Artex sighed heavily and peered at the portal to Earth, "This thing isn't going away, huh?"

Chris grumbled, "Without Discord's power matched with mine, no."

Luna clicked her tongue, "We need to have a viable plan before we act. That is assuming you still want to go through with it."

Chris nodded and gestured to the portal, "Even if I wanted to do otherwise, the proverbial cat is out of the bag. You're definitely right about needing a plan, Luna. I figured opening the portal at The Complex would be the least intrusive place to do it. I mean, several hundred people disappear from the place, you would figure the government would lock it down like Area 51 and keep it sealed off." Chris sighed and rubbed both hands down his face, "And of course it's worse than that."

Captain Joyner removed his helmet and took a knee on top of it, "How is it worse?"

Mayor De La Crus cocked her head to the side and crossed her arms, "How, exactly, is it worse than it already looks?"

Chris huffed, "I didn't recognize who it was at first, but it just hit me. The guy I popped out behind, he turned to face me... I just realized it was President Seviston."

Artex groaned loudly and removed his own helmet, "Oh my Gooooooooood, are you KIDDING ME!?" He asked loudly, "Holy shit-biscuits, man."

Mayor De La Crus snorted and turned to walk away, "I'm going to prepare a list of first contact questions and answers. I'll be back later."

Luna glanced around the Humans' faces, "Am I missing something? Who is this 'Seviston' man you keep referring to?"

"Arturo Seviston," Captain Joyner replied, "49th President of the United States, our home country."

Artex chimed in, "Or more colloquially known as 'The Decisive Latino'. Apparently he was elected for a second term, not that surprising really. He was our first Latin American President, and he has a very 'common sense' approach to everything he does. Just as an example, he legalized recreational marijuana in the U.S. and the tax profits from that, he managed to funnel into the national debt. A lot of people really love him as a President. Honestly, I do too."

Luna blinked in confusion, "Then what is the problem?"

"The problem," Chris said, picking up the slack, "Is that he is borderline militaristic. He served in the U.S. ARMY and was well-known on the battlefield. He has a lot of medals and was the second most decorated soldier in U.S. history." Chris took a breath, "Since I popped out behind him, it's a safe bet he'll have the area locked down in no time. Worse yet, he'll probably have military personnel on site before any scientists and place them closest to the portal; probably with machine gun nests all around the exit."

"Chris has told me about those. So we should reveal ourselves slowly." Luna ventured.

Captain Joyner nodded, "Oh yeah. Calling out to the soldiers before we step foot outside that portal would be a good idea, unless you want to be mimicking swiss cheese."

"Celestia teleported away with Discord, so the job falls to me. I do not wish to go without an escort. Who will come with me?" Luna stated bluntly, "We need to have a plan and act quickly, before things spiral completely out of control."

Chris raised his hand, "Well me, obviously." He lowered his hand, "I'm not letting you out of my sight for even a second, especially not over there." He reached over and patted her belly, "And doubly so with what's in here."

Captain Joyner nodded, "I have to stay here. I'm in charge of the Community Welfare Guardians, but I can ask for Human volunteers."

Luna inched her head toward the Captain, "Why did you specify Human volunteers?"

The Captain smirked as he answered, "Because showing up with more than two or three Kavim or Changelings would probably not end well."

Artex nodded in understanding, "The people on the Earth side of the portal are going to be jumpy and twitchy. Seeing an alien with Human guards will either put them somewhat at ease, or make them suspicious. They're already going to be suspicious, but seeing Humans will give them a certain sense of security. They'll be able to understand and predict Humans, because Humans are a known element. If you walked in with a bunch of Kavim guards, the American soldiers would be trying to watch everybody and that would make them more nervous." He cleared his throat, "I would say at the very most, include only one Pony or Changeling." Artex grinned like a cat, "I should be there. I'm still the Emissary after all."

Captain Joyner nodded in agreement, "Yeah, you can take your armor with you."

Chris pipped up happily, "No need!" He raised his hand with his index finger extended, "Hold on for just a minute." With a wave of his hand, he opened a portal and stepped through, the portal closing behind him.

Luna shook her head, "That husband of mine," she trailed off, then turned to Captain Joyner, "Who else would you suggest we extend the invitation to?"

He scratched the small bit of stubble on his right cheek, "Hord would do it in a heartbeat."

Artex nodded, "He would. He'd be one of the best to have too. His experience with the military would be a huge boon, plus he knew exactly what to do when we encountered the Marines in Gryphonvale, so establishing contact is no completely new to him either." Artex snapped his fingers, "We should be including him in this discussion."

Captain Joyner put his helmet back on and called back to Headquarters while Artex and Luna continued their discussion, "Going over there with a lot of weapons would be a bad thing. It would make us look aggressive. We should be armed in as little as we can get away with. I figure if we just take the Shock Blades it should be enough."

Luna arched her left eyebrow ridge in curiosity, "Melee weapons against machine guns? That hardly sounds like it would be effective. First of all, I do NOT want things to deteriorate to the point of violence, that would be an unimaginable disaster. Secondly, if things do deteriorate into violence for whatever horrible reason, would gyrojet weapons or even some of the Shock Lances Chris has been making, not be more logical?"

Artex shook his head, "No, for two reasons. Firstly, because the Shock Blades greatly resemble a fictional weapon known as a light saber that is known, fictionally at least, to be able to cut through any material and would be extremely intimidating for any Human person to see. We could use the intimidating factor to make them back down and try to reestablish order if somebody makes a mistake. Second, we only need one hand to use the Shock Blades and we could use our other hand for magic. I, alone, could probably protect everybody from bullets. During my C.W.G. training I tested out how well my magic could repulse our gyrojet rounds, when I put a metal-repulsing field around a target. It took very little effort to keep it up, even when I was firing an assault rifle at it, not a single bullet got through."

A portal opened up where Chris had departed from and Chris stepped back through holding a number of, what looked like military chest rigs with a quartet of linked crystals embedded into the chests, "Inertial Dampeners and don't worry, I KNOW they work. I took a twenty-nine story fall and it felt like a pillow had hit me. Bullets would feel like somebody was throwing marbles at you. Toss the bulky armor and put these on instead."

The sound of running boots hit their ears as Darryl skidded to a halt in front of them, staring at the portal with his jaw dropped open. He remained silent for a few minutes before he turned his eyes to the gathering, "Well shit! Why the hell didn't you guys include me in the first place?"

Chris shrugged, "Hindsight is 20/20 and honestly, I wasn't entirely certain this would work."

Darryl walked over to the circle and took a knee while Captain Joyner joined them as well. The Captain spoke first, "I sent for the C.W.G. to converge on this spot to guard the portal. Headquarters is working up a post schedule for guarding the portal." He turned to the Marine, "Good to see you, Hord."

Luna cleared her throat while Cloud Cutter stayed silent, "I am going through, once the Humans on the other side of the portal have had time to get set up. If I try to go in now, somebody might be more inclined to make a mistake. Magic portals opening up in their world cannot be a casual occurrence. I am going to have guards and Artex has recommended that the guards have only Shock Blades, so they could use their magic . What do the rest of you think?"

Darryl put his fist to his chin in thought while Joyner spoke quickly, "Bad idea." he blurted, "If you have the chance to be engaging against a possible hostile force, you do not tip them off to your highest offensive technology by waving it in their faces." He held up his hand, a bright blue glow enveloping the appendage, "Technology is something they can figure out, magic, they can't. We take our armor and sidearms. Our magic should be able to handle anything else they can think of. Besides, if they get a gyrojet weapon, they would never use it because their guns are better."

Darryl chose that moment to speak up, "They're going to want to try to capture us, once they find out who we are. To interrogate us for information. They're going to be curious and Humans feel safer when we have a measure of control. We need to keep our helmets on to protect our families. If they identify us, they'll arrest our loved ones and interrogate them to see if they know anything. They can't do that if they don't know who we are."

"Fuck." Chris said quietly, rising to his feet, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!"

Darryl did not miss a beat, "You were seen?"

Chris nodded as he ran his hands over his chest, "I stuck my head through and there were news cameras pointed right at me."

Darryl nodded, "They'll already have your family by the time we go over there, if they don't have them already."

"Worse yet, the portal opened up right behind President Seviston when he was giving a speech. Thus the cameras." Chris added.

Darryl hung his head, "Oh hell." he whispered. He raised his head and stared straight at Chris, "Well, this complicates things by several orders of magnitude."

Captain Joyner snorted in agreement, "Yeah it does. The second those cameras spotted you, Chris, your family was guaranteed to be involved."

Luna looked confused, "But why?" she asked honestly, "Why would they use innocent civilians? There's no need for it."

Artex spoke up, "The portal opened up behind President Seviston. The Department of Homeland Security is going to assume it was no accident, which means everybody even remotely linked to any identifiable person involved in the incident is going to be a suspect. The D.H.S. operates outside of laws and the Constitution. Their mentality is 'guilty unless proven innocent' and they can and will treat anybody they arrest, worse than war criminals. They don't care about lives and they'll make you disappear just as soon as look at you."

"That's conspiracy bullshit." Darryl said quickly, "People will be arrested and questioned, yes, but as soon as the D.H.S. realizes they don't know anything, they'll release them and since it's safe to assume the media cameras were broadcasting live, there are going to be a LOT of people hounding your family. Field interviews, media ambushes, harassment, you name it. It's not the D.H.S. you have to worry about, it's the journalists and paparazzi. There isn't going to be any safe places for your family once they're released."

Artex crossed his arms, "I still say the fucking D.H.S. is going to use them as a decoy."

Darryl sighed, "Artex, as much as I hate to say it, you need to sit this out. Your attitude has obviously already compromised your judgement. This could turn out great or it could turn into a complete cluster-fuck and your attitude about 'big brother' would only make things worse."

Artex was dumb-struck at hearing one of his best friends politely tell him to shut up and sit on the side lines. He clenched his jaw then stood up and walked away silently. Darryl called after him, "Hey, come on don't be like that!" Artex simply continued walking.

Cloud Cutter, not knowing what to do, looked at Darryl, "Uh, permission to continue my patrol, officer Hord?"

Darryl sighed wearily and nodded, "Go on after him. See if you can get him to calm down."

Cloud Cutter took to the air and raced after his brother in-law. Darryl shook his head sadly, "Damnit, I didn't want this, but we have more important things to do." He turned his focus back to Luna, "Mike's right, our identities need to be concealed when we go through."

Luna nodded in understanding, "If that is what you think is best."

Captain Joyner sucked on his teeth, "Now, you're not going to be speaking to President Seviston, Luna, not right away. You're going to be speaking to a military commander at first. Seviston will want to speak to you, but any military man is going to want to be certain that the President is going to be safe. Things are going to be tense, on the edge of a proverbial knife, so you need to remain absolutely calm unless they do something aggressive. It's not likely that anybody will intentionally do anything aggressive though, somebody might make a mistake though. If one of the American soldiers gets too nervous with his finger on a trigger, then things could go south, so we need to make sure we don't give them anything to be nervous about. Nobody use magic for anything except for self defense..."

* * *

Colonel Holiday slowly walked around the hastily constructed Command Room. The cameras in front of the hole in space showed the same thing they had ever since they had come online: an opaque dark blue barrier. His Marines were running around putting the finishing touches on the various airtight barriers the scientists insisted on. At least he was able to take off his gas mask and bio-hazard suit, since the Command Room was environmentally sealed. He was not looking forward to whatever events were to unfold. After an attempt on the President's life, his Marines were on edge. He had very little information to work with. CNN had been helpful with quickly providing a copy of the footage they had of the incident. It had taken eleven hours to erect the staging area for the containment facility.

The Colonel quietly voiced his thoughts as he paced back and forth, "Chris Vacca, who could he be working with. His files stated that his grades were well above average, but nothing phenomenal. Not a scientist or an inventor... an informant then? And if he disappeared with The Event, does that mean the Chinese have something to do with it? They've been asking as many questions about it as we have. Is it just a ruse? Feigning ignorance to throw us off? Could it be..."

"Colonel!" one of the Marines monitoring the camera suddenly spoke up, "We've got movement in the portal!"

Colonel Holiday quickly stepped up to the camera monitor, peering over the shoulder of the Marine. He narrowed his eyes, vocalizing what he saw, "The opaque barrier is gone." He watched in shock as a small, thin, dark blue horse-like creature walked into view of the portal. It sat down and waited, as eight armored humanoid figures took up positions around it. The armor did not match anything the Colonel had ever seen before. It looked like something one would see in a sci-fi film.

Another oddity suddenly struck him, "It's still daylight over there when it's night here."

His shock spiked as the blue horse creature suddenly opened its mouth and spoke in plain American English, "Hello? Is anybody there?"

Colonel Holiday blinked in absolute surprise, "W-what!?" 'You have got to be shitting me!' he thought, 'What the hell is going on here?'

* * *

Luna looked around the small area she could see. There were strange devices mounted on the concrete wall several Fathoms away from the portal and they were pointed at the mouth of the portal, but there was not a Human in sight. She kept her barrier up, but turned it transparent, invisible to those who could not detect magic. She had spoken loudly enough and she knew her American English was fine, 'So what is the hold up?'

A voice cracked to life from one of the devices mounted on the wall, "This is Colonel Holiday of the United States Marine Corps. Identify yourself."

Luna smiled. Mayor De La Crus and Captain Joyner had coached her on what to say. They were both convinced that whoever was in command on the far side of the portal would know exactly who Chris was since he had been seen, "I am Luna, Diarch of Equestria. I wanted to apologize for what happened earlier, Colonel. Chris wanted to open a portal to go home, but he never intended for it to come out behind President Seviston. He thought The Complex would be abandoned after what happened several years ago..."

"So you intended to sneak into our world, undetected? For what purpose?" The Colonel's voice sounded suspicious.

"You misunderstand me, Colonel. He wanted to give people a chance to see their families again. We intended absolutely no hostile action against anybody. Would you kindly relay our apology to President Seviston? It would make us feel better after what happened." Luna said politely, "Right now, we have no intention of setting foot on your world without permission."

"But you were more than willing to do so before your mistake." the Colonel responded.

Luna frowned, "Colonel, what permission does a man need to attempt return to his home? What permission does he need to see his loved ones? We want peaceful relations between our worlds. Are you going to be helpful, or are you going to stay stuck on an error?"

The resulting silence was deafening.

Author's Notes:

Another chapter down and many more to go. As always, let me know if you spot any typos.