Greg fought hard against returning to consciousness and agony but eventually lost the struggle. He ached, and there were twinges of pain from all over his body but, surprisingly, they were all bearable. He tried to sit up and discovered he had almost no strength... he couldn't even lift his head. He did manage to roll his head to one side and, by using his fingers to pull it along, dragged one hand into view, fearing what he would see. Instead of the blackened, burnt skin he feared, he saw that his hand looked normal. It felt like it had been run over by a truck but it looked normal.

Beyond his hand he could see dark ground and a gigantic column of smoke and dust above scattered burning juniper trees.

"Lu..." he tried to call out but immediately broke off into a racking cough that sent spikes of pain through his chest and throat. He had to shut his eyes and breathe quietly for several seconds to fight off the ensuing dizziness and nausea.

He licked his lips and tried again, with less force. His voice came out as a dry croaking whisper but at least it didn't trigger another coughing fit. "Luna?"

There was no answer.

Greg summoned up enough strength to roll his head to the other side, away from the canyon and toward the scrubby juniper woods. Some of the trees were broken and scorched, but at least they weren't on fire. He called again, louder and only coughed once afterward. Still no answer.

He rested for a moment, trying to summon up the strength for a yell that might be heard more than a few feet away. When he opened his eyes again he saw movement in the woods; dark figures making their way towards him.

He tried to call for Luna again but choked and coughed immediately, hot agony ripping through his chest.

One of the figures stooped over him. "Sir? How badly are you hurt? Can you speak?"

Greg made a huge effort and croaked out, "I don't know. Where's Luna?"

The helmeted pony lifted his muzzle, looked around and sniffed. He then made a series of curt gestures to the rest of his squad. "And you two," he said out loud, "cut some of those small saplings for stretcher poles."

"Luna?" Greg insisted.

"They're searching for her," the pony told him. "But we need to get you out of here now. There are human aircraft dropping troops and vehicles—"

"No," Greg insisted, "I'm not going without Luna!"

"She's here!" called a voice from a short distance away.

"Is she alright?" Greg asked, trying desperately to sit up so that he could see. A wave of dizziness swept over him and he fell back, panting.

The pony who had called out came over with something small and limp in his magical aura.

"Oh God! What happened? Is she..." he broke off as the pony placed his burden next to Greg.

"Unconscious," the pony reassured him, "but she's alive."

The tiny alicorn filly that lay next to him was a lighter shade of blue, and her mane and tail were ordinary hair instead of starstuff, but it was undeniably Luna, or perhaps... the name Woona floated into his mind from some fan comic he'd read long ago.

With considerable effort, Greg reached out and touched her neck. She stirred slightly, made a nearly inaudible sighing sound, but didn't wake.

Knowing that she was safe... or the closest to safe they were going to be for a while... Greg's thoughts turned to other matters. "What's the status of everyone else?" he asked the squad’s leader.

"The base is gone. Some ponies may have survived if they were in a shielded area, but we won't know about that for a while yet. Up top, everyone beyond the EMP's effective range is fine... mostly wide patrols like us, or ponies out on a mission. The ones close to the blast..." he made a gesture that indicated that Greg would know more about that situation than he would.

The other ponies returned and made a makeshift stretcher with the saplings and a camouflaged cloth. Greg braced himself for sudden pain as they lifted him onto it, but felt no more than a few twinges. They lashed the stretcher between two ponies, and at Greg’s insistence they placed Woona next to him, where he could cradle her in his arms.

They made their way southward, smoothly and quietly, the unicorns in the squad keeping them all covered with a stealth spell. Greg couldn't judge their progress in the darkness. He did hear distant aircraft, and later what sounded like faint explosions and small arms fire from the north, but it was meaningless to him. He slipped into and out of sleep as they traveled, always waking with a sudden jerk... his heart beating quickly.

The third time they stopped to allow some of the squad to scout ahead and to give Greg a bit of water and food, Woona stirred and moaned. Greg dropped the protein bar and touched her head gently. "It's alright," he whispered, "I'm here."

Her huge eyes fluttered open.

"Hey, you." Greg said softly, still gently stroking her head.

"We're alive..." Woona said, as if the fact was nearly impossible to believe. Her voice was high and squeaky.

"Yeah... I guess you're still stuck with the stupidest genius on the planet," Greg said ruefully.

Woona shifted and poked her muzzle closer to his face. "You're not stupid! Why would you—"

"Well, I sure as hell didn't see this coming! They suckered me. It's only by pure luck we're still alive." He filled her in on the details.

"I knew what it was," she said quietly after he'd finished. "I've felt it before, you know. I saw you fall and I tried to get to you, but I couldn't. And then..."

"You must have lasted a lot longer than I did. All I remember is the flash and then the pain... ghod, the pain! I don't know why I'm not burned all over."

"It was the canyon," Woona told him. "The south rim is much higher than the north and it deflected most of the blast. The only thing that hit us was the EMP and the secondary shock wave. Otherwise, I don't think..."

"But that's... are you sure? The EMP shouldn't have affected me at all. I... wait." Greg's words trailed off, and he got that look on his face that his partner knew very well indeed. Woona let him think and drifted off back to sleep.

The squad of ponies got them clear of the area cordoned off by the military and set up a concealed camp for them to spend the day in. Both Greg and Luna felt much better and were able to move around a bit by the next evening.

"I am glad to have recovered my normal form," Luna said. "I hadn't imagined there would be a downside to being dependant on an Equestrian-themed narrative."

"Aw," Greg said, half-teasingly. "You were adorable as Woona!"

"I am uncomfortable with 'adorable'," she replied flatly.

"I never even thought about it," Greg said as they shared a cold meal of dried, compressed crap that tasted horrible but could, in theory, keep them fed and healthy for weeks. "Whatever happened to my original physical body when I first went into the sim, it was replaced by this one when I came out... just like yours. That's why I was vulnerable to the EMP. Now I'm made up of the same type of matter that you and the other ponies are." He poked at his forearm with a finger, made a fist, and poked again. "Funny, I don't feel any different. But, you know..." he pulled up his t-shirt and looked down at his belly. "I haven't been nearly as physically active this past year... sitting at computer terminals around the base and eating a lot of great food..." he paused a moment, realizing that Sugarberry, who had been such a fine cook as well as an able assistant, was now gone forever. He sighed and tucked his shirt back in. "I haven't gained any weight. I'm still as lean as when we were on the run in the Midwest. Maybe I'm... I dunno, frozen in this body the way it is now."

Luna leaned over and nuzzled against his belly. "Frozen or not, it's a very nice body and, once we get somewhere safe and private, I'll show you just how much I appreciate it!"

"Well, then," Greg grinned, "I guess we'd better hurry and find a new place to live!"

Luna looked up at him and asked, "And what then?"

"With any luck, they might believe I'm dead... and maybe I should let them continue to think that until I'm ready to make my next move." He shifted onto his side and wrapped his arms around Luna, resting one cheek against the back of her neck.

She sighed and snuggled into his embrace. "What will that be?"

"I'm not certain... but I do know one thing," Greg said, "I tried to show them what I could do for them and look how that turned out. I think now I'll have to show them what I can do to them."

"Captain Sundstrom? The General will see you now."

Gwen got up and brushed past the aid, just barely keeping from stomping as she entered the office deep in the Pentagon.

The three-star general seated behind the desk glanced up from his paperwork and said, simply, "Sit."

Like I'm his fucking dog, Gwen thought bitterly as she sat in one of the hard wooden chairs facing the desk. Her relationship with the Army had grown into a very equitable one: she hated it... and it hated her back.

After making her wait in silence for a long moment, the general looked up and said, "This report speaks very highly of your mixed Equestrian unit's ability to deal with wild Equestrians."

"Since the destruction of Greg's Arizona base, we've killed more of them than all the other units combined... by a long shot." Gwen put in, even though she knew the general already knew the figures. "And no casualties. The other units have lost... how many men?"

"Immaterial," the general snapped. "We now want to know how good your unit will be at a different task."

"What? You're going to give them tanks to drive? Or maybe airplanes—"

"Captain Sundstrom," the man snarled, "you will not use that tone of voice with me. Is that understood?"

Gwen briefly weighed the satisfaction of telling the desk-bound old tub of lard what she thought of him against the probable consequences and simply said, "Yes, sir," in a flat monotone.

"Good." He lifted the papers in front of him and read, "’Two ponies and one griffon captured.' Out of all the ones killed, that is a very low number. Why is that?"

"There's a razor thin line between when a pony is too hurt or exhausted to fight and when it dies from energy loss... and that window of opportunity doesn't last long. The ones we've captured were because of luck, not intent."

"But you could increase the ratio if you did intend capture, correct?"

"Yes, but that would dramatically increase the threat to the members of my unit. Holding back while fighting even an earth pony isn't exactly suicide, but it's close. And don't forget, my team is comprised of some very young people as well as the Equestrians themselves. Practically children."

"Nevertheless, we need more captive Equestrians for the scientists to study. They don't last long and we only get a tiny amount of information from them before they..." the general groped for an appropriate word, "...dissolve. We need more test subjects."

"General," Gwen said quietly, trying to keep any hint of the anger and outrage she was feeling out of her voice, "do you really think that having a few more ponies to... study, would be worth any of my young people being killed? It's bad enough that the 'friends' are exposed to danger in—"

The general was unmoved. "The phrase used in my orders is 'at any cost.' But there is another way of obtaining subjects without risking the lives under your command."

Gwen blinked in surprise but said nothing, as it was obvious the general had a surprise that he wanted her to ask for.

After a moment the general's frown deepened a bit and he said, "We could also use volunteers."

It took a second for that to sink in. "You mean you want them to... no, that's crazy! Look, the only reason the ponies are fighting with us is because of their friendship with the kids. Are you asking me to betray that friendship—"

"I'm not interested in what methods you choose to use, Captain Sundstrom," the general interrupted, "I only want results. You will deliver more Equestrian captives to Army Intelligence and the NSA, as ordered, or I will replace you with someone who will. And your new assignment will be as unpleasant as I can make it, if you somehow escape court martial for dereliction of duty. Is. That. Clear?"

I could kill him, Gwen thought. I could put a kick right under his chin that would knock his head back and snap his spine. Maybe... claim a wild pony had somehow appeared in his office and... She sighed and said, "Yes, sir."

Greg never made the same mistake twice. He didn't build a new base, he made several small, hidden safe houses. They mostly were houses, though some were caves, and a few were heavily modified warehouses. He grew portal mirrors in all of them... small ones that could only pass a few ponies at a time. He and Luna never stayed more than a day in any one of them, and most of his computing and communications traffic was routed through the Equestrian matrix where there was no possibility that anyone could trace it.

When his new operation was stable and decentralized enough, he began to do research into what had happened in Arizona and then began to take measures to make sure it wouldn't happen again. Or, at least, if it were attempted, he would have more than enough advanced warning. The JPL and NASA computer systems were infiltrated and monitored closely.

Greg also began to do experiments on expanding and manipulating the Equestria sim. The government scientists might find a way to let the military face him on that battle ground, too, and he was determined to be ready for them... if he couldn't put a stop to all the insane hostilities before then. He couldn't improve on the optimization of the code himself, but he could put together a team of unicorns who researched spells and created magical artifacts inside the Equestrian sim itself. The spells, talismans, and such were just coarse-resolution stand-ins for what the underlying code was actually doing, but it seemed to be fairly effective even from the outset.

Then he turned his attention to other things he had held back from, for fear of a negative public reaction. He no longer gave a damn about public reaction.

Greg made the initial test of his ponification code on a boy dying of leukemia in an Oregon hospice. The boy had written him many times, and as the only child of parents in prison for drug dealing, he wouldn't be missed, no matter how the experiment turned out. Greg assumed the hospice staff would cover up the boy's disappearance to save themselves from an investigation.

It was a complete success, even if the newly minted unicorn colt insisted on following Greg around like a puppy afterwards. Greg gave him into the care of a pair of unicorns living in a little university town in the Equestria sim, and released the ponification code onto the internet.

The code delivered itself to all the people that had sent him requests and monitored traffic for additional searches. It was disguised as a pony-themed quiz game, and it weeded out mere fans and suspicious government types though a long series of questions, puzzles, and scenes, all designed to appeal only to those most dedicated to making the change.

There were tragedies as a result, of course. But only a very few. The new ponies were just as incredibly tough as the originals, and would flee from intolerant and dangerous people rather than fight if given the chance. Many found a way to contact Greg, and they joined his organization or immigrated to Equestria. Official sources denied that any such thing was happening, while thousands of agents and scientists desperately scrambled for a way to stop it.

And then, as a result of fiddling around with Luna's transformative power in conjunction with the ponification operation, Greg discovered something that crystallized his plans for the future.

Almost six months to the day after the asteroid drop, computer and TV screens world-wide flickered briefly and revealed Greg's smiling face. "This is a friendly warning to the bastards that tried to kill me several times... to the scum that did kill thousands of my friends in Arizona and millions of innocent Americans. I tried to be nice. I tried to make peace. I tried to make the world a better place. But I see now that things will never get any better until you murderous pieces of shit are stamped out like cockroaches." Greg paused, still smiling, to let that thought sink in.

"So, in exactly one hour... just as a small demonstration of what's to come... I'm going to wipe Washington DC off the face of the Earth."

Author's Notes:

Thanks again to my sensational prereaders and editors WrittenWord333, Jordanis, and Fana Farouche!

Check the comments section for this chapter to tind Jordanis's excellent filk song!