All in all, the soldiers were more at ease than I would have thought. First there was James Tuna, called ‘Fish’ by his subordinates. He was a man in his mid to late thirties, about six feet tall, and well trained. His stubble was on its way to becoming a full beard, and his brown hair also stopped just below his shoulder. Toiletries were obviously either rare or non-existent. The next in the group was Leonard, who reminded me a little of his namesake in a particular television series. He was shorter than Fish and had uncombed, medium length, black hair and glasses. Why a paramedic was called Pill was not explained to us during the presentation. Alfred was the radio operator and technician of the small unit and also the youngest. He was perhaps twenty-five and did not seem as trained as the others, a sign that he must have formerly been one of the army’s desk jockeys. He also showed clear signs of facial hair, but because of its light shade of brown, it wasn’t as noticeable. Leroy could best be described if I compared him to Mordecai from Borderlands. He was tall, about the size of Fish, and lanky. However, that did not mean that he was untrained. His long black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and a goatee graced his face.

It was the last of the group who was the most interesting of all. Not because of his appearance, or at least not only because of it. John MacGilvary, or Mac, was the giant who had tried to help us. He towered at about seven feet in height, had shoulder-length red hair, and freckles all over his face. Added to this was the distinct Texan accent, something that I knew only two ponies possessed. It was almost too much of a coincidence.

“So, I admit to be curious enough for an explanation. The only thing our white friend here has said was that he wants to help. Honestly? I don’t think any of us care what type it is. Help, no matter what, is something we need in these times," Fish summed up his group’s position and gestured to Shining Armor.

"As I earlier tried to explain, I am Captain Shining Armor of the Canterlot Royal Guard. My companion here is Private Light." I gave him a quick look as he nodded almost imperceptibly. "We are ponies from another world and are here to help, as you already know. We are more familiar with these beings that you call shades and can successfully push them back and keep at a distance." The soldiers exchanged some incredulous looks before Alf coughed.

“Did you say that you can keep them permanently at bay?” Armor nodded. “How?”

"Sunlight is their biggest weakness. You would have certainly noticed that they avoid it,” I continued for Armor. "We have magic that can create barriers and keep them away."

"I have a question," the giant interjected. "How did you know that this world needed help?" Armor quickly looked over at me.

"That’s because I—" I was interrupted by the crunching of glass from the floor, and we were immediately all back on alert. Everyone listened intently in silence as we waited to find out who had crashed the scene and how many we had to deal with.

"Light, sugarcube?" I heard AJ’s voice echoing through the corridors. Relieved, Armor and I exhaled, but not the soldiers.

"Do not worry, that's just my girlfriend... fiancée," I quickly corrected. "We’re up here!" I shouted as loudly as I could, and now we once more heard hooves quickly rushing across the floor, followed by at least two pairs of wings. Accordingly, Dash and Star were the first that joined us and were greeted by weapons pointed at them. "Hey! They are friends." However, Rainbow seemed unfazed by the threat directed at them. Either because she had forgotten how dangerous they were, or because she was brave. As the five saw that nothing happened, except the two were now present with wings next two ponies with horns, they lowered their guns again.

"So, how many are coming?" asked their leader—Fish, if I remembered correctly. At that moment, I saw AJ, Trixie, and Twilight coming up the same escalator that I had also taken.

"I think that’s the rest of them," I explained, pointing to the ponies. "The others must have remained on the ship." The troops nodded faintly.

"So was that your flying balloon-ship thing?" came from Mordecai. I could not remember his real name anyway. Before I could answer, we heard shots from the basement and the roar of several people.

"I think reinforcements just arrived," Rainbow noted and flew down. Our eyes followed her through the railing where she disappeared down the hallway. It was a little calmer again, and we exchanged some worried glances, but no one said anything. Then shots were heard, and a panicked pegasus came directly towards us. "Hey! Careful where you aim that thing!" she shouted as a bullet whizzed past her and struck the ceiling. The soldiers jumped up and leaned over the railing and waited for what was about to walk into view. No sooner had Rainbow landed did the other members of the gang come into view and began shooting again. The first targeted salvos of soldiers missed none of the targets, and the first five or six victims went to the ground.

"Pull back search or we will continue to shoot!" yelled Fish as loud as he could, but only got a few shots as an answer that just about went in his direction. "Ah fuck! Can anyone of you tell the German bastards that they should fuck off?"

"Withdraw now and you will be spared!" I called in the Royal Canterlot voice throughout the entire building, bringing silence.

"A warning would have been nice..." Twilight noted. "At some point, I'm going to go deaf."

"I said German!" Fish roared, who probably had to fight now to hear, seeing as there was no reason to be so loud.

"My voice is enchanted. While I speak English to you, it is German for them," I explained as I leaned in his direction. I did not know if he did not understand me or if he was hung up with the magic voice thing, but it took a few seconds before he nodded.

"You killed our friends! Surrender and give us your weapons," a voice called back. They also sounded relatively young.

"What does he want?" Fish asked me.

"Your arms and our surrender." I translated the demand, and he began to shift through Alf’s backpack.

"How about no?!" he shouted, pulled the pin from another hand grenade, and threw it down where he suspected the gang to be.

"Take cover!" I yelled to the others, threw myself on the floor, and put my hooves over my ears. I saw AJ, Twilight, and Armor follow my example, while the soldiers only covered their ears. A dull bang was heard, and a puff of smoke drew past us. Unlike us, the five were quickly back on their feet and turned their guns down again to watch for fleeing enemies.

"Behind us!" I heard the deep voice of Star call, and spun around to see that some of the gang had climbed the escalator in the confusion and had already turned their weapons on us. The first shots rang out, and we all tried again to jump for cover in the bakery behind us. Twilight responded faster than her brother or I, pulling us behind a shield.

"Star! Hey! "I looked over at Rainbow as she stood over the white pegasus, who had been struck. Armor pushed her aside and now looked at him and his wound. A bullet had hit him in the shoulder, and he did not move.

"Oh Celestia... This is not good..." muttered Armor and looked over at the others. "We need to get out to the ship as soon as possible."

"Where is your ship?" Fish asked as Twilight maintained the shield.

"At the airport," I answered quickly.

"And it’s secured?" The soldier went into cover to reload his gun, and Mac took over his position. "Against the shades?" I nodded. "Good. Okay, people, listen up. Our new friends here have a really secure post that would be mighty cozy, especially if Mac’s right about our position having been exposed. We’ll shoot our way out of here, collect what we can to contribute, and head out to the airport."

"I'm coming with you," I added, which earned me some looks. "You could have information regarding what we’re primarily here for, and I don’t want to risk not getting it." This time it was Fish who nodded.

"Trixie! You accompany Light. Twilight, how far can you teleport us all?" She thought for a moment about Armor’s command and obviously had trouble with it, as she still maintained the shield. It absorbed one bullet after the other.
"I think up to the crossroads where we met Trixie and the others, after a short break." Armor attended to the unconscious Star and threw him over his back.

"Good. Rainbow, you can fly and find your way?" She looked away from the bleeding wound on Armor’s face and nodded. "Applejack, come over to us!" he shouted when he turned to Twilight. "As soon as you’re ready, let the shield fall. See you on the ship." Trixie saluted while I just looked over to AJ and grinned at her briefly. In a small purple explosion, they disappeared, and we all ducked immediately behind the counter when the first bullets whizzed to the back of the store.

“How much ammunition do they actually have?" I asked no one in particular.

"Enough. They’ve taken the stadium where we had our arsenal. We had to give it up when the shades invaded," Mac said and fired back a few volleys. "How do we get out of here?"

"Trixie will create an illusion that we will use. Rainbow Dash will go through one of the open windows to escape while we simply take the exit." Without waiting for an answer, her horn shone, and the next moment we were surrounded by five other soldiers that looked just like their originals. "They will hold for about five minutes. Until then, we should be out of reach." Again there was no answer as she sent the mirages across the hall, where they were immediately greeted by bullets. From this angle, I saw that they were running a bit strangely and were slightly transparent, but at greater distances, this would not attract attention. I came out from behind the counter and looked around more closely. The mirages fought a gun battle with a few young people in the basement and had their complete attention. I pointed to the window above us, and Rainbow understood that it was time for her departure. Hardly had she disappeared that we seized the moment to be as quiet as possible to disappear in the opposite direction, only further into the building. The distraction seemed to more than work well because we were now virtually alone as the sounds of battle in the background moved.

"We need to head west," Mordecai said, and so we turned at the correct direction at the earlier chance. However, we were quickly forced to hold by Mac, and he pointed with two fingers to his eyes, then pointed three fingers at us. Unlike Trixie, I understood the gesture and so she looked around the corner. She let out a gasp, and I wanted to just grab her tail, but she was already around the corner.

"Excuse me, but would you gentlemen kindly make way for the Great and Powerful Trixie?" she asked in near-perfect High German. My curiosity was piqued and looked at what happened. The three guards were perplexed as to how to react to the talking pony, and as Trixie close enough to them, her horn glowed briefly and they collapsed to the ground. "I see no one can resist the appearance of the Great and Powerful Trixie." The shock of her appearance was probably more responsible, I thought as I ran with the others in tow towards the exit.

"Oof... I've never been a friend of shopping..." I sighed as we left the mall a bit behind us. Trixie and I had moved into a trot, which forced the soldiers to jog. Although we were much smaller, we had less effort to cover the same distance, all thanks to the four legs.

"This way," said Fish and turned into a small side street. "So, now back to you again. What are you and what are you doing here?"

"As I said, we are ponies. To be exact, we come from a parallel dimension and are here to help. My name is Blue Light and this is my sister Trixie." I started the usual explanation that had become a habit when I came into contact with humans.

"You look similar enough," Alf said casually.

"Whatever," I pressed on before he could interject further. "We followed the signal of a radio station by the survivors to be found here, because we are looking for my family."

"Sorry, but if colourful ponies had been amongst the survivors, we would have noticed," Fish noted.

"They are human beings. Don’t ask." We turned into another street and were still a little slower because the paramedics and Alf seemed to be out of breath. "We learned that they were brought into a camp here and continued to fly to Munich. We do not know whether this has already happened or not. That's why we thought you could do something." The men looked at each other and walked silently on.

"My brother asked you a question," Trixie said when they had still not responded after some time.

"No place left in Munich, not that it matters," Mac whispered to her and strode past her. Before we could catch up, they disappeared around a corner, and then into a building. I examined the sign and found that we were well on target.

"McDonalds? What's that?" Trixie asked as she looked at an old advertising poster. In it, a burger could be seen with fries.

"A fast food restaurant. Unhealthy but convenient if you want something to quickly fill your stomach." I thought this was a good opportunity to check with the others. With my magic, I put my headset on my head and pressed the button for the microphone. "Light to Celestia, please come in." There was silence for a few seconds. Actually, it was too quiet. I looked in my right saddlebag, where the unit was stowed, and found that it had made acquaintances with a bullet. "Damn..." I took it out and threw it in a high arc down the road. Now the door of the restaurant opened again, and the five men came out with thickly-filled backpacks.

"Before we go to your ship, I want to know what you meant by ‘it makes no difference?’" I said to Fish, who was at the other door. He looked to his colleagues, then nodded to me.

"You know what a WMD is?" he asked hesitantly.

"Of course, a weapon of mass destruction. Atomic or hydrogen bombs, for example," I said without a clue of what he was getting at.

"It’s fallen," he said and went on his way.

"What do you mean ‘it’s fallen’?" Trixie was next to me and seemed to not quite understand, but I just did not care.

"When the situation had seemed hopeless, the chancellor tried to use atomic retaliation." I swallowed. They had actually used nuclear weapons? "Without success. After they did, other countries panicked. Everywhere on the globe, several bombs went off." I was stunned, my head blank. "If you didn’t get caught then, you would start bleeding from your mouth months later."

"What does he mean, Light?" Trixie asked with some panic in her voice.

"Atomic bombs are the destructive weapons to man. They have a large explosive force, but that is not the worst. It's the deadly radiation. It can make an area uninhabitable for hundreds of years." And when bombs rained down, the entire world could have been blanketed by a lethal cloud. I swallowed. "Trixie, we need to go back to the ship to check something."

Author's Notes:

War, war never change.

Translated and edited by JBL