Strong Breeze stood, watching the sleeping subject through the one way mirror. His name badge revealed that wasn't his name by far. "Why is she wearing a mask? Was she injured?"

A technician shook his head firmly. "Perfectly healthy. That has the sedatives. The stuff they used was fast acting, but wears off about as fast. We had to get it flowing into her at a steady and controlled rate to keep her down."

He gestured with a flat hand at the unconscious horse. "Do we know enough about their biology to keep her down like that without killing her?"

The tech shrugged softly. "We're doing what we can and monitoring her vitals constantly. Shouldn't we be giving her over to the military at this point? The speech the president gave sounded like a declaration of war."

The speech had come with a delay, it had to coming over radio. It had been posted to the state site for everyone to see when it arrived, allowing everyone to watch it if they wanted. The internal Alaskan network was working just fine. The man sighed at that. "I haven't been ordered to."

He turned back to gaze at the sleeping horse. "Did you see her transcripts? We have it finished."

"No, Sir," admitted the technician, looking uncomfortable.

"Right, keep an eye on her."

It was a dismissal, and one the technician took, departing gratefully and leaving the one with authority behind.

"I come in peace," he sighed out, putting a few fingers on the glass. No matter how deplorable her country... horses were, she had done nothing wrong.

Near invisible to radar they didn't have, the ponies did hear it coming. With a loud roar, something strange flew over their heads, coming and going with such speed that they almost had no choice but to look up towards it. They had never seen a jet before, and they scarcely did at that moment with it moving so quickly.

As strange as it was, it had done nothing, and was already gone. The citizens of the Crystal Empire resumed their daily chores, gossiping a little about it, but what else was there to do?

Other planes would pass by, some so high, they weren't even noticed. With the leave to move, the Alaskan forces had begun gathering information with the speed of a mobilized military, which they had become. With their flights, maps were updated. Alaska, as a landmass, was gone. They were parked on some strange new continent that extended a great distance in all directions.

The local major general frowned at those updated maps. Not at the natural formations, curious as those were. There were enemy cities not that far from the more remote American towns. America had never had a hostile land neighbor before, but things had changed.

They weren't even human. They also clearly weren't animals. Animals did not establish cities. Animals did not build mind bogglingly huge structures. Well, they were nothing compared to, say, the Empire State Building, but still far larger than any animal had a right to erect. They were sapient, and hostile.

They were also woefully unprepared. Not a single sign of anti-air defenses. Not a single real reaction to the planes that had flown close to the ground. They had images of their ground forces. There were no air forces worth mentioning.

Air ships, really? They had spied a few, even caught one mid-air, soaring at what could be called a slow drift in comparison to military jets. Was that the best they had?

They would regret their tactical decisions...

"Time to strike back." He brought down a finger firmly at where their ground forces were gathered. "They didn't sign a Geneva Convention, but let's show them we don't target civilians. I want a precise shot. Fly in hot, but I want aim to be the number one priority."

The crack of gunfire mixed with the shouts and calls of other soldiers engaged in more melee training. It was a sunny day and the Crystal Heart kept the interior of the city warm and pleasant. It was a fine day for training, since no new orders for deployment had arrived.

Shining Armor frowned deeply as he watched his soldiers work. "We can't keep waiting," he sighed out. "She... needs us to save her."

Cadance gently wrapped a wing over him. "Please don't abandon faith in your little sister... She's done so much."

"Luck runs dry eventually," he bitterly noted. "She's been gone far too long without anything. We can't just assume it's all alright forever!"

Cadance heaved a slow sigh. "And attacking them again will help her?"

"It's better than nothing," he shrank a little before standing up. "We have to act."

A jet was coming. They could all hear it and the practice slowed to look towards the sound. It was easier to see them if you looked before they were past.

These looked different. None of the ponies could determine what it meant.

At least, until the bombs fell. There was a short whistle, a rising crescendo that barely lasted a moment, then the world broke. Ponies, griffons, dragons, and yaks were thrown around with little regard for what species they were, and those were the lucky ones. Others simply ceased to be, reduced to parts or less as the ground seemed to detonate all around them.

It was over as quickly as it had begun. The entire training field was a ruined hellscape of burning craters. Cadance was staring with haunted eyes as the cries of the injured began to work through the ringing produced by the explosions. She was in a bubble of magic, Shining Armor's horn glowing fiercely, protecting himself and his beloved.

The bubble faded and Shining collapsed to the ground, losing consciousness immediately. They were in one of those craters; not in the center exactly. His act of defiance had pushed him far beyond any reasonable limit of his magic.

"What have we... done?" Her question would not be answered, not by her unconcious husband or the killed soldiers. She could only rise to her hooves and see to those that still drew breath. "You, you." She pointed to two ponies that looked relatively unharmed. "Get to triage, tell them what happened and get them over here; then join the efforts. We can't leave them here."

"Mr. President." The man speaking thrust forward a folder. "Update from the front."

It was a war, a defensive war, certainly, but a war. There was a front. The president accepted the folder with a grave nod. "I thought, when I was elected, I'd be focusing on medical care. Instead, a damned war; and not even one of the ones we knew about." Those had been cancelled... All men involved in them, simply gone. Was it continuing without them? They couldn't know.

The Middle East would have to sort itself out without the United States' involvement. They were a world away.

He opened the folder. They had launched an airstrike, successfully. There were pictures, showing the area with a circle around the 'target' with before and after comparisons. "Good aim..." Only one bomb had exploded too close to the edge of the circle, causing some damage beyond it. A+ for precision. The jet that had caused the damage couldn't get very good pictures of the aftermath through the smoke of the bombs, alas.

US Casualties: 0, the report read. He couldn't help but imagine that was a proud thing to tack on there.
Enemy Casualties: Unknown. Estimate: 2,000+

2000? In that small area? He doubted the validity of that estimate. "Not that the specific number matters." They had no complete grasp of any of the numbers. 2000 out of what? Still, a telling blow, he decided. Maybe there were 2000 injured, considering it was a training base.

"Should we announce it?" asked one of his assistants, on the PR team.

"Hold off on that." He shook his head. "If congress gets word of airstrikes, the pressure from them will only increase. This remains a defensive action. Our enemy is weak." He threw the folder down on his desk. "Hopefully they've gotten a taste of just how poor of a fight they picked."

Ideally, they'd come groveling and begging to surrender. In the real world, that was a rare occurrence, especially after one strike.

His phone rang and he snatched it up. "Talk to me."

"Sir, we have an anonymous report from within Anchorage's city hall that they captured an enemy combatant."

The president frowned. "Why am I hearing this through anonymous sources? Why haven't they been turned over to the military?"

"I couldn't say, Sir."

Twilight tried to lift her head. Everything hurt in a distant way. Her insides refused to obey what she told them to in a precise way. "Mmm."

"You're awake."

She looked up to see a human. "Strong Breeze." She recognized him and barely whispered his name, trying to sit up and failing.

"I am very sorry," he spoke slowly, regarding a dictionary as he did so. "Medicine for sleep not... made for... pony." Despite his words, he looked... happy? Relieved? He had much reason to be. If she felt groggy, that was far less than the worse that could have happened with trying to keep an alien down with drugs.

Twilight pushed at the bed, trying to get herself sitting up, but her legs didn't feel like listening. "Why?" She couldn't use her magic, not in her addled state.

"We saw you." He pointed upwards with a lone finger. "You there, then not there." He spoke slow and measured Ponish, working through the words carefully. "You float paper pen."

Twilight swerved her ears, they had decided to listen to her. She only just realized that she was speaking to a human! How exciting! "You can speak Ponish?!" Despite her bleariness, her words managed to come out approaching excitement. It was too much.

He flipped through his book, frowning softly. "Little." He held up two fingers close together. He was looking up words as they came, a slow and laborious process. "Please talk..." He had to flip to the right page. "Slow."

"Yes. Yes... right." Twilight managed to push herself up a few inches, feeling unduly proud of her accomplishment. "I am Twilight Sparkle." She spoke each word slowly. She pointed at herself, which resulted in her flopping right back onto the bed with a grunt. "Twilight. Sparkle."

"Nice. Meet. You." He nodded at her. "Tuna Lollipop."

Twilight tried to laugh, it didn't work very well. "Twilight. Sparkle."

"Twilight Sparkle," he repeated, far closer to the mark. "I am (George Smith)."

"(Geagh Smit). Nice to meet you." She nodded, unaware of her own name mangling.

"George," he repeated for her, smiling gently. The two of them seemed bouyed by the contact. "Are you... comfortable?"

"No." She slowly sat up. "Thank you for asking. I appreciate... I thank you." She aborted her statement, trying to keep it simple. "Medicine not good." Her senses were returning, but so slowly. "Are you king?" She was fairly sure he sounded and looked like a male human.

He laughed at that. "No, no. I..." He flipped through the book wildly, looking for the right word. "This town hall. I work there."

Twilight's ears perked. This was no castle, it was a town hall?! "O-oh... Who is leader?"

Where was the leader... George sighed softly. The president felt a world away, and they felt like that even when they were on Earth, which they were not. "Long... story. Why watch us?"

Twilight smiled a little. "I want to learn," she said, trying her best to keep the words simple. "You learn fast. How learn Ponish?"

The creature before him sounded like a scientist, not a spy, or a combatant... "What did you learn?" he returned the query, he had to know more.

She barely managed to keep upright with one hoof, pointing weakly. "Not a... lot. If watch me, and know Ponish, you know."

He did. But that she could figure that out without prompting spoke well for her intelligence. "We have lot talk."

There was so much to discuss...

Author's Notes:

The great beast has been stirred, and its claws are made of planes, the tips explosive bombs.

I did a naughty, by the way. Tranqs do NOT work that way, as a rule. most things that can put you down that fast need to be inserted just so, and will only keep you down for a very tiny period of time. I made up for it by having them get Twilight under gas ASAP.

Still, naughty. Bad movie logic is bad! Forgive this author! I do try to ground this in reality (with magic horses, shut up!). Feel free to call me out.

Also, happy new years!