So, hey guys. Trying something different. Those who know me, this is me expanding into something new, inspired after seeing similar pieces like this. This isn't exactly canon with the other ShadeFics, but I will make references to them from time to time.
Those who DON'T know me, I'm TheShadeOps, and this story will feature my (somewhat established) OC, Sgt Thomas "Shade" Williams. Further info can be found in my other stories, mostly "The New Arrivals".
Anyway, enjoy the story guys, let me know what you think.
FYI - Italicised dialogue is spoken in Russian, translated to make the story flow better.
Golden Oaks Library, Ponyville, Equestria
More power, more power... The thought ran through Twilight Sparkle's mind as she channelled even more of her magical flow to cast the spell she had spent the entire week preparing to use. The spell, a long-distance teleportation spell, was known only to be used by the greatest magical minds in all of Equestria, including her mentor, Princess Celestia, and her idol, Starswirl the Bearded. She was bound to complete the spell, as a way to test the abilities she had gained after becoming an alicorn, as well as bring back some of her idol's magic to the modern world. She had purposely held off from using any form of spell for the last week, building up her magic reserves in an effort to get the maximum output for this spell.
She was on the brink of completing the spell when she caught a glimpse of movement in her peripheral. The figure, a small baby dragon, had entered the room with a scroll from who she presumed to be the Princess herself. That realisation sent a surge of panic throughout Twilight's body, and resulted in a surge of magic that flowed to the spell. It didn't take Twilight long to realised that the surge had messed with the spell, and she had no idea to what the new spell might do.
"Spike! Run!" She screamed, as her body became encapsulated by the aura of her magic. In the second that followed, she vanished in a bright white flash. As the light faded, the space that Twilight was standing in had emptied, leaving a very worried Spike standing behind the ajar door.
Twilight had been knocked unconscious by the effects of the spell. She didn't know that her long distance teleportation spell had in fact worked, but instead of taking her to the Crystal Empire, which was her planned destination, it had taken her to an entirely different star system. She also didn't know that the surge from her panic had resulted in a morphing spell to be cast alongside the teleportation spell, changing her from her pony form into a form that matched the inhabitants of the world she had been transported to. Those, these would be the last of Twilight's worries when she woke.
When she did eventually wake, she found herself bound and gagged in a dark room, with the only light coming through a small window high in the far wall. Still drowsy from her ordeal, she looked around, but stopped after she felt a different shift in her weight than she normally felt. Looking down, she nearly freaked at what she saw. Instead of her regular lavender equine form, she had morphed into a pale-skinned, fur-less bipedal form. She methodically looked over as much of her new form as she could, trying to piece together how this could of happened, and more importantly, what she was now. The mirror that was across from the room helped in her analysis.
Think Twilight. Bipedal, no fur, strange looking extremities on the ends of the major limbs, mane restricted to the top of the head, rounded head with small protruding snout where the nostrils are, thin neck, no tail, wings or horn. Two... other extremities on the torso, reproductive organs located on the lower torso with no visible concealment available.
Running through the possibilities in her head, she thought back to her studies on mythological creatures. She also recalled some of the stories she heard from the resident conspiracy theorist back at her home of Ponyville, Lyra. She was obsessed with one theory in particular, about how there was another race that existed on another world, and how the Equestrian government was taking measures to conceal any information about it.
What had she called them... humans? Her ramblings on their descriptions match my appearance in a number of ways... maybe it's just a coincidence, or a side effect of the spell. Maybe I'm just – Her thoughts were cut off as she heard a number of shouts from above her head, through the ceiling. They sounded masculine in nature, and they sounded angry. Whatever it was, Twilight hoped that their anger would not be directed towards her. It was then that she could make out a dull thudding noise in the distance.
Her attention was dragged away as another 'human' ran into her room, its body language showing signs of panic. She looked at it and took in every detail she could: the sock it wore over its head, showing only its eyes and mouth; the multi-coloured but drab looking pattern on its clothing, the top and bottom being of different coloured patterns; the strange looking saddle bags it wore across its chest, and how disorganised it appeared; the strange looking tool it held in its hands, a series of tubes and boxes attached to each other. It moved to close the window, blocking the light and stopping the room from being seen from the outside. Then it turned to her with its tool pointed at her. Despite the fact that she did not know what it was or what it did, she felt intimidated and scared by having it thrust at her.
"Is this all your doing?" It shouted at her in a strange sounding dialect. She took a moment to realise that she and it did not share the same dialect, even though she looked like one of their species. She gave a look of confusion, trying to hint that she could not understand it. It shouted again. "Did you lead them to us?" Another strange sounding phrase, completely unintelligible to Twilight. She thought of a way to make it more obvious, before it shouted at her once again. It was mid-shout when a loud bang erupted from the ground above them, followed up by a series of shorter, louder and higher-pitched bangs. Twilight could barely make out voices in amongst the noise.
"First deck clear!"
"Second deck clear!"
"Stack on the door to the cellar, that's where the cache is!"
The new voices spoke her language, but each had a different accent to the other, and different to hers. She looked back at the human in front of her, and through its mask she could clearly see the terror in its face. For a moment, she felt sorry for the being, having shared a similar experience only moments before. That was until it dragged her off the ground and lifted her in front of itself, pointing her towards the closed entrance to the room while being led slowly backwards. It was using her as a shield of sorts, to protect itself against the voices upstairs. She could make out some dull thudding noises behind the door, before a sharp clicking noise followed. Twilight closed her eyes, and held her breath.
That same time, aboard an MH-53 Pave Low III,
500ft above eastern Ukraine, DPR-controlled territory.
The squad of twelve men sat in silence during the low-level flight towards their target. Each man wore his preferred uniform and equipment, albeit with small items and patches that every one of them wore. The most obvious item that they all wore was a small light-steel grey patch that bore a skull, winged sword and wreath over the top of the spade shape from a deck of cards. The insignia was worn by the best operators and warriors that the planet had to offer, after they were selected from the rest of the best. When they wore that patch, where they came from did not matter. Rivalries need not matter, for under that insignia, they were brothers.
"Ok team, we're about ten mikes away from the drop zone. Expect light resistance upon disembarking. Remember, we go in, eliminate all hostiles and recover all of the materials. It's the least we can do." The team leader shouted over the loud engine noise in his thick Scottish accent. He wore a earpiece connected to a throat microphone, his head uncovered and showing his closely cut mohawk. He wore a grey tactical shirt and Multicam patterned trousers, with a plate carrier covered in an array of pouches and other accessories. Captain John Mactavish was a figure that demanded respect in the mere way he acted and appeared. As the field commander for the Task Force, he appeared and fought in every high-risk or high-level mission they were assigned.
Along the sides of the chopper sat the veteran operators of the 141, one could say that they were the best of the best of the best. Each man had his own style, his own way of fighting. As individuals, they were fierce, but as a team, they were unstoppable. There was Lieutenant Simon Riley, known as Ghost by the rest of the 141, he was the team's second in command as well as field interrogator. Give him a car battery, a pair of jumper leads, and an uncompliant prisoner, and you are guaranteed results.
Beside him sat Sergeant Brian "Meat" Tanner and Sergeant Mark "Royce" Roycewitz, a pair of operators recruited from the Canadian Special Operations Regiment. Meat was the team's resident translator, while Royce served as the group technician. The pair of them were closer than blood brothers, always beside each other's sides at base and in the field, ready to get each out of, and sometimes into, mischief and trouble.
Across from them sat the sniper/spotter team of Staff Sergeant Steven "Archer" McBride and Sergeant Todd "Toad" Cane. Archer had served in the Royal Marine Commandos as a sniper, become somewhat renowned in the Corps as a remarkable shot and extremely reliable whenever he was called to provide cover. Whenever troops heard that he was watching over them, their morale lifted. Toad used to be Delta Force as a squad marksman, and had worked his way into being assigned as Archer's spotter when the sniper noticed the man during selection. Archer had taken the man under his wing and became his personal mentor, since then, the two have the same kind of relationship that Meat and Royce have, without the mischief.
Beside them sat another group of men: Sergeant Tyler "Jayhawk" Chase, a former Navy SEAL assaulter; Senior Airman Nick "Chemo" Brent, recruited from Pararescue ; and Sergeant Matt "Scarecrow" Graves, a Delta Force gunner. The three of them had been recruited in the same intake, and had been drawn together as a result. When they first met, the natural inter-service rivalries had shone through, with the typical insults being hurled to each other on a standard basis. However, after a training exercise turned ugly, the three had to rely on each other to survive. Now they were very tight knit.
Down the end of the helicopter, at the ramp, sat the last three members of the team: Sergeant Gary "Roach" Sanderson, Sergeant Jayson "Rook" Cooper, and Sergeant Tom "Shade" Williams. The two Australians and one Brit formed one of the best squads that the 141 had to offer. Roach's experience as a demolitions expert, Rook roll as a grenadier and Shade being an assaulter made them a hard hitting strike element, perfect when mass destruction was required.
The crew chief of the helicopter stood up from his seat up near the cockpit and made his way to the tail, in preparation to deploy the ramp. As he made his way, the soldiers started making their final checks on their equipment, loading and chambering rounds into their weapons, checking communications and entry tools, preparing grenade pouches. Each man stood up and readied themselves for the impact of the touchdown, slightly bending their knees and gripping onto the overhead rails to brace and absorb the shock.
The wheels hit the ground, the ramp opened up and the twelve operators quickly disembarked the cargo bay and took up positions around the helicopter. Each man had their weapon raised and ready to shoot, looking for any threats to their transport. Slowly, the helicopter lifted up and away, commencing a lazy orbit around their target as the team made their way to the target building.
Pro-Russian rebel forces in Ukraine had, after months and months of fighting, been finally halted by a NATO defensive line east of Kiev. The rebel forces had thrown everything at NATO to break past, but the allied forces would not give. Air strikes and long-range artillery had decimated rebel forward posts, and slowly their forces were being pushed back. Small compounds like the one that the Task Force were raiding served as resupply points for rebel infantry and vehicles, and also served as traps for the allied forces should the rebels be pushed back beyond that point. When detonated, the building essentially became one giant fragmentation grenade. By the time that NATO commanders in the theatre had realised the threat this posed, a number of these outposts had already taken a substantial number of lives, both through the initial detonation and from the numerous secondary explosions the stored ammunition generated.
The team had a little less than fifty meters to go before rebel fighters camped out in the building opened fire. They stood no chance as Archer returned back with precision fire from his marksman rifle, a Mark 20 Sniper Support Rifle. The rounds it fired easily punched through the light brick the rebel shooters were hiding behind, and in no time the route to the house was secure.
Shade and Rook reached the ground floor door first, with Captain Mactavish and Roach right behind them. Meat, Royce, Ghost and Chemo circled around to the external stairwell that led to the second floor, while the remaining members took up security positions around the building, prepared to fight off any approaching re-enforcements. Mactavish nodded to Shade, who let his rifle hang from its sling as he pulled a small kicker charge from the back of his vest. After he prepared the adhesive side, he carefully placed the explosive waist high on the door, off centre towards the lock of the door. He pulled a small tab on the charge, and threw it to the ground. The four operators stood back a few steps and waited.
With a loud bang, the charge detonated and blew the wooden door to pieces. The shrapnel generated flew into the rebel that was standing right behind it, killing him instantly. The shockwave left the remaining four fighters dazed, giving enough time for Shade and Rook to quickly kill them without them able to fight back. The four men quickly swept the room and checked for any nasty surprises, before Rook called out loudly for them all to hear.
"First deck clear!" A few seconds passed before Ghost shouted from the rooms above them.
"Second deck clear!" Mactavish gestured over to a small set of stairs leading to a closed door, calling out the instructions to his men.
"Stack on the door to the cellar, that's where the cache is!"
Shade was the first to reach the door, a smaller doorknob charge in his hand. The confined space made using a larger kicker charge dangerous to use when the breachers were directly behind it. The doorknob charge used a smaller explosive to blow the door from the lock, the force generated enough to swing it open. After Shade hung the charge around the knob, he gestured for the team to take a safety step back. He pulled the primer tab, and stepped back, his rifle up and ready to go.
With a sharp click, the charge fired, opening the door with enough force to move it out of the way. Shade had barely taken a step inside before he sighted against the two figures in the room. Time slowed down as the trained man took in the scene before him: two people, one behind and offset behind the other; first person young and unarmed, visibly distressed by the way their eyes were closed and muscles had tensed; second person older, armed with a hand gun, aimed towards the first person's side, eyes showing surprise and fear; first person is clearly a hostage of some kind, being used as a shield.
As Shade was making this realisation, his arms had already moved his rifle to aim directly at the hostage-takers head, which at this point was well clear of the shorter and younger hostage. By the time Shade's processes had completed, all he needed to do was pull the trigger. Which he did, sending a single five point five-six millimetre round straight into the rebel's face, killing him near-instantaneously. His body fell away, leaving the hostage still standing, frozen in apparent fear, with their eyes closed. The entire ordeal had been over in a matter of seconds.
Rook was literally a step behind Shade, and swept to the right of his team mate. His view fell upon the multiple crates of explosives and ammunition against the wall, but saw no other rebels. Roach had mirrored Rook's actions, clearing Shade's left side. Shade kept his pace as he moved straight past the hostage to secure the rebel's body, while Mactavish followed right behind him to perform a final all-room sweep.
"Clear!" He shouted, walking over to Roach as he started to prepare a handful of C4 demolition shape charges. Shade had cleared the rebel's weapons and secured the body, before turning around to face the hostage. They were still frozen in fear, their eyes closed tight and their stance locked, the shock of the entire event still under effect. Shade looked at them and started to take in more details, details that he had missed during entry.
Firstly, the hostage was female, and was completely nude. Not a single scrap of clothing could be seen on her, and a quick glance around the room failed to turn up any discarded pieces of clothing. Secondly, she looked young, estimated around her very late teens to her very early twenties. Thirdly, her skin tone and shape would have been more common to see in a college in the US, not in a contested warzone in Eastern Europe. Shade began to run through a few worst-case scenarios in his mind as she stood up and slowly made his way to the girl. He reached out and gently placed a hand on her shoulder, an attempt to bring her out of her state.
But the second his gloved hand brushed against her, she jumped and spun around, tripping over the leg of the body and falling to the ground, hard. The force of the fall knocked her out cold, leaving the four highly trained Special Forces operators with a new problem; what to do with her. They had no idea that she would be there, nor had any idea how she had indeed got there in the first place. But as they lifted the stretcher carrying her into their Pave Low, they knew that they would get their answers soon enough.
And so is the end of the prologue/first chapter of Hotel Victor Papa (points to who can figure out what means/can mean). I hope you enjoyed this, I actually enjoyed writing it. It's a bit more serious straight out of the bat, in comparisons to what I've written previously. Still, what I think and you guys think is different.
Thanks again, TSO out!