From the Sands to the Skies

A first-person, MLP FiM HiE fan fiction.

By Mr_Hollow

Sand and blood, that’s all I can really remember. Whose blood, that’s hard to say; I mean I know for a fact that I wasn’t alone, pushing into that god-forsaken city. My name is Hazen Rickett, I was a soldier in the United States Army and I was part of a joint invasion force to take over a major city in Iraq. It was the D-Day of my generation, pushing head-first into a heavily fortified stronghold of insurgents, the bastards who attacked the United States to try to prove how big of a John they really had. We were the response, a blind rush to act as a strict kick to the groin to basically say “Hey, put that shit away assholes!” I was nervous, we all were, the young guys who enlisted into the military as a career choice; we always fantasized about what it would be like to see combat, the glory and the action...it’s a typical thing among young guys, though when combat finally came knocking our fantasies were soon crushed. Anyways, we were pushing into the city...at this point I forgot the name of the hell hole. I was running towards a building to use as cover as the rounds of (what I believed to be) an AK of sorts whizzed by. I began to trip up and stumbled towards my cover, slamming into the wall with a grunt. I raised my trusty M16A4 and leaned around the corner, putting a burst of fire towards the line of fire that was directed at me. I was focused on myself and only myself at this point, putting ammo down range towards the bastards who were doing exactly what I was doing, shooting to kill. I was sat in that spot for a solid 20 minutes or so, dodging fire and returning it; I’d racked up about five kills and I wasn’t proud of that. I was fighting to survive, glory being the farthest thing from my mind. I was about to lean around the corner again when I heard a loud whistle from afar then I felt an explosion rock the building I was against. What happened next is where things get fuzzy, I felt an impact on my head then all went black.

When I came to I was laid out on my back, distant gunshots were all I could hear. I looked around to get a bearing of my situation; I had no idea where I was in relation to my previous position, but I could see the city. I patted myself down for wounds,my hands and arms were lightly coated in blood, but thankfully there were no wounds which struck me as odd. Another thing to note is that my rifle was gone and so was the standard knife that all of us grunts carried. I rose to my feet, slowly and drew my sidearm. My radio was damaged, the screen had a hole about the size of a dime going into it, but not completely through, which was odd, maybe my radio saved my life? I didn’t know, or care. I was alive and I was making my way back to the city. Upon re-entry I noticed that gunfire died down. Then a low kind of 'THUD' then nothing... until I heard loud explosion about twenty feet from me, and a large white plume of smoke began to form...then another on my opposite side and yet another, I fumbled for the gas mask on my belt, only to feel it was missing and just as I came to that conclusion I was enveloped in the smoke. White Phosphorus is handy when it comes to making smoke screens, I’ll tell you that much, but when you coat an entire city, head to toe in the shit, that’s just evil. White Phosphorus burns extremely hot and will burn you alive if you’re in the impact zone of a WP shell, but if you’re just outside that range the smoke is highly toxic and can kill if under prolonged exposure. All I saw was white, then black as I lost consciousness.

When I awoke I was being dragged, I sighed thinking that maybe I had been spotted by a medic wearing  a mask, but then something that wasn’t right caught my attention. I was being dragged between lines of trees...a forest? I looked around and sure enough I was being dragged through a forest...a pastel colored forest...”Ugh...what the fuck?” I half groaned, half said. No sooner than I said anything I felt the grip of whatever was dragging me loosen and let go of my collar. “Oh my gosh! You’re awake!” Huh, a woman’s voice? No, a young woman... with an American sounding accent, maybe Canadian? I half sat-up, and turned to get a glimpse of my savior but what confused me was the sight of a small purple equine figure, trotting around me. I was about to look around to see if I could find the source of the female voice, but then I saw the creature before me open it’s mouth. “So you can talk and you can speak Equestrian! That’s grand!” It spoke! "What the fuck?!” I rolled over onto my gut and started to scramble off in a panic, but felt a gentle warmth cover my body, then I was lifted off the ground, I was surrounded in a lavender colored aura and was levitating. “Huh, is that all you can say? ‘What the fuck’ was it?” it said. “This isn’t happening...this has to be some sort of fucked up dream...I just need to wake up. Goddess, please let me be dreaming.” I began pleading for anyone to wake me up, even the goddess I praised. I was and have always been Wiccan. I’m not one of those “edgy” kids who was trying to break the mold, I believed in the ways and felt that this faith was correct, and now I was hoping that pleading for my goddess would save me from whatever hell I was going through.

“What’s your name?” The purple unicorn asked. She magically levitated me back to her home...a library, building into a large tree and managed to talk me down, though I didn’t stop pinching myself to see if I would wake up. “I’m Hazen...uh...I mean...P-Private First Class Rickett. United States Army.” I stammered. I acted as if I had been captured and was being interrogated by the freaking enemy. “So you’re a soldier?” She inquired, using her magic to lift my arms and examine them. In another aura she had a notepad and a pencil, the pencil was writing away on it’s own at an extraordinary rate. “Yes...I was on a combat mission...I don’t remember a whole lot about it.” I said with a slight tone of annoyance. “Could you please stop doing that?” She dropped my limbs immediately and looked up. “Sorry, but you’re the first...whatever you are that I’ve seen or heard of, none of my books have anything that resemble you!” She said, excitement mixed with being apologetic, odd mixture. “Really? You’ve never heard of a human?” I choked out, I’m not in Kansas anymore, is really all I could think to sum it up nicely. Another universe? Alternate reality? Possible future of earth? All these possibilities were taking over my mind, while I just stared at the purple unicorn sat in front of me, her lips moving but I couldn’t hear what she’s saying. I shook off my thoughts. “Sorry, what? I got a little lost in my mind for a second there.” I said apologetically, since I never liked to absent mindedly ignore someone, not since Basic Training, at least. “I said, my name is Twilight Sparkle and we’re in a small town called Ponyville, a couple hours from the Equestrian capital of Canterlot...well by train at least.” Trains, huh? I thought the village looked a little...outdated by what I was used to but at least theres some technology that is handy. “Well that’s certainly good to know, thank you.” I smiled as warmly as a confused, scared, alien to this world could and she returned  an even warmer smile. “You’re very welcome...but for now can we go through some questions? I’ll ask you one, you answer then you do the same for me?”

The gauntlet of questions was just awful. She had so many questions for me that I ended up running out of actual questions about a quarter of a way through her inquisition! It started out fairly simple, what were humans like? How did our societies work? What was our diet like? That last one nearly caused her to have an aneurysm, at least until I explained that humans were basically the evolved cousins of monkeys, then she seemed less....”on edge” as I’ll put it. “Well I do admit, the meat part of the diet maybe a bit difficult to work with, seeing as ponies like myself are herbivores....well aside from the daring ones...or the cannibals out West...” She was about to start rambling until I literally snapped her out of it. “That doesn’t really matter, as long as I can get a steady amount of proteins I should be fine, but I’m no expert on these things, really.” I did worry, though...no meat...NO STEAK! FUCK, WHAT AM I GONNA DO?! “Quick question, Twilight...do all four legged creatures talk here?” She thought for a moment then shrugged. “The Cows talk, Buffalo talk and Griffons talk, Minotaurs talk and Diamond Dogs talk.” The list she rattled off was reassuring, yet concerning... “Griffons and Minotaur exist here?” I said, my jaw nearly hitting the floor. "Yes, we have plenty of varieties of creatures, civilized and savage; domestic and wild.” She sounded like she was advertising the universe to me...I snickered at the though of the “Land of Equestria Vacation paradise commercial” with her voice over. She looked at me puzzled and I explained it all, what television was and advertisements through TV, and she actually giggled at the thought. “That would be silly, wouldn’t it?” I had to say, she was indeed one of the nicest peo-...sentient beings I’d met in a very long time and I enjoyed talking to her.

After the bridge from question time to friendly conversation she had what I called a “lightbulb moment”, when someone remembers something they meant to do or say or ask or whatever. “About your clothing, is that the armor your world’s military uses?” I was wearing the standard issue DCUs or Desert Combat Uniform, it consisted of three colors dark brown, mint green and beige in a traditional camo scheme, I looked myself over, I was dusty, dirty and my uniform had burn holes in it...I sighed going back to that last horrible second before the cloud of White Phosphorus enveloped me...did I die? If I didn’t how the hell did I survive? Then my mind went to the event itself...why did we barrage the place in WP? We didn’t have any need to mask our movements with smoke, we would’ve done that before moving into the Area of Operations...it had to have been an offensive strike which was highly illegal under the Geneva Conventions. It was depressing to think that I may have died because we were fighting a losing battle that we had to cheat just to win. Again I sighed and looked up to Twilight. “Well my country uses this specific pattern of camouflage for the branch of the military I’m in, but all branches have different uniforms and camouflage patterns. Also, this isn’t really armor, but just a thick but breathable material. The real body armor is in the vest I’m wearing and the helmet I’m wearing.” I said, pointing to but not actually touching said armored pieces. “But, you’re not wearing a helmet.” Twilight replied. I patted my head to make sure and sure enough my helmet was gone. “Was I wearing it when you found me?” I asked her and she shook her head no. “Well damn, I was hoping that would’ve made it.” I shrugged. “Oh well, it does feel nice to go soft-top.” She gave me a confused look and I sighed. “Sorry, it’s a term me and a few of my friends in the Army used when we were not wearing helmets.” I chuckled, thinking back to a few other bits of jargon we used...not appropriate, especially if I say anything about that dirty barracks rat that Jon kept seeing...now I’m rambling...Twilight eventually put the pieces together and then smiled. “So when you’re wearing a helmet you’re going hard-top, right?” I nodded and she clapped her hooves together with joy.

“Twilight, I heard a voice, do we have company?”No longer than she did that I heard a voice from upstairs, it sounded like a young boy, probably 10-ish years old. The owner of the voice, a very short purple and green reptilian creature, rubbing one of it’s eyes came down just enough to where I could get a good glimpse of him. He stopped dead in his tracks once he saw me. He was visibly shaking, but besides that he barely moved, I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. Twilight trotted over to him and did all the cartoonish ways to snap him out of his trance. Sighing I walked over to him and grabbed him by his little shoulders; I shook the hell out of him. After a bit of the treatment he finally came to, thankfully I didn’t have to slap him. “AH! MONSTER!” he yelled, then proceeded to belch, which combusted into fire mere inches from my face. “Holy shit!” I exclaimed, releasing the know identified dragon and stumbling back a couple of steps. No Spike! It’s okay! He’s friendly!” Twilight cried.

“So you’re a soldier from a place that may be in a different universe from a species that nopony has ever heard of?” The baby dragon asked, his tone suspicious. “Yes, basically; and I doubt that ANYBODY would know what I could do to get home.” I emphasized the ‘anybody’, as you can probably tell that it didn’t go over well with the two of them. “Why do you say ‘anybody’?” They both asked almost in sync. “Because that’s what my world says, and it makes sense to, since I’m not a pony and neither is Spike.” They both seemed to take this thought in for a moment before shrugging. “I guess so.” said Twilight and with this Spike nodded in agreement. “So, Twilight what do you think we should do with him?” Spike eyed me, again suspicious of my intentions. “Well maybe we should tell Princess Celestia?” Twilight said nodding to Spike who then against all logic that I can understand pulled a scroll and a quill from behind him. Twilight began her letter...

“Dear Princess Celestia, I have come across an odd creature in the Everfree Forest just outside of ponyville. It was alive but unconscious. I began dragging it back to my home in Ponyville when it awoke, and while it is a sentient creature, showed the primal instinct of fear when it came across another unfamiliar sentient being. We have been talking and so far from what I’ve gathered is a male of the species Homo Sapien, or Human as he put it. He is very friendly and I’m sure he would like to meet you.”

- Your Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle.

The letter was sent off in a puff of Spike’s firebreath...interesting way of sending mail, I suppose. “Well now I suppose we wait...mind if I smoke?” I said, reaching into my pocket for my trust pack of Cigarettes.

{End of Chapter 1}