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0745 HOURS
DECK OF THE HMS ILLUSTRIOUS
NORTH SEA, OFF THE NORWEGIAN COASTLINE, BOUND FOR KARELIA
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David leaned over the railing, gripping the metal until he could feel the cold off the steel under the pads of his hands. It had only been a few minutes since Felipe had shown up with news that they were to allow Subject Beta a visit with Alpha, and he was already wondering if jumping overboard and making a swim for the Norwegian coast might be the safer option here.

He sighed, wishing desperately that the meeting going on below decks was the only thing on his mind. Unfortunately, there was also the little fact about his time in the Corps. He had no idea how the old Englishman had found out, but David did know the contract he’d had to sign, and in there was a big stipulation telling him that speaking about his past in the Corps was a big no-no. It had been right in between accepting bribes and delivering packages from strangers. He could probably guess why: if the other nations knew America had sent a former soldier to what was supposed to be the ultimate act of international cooperation, accusations of spying and infiltration would fly like the nukes on the last day of the Collision Wars.

God above, there had been a shit day for the record books. Even now, just thinking about it made a knot twist in his stomach. Wishing he’d never given up smoking, the American just peered out over the railing, only to draw his head back on seeing the churning, broiling sea below. “Christ,” he grumbled. Christ almighty God, why did he give up smoking!?

“Afternoon, Dave,” Lisa said, walking up to the railing and leaning out as David had. The American nodded in return, envying her stomach as she pulled a package of Mayfairs from her blouse. She offered him one, and he held up a hand.

“No thanks,” he said. The last thing he needed was for lovely little Lisa Townshend to watch him hack and cough like a middle-schooler caught sneaking daddy’s Marlboros in the backyard.

“Don’t smoke?” She nodded, sticking the cigarette between her lips and flicking a Bic lighter out to light it up. “Good. Shit will kill ya.”

He watched her drag a few puffs off the cigarette before pulling it out of her lips, flicking her hair over her shoulders as she leaned against the railing. David had to resist the urge to lick his lips while her mouth puffed out with the smoke. “So, what do you think?” She asked.

“Hmm?”

“About…what we’re doin’ here, the Admiral,” she gestured out across the deck of the Carrier. “All of this.”

He thought about telling a lie, but looking at her now, like this, he realized she was a big girl. She didn’t need any lies, and would probably punch him for trying to tell her one anyway. “I think we’re in way over our heads,” he sighed.

Lisa had to grin at that. “Glad I’m not the only one.”

God above, that little smile…David realized in that moment how much he loved that smile. The way her face genuinely lit up with it, the way her eyes glittered, even the way her lips pursed around the cigarette as they tightened stirred something within him. Funny thing, a week ago David never would have even entertained this thought. Lisa was a coworker, and in his experience, work and romance went together about as well as drinking and driving, or drinking and firearms, or gunpowder and chain-smoking. While drinking. Thing was, last week they were all office workers trying to survive the boredom until five-o-clock, and now they were standing atop the only thing which could undo all the work and progress of the last five years and plunge the world into utter chaos, if not destroy the planet outright.

Stilling his quickening heart (a task much harder than he remembered it being), David took a few deep breaths. “Say, Lisa…” he started.

“Hmm?”

“You know, that asteroid is supposed to be visible in the sky starting tonight: Ceres, I think it’s called,” he said, remembering some report on CNN about another big space rock passing close to Earth. It was almost like destiny. Him, her, the stars above, maybe a few beers between them (one of the flyboys had to have some booze smuggled aboard). It was just about the closest thing to an actual date he could think possible on an aircraft carrier holding the doom of all mankind. “I was hoping that…”

“David,” the Englishwoman smiled, pulling her cigarette out from between her lips. “Is it my imagination, or are you trying to ask me out?”

“Well,” he smiled. “That depends, are you saying…”

Before he could deliver the final one-liner, something caught his attention. A deep rumbling echoed from the bowels of the ship, undetectable to anyone who hadn’t spent enough time at sea: a sudden shift in the usual rhythm beating from the miles of cabling, ducts, and machinery keeping the carrier alive. It wasn’t enough to alarm him, but it was more than enough to break the delicate balance he needed to keep up that confident façade. Like a presenter in front of a class of fifty when he notices a clown just barely poking his head into one of the windows behind the audience.

Unfortunately, Lisa noticed the rapid shift in David’s attention, and her ears actually perked up. “David?” She asked, her hand dropping to her side, her cigarette forgotten. “David, what’s…”

“Nothing!” He gasped, shaking his head with a quick cough. Dammit, that response was too fast, too curt! He was losing it! And still, there had been that shift, that weird break in the ship’s heartbeat…

Nothing! He berated himself. Absolutely nothing, that’s all it was! Your nerves, most likely, or a hiccup in the ventilation. Either way, who cares!? That’s not who you are anymore, all that matters is the girl in front of you getting ready to…

And then it started. The shouts from the direction of the captain’s bridge, the people on deck all making a beeline for the bridge, some of them clambering out of cockpits in heavy gear, others setting down heavy equipment before drawing their sidearms. A couple dozen possible scenarios for why this would be happening went through David’s mind, but…

But you’re just kidding yourself, he realized. You know damn well what it is, and you’re either too stubborn or too scared to admit it.

But it can’t be! Another voice cried out. A child’s voice, he realized, probably still a college freshman holding a physics textbook in his arms. We saw the restraints! We saw the cell! And we trust everybody downstairs to not screw this up! Maybe other things, but not this! Never this…

Once again, his thoughts were interrupted, this time by the massive, steel door leading into the bridge flying open. There was a burst of rainbow, and a hurricane force gale came roaring out, knocking the men closest to the door off their feet while the others’ hands flew up instinctively to protect their faces, even the ones still wearing helmets with visors. And then, David saw something he had prayed every night for two years never to see again. He hadn’t even been a terribly religious man until it happened, but there it was, right in front of him: a burst of white light, thrusting into the sky…

…with magically-induced speed, arcing up high overhead. Fast. Too fast to watch…

“Oh my God, is that…” Lisa started, but she was in a whole other world as far as David was concerned. His thoughts were already flying back to that wretched memory, to standing on a carrier a lot like this: on the bridge, this time. To watching everything come together, and then fall apart in a moment.

He stumbled, the heel of his shoe absentmindedly catching on a rivet that perhaps needed a couple more turns with the wrench to be perfectly in line with the rest of the deck. He fell backwards, something struck the back of his head, and between that and the horribly memory, darkness descended over his vision.

“David!?” Lisa had time to shout before that black fuzziness fell over him, like a limb after you laid on it for too long, except the feeling was inside his skull. He blacked out with the memory in his mind and his lips forming a terrified “oh,” instantly falling away from the world of the present and back into the world of that day, that horrible day five years ago, when he had been so sure he had just bought himself a front row ticket to the end of the world.

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0845 HOURS
NORTH VIDOY ISLAND
FAROE ISLANDS, KINGDOM OF DENMARK, NORTH SEA
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By the time blessed land was finally in sight, Princess Celestia had pledged that she would go on that diet she’d been promising herself for the last five centuries, would happily sign papers and listen to nobles complain about the poor street urchins who had the audacity to cross their path during a morning stroll without a single complaint of boredom, and would even swear off chocolate cake for the rest of eternity. That last one was the important one. For centuries, she had never thought it to be that big of a problem: it was easy to still think of herself as that mare of legend, who had defeated Nightmare Moon in close aerial combat, and who could do pushups one-hoofed with the entire Canterlot Philharmonic Orchestra practicing on a stage balanced on her shoulder blades. Sure, it had been a while since she’d done so (mostly due to the lack of drunken minotaur kings dumb enough to bet against her), but she was still that mare, right?

After a few hours of giving her student a ponyback ride, however, she had come to the conclusion that whatever was left of that mare had long since been buried under layers of cake, her muscles having grown soft from years of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. With Luna as my witness, she thought, I will never tease my sister for her workout schedule ever again.

The beach had been a godsend. Sure, the day was dreary and cold and just about the opposite of anything anypony could consider decent beach weather, and the tufts of grass and sharp rocks jutting randomly out of the sand told her this was far from any tourist beach, but just then, it could have been Acapulcolt in the middle of summer with buff stallions serving complimentary martinis to everypony.

Celestia fanned her wings out and swooped down, still managing a dainty landing in the sand, her hooves sinking immediately. Panting heavily, she tilted her wings, allowing Twilight to slide safely off her back before collapsing on her side.

“That was great, princess,” Twilight said reassuringly, the first words she had spoken in the last half-hour, when she’d cut herself off after Celestia’s breathing became too quick and too ragged to continue conversation. “I’ll look around for someplace where we can get out of the open; you stay here and rest, okay?”

Celestia nodded through her panting, her eyes closing as Twilight wrapped her in a quick hug before taking off. She watched her student go, noting the scratch on her flank for any signs of infection or scarring, and sighing with relief when she spotted none. She turned over on her back, wings splaying out under her body, feeling the cool sand on every feather. Honestly, nothing would have given her more pleasure than to follow her student’s advice and just lie there, maybe even catching a quick nap before slinking off to whatever hole Twilight managed to find. They could lie together in there, as they had so many times during Twilight’s years at the Academy for Gifted Unicorns. Perhaps the little princess would still fit in the crook of her forehooves as she had during those long, wonderful nights, but probably not, and even just finding out would still be okay.

But no. There was still too much to do, too much at stake. With a sigh and a moan that “A princess’s work is never done,” Celestia reached under her wing for the tiny device she’d stolen from the human back in her cell. The device lit up immediately, again with the strange symbols that she somehow knew meant “Slide To Unlock.” A quick swipe with her hoof, and the array of dots from before appeared. For a second, her exhausted mind couldn’t quite recall the exact pattern the human had shown her. Her heart leapt into her throat. To have come all this way, have covered all this distance, only for the answers to elude her? To have them sitting here in her hoof, locked away in this device? It was almost too much to bear. But then she fought back the little, skittering sound of panic rising in her head, taking a few deep breaths. She closed her eyes, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, emptying her mind. A few minutes later, the memory came back to her.

The device unlocked with the same, little click she remembered, and a triumphant grin spread across her face. But now what? There were symbols and names that she didn’t recognize, hovering amidst the glow off the small, soft screen, and not much else. She would simply have to try them all.

The first icon was of a small, blocky face (she couldn’t have known that the proper term was “pixelated”) with the name “Ainsley.” With nothing more for it, Celestia tapped the edge of her hoof against the little icon. The icon glowed, then the screen went dark. Celestia’s heart leapt into her throat again with the idea that this “Ainsley” had just destroyed the device and any hope she had of finding any answers, but then a single, red button appeared, with a symbol kind of like the microphones ponies without magic would use sometimes to amplify their voices. Before she could react, a couple tones sounded, and a warm, female voice announced:

“Hello! I am Ainsley!”

Startled by the sudden reply, Celestia sat up in the sand, rising to her haunches. “What sort of magic…” she started, but there was no magic in this device. In fact, feeling it, there was barely even any warmth from it. “Faust above,” she whispered. The more she learned of what these humans had accomplished, and without any apparent use of magic, the more she understood what they were, and the better she felt that such a marvelous species had conquered her so quickly.

Once again pressing the edge of her hoof to the screen, she watched the button glow and heard a click, as if it were an actual button on some strange machine back home. “H-hello Ainsley, I am Celestia,” she whispered to the device before releasing the fake button. A circle appeared over the button, a little ring that slowly arced around it until her words replaced Ainsley’s. Then, the same two tones sounded again.

“I just heard you refer to yourself by a new name: ‘Celestia.’ Would you like me to call you by this name from now on?”

Smiling, Celestia pressed the button again. “Yes please, if you would, Ainsley.”

The circle of light appeared again, then her words appeared onscreen. But when Ainsley spoke again, she or it or whatever it was filled Celestia’s heart with dismay: “I’m sorry, but the name you have chosen for yourself is on a list of banned words and phrases on my hard drive. While you may proceed to make this your username, I must inform you that it will be blocked or censored on certain websites. Would you still like to make ‘Celestia’ your username?”

“My name is a profanity here?” Celestia gasped, realizing what the small device was implying. Dear Maker above, she knew things had to be bad for what had happened to her so far, but for her very name to be a profanity…

“Nevermind, Ainsley, just call me Princess,” Celestia sighed, then under her breath added, “Maker knows everypony else does.”

Ding, ding! “I just heard you refer to yourself by a new…”

“Yes, yes, please do and let’s move along.”

Ding, ding! “Alright! From now on, I’ll refer to you as ‘Princess!’ What can I do for you today, Princess?”

Celestia thought a few moments about her request. She knew she would probably have to word it carefully: if her very name was a profanity, what kind of warning flags might she send up with the wrong kind of search? Finally, a phrase one of the humans had uttered came to mind, and she smiled. “Ainsley, search for ‘human into pony.’”

After a few minutes of fumbling with something called a “Google Search” (she was a bit beyond caring what a “Google” was), Celestia’s smile faded. Then it disappeared, like her sun at the end of a long day. By the time her student returned with news of a small cave just up the beach, the first tears of many were rolling down Celestia’s ivory cheeks.

“Princess, what’s wrong?” Twilight would ask.

Without replying, Celestia took her student’s hoof and followed her to the small cave, Ainsley trailing behind in her magic’s glow. Twilight’s tears would join hers soon, as together in that small cave, they discovered the terrors of what had come before them.

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FIVE YEARS AGO
ONBOARD THE USS BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
EAST CHINA SEA, NEAR HONG KONG
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If one had asked the college freshman sitting in the library and reading about magical talking ponies appearing off the Chinese coast where events in the next few years would lead him, he would have almost certainly replied with a shrug and a statement somewhere along the lines of “Maybe work for one of my dad’s buddies, I dunno.” He most certainly never would have said anything that would lead him to the deck of a monstrous aircraft carrier, wearing a Marine’s uniform and anticipating the results of the largest effort of the combined nations of the world since World War Two.

Oh, but God, was he glad to be here. Six months of fear, of terror, of watching cities that had stood for centuries disappear, and it was all ending right here. Humans may not have had magic, but they were clever, so very clever. A few Newfoal prisoners (which had been a bitch to contain) and some studies later, and magic was discovered to be nothing more than a new form of energy. One that might well tap into the impossible levels of energy contained within all matter, perhaps, but energy nonetheless. Humans could understand energy very well, and if it could be understood, it could be controlled.

David glanced up at the massive clock ticking down just over the window overlooking the flight deck. He let in a deep breath. Outside, he could see The Barrier glimmering in the distance, watched the strange, shimmering hue it gave off, like a soap bubble the size of Rhode Island. And we’re coming, bitch, he thought with no small amount of restrained glee. We’re coming to pop your bubble, and when we do…I just hope I get to see the look on your face when we waltz right into your throne room and wipe our asses with your flag.

“Admiral?” An important-looking man in a full-length, pure-white naval coat turned just as a sailor walked up to him and saluted. “Our men with the People’s Army say they’re all ready to go. The Inhibitor stations are all running just outside The Barrier’s perimeter. The rest of the Security Council has already given the go-ahead, they’re just waitin’ on us.”

The Admiral grinned at that, his bushy mustache curving upwards as he flashed his perfectly-white teeth. “Savin’ the best for last, eh?” He asked, giving a light chuckle. The rest of the room joined him, mostly to relieve tension, partially because as far as a man as important as the Admiral was concerned, all his jokes were funny. “Fine, fine, tell them the good ol’ U-S of A is standing by to pull their asses out of the fire if things get too scary for them.”

Grinning, the sailor lowered his arm. “Sir!” He announced, marching over to the nearest radio console. Pulling on a headset, he held a microphone to his lips, announcing loudly for everyone in the room to hear. “Shenzhen-One, this is Eagle-Six, you are go to bring down Sasha the Old White Dog, I repeat, you are go to bring down Sasha the Old Dog.”

“Sasha the Old Dog?” One of the Marines next to David whispered.

“Sasha’s a girl’s name, and what’s a female dog called?” He whispered back.

The other marine arched an eyebrow, then realization dawned on his face and he stifled a guffaw. David rolled his eyes. Greenhorns…

“This is Shenzhen-One,” a heavily-accented voice buzzed back to them. “Activation acknowledged, Eagle-Six. Stand by.”

A few moments of breath-holding passed, and then the voice returned: “And we heard that ‘pull their asses out of the fire’ comment, and would like to remind you who fought who to a stalemate in the fifties!”

David let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in a sudden chortle, the absurdity of someone cracking a joke at a time like this relieving nearly all the tension gathered in the room. The Admiral glanced over at him and snorted. “Eh, them Reds get lucky once, and think they can lord it over us for the rest of time.” The man’s tone was good-natured, however. This was a day of triumph, of humanity’s victory over an alien force the likes of which had never been encountered before. Of science standing before magic and sending it careening into the dark abyss once and for all. Technology over superstition! A species’ right to exist over the xenophobic hordes! For now, at least, all national boundaries had been erased, replaced with only one nation: the nation of humanity, as exemplified by the massive, international effort that was the new world, the new…

“Eagle-Six, this is Shenzhen-One,” the crackling, accented voice announced. “The Inhibitors are charged up now; you should be seeing the effects any moment.”

Once again, David’s breath caught in his throat. The candid talk and laughter which had been so much white noise before all came to a screeching halt, and his ears rang with its absence. He gazed out the window at that shimmering barricade, and for a few minutes, saw no change. Oh God… he realized. It’s not gonna work. She’s too powerful: it’s not gonna work and we’re all screwed, we’re all…

Just then, right along where the dome of magic met the seawater, he thought he saw a flicker, like an old analog TV with a burnt fuse somewhere. For a moment, The Mighty and Unstoppable Barrier had winked in and out of existence. David smiled; as did the marines and sailors who’d also noticed it. The same patch of magic flickered again, only this time, it reached a little bit out of the water, and it remained flickering for a full minute. Then another patch near the apex winked out, followed by another right in the middle of the dome, right where everybody could see it. Bit by bit, and to the cheers of the thousands in the armada, The Barrier vanished, leaving behind nothing but the destruction it had wrought.

It took most of David’s strength to remain standing. For the first time since high school, he needed a smoke. He felt he deserved it after a display like that. Maybe later he could bum one off one of the flyboys on the deck, but for now, he settled for collapsing into the swivel chair to his right, looking up and just smiling at the suspended ceiling.

“Shenzhen-One, we are confirming success of Tachyon Inhibition, repeat, the operation was a success!” The sailor at the console said joyfully. David’s ear pricked up, wanted to hear the euphoric cries of the men and women on the other end of the line, but only picking up static.

“Shenzhen-One, reporting mission success, do you copy?” The radio man continued.

David slouched further in his chair. Surely, the people on the other end of the line were just caught up in the celebrations, having witnessed The Barrier’s disintegration themselves. This was too joyous a moment to be otherwise, this was…

“Y…t…o…”

David’s eyes opened. For a moment there, he could have sworn he heard the bitch’s voice on the horn, the one he recognized from the press conferences and the announcements and the hacked television feeds. But surely, that was just his imagination! Surely, this moment was not going to end with…

“Y…u…too…”

David sat up slowly in his chair. His smile faded. He still didn’t want to believe it, but the pale, drawn look on the sailor’s face told him he’d heard it too, along with the sailor next to him, who was now staring at the speaker with his jaw on his chest. “N…no…” the second sailor said.

All at once, a bright, white streak took off into the sky, arcing high over the ocean, and the radio flickered to life with the voice of none other than Princess Celestia herself: “You too…you too…you too…you too…”

The celebration came to a sudden, screeching halt. All eyes widened and looked out the window, watching the bright streak as it lifted off at impossible speeds, darting across the sky and streaking off to the North. And meanwhile, the voice continued on the radio: “You too…You too…You too…”

“Wha-what was that?” David found himself saying. “Was that…was that her!? What the fuck was that!?”

Just then, the radio crackled, a new voice appearing over the princess’s, her voice continuing to play in the background. “Eagle-Six, this is Tokyo Command, what’s the SITREP?”

With shaking hands, the Admiral himself stepped down to the radio and pressed it to his lips. “I-Inhibitors deployed successfully, Tokyo Command,” he whispered.

“You sure?” The voice barked. “We have an unidentified object heading in at an indeterminate velocity, and we’re spying some Lithium Deuteride and high radiation signatures coming off it, did anybody over there call for tactical nukes!?”

David’s stomach plummeted into his combat boots. The Admiral paused for a moment, then leapt into action. “Somebody get me a satellite view of Tokyo, stat!”

“Coming online, sir!” One of the tech geeks in uniform screamed, tapping furiously at his keyboard.

“Bring it up on the main screen!”

“Yes, sir!” After a few moments, a large projection screen at the front of the room flickered into life, showing the sprawl of downtown Tokyo in its view. In the streets, tiny little white dots milled around, pausing at street corners, waving to friends, walking briskly with suitcases: just people going about their day, unaware of the drama unfolding a few hundred miles to their south.

“Zoom out…” The Admiral grunted hoarsely. The view changed until the city was nothing more than a gray dot, surrounded by a patchwork of suburbs, nestled along a coast of rolling gray mountains amidst sprawling green farmland and forest. Then, the image winked in and out, and an intense white light appeared in one of the lower corners of the screen, rocketing towards the city’s center.

“Oh God…” David mumbled.

“Eagle-Six, we’re also experiencing some radio interference on our end, are you experiencing something similar?” The voice crackled, once again atop the feminine voice of the bitch.

His hands now barely even able to hold onto the transceiver, the Admiral replied: “S-something like that. The Princess saying ‘You too’?”

“Uhh…” some shuffling from the other side, broken up only with that damnable voice, repeating those two words over and over again. “Actually sir, she’s saying ‘Die’ on our end. Why? Is that what she’s saying on yours?”

The Admiral made to reply, when the little white dot reached the center of the screen. In an instant, a bright flash dominated the entire view, the screen flickering with blacks and whites as the intensity of it overwhelmed the camera. “EAGLE-SIX, WHAT…” the voice on the other end managed to get out before disappearing beneath a sea of static.

The bridge fell silent. Everyone stood in fear, gazing out the front windows. Then, the Admiral pressed the radio to his lips again: “Tokyo Command, come in!” He ordered, not quite keeping the desperate quiver out of his voice. No response. “Tokyo Command, come…”

A low rumble from the north cut him off. The radio dropped from the Admiral’s hand and hit the console. He didn’t try to pick it up. Then the shockwave echoed over them, passing over the water before rumbling the windows in their panes. Alarms flashed on every console, lights blaring. Nobody paid them any mind, just keeping their eyes locked on the north in wide, stark horror. The radio buzzed back to life, voices in other languages, but others perfectly clear to David’s ears.

“Oh my God, oh my God! What was that!?”

“Christ alive, don’t tell me that was her! Don’t tell me…”

“Our Father…who art in Heaven…hallowed be thy name…”

Finally, David could see the cloud. On such an overcast day, it was easy to think it was just a weird formation. Surely something that big, that impossibly huge, could only be a curious twist of wind somewhere high above them. Except the shape was wrong. Except Dave could tell the distinct, mushroom-shape was totally unnatural. Except this cloud kept flickering and glowing with arcane magics. The voices on the radio became so much background noise. His feet working on their own accord, the Marine stepped off the bridge, onto the catwalk outside, not even registering the change from boots on tile to boots on metal as he walked onto the deck of the carrier.

It was still there. The mushroom cloud was still there. He had hoped it was just some trick of the glass, some weird way the sun was shining off through a funny cloud formation, and that outside he would see it was nothing more than his overactive imagination. But it was still there. Oh Jesus Christ Almighty God, it was still fucking there.

The deck of the ship reeled beneath his boots, though whether that was just in his mind or not was honestly a crap-shoot at this point. Something clanged to the deck next to him. He turned to find a license plate, charred black and covered in Japanese characters. A splash sounded to his left: the blackened remnants of a Prius smacking into the sea with a pile of ash in the driver’s seat. He craned his neck in time to watch a container ship, its once-red hull now bubbling and scorched, smack into the ocean surface on its stern, metal screeching in agony as it flipped up and over like a lever. It hovered on its tip like that, towering above him, the few containers remaining on its deck spilling out of their moorings, tumbling over and over in their long drop to the ocean below. In that split second, he could swear he could look into the ship’s bridge, could see the charnel house that might have once been a crew of eight or nine, all before the ship overturned and splashed down on its deck, swiftly disappearing below the waves with a final, agonized squeal.

David returned his attention to the mushroom cloud blooming in the distance. Behind him, the radio still clicked away with panicked cries and desperate shouts and prayers interspersed with choked-off sobs, and all at once, there was a whoosh and a splash to his right. He dropped to his knees, dry-heaving while a missile streaked into the skies off to his right. Then there was another whoosh-splash, and another, and another…

Suddenly, he didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be back home, cheap beer in hand, a cheesy 90s action flick on the TV, his small house warmed to just the right temperature to beat off the Michigan autumn. Or hell, just anywhere, anywhere but here. At this point, he would take fucking Siberia if there was beer, because here was madness. Here was the beginning of the end. Here was the destruction of all things. The flight deck burst into activity around him, people scurrying about, running in a near-panic, prepping jets for take-off, undoubtedly arming each plane with nuclear warheads, which the ponies would respond to with whatever they hit Tokyo with, which they would respond to with more nukes…

“This is it,” he gasped, then his voice was buried beneath a series of dry heaves and panicked hyperventilating. This is how it all ends. Oh God, I’m sorry…this is it…this is it…this is-

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0850 HOURS
ONBOARD THE HMS ILLUSTRIOUS
NORTH SEA, OFF THE NORWEGIAN COASTLINE, BOUND FOR KARELIA
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David just wanted to stay in the dark. Was that too much to ask? Just stay here, in the nice, quiet dark, where everything was peaceful and nobody was screaming and the dreadful knot in his stomach telling him that his actions, or lack thereof, were putting millions of people at risk stayed quiet. Of course, he knew he’d have to open up his eyes eventually. The fact that he was aware enough to know this meant he couldn’t feign unconsciousness for much longer. Already, snippets of voices and blurry shapes from the outside world were starting to return to him, so without further ado and without ceremony, David slowly started to open his eyes and focus his mind on the sounds.

“…and you can tell that sonofabitch he can take that ‘placing of responsibility’ bullshitand shove it up his wrinkly old ass!” Anton’s voice, obviously angry. Hoboy, what had David been missing?

“You hear me!?” The Russian continued. “You tell him who’s really responsible for this fucking mess, and you tell him if he wants a hope of cleaning it up, he’d better shut his big, goddamned mouth and start cooperating, or we’ll leave him here to explain why he sent away the only people with any clue to that cunt’s thinking and the only chance he has of stopping her before she pulls a repeat of the Collision Wars!”

A pause, during which the American could hear the frustrated breathing wheezing in and out of his coworker’s nose. “Okay, you shoot that up the chain,” Anton returned, his dress shoes clopping against metal as he paced back and forth, somewhere in the dark blurriness in David’s vision. “And while we sit here, waiting for you pencil-pushing synov'ya shlyukh to pull your heads out your asses, we’ll be watching CNN for when London goes up in a nice, big fucking mushroom cloud! Or Oslo! Or Berlin! Is that what it’ll take!? Is that what it’ll take to get this shit moving!?”

Another pause. “Uh-huh, okay, you have a nice day too, you stupid motherfucker.” A slam of a phone into a cradle, followed by a long, deep breath. David’s vision returned just in time to watch Anton smack the control console with the palm of his hand, beating it over and over again, as if the world’s most annoying swarm of flies had just appeared on it. “Chyort!” He screamed over and over again, long after the point of pain, long after David knew the older man had to be feeling it. Watching the usually-stoic Anton in such a state might have been funny, if it weren’t for the wretched graveness of the situation they were in, or the memory of…

Arcing overhead, a pure white light punching into the sky, faster than a jet, faster than anything has a right to be, pure magical power and hatred of the purest form descending upon…

David laid back, his head swimming again. This time, he bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood oozing around his teeth, the pain forcing back the dark spots that had reappeared in his eyes. I am not going to do this again, that grim, determined voice from somewhere deep inside of him said. I am not going to keep fainting like some weak, little biddy. I am fine. Just fine. Just like the shrinks back at base said: I. Am. Going. To. Be. Fine.

He repeated those last five words until he was sure he wasn’t going to faint anymore, and kept repeating them a few times even after that. For lack of a better word, he had swooned, but he was okay now. He was going. To. Be. Fine.

Straining, David pushed himself onto his elbows, feeling the give of the pleather off one of the Lay-Z-Boys he’d grown familiar with. So he was back downstairs again, that was nice to know. He raised one of his hands to tap the back of his head, and winced at the sudden flare of pain that blossomed from his fingers and radiated throughout his entire skull.

“David, honey, don’t,” Lisa’s voice urged him, her bony yet powerful hands gently pushing on his chest, forcing him back into the recliner. He sighed, surrendering immediately. Based on the way his head had just nearly flown off his shoulders, he probably did need a bit more rest. Besides, the way Anton was, he probably needed a few minutes to cool down before people started asking what the next step would be.

Ever tactful, Lisa saw this too, and so the pair waited nearly a full minute before Anton’s breathing finally settled and his fists stopped shaking, the knuckles returning to their normal slightly-tanned. A grin grew on David’s face. “Have a nice little chat?” He asked.

A chuckle rumbled up from Anton’s chest. “Little, pencil-pushing cunts trying to blame great military defeat on the soldiers, instead of idiot commanders giving idiot orders,” he replied without turning around, still glaring at the phone on the control panel as if it had just killed his mother. “Nothing we Russians are not used to,” he added as David released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

“So…what now?” Lisa asked, finally giving voice to the question on everybody’s minds.

Anton finally turned, and for a moment, the youth David had once ascribed to him was completely gone. He didn’t even look like a man his age: in that moment, he looked like a man in his sixties, trudging along day by day, praying for the moment his retirement benefits would kick in and he could finally leave some godforsaken job behind. Then the moment ended, and Anton was just another tired mook, like the rest of them. “I’ve just beaten back the first threat: the wolves hoping to make a career out of blaming others for mistakes,” he rasped. “They won’t be the only ones, but the first pack is always the hardest. Next, we need to make good on the promises I have made. We need to find Alpha again.”

“The Admiral?” David asked.

Hidden in his pocket, Anton’s fist clenched until it shook again, though it was a poor disguise to anyone paying attention. It quickly relaxed after a moment of squeezing the life out of thin air. “No longer a factor. He may be our superior and he may have his status to lord over us, but we know everything he’s said. We know everything he’s done. Everyone in the British Armed Forces is keeping quiet, heaven knows why. If I were them, I would want his head on a stick. But the Admiral knows if we go public with the orders he gave us, there’ll be cries for his blood in the streets of every major city on the planet.”

“Ours too,” Dave pointed out. “Normal people on the street usually don’t give two shits about who gave the fucked-up orders and who followed them. We’ll be lumped in with him.”

“Yes, but we don’t have as much to lose as he does, it doesn’t matter so much if we lose our pensions and wind up flipping burgers for next twenty years,” at this, Anton smiled grimly. “Top commander in the British Armed Forces or no, he doesn’t have twenty years to spare. Not the way he drinks. He knows this.”

“We should still report him,” Lisa said darkly, her hand going stiff on David’s shoulder. He didn’t notice, even as her nails dug into the flesh beneath his shirt. “Any man who would risk the safety of the world for a few minutes of entertainment should be locked up, or at least be dismissed from his position.”

“The Admiral is in a weakened state right now, and he knows it. We can bend him; get what we need to track down Alpha. This might not be true with whoever replaces him. If someone else comes in to command this fleet, we’ll be on our way back to London, and then to the media shitstorm brewing.”

“Alright, so with the Admiral, we’ve got the resources and willpower to track the bitch down,” David said, sitting up in the chair with his elbows resting on his knees. “The only question is: where do we start?”

Anton took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He looked lost for a moment. David grimaced: he’d been afraid of this. They had the power and resources, sure, but what the hell were they supposed to do with it? Start going door to door? Put up some posters like you would with a lost cat?

Ever the voice of reason, it was Lisa who hit the nail on the head: “Well, what do we think she wants?”

“Oh please, we all know what she wants,” David snorted. “Fire. Destruction. The end of humanity as we know it…”

“Yes, but what does she need to do that? Her army?”

“She could return to her Equestria,” Anton said, leaning back against the panel with his arms crossed over his chest. “In that case, she’d have everything she needs, and she’d be out of our reach. We’d have to wait for the UNCDI assault.”

“Alright, but where else would she go?” Lisa said. “Returning to her Equestria would be just what she’s expected to do, but we know she’s smarter than that. She probably already knows about the UNCDI blockade around the portal, if only because she’d be expecting her enemies to throw everything they had between her and home.”

“So the question becomes where else she could go to find resources for a new round of attacks,” Anton muttered. “Where else could she go to gather the strength she’d need to start up her own war?”

The answer hit them all simultaneously as their eyes all wondered the room, inevitably drawn to the flatscreen television mounted on the wall. On-screen, a CNN special report was interviewing one of the divers plunging into the Detroit River, hunting for survivors (at least, that’s how they worded it: at this point everyone knew they were just pulling out bodies). It was all too clear at that point.

“The Newfoals!” They all gasped at the same time.

“Okay, that’s gotta be her next move,” David said. “Where’s the nearest Newfoal compound? Dusseldorf?”

“That’s just the one everyone knows,” Lisa said, shaking her head as she pulled out her smart phone. “There’s another one, much closer and not nearly as well-known.”

Anton nodded. “Bedlam,” he said without thinking.

“Now how did you…” Lisa started, but when he cocked a knowing half-smile at her, she just rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the little screen. “But yes, Bedlam hospital. Plenty of Newfoals, heavily populated area: perfect for adding to her body count if things go south on her while she’s rallying the troops.”

“Then that’s where we’ll start,” Anton said. “I still think a team in Dusseldorf would be a good idea, but we need to hit Bedlam ASAP.”

David grinned, a flutter of hope rising in his chest, one he didn’t dare indulge, but was okay with just letting it sit there and carry some of the weight that had been pressing down on his heart. We got you now, you bitch, he thought. What’re you gonna do now?

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0930 HOURS
NORTH VIDOY ISLAND
FAROE ISLANDS, KINGDOM OF DENMARK, NORTH SEA
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Celestia shivered, tears soaked into the fur on her face. The lump in her throat felt like a basketball as she tried to swallow past it, her sobs continuously interrupting her voice, but still she read: “Wh-while Search and Rescue efforts continue in the ruins of downtown Tokyo, most officials agree that anybody who might be saved must have been found already. C-c-continuing from the front, a m-morbid discovery was made at the T-Tokyo Institute of Technology, wh-wh-where the charred remains of the entire gwa-graduating class of 2018 was discovered in the main auditorium, most having long died of injuries suffered in the initial blast, pl-placing the official death toll at the ten million m-m-m-m-…” she trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

“Stop,” Twilight sobbed. “Princess, please, stop.”

“Okay,” Celestia whispered, slowly closing the tiny device with hooves that trembled like Jell-O and setting it aside. “Okay, I think I’ve said enough.”

“An-an entire nation, Princess,” Twilight gasped, tears cascading down her cheeks and into the sand. “They lost an entire nation, millions dead…oh, no wonder they reacted like they did! Princess, they must hate us!”

“They don’t just hate us,” Celestia replied grimly. “Th-They fear us, Twilight, and based on what little I have learned from their history, that is a highly volatile combination for them.”

“W-what are we going to do?” The little lavender alicorn moaned. “H-how could we ever set this right? What could possibly ease the loss of millions?”

“I don’t know, my dearest student,” Celestia replied. “But we have to try. After all they’ve been through, we have to. They deserve that much.”

As she cuddled her student, Celestia’s eyes happened upon the little device, the “mobile,” as the human had called it. It had scrolled through the pages to yet another article, one that froze her heart upon seeing it. “NEWFOAL TERRORIST ATTACK,” with the subline: “A sign of things to come?”

Words passed through her mind from previous articles, words like “falling intelligence”, “forced conversion”, and “failing IQ tests”. Her brow furrowed, her gaze hardening into one of pure determination. “And I think I know where we can start.”

Author's Notes:

Woot! Been waiting for this one! And yes, I named a ship after President Obama. Regardless of how you feel about him, he's still the prez, and he's still probably gonna get a ship named after him. Which still isn't an awesome retirement present, if you ask me. I mean, I think it would be fantastic for me, but for a guy who once ruled the free world..."Hey, thanks for leading the most powerful nation on the planet and giving up years of your life to the stress of trying to keep everyone from blowing everyone else up. Here's a boat that you'll probably never see."

Eh, that's just my opinion tho.