"There are horses…strange Technicolor horses everywhere," the RED Soldier thought to himself. "I don't see any people around here…but I can hear them talking." The RED Soldier craned his neck upwards, desperately trying to get a better view of the street through the basement window he was staring through.
"Are people…riding the horses…? …No, I don't see any saddles, and I don't see any peoples' legs." Thoroughly confused, the Soldier hopped off the crate he was standing on. "Why can't I see any people? Where is everyone and why are the horses walking free? For that matter, why are the horses so brightly colored? What in the world is going on here…?" The Soldier adjusted his Tyrant's Helm, trying to make sense of the situation. Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by an all-too familiar gurgling.
"…Right…I haven't eaten today," he thought to himself. "Well…may as well see if there's any soup in these crates." He quickly turned around to see the crate behind him. It bore a handwritten label in bright pink ink: "BAKING CHOCOLATE."
"Chocolate?" The Soldier smiled fondly. "We haven't had chocolate in the base for ages. Not since Mann Co. started shipping us those disgusting fish cakes instead." The Soldier rubbed his hands together eagerly. He knelt down onto one knee, and attempted to pry the lid off of the crate. Surprisingly, the lid came off almost instantly. The Soldier tossed the lid aside, revealing a large amount of baking chocolate in the crate. Gingerly, the Soldier removed a few squares of chocolate from the crate.
"Screw living healthy! I'm getting killed for a living!" he thought. Smiling broadly, he popped the chocolate into his mouth. He chewed it thoroughly, trying to savor the delicacy he'd stumbled across. Within moments, he quickly realized that baking chocolate wasn't supposed to be eaten raw. He swallowed quickly and began breathing heavily, trying to blow the bitter taste off his tongue.
"Okay…" he thought. "Note to self, get Mann Co. to ship Dalokohs Bars again." Suddenly, he heard the sound of a door opening behind him.
"Oh, crockets," he thought. He quickly dove behind a nearby row of crates. After observing his surroundings, he noticed an open, empty crate with a lid leaning against it. Drawing on years of experience hiding from victorious enemies during Humiliation, he crawled into the crate and pulled the lid over the top. He hardly dared to breathe. He knew that in these kinds of situations, the slightest motion or sound could mean his life…
…which was why he was so surprised to hear a teenage girl's voice singing. Granted, she wasn't singing any particular song—just a series of la's, really—but it was singing nonetheless. She had a high-pitched voice that lent itself very well to singing. With a great deal of effort, the Soldier twisted around in the tiny crate and peered out through a knothole in one of the boards. What he saw horrified him beyond belief.
"Oh, shit! My hat!" he thought to himself. Indeed, his Tyrant's Helm had fallen off his head during his dive for shelter, and was lying discarded by the opened box of baking chocolate. With a start, he realized that the girl had stopped singing. He then saw a sight that confused him even further. A bright pink pony with a curly, hot pink mane, disproportionately large blue eyes and a tiny wooden box on its back was walking through the basement, approaching the box of baking chocolate.
"That's…one of those horses from outside," the Soldier thought to himself. The pony briskly trotted up to the open crate. After staring at the open crate for a moment, the pony turned around to face the basement at large. And then the pony did something that the Soldier had no way of being able to predict: it spoke.
"Is somepony in here?" she said, speaking in the voice of the young girl from earlier. Inside the crate, the Soldier's eyes nearly broke from widening in surprise.
"HOLY SHIT, A TALKING HORSE," is the closest approximation to what the Soldier was thinking at the moment. Once the shock cleared, the Soldier stopped to think.
"Wait…there were as many horses outside as there would be people in a normal town…I could hear people talking, but I couldn't see any…cross-dimensional rift…" The Soldier suddenly realized what was going on. "…Oh, my God," he thought to himself, "I'm trapped in an alternate universe inhabited by talking horses." He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head.
"No, no, that's impossible. I don't care what those scientists did to me; you can't put humans in another dimension. Maybe I've finally snapped…?"
"Ooooh, what's this?" chirped the pony, snapping the Soldier out of his reverie. The Soldier peered back through the knothole. He saw that the pony was somehow holding his Tyrant's Helm in her hoof (despite the disadvantage of not having fingers). She stared at the hat for a moment. Then she placed it on her head. The hat was a few sizes too large for her, and covered up her eyes like it covered up the Soldier's. The odd pony giggled, turned around, and pranced off in the direction she had come. After a moment, the Soldier heard the sound of a door opening and closing.
The instant he heard the door close, the Soldier punched the lid of the crate he was hiding in, sending it flying into the air.
"That goddamn pony stole my hat!" he said aloud, leaping out of the crate. Behind him, the crate lid hit the ground with a loud clank. After a moment, the Soldier regained his senses.
"Wait…this is a pantry," he thought to himself. "Whoever that pony was, if she lives in this building, she'll come back. And even if she doesn't live here, then some pony will show up here sooner or later. So if someone will be coming back…" The Soldier smirked evilly. "Alright…I've got a plan." The Soldier walked over to the opposite end of the basement. A rickety flight of stairs led up to a bright pink door, and there was a large pile of crates beside the door. The Soldier nodded. He knelt down behind the crates, most of which were labeled "cupcakes". He drew his shotgun out of his Spytech-patented Hammerspace inventory, cocked it, and crept up to the side of the crates.
"Heeeeeere, horsie, horsie, horsie…" he crooned in a menacing singsong voice.
By the Soldier's reckoning, about half an hour had passed. No one had entered the pantry yet, and the Soldier had grown tired of standing at attention. He was, in fact, sitting down, leaning against the crate. Suddenly, he heard the sound of the door opening. Quickly, he snapped back to attention. He didn't want to peek around the crates for risk of being spotted, but he did hear voices.
"And you're sure there's somepony in here?" said a teenage girl's voice. It wasn't the same voice as the one who had stolen the Soldier's hat—it was less squeaky, and seemed to convey a bit more maturity.
"Yes, Twilight!" came the voice of the pony who'd stolen Soldier's hat from behind the crates. "Somepony got into the baking chocolate, and I found some kind of hat down here!" The Soldier risked a peek around the crates. The pink pony from before was back, and she was accompanied by a different pony. This one had a light purple coat and purple eyes. Her mane was a much darker purple with a pink highlight, and was worn straight. The Soldier also noticed that she had a purple horn on her forehead.
"Great, now there are unicorns, too," the Soldier thought to himself. "Well, I guess the alternate universe is allowed to have unicorns if they want to." He waited for the two horses to pass him—first the unicorn, then the pink pony—then slowly and silently crept out from behind the crates. He walked slowly so as to make as little noise as possible, and kept as low to the ground as he could without actually crawling.
"Pinkie, are you sure it's a good idea to just confront whoever's hiding in here?" the unicorn said, audibly nervous.
"Oh, come on, Twilight, it'll be fine!" replied the pink pony cheerfully. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"This." Before either pony had time to react, the Soldier raised himself up to his full height, lifted his leg, and brought his foot down on the pink pony's back. The pony's legs gave out beneath her, and she cried out in pain as she fell to the ground. The unicorn just barely had time to whirl around before the Soldier cocked his shotgun once more, just to be sure, and pointed it at the unicorn.
"PINKIE!" screamed the unicorn, horrified.
"MOVE AND SHE DIES!" bellowed the Soldier. Silence reigned in the darkened basement.
"Alright, girls, listen up," said the Soldier after a brief pause. "I'm in control here, and if you both want to get out of this unharmed, you'll follow my instructions exactly. Got it?"
"Y-yes…" stammered the unicorn, very clearly terrified.
"Yep!" chirped the pink pony (Pinkie, as she apparently called herself), very clearly not scared at all. The Soldier disregarded his hostage's lack of respect for him.
"So. Unicorn. Miss…Twilight, was it?"
"Yes…Twilight Sparkle," the unicorn replied.
"Alright, then, Twilight. Here's how this is gonna go down. I'm a little lost right now. I need you to tell me where I am."
"Well, you're in the basement of the Cakes family's bakery, silly!" said Pinkie, twisting her neck around to look at the Soldier.
"I'm talking to Twilight right now," growled the Soldier, looking down to meet his hostage's gaze. "You stay out of this." Having said that, he looked back up at Twilight. "I need something less specific."
"…Um…you're in Ponyville?" said Twilight, still clearly nervous.
"Well, I would never have guessed that," said the Soldier, rolling his eyes. "Less specific."
"You're in the land of Equestria…" The Soldier furrowed his brow in thought.
"Okay, that's fair enough. Now, I'm not from Equestria. I'm from a far-off land called 'Mann's Land.' Now, say I was to travel from Equestria to Mann's Land. How would I go about doing that?"
"I…don't know…" said Twilight. The Soldier cocked his shotgun yet again, purely for dramatic effect, and pointed it down at the back of Pinkie's head.
"Are you sure about that?" he asked, glaring menacingly at Twilight.
"Wait! Don't!" cried Twilight. "I don't know, but I could find out!"
"Oh, really, now?" the Soldier said, still glaring.
"Yes. Ponyville has a library. I could go there and figure out how to get to Mann's Land."
"Okay. That might be acceptable. Of course, I have to ensure you're going to come back… Here's how it's going to work. I'll give you three hours to find the location of Mann's Land."
"Okay…is that it?" Twilight asked.
"No. When your friend, Pinkie here, came down into the basement earlier today, she ended up stealing my hat."
"Oh, that was yours?" said Pinkie.
"Shut it! I'm talking to Twilight!" barked the Soldier. He sighed softly, then continued. "Anyway. My hat was a bronze helmet. There was a metal band around the brim, and another band dividing the hat into two sections. These sections were painted red. There is also a single white horn on each of these sections, but the left horn has been broken in half. Pinkie, you can talk now. What did you do with my hat?"
"I gave it to Rarity," said Pinkie, giggling to herself.
"Okay. Twilight, do you know this Rarity?"
"Yeah, she's a friend of mine."
"Good. While you're out, I want you to stop by Rarity's place and get my hat back. I'll give you one hour to do that. So, in total, you've got a leisurely four hours to do what I've asked of you."
"Um, great! I'll just be going, then…" Twilight stepped to the side, intending to head towards the door.
"Hang on there, missy, I'm not done yet!" The Soldier smirked. This was his favorite part of taking hostages. "If you don't come back here in four hours, then Pinkie here dies. If you don't come alone, Pinkie and whoever you brought with you will die. If you come back and you don't know where Mann's Land is, and you don't have a damn good explanation for why you don't know, then Pinkie dies. And if you come back without my hat, Pinkie dies AND you die too. Got all that?"
"Yes, sir…" said Twilight nervously.
"Good. Off you go, then. Your four hours starts…" The Soldier looked down at his wrist. Luckily for him, he'd decided to wear his watch today. He adjusted the cuff of his sleeve so he could look at it better. The clock read 1132 hours. "…Now!" Twilight charged off towards the staircase. The Soldier didn't bother to look behind him. He heard the door open and shut.
"Okay, then, Pinkie. Looks like there's nothing for us to do but wait."