"

"No sir, we didn't see what it was when it entered our sight, we might need back up over."

"Copy your last, we'll send another car to your location. Out." Tom hung up the radio and walked back over to James and Peter. The NCO came back with a bottle in his hand.

"Sir why do you have, a bottle?" James asked has he put it on the ground.

"It's the only thing I could find at the crash sight." There was writing on one side of the bottle, it was in English. James began to read it out loud.

"Please, help us, your our only hope, If you will help, us open the bottle." Everyone looked where he was looking. The NCO read it again to himself then picked up the bottle just as the second Hummer rolled up. He looked at crowd of marines then pulled the cork out of the top.

Nothing seemed to happen at first there was a bit of paper on the inside. The NCO then reached for it. When he pulled, the bottle began to shake and light shined out of the bottles top. As the NCO pulled more and more until all James could see was white light. When the light disappeared James wasn't in Iraq anymore, He was in the dark place, everything was black he couldn't see for shit. James tried to feel around for the switch for his light but he couldn't find it. The darkness of the room began to disappear, he could start to see again. James was still In the same position he was before the darkness, and so was everyone else, it's just that, they were not in Iraq anymore.

Everyone was quite shaken when the light came back the guys in the second Hummer got out and came over to us. They weren't wearing Desert MARPAT like we were, they were wearing all black uniforms and they had L98-A2's. They were like, some sort of British Commando Unit. Taking a good look around made me and everyone else wide eyed. We were in a large field with rolling hill on either side of us. It was really cold for everything was covered in a thick blanket of snow and the sky was covered in gray clouds. The wind would nip by every once and a while and the sounds of birds filled the air.

"What the hell just happened?" One of the British Commandos spoke up.

"Does it look like we know? We are just as surprised as you are." Our NCO spat back in anger. The Commando gave him a cross look then he began to pan around looking in every direction. I looked at our NCO name tag, it said Hugh Simons, if I was going to know his name now would be the time. Now knowing his name I wandered over to the edge of the hill before it dropped down into a downward slope I caught eye of a village. It's smoke rose up over the white fields really made it stand out. Hey called to the other guys and told them I saw a village. Them came over and they saw it too. Our NCO and the British NCO began to talk wile me and everyone else waited near the Hummers. They finished talking and came over to us.

"Okay listen up chaps," The British NCO started, "We have decided, that we will try and contact this village and see if we can get any insight of where we are currently located." Our NCO stepped forward, "When we do find out where we are we are going to ask how we got here and how we are going to get back. Is that understood?" Everyone got into attention and all at the same time said, "Sir, yes sir." We went back to the Hummers and got in, and again, I was on the gun. We headed off toward the village as our car went up and down the landscape, we passed forest , a couple frozen lakes and many other things until Hugh stopped the car. He said to wait in the Hummer wile he looked around. By this time the hills were behind and we now face a small path that probable leads into town. Hugh came back and began driving once more, the British Hummer followed.

It looked like some sort of movie, two Hummers heading down a road with trees on either side, none of them having leaves on them and as they drove to wind from the car picked up the snow and it trained behind us. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. We kept on driving until we reached a farm. On our way there we noticed the tress were beginning to pull away from the road and they were replaced by a picket fence. The trees then began forming into rows and rows and then fields of trees, that's when we noticed the farm house and barn. We pulled up out front were a sign hung that had a huge red apple painted on it. Me Peter and Hugh walked up to the farm house cause it had a light on inside. Hugh knocked on the door, there was voices then foot steps. The door made a clicking sound and when it opened, we didn't know what to think of it. Because there before us was a big red horse with a green apple on his ass. Hugh turned to me and asked, "Is there a uh, pony stand right there, a red pony, or am I drunk, high, insane, all of the above?" I said yes and hearing this he cringed and looked back at the pony.

"Can, uh, I help you folk?" I looked around for the person who was talking and when I saw no one my eyes turned slowly back toward the pony.

"Did you, just, talk?" Hugh asked.

"Eeyup." The pony said with a deep voice.

We just sort of stared at each other for the moment we didn't know hat to say or do, I was the first to act.

'Hi, uh what's your name?" The pony turned toward me and and smiled.

"My name is Big Mac, and you on Sweet Apple Acers one of the most famous Apple ranches this side of Equestria." I looked over to Hugh as he put a hand on his chin and looked toward me then back to Big Mac.

"So we are in a place called Equestria, right?" Mac Nodded

"And we are on Sweet Apple Acers?" He Nodded again.

"If I may ask, what's your names?" He asked. We then began to say our names one by one starting with Hugh and ending with me.

Mac spoke up again, "If I may ask again, What are you?" We stopped talking and looked at each other for a few seconds then looked back at Mac. We had never hap to answer this question before, we knew what the answer was we just never heard anything ask us before, even a pony.

"We are Humans from the Planet Earth, but, specifically we are Marines from a country called the United States of America." Hugh said as we turned back to Mac for a answer.

"Well what ever you are, you have to be cold right? Why don't you and your friends come in and we can chat there."

He said motioning us to step inside his house.

Hugh put up his hand in reject, "No offence, but, we need to find out how we can get back to our home world, do you know anyone who can help us?"

Mac put a hoof to his chin then pointed to a castle that was built on to the side of a mountain with golden roofs and white towers, right bellow it was a white wall, but behind the wall, was what looked like roofs to a city.

"That's your country's capital, go there you'll find the princess, she'll know what to do."

"Thank you Mac, we'll get going then." We were just about to leave but Big Mac stopped us. We turned around and he said we couldn't just walk into there capital, we would cause a riot. He said he would take us there so that everypony wouldn't feel scared around us.

"Alright then, where should we put our Hummers so they don't get ruined..." Big Mac's ears raised.

"What's a Hummer?" Hugh pointed to the Cars behind us, the British Commandos Still standing there waiting for us.

"Oh those big things over there? Here put them in the front yard." Hugh turned around and shouted for the Commandos to pull up into the yard. There NCO gave him the thumbs up and hopped into on of the Hummers and a Commando Jumped into the other one. Together they pulled up into the yard and parked side by side next to the farm house. After they got out Big Mac walked into the house for a second and came back with a note in his mouth. He then turned around and with a tack posted it on the door. it read,

"Applebloom, I have run out for a few minuet's Granny is still sleeping, keep her that way till I get back, Love Big Mac." He then turned and walked out the gate with us behind him.

Big Mac lead us to the edge of Ponyville, the seemingly small village we saw from so far away was a lot bigger when seen up close. He stopped and turned around to address us. He said something about ponies and how they might react to us. He said not to draw to much attention to ourselves and we would reach the station and will be on the train to Canterlot in no time. When we approached Ponyville we crossed a small bridge that was built over a creek, but cause it was winter it had frozen over. Pete being a little adventuress decided not to take the bridge and instead slid across the frozen creek to the other side then climbed back up, I laughed a bit and Hugh tapped him in the back of the head. The first thing I saw when we entered, was a little shopping center with multiple colored tents, selling all sorts of fruits and vegetables. When we began our pass most of the ponies that were shopping and selling stopped what they were doing and looked over to us with a mixture of sacred, suspired, and worried looks. We just waved and smiled and kept moving.

One of the ponies who was a sort of mint color walked up to us as we were walking. She wore a red and black stripped scarf and light blue ear muffs, on her back were saddlebags filled with all sorts of food and candy, on her flank was a harp or something. She sort of followed us and looked all of us over like we were some sort of oddity or treasure of some lost civilization. Suddenly a great big smile appeared when I took of my helmet to scratch my head. I sort of stared at her for a while cause she seemed to be following my hand. I couldn't help but laugh at the pony and smile a bit. But, sticking to the plan I kept on moving, but the pony seemed to frozen in one placed as I moved along, I think she was in some sort of shock. Slipping my helmet back on, our group stopped and we bunched up around Big Mac.

"Alright humans this train will take up to Canterlot just wait for it to pull up and hop aboard and you'll arrive within the next few hours." Before would could move to the platform Hugh caught something in the corner of his eye.

"Heads up men, we got company!" He pointed up into the air. I followed his finger till my eyes meet up with a Golden Chariot, that shined in the sunlight as it's golden rays beamed from above. It was being pulled by two Pegasi, their chariot was carrying two much taller ponies both of them had wings and... HORNS? There are UNICORNS HERE? My mind was racing with endless possibilities of this crazy world, why are talking ponies, why are there unicorns? can they do magic and stuff ? They landed in front of us and the two larger ponies got out and sent the chariot back into the sky. I turned to Hugh and he looked at me and motioned toward my assault rifle to get it ready, he had his hand on his M9 just incase things flew south.

"So, thou are the beings that are called, Humans, am I correct?" The blue one spoke up with a booming voice. Hugh and the British NCO stepped forward.

"Yes we are humans, is one of you Princess Celestia?" The white one stepped forward.

"I'm Princess Celestia ruler of Equestria, this is my younger sister, Luna the Co-ruler. I am pleased to meet you and glad you came this early." She said back in a much calmer voice then Luna. We sort of looked at each other until Hugh spoke again.

"What do you mean, Just, in, time?" He said crossing his arms.

"We can't talk here we need to wait for the train to talk in private." Celestia said pointing toward the just arriving train at the platform. "I don't want to cause a panic." So seeing no other option we boarded the express train as did the princesses and soon after boarding, the train took off toward Canterlot. I looked back on the platform and waved bye to Big Mac before the train picked up speed and darted off. All of the marines were in one car, wile the NCO's and the princesses talked in a completely different car that was empty besides them. We could here them talking, but couldn't make out any words. A conductor came up from the door in the back of the car with a ticket punch in his mouth.

"Tickets! tickets please." He said. We all turned around at the same time and looked at him. He didn't even say anything his face said it all, it's that face you get when you did something wrong and you know you did but you don't speak up, it's that face that just screams, "Oh shit..." Because right then and there he turned right around and headed back where he came from and slammed the door shut.

The talking carried on for a few more minuets until our NCO's came out of the car and into ours and told us the game plan.

Hugh spoke first. "Alright listen up, cause I'm only going to say this once. This country where we are currently staying on is on the brink of war and the only reason were are here is cause the two princesses chose us with this bottle," He said as he pulled out the bottle from earlier out and showed it to us, "They need our help or else this place will fall and this other race called Changelings will rise and enslave everyone, and they might even try to enslave our world as well." Everyone, now knowing this shocking news became very worried. Hugh passed out pictures of the Changeling army to the group on small scrolls. I got the picture and on the page was a picture of some sort of castle like structure with a black cloud hovering over it. The cloud had very small but very noticeable blue eye's, there were millions of the things. I looked back up and passed the scroll to the next marine. The British NCO stepped forward. "They, will enslave our world, that bottle is a gate way from this world to our world if they get ahold of this, well, there is no end to the amount of pain they will cause. We need to return to Earth with the princesses so we can get as many soldiers we can get our hands on, for America, for England, FOR EQUESTRIA!! Now who's with me?" We stood at the same time, "HOORAH!!"

The train ride from Ponyville to Canterlot felt like forever. I lean on the window sill of my seat and watch as trees pass me by as we speed along our way. Siting next to me was Hugh, he really didn't say much after the speech earlier. He sort of sat there next to me, probably still surprised that this whole this isn't a dream, just like the rest of us.

"Sir, uh, what are we going to do once we reach D.C." I said and he turned toward me.

"Easy, we need to make the United Nations believe us when I say, our world is about to be invaded by aliens and we need your help to protect Technicolor ponies on a parallel world." He finished his breath then looked away and put his head in between his hands and shook. I guess you can it say it sounded better in his head. I turned around and looked behind me at the rest of the marines they all were still a bit shaken up after the confrontation with the guards. Like I said, many of my marines haven't seen action in a wile. Not sure about the royal marines though.

The train ride went on for a few more hours, that entire time I felt a little queasy, not sure why though, I wasn't afraid of heights or ponies... but it felt like I was going to be sick or maybe I was going to throw up. I don't know, when I tried to rest, I could feel like something was rushing through my vanes, something else besides blood, something was in there with it and when I opened my eyes I could still feel it, but it wasn't as strong like it was before. It was only when I close my eyes and tried to sleep, it comes back. I tried not to dwell on it and pushed it out of my mind.

'I'm just paranoid, that's all.' I thought to myself. 'Nothing to worry about.'

I looked to the others and they looked fine. So I went back to watching the trees as we speed along.

Canterlot Train Station 12:47 pm...

By the time we arrived the sun had been set and the moon hung brightly in the sky. The train pulled up to the station and we all got out and headed along with the princesses. They led us to a Inn not to far from the station. The building was old and rustic looking, a sign hung out front with a bed painted on it. The building was white and had moss growing on the walls it had about the chimneys that smoke rose from in big cartoonish puffs.

"You will be staying here for the night until I can send my student to collect data about your species, I won't be able to do so tomorrow because of royal matters. They will be by around 9:00 o' clock sharp. Here are some bits for you guys to get a room or two." She said giving Hugh the golden coins and then heading off toward the castle. We headed inside to find a rather small waiting room, a few chairs, a fountain, and a counter with a bell. I rang it and waited for the answer. A pony came up a small flight of stairs carrying a book and a few quills. after getting situated she looked up to us in horror. She all most froze up if Hugh didn't ask for two rooms.

"Y-you want two rooms?" Hugh nodded.

"Should this be enough, correct?" Hugh said holding out his hand with a dozen coins in his palm. He placed it on the table and after counting them she nodded and handed us two keys and pointed down the hall.

"Thanks." Hugh said before motioning for the group to follow him. We walked by meny rooms until we found our rooms some of our Marines and The British Commandos went into another. It was very large inside two beds with on window that viewed the streets behind the room. I almost fell down on to the bed if that felling didn't return when I tried to sleep. I just lied down on the bed and just stared at the celling as everyone sleep soundly.