Private Thompson wished for a lot of things. He wished he’d asked that cute little cadet that sat across from him in maths class for most of junior year out just once. He wished his last words to his father before the old man dropped dead of a heart attack at 42 had been “I love you,” or “Be safe” instead of “Sure, turkey sounds alright”. He wished he talked to his sisters more, instead of just seeing them on holidays and sharing awkward “how’s work treating you” conversations over the dinner table. But most of all, he wished that goddamned portal had opened anywhere else. South America, New York, Italy. Hell, drop it on China again, they’d handled it okay before! But here? Right off the coast of Scotland? Where he and his team just happened to be out on a training mission when that damned hole in time and space opened up and destroyed the safe and happy world everyone had slowly gotten used to after the last five years? Just damn his luck.

It was like winning the worst lottery ever. He remembered reading some fucked-up manga as a kid, where Japan had become some ultra-evil dictatorship that picked kids for a lottery and had them fight to the death in an island made up to look like a school, and the one who lived got drafted into the military. It was like being one of those chosen kids. Yeah, that was it. Or maybe like that kid’s book series the Americans got everyone worked up about a few years back. Maybe like that. Something like that. God, what he’d give to be anywhere but on this godforsaken little raft.

The worst part before these missions was the quiet. The buzzing of the small engine and the general tension in the air were enough to strangle any conversation. Plus, it was generally accepted that anything which might distract from the mission during a deployment was a no-no. Thompson understood, most guys had to focus on what was to come, but goddammit they could all be heading to their deaths! Would a few words with another human being really be that bad!?

Okay, maybe it would actually help to focus. Had to be better than thinking about the seawater splashing in his face and the incessant buzz of that damnable engine. So here was the gist: the eggheads had finally detected that the rift between worlds was expanding, just like it had all those years ago. Except slower, on account of there not being an almighty god-princess fueling the change this time around. Tachyon Inhibitors were in place so, from out here, those big bastard things mounted on their ships would have the exact same effect on whatever was in the rift that they’d had on Equestria back in 2020. The only difference between now and last week was that the land inside was finally big enough to care about, maybe the size of a couple football stadiums.

He breathed in, and out. This was going to be a cakewalk. No magic meant they were fighting a bunch of soldiers in plate armor and waving spears around. Easy peasy. Simple shit. Hell, not technically a battle, more like a peacekeeping operation. So why did his hands shake and his stomach twist when he looked up at the damned cloud and noticed how close they were?

“Twenty seconds!” The man at the stern shouted. Thompson let out another shaky breath. Here they were, five men in a dinghy, another couple boats behind them for a grand total of fifteen of Britain’s finest, and what were they expected to do? Make the first formal territorial conquests in what might be the second part of a war that had almost led to humanity’s extinction!? What madman thought this practice in group suicide up!?

Maybe it was just the whole “lack of vision” thing. The commanders couldn’t actually see Equestria, at least not yet, and so it was easier to send a bunch of soldiers in with no intel and no idea what they’d encounter. For all they knew, they were going to land in Equestria’s largest pillow and fluffy kitten factory. Visual contact wouldn’t be established until Equestria was all the way on Earth and the dimensional plane stabilized again, or something like that. He didn’t remember what the article on Google he’d looked up had said exactly, but he remembered the gist. Apparently, the fog wasn’t really there, just a bit of transparent mist that their minds made opaque, simply because their teeny-tiny human minds couldn’t process the dimensional rift. So it just edited right over it, plugging in a giant gray splotch where the rift would be, which sounded a lot like some serious…

“Ten seconds!”

Shitfuck! Why did they have to keep announcing it like that!? Did they think they couldn’t see the massive, gray wall right in front of their faces!? Like they needed a constant reminder it was there!?

“Safeties off, lads,” Thompson’s CO said, gripping his carbine as he looked back at the rest of the men, regarding each and every one of them with an icy glare as if he fully expected one, if not two, of the men in this very boat to fuck up royally at some point. “We don’t know who or what’s over there, or even if there is something, but if you see something that looks like a plushie holdin’ a spear, you make sure you know their intent, and if they make a go at you, you bloody-well cut ‘em down! The boys up top might be worried about keeping civvie casualties low, but what I care about is makin’ sure there’s no empty seats on this boat when it’s all said an’ done, clear!?”

“Yes, sir!” The men all responded, Thompson included. It was engrained in him at this point, of course he responded. Now, if only he could convince himself that it was all true, that his wouldn’t be an empty seat when the raft went back. If there was even anybody left to take it back…

“Contact!” And right on cue, the fog enveloped them. Shivering, Thompson reached up and pulled down the heavy rubber mask, switching on the heat vision, which bathed the raft in an eerie red glow from all the bodies around him. His respirator mask wheezed for a few seconds, then switched over to the new air, falling silent once more. Not long after that, the motors cut out.

“Brace yourselves, lads,” the commander hissed. “Might get a li’l bumpy here.”

There was another thirty seconds of this. Thirty seconds of drifting on the cold, eerily calm water, not knowing when the hit would come. Thirty seconds of dead silence. Thompson glanced around, saw nothing but fog, and wondered if the other boats had made it, or if they’d simply drifted off-course.

There was a sensation like a static shock on the back of his neck that made him flinch, and then the boat dropped, the water simply vanishing out from under them. A crunch sounded as the boat suddenly met with grassy turf, and then silence. Nobody cried out, nobody yelped in surprise. They had been expecting this.

The men climbed out, taking positions at the head of the boats. Thompson squinted, trying to find some change in the purple landscape in his vision, hoping to see a hill or something that might provide cover. There was nothing. An empty field. The last team had said that’s what it was, but still, to see it now and know this was where she had been kind of made him want to scream.

He turned back, and a slice of water rippled at him. His eyes widened under the mask. This had been expected too, but to hear about it and then to see a slice of water rippling in the air, staying totally vertical with nothing holding it back were two very different things. He reached out a hand and dipped it into the sideways water, watched the ripples race out completely sideways in awe, saw a piece of seaweed poke out the side and drift along to his left for a moment before disappearing into the cold, North Sea murk. He shivered.

He turned back to the field just as the squad leader took point, and the rest followed, Thompson included. They all kept low in the hopes of not being spotted. They knew their direction. Nobody had to check compasses or anything. It was all just a question of who would be the unlucky bloke to poke his head out of this mist and see what was coming.

The CO way at the head, next to the squad leaders, suddenly stopped, raising a fist to halt the tiny platoon. He twisted from his kneeling position, levelling a finger at Thompson and waving him forward.

Fuck.

Thompson nodded and crept past the other men, the CO already motioning out a brief attack plan for them. Something to do with circling around in case Thompson got caught, with a few staying back as extras just in case. Great. So if he did get caught, there’d be witnesses to tell his family how he died. Military command at its finest. But he didn’t complain, oh no. Too pro for that. He simply nodded like the badass he always wanted to be and shuffled on ahead, trying very hard not to think about what would happen if the eggheads were wrong and the Inhibitors didn’t work in this weird, grayed-out little slice of Equestria. Though he had heard rumors of guys literally being turned inside-out by unicorn magic…

He shook his head. Later. Later would be the time for freaking out and talking shit with the guys about the absolutely horrible things unicorns were capable of against human beings. Later would be a time for the guys hallucinating about killing their own families and having their dicks ripped off and teleported to random spots inside their own bodies. Now was a time for focus and determination.

At long last, the mist began to dissipate. Hands quivering ever-so-slightly, Thompson crouched as low as he could and looked around for just the smallest bit of cover. Again, no such luck. Buggering fuckedy-fuck-shit. The mist would have to do. Apparently, the ponies saw it just like humans did, unless the little shits were lying about that all these years since the Collision Wars. Still, it would be tricky: too far back in the fog, and he wouldn’t see shit. Too far forward, and he’d be noticed, and then he’d be in the shit.

Welp, no time like the present.

Thompson reared up, his back straightening just the smallest millimeter at a time. Halfway to full height, a dark spot raced across his vision, and he only then realized he’d been holding his breath. He let it out, let it in again, taking seconds to do so, all the while straightening. Finally, the faintest hint of an outline appeared in his vision. A touch of gray that was grayer than the rest of the gray, just a bit more solid. Damn. Okay, he just needed to get a little closer, that was all. No problem. Just a little closer to the cartoon freaks that would sooner ram his own mutilated penis up his ass than say ‘hi’ to a human. Not a big deal.

Literally, anywhere else. He would take anywhere at all. He’d heard Pyongyang had done a decent job rebuilding - with Chinese help, of course. Plenty of Chinese help. Maybe the new Grorious Readah was a bit warmer to westerners than the old one, what with a few Chinese puppeteers finally injecting a little sanity into the Hermit Kingdom’s regime.

He sighed. It was a pipe dream, of course. A fantasy born of fear. But nobody could blame him, could they? Even as he approached the dark spot in the fog and found it to be a massive tent made of military-grade canvas, could anybody blame him for the way his breathing increased until the moisture scrubbers couldn’t keep up and his goggles fogged?

Wiping at the tinted plastic over his eyes, Thompson ducked and crouched forward, rifle raised as the fog cleared around him. At last, he could see the end of his barrel clearly, the grass around his boots, and thank Christ but was that blue sky peeking through cracks in the cloud cover above him? And here a part of him was starting to think he’d seen the last of that.

Voices up ahead. Thompson dove to the ground and tucked against the canvas, trying to be as small as possible. His breathing instantly slowed as his ear neared the canvas, listening.

“-about the pegasi!?” Shouted a distinctly female voice. “Can’t you send them out? I can see sky above us, for pete’s sake!”

“Sorry ma’am, we just can’t risk it,” said a very masculine voice. Yep, definitely military, he knew that tone only too well. “It may look like sky up there, but what if it isn’t?”

“I have two dozen patients here that just started pukin’ their guts up!” Retorted the female voice. A nurse? She did say she had patients. “And even if they’re okay, how long are we supposed to just sit here!?”

Thompson tuned them out. In just a few short minutes, that little conversation had established that A) there were civilians in here, and some of them were experiencing trans-dimensional sickness. Which wasn’t much to worry about, a few days of wanting to puke your guts up coupled with disorientation, maybe a runny nose, and then you were alright. More concerning to him was B) there was Equestrian military in the affected area. He bit his lip. That was slightly more concerning. This was what summoned images of guys shooting futilely at unicorn shields until a big stroke of lightning split them in half, of stories about POWs being forced to literally tear one another apart, their hands under a dozen spells that allowed the ponies to use them like toys, all so they could have a little fun before nailing them with conversion serum.

Seriously, a quick report to the Commander and he could probably bluff his way back to the ship, then he’d be on his way back to the Isles, and it was a hop, skip, and a jump from there to catch a flight to Riyadh…they’d done a pretty good job rebuilding from the Anti-Sultan Revolts…

A hacking sound caught his ear, the dry sort of bark usually echoed by someone with bronchitis. Thompson’s grip tightened on his rifle. Okay, so usually TDS wasn’t bad. Sometimes though, in kids, things got a bit more serious. For some reason, the body cranked up mucus production beyond reason. Started in the lungs, and just spread. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, the kid would die choking on the stuff, clear mucus dribbling from their nose and mouth as they desperately tried to drag in their next breath, sometimes clawing at their throats, sometimes leaning over the edge of the hospital bed as the stuff flew from their throats and their stomachs heaved.

Only the kids though. The adults might have a few coughing jags, but they always pulled through. And odds were, that’s what he was listening to right now! After all, why would a kid be near this place? These were just the adults that got caught up when this thing appeared and now were stuck with the portal’s expansion. The only way a kid would be here would be if some incredibly stupid family took junior along as they went to check on the strange anomaly in the middle of…

“Oooh, that was a pretty bad one,” said the feminine voice. “You okay, sweetie?”

“Wh-where’s Mr. Buns?” Asked a distinctly high-pitched and childlike voice. “Mr. Buns was right here…”

“He is, sweetie, see? He just fell over the railing a little…there! All better now?”

Fuck. Of course, that’s exactly what happened. Some goddamned stupid bunch of fucking shitheads heard about the possibly dangerous and unknown occurrence somewhere and decided to have a motherfucking picnic next to it! Of course! Why not!? Why the flaming hell not!? Just pack up some cheese sandwiches and have a blast right next to the strange occurrence from another world, bring the motherfucking kids!

Goddammit, people were stupid all over.

Okay, so what? It was just one kid. And besides, if he returned to his Commander now, help could still arrive in time…no. No use lying to himself, help would not arrive in time. The moment the Commander got wind of a military presence, he’d demand a full pullback, and then Command would sit on their asses and maybe, in a week or two, they’d decide on a date for the meeting to figure out the next step. When TDS killed, it only needed a few days. Okay, so the kid was likely dead. Not certainly, mind you, but likely. So what? What was one little pony to him? Never mind the lifesaving doses of Suphedrine in his field kit, given to him for the runny nose he himself might experience. Never mind the possibility that the few extra hours those meds would buy her might be all that little kid needed for her body to adjust and live through the worst of the TDS, as proven time and again with ponies experiencing it on the other side of the world. And most of all, never mind the possibility that he might spend the rest of his life lying awake, wondering if it would have been possible, if he might have been able to save the life of a child.

Thompson really hated his job in that moment. Really and truthfully.

The rifle went to his back, where a set of mechanized straps silently tightened around the stock and barrel. That was okay, one quick yank and those straps would come loose, only adding a few milliseconds to the time it would take to line up his sights and squeeze the trigger. He most decidedly did not think about what a pony’s magic could do to him with those few milliseconds as he drew his combat knife and tucked the dose of Suphedrine in a front pocket. Holding his breath, he poked the tip of the knife through the canvas and drilled the smallest hole he possibly could for himself, knowing a bunch of obviously-overworked nurses and ponies sick with TDS would likely never notice the tiny glint of metal in the canvas wall but praying to every deity he could think of anyway.

His hole finished, Thompson holstered the knife and drew his sidearm. His hand squeezed the grip, not shaking, too well-trained for that, but not as firm as he’d hoped it would be. The leather in his gloves creaking over the grip, he leaned forward on his haunches, bringing his eye as close as possible to his hole. Every fluctuation of the fabric changed the viewing angle, meaning it took a little while to find the most stable view he could without pressing his face to the canvas and giving off the imprint of his helmet. It still bounced all to high hell, but with it, he could watch the white-coated mare with the pink mane done up in a cute, little bun as she silently did her rounds, looking more positive as she circled the room, only to fade as she neared a filly’s bed. That little filly was a pegasus, light blue coat, periwinkle mane, and oh my sweet Jesus she was cute as a button. Could probably stop a man’s heart just by looking at him and tucking her ears down.

As he watched, the filly let out a few more of those awful, bone-dry coughs while nurse pony looked on with a smile she was probably hoping looked authentic. Probably did to the kid. Not so much to the man watching through the hole.

“You’ll be okay, Sweetie, I’ll get more of the mint tea,” the nurse whispered to the filly, making sure to tuck the kid in before trotting away with a clipboard in hoof. Thompson held his breath. It was now or never. He had to give the kid these pills or…

Or fuck, how did he get the kid to take them? He couldn’t barge in there and shove them down her throat. Necessary as it was, barging in and screaming was the perfect way to get his ass peppered with Royal Guard spears. He couldn’t just leave them lying around. What, was he expecting the nurse to say: “here sweetie, try out these weird red tablets I found on the ground here”? Yeah sure, and afterwards he could begin his new life as a billionaire playboy in Pyongyang.

He clenched his teeth. Fuck, there was really no way around this, was there? The filly needed a guardian angel. Evidently, he would have to become one. He drew his knife again, and set to work widening his hole.