This happens four days after the last chapter and has elements of the episodes "Princess Twilight Sparkle" and "Power Ponies"


Only a couple of days before the Sun Summer Celebration and Twilight Sparkle is tirelessly practicing on her flying. It's not going very well but her friends are there to help her out.

Rainbow Dash easily gets up to where Twilight is flying around and instructs her: "You gotta really flap them hard." So Twilight does but instead of speeding through the air as hoped, she crashes into a nearby branch.

"Uh, maybe not quite that hard." Rainbow Dash says, abashed about what she inadvertently did.

Twilight tries again, this time with her landing but she quickly loses control and slams onto the ground. That was embarrassingly enough but more so when Scout's starts to laugh. Very loudly.

Sniper is quick to make Scout shut up by whacking him behind the head. The young merc winches and shoots him a glare: "What the hell, man?" the speedster snaps.

Sniper responds with merely a glare before walking over to Twilight, explaining her from his own experience. "Take it easy, try and get the sense of your wings before you go all mad-flying like Rainbow Dash." Utterly ignoring the: "Hey!" from his partner. Unlike Scout, who got the hang on his wings in a matter of a day, most need weeks or even months to get an understanding of how to fly. Twilight nods and goes back to practicing. This time, she paces herself.

The flying seems to go well, at least until Soldier flies up beside her, shouting in his drill sergeant voice: "You call that flying? I have seen a drunken bird fly better than that! Get those wings flapping pony!" Twilight Sparkle got so startled and with part of her wanting to obey a command, begins to flap her wings so hard that she shoots up in the air, hitting several clouds on the way. When realizing how hight she suddenly is, Twilight panics and crashes down to the ground, leaving a pile of earth from how she had dug herself into the ground by that landing.

Soldier lands and says quite satisfied. "Ah much better, now we only have to teach Twilight how to land on her hooves." The others are either trying not to die laughing or sends the green pegasus; 'are you kidding me?' looks.

In her hole, Twilight lets out an exaggerated sigh. That at this rate, she fears she won't be able to do her part in the Summer Sun celebration.

**Human World**

It has been more or less quiet at the alpha respawn, at least they only get the occasional robot attack, but nothing the team can handle. Grey hasn't sent anything major at their faces and so far, the Sirens have kept their distance. With this sort of peace and quiet, it has given the team a chance to construct better defenses. Miss Pauling at this side has taken quite well in being their supervisor and team Vanguard, although not really considering her their boss, does humor her as Miss Pauling does have a knack in keeping track on things. Leadership skills on the other hand… not so much. The former assistant to the Administrator is aware of this, and leaves that to the one who has already established his leadership among these people.

Jack whistles to get Wei's attention, the heavy of the team turns and the scout points where he wants the sacks of cement. The big guy walks over where he got instructed, leaving it right beside Chio, who will put it to good use. Jack turns back to Miss Pauling and she lets him see the plans she made for the extra protection around the exterior of the alpha respawn.

"If we put a sentry in this sector, it has a better view if we get any intruders." Miss Pauling explains, pointing at the spot she was talking about. The Vanguard scout chews on what she has said, then nod and turns to the team pyro, calling: "Hey Rune, get Francis to put a sentry at hallway four, up in the north corner!"

After having put down the shotgun he was cleaning. "Sure, if I can get him away from that comic book!" Rune calls back in a jokingly manner, making their team-leader rolls his eyes.

Amadi looks up from his work by connecting his sister's security cameras to their computer, "Can I say it?" he asks and when no one says he can't, the young man turns to where their second engineer is sitting and yells: "Neeeeerrrrd!" The nerd of the team didn't respond, too busy reading that comic Rhys brought with him. Rune goes inside to get the guy, he returns about five minutes later, this time with Francis right behind and not wanting to spoil this chance. "Sup, nerd, ready to do some work?" Amadi asks, having a huge grin on his face.

"It's not like you people are letting me read." Francis replies smiling. Not at all offended by the name Amadi called him, he's quite proud of being a comic book nerd. He follows Rune to the spot and while setting up the sentry, their "prisoner" approaches along with that kid.

Spotting two of the team, they have joined. "Okay, we got the fence up. should make it harder for a spybot to get the jump on us." Sunset reports and without really thinking about it, strokes a hand over the cuts she got over the arms from the struggle putting up that old bent fence. "Anything else we should do?" She has mostly received a cold shoulder, but she is determined to prove herself to these people.

Rune eyes the woman calling herself Sunny, he is still a bit unsure about her but is starting to thaw up. While Francis acts like she's not here. "Ask the boss about it, he should know." Rune replies. She nods and along with Rhys, begins to leave, the teenager does stop and turns to Francis, asking: "Hey, did you read the comic book yet?"

Only there, he responds. "Almost done, but certain people keep interrupting me." Francis laughs and casts Rune a glance. The red-head replies with a shrug. He does not care much for Sunny, but he likes the teen. They both have a big interest in comic books and now that they are on the subject. "It's a really interesting. Characters are a bit weird compared to what I usually read, but I sorta find it charming." Francis explains Rhys.

Hearing that, it oddly excites Rhys. Perhaps because he expected Cowboy's reaction to be like Amadi's, who found it too weird for his taste. "Really? Which hero do you like best? I really like Zapp." He smiles to the man. "How cool it must be to control the weather like that!"

Francis smiles and allows letting out his own comic book nerd, "Zapp is cool and I do at times I have that sort of power— except mine is plant control or fire, depends on my mood." he laughs lightly at how his powers works. "But if I should be honest, I find Mistress Mare-velous the one I enjoy reading about the most."

Rhys can't help but laugh at this, having a pretty good idea why the man likes that heroine. "You like her because of the cowboy motive, don't you?"

"Personality and power mostly, but yeah, the cowboy factor too." Francis laughs and gestures at his own cowboy motive. "There's a reason I dress as one, and no, it has nothing to do with my country." He turns around and leans casually up against the sentry gun. "That part of the world does not have the wild west, only a freezing ass winter and weather that changes more often than the waves of robots we're dealing with." Of course, they also have the whole sailor/Viking thing, but Cowboy does not spare that part of his country much thought. Maybe it's because he does not like the ocean that much.

That made Sunset laugh; she does quickly stop from the look Francis gives her. She is still unsure of how much this male engineer tolerates her. Rhys on the other hand;

"Sounds like a terrible place." The teen remarks. The cowboy dressed man laughs and replies still smiling: "It's not that bad when you get used to it."

"I think every country has its ups and downs." Rune speaks up, Rhys nods in agreement before going back to speak about the comic book with Francis.

Sunset watches the usual drake chat with Cowboy without any issue, having split feelings in how quickly team Vanguard has welcomed Rhys. In one hand, she is glad that Rhys does not have to deal with the passive-aggressive behavior she gets from the others (especially that alicorn). But on the other, it makes Sunset feel very left out, alone in her struggles to be accepted by these humans. She tries not to let it show, knowing that Rhys needs this encouragement after the cruel treatment she did in the past.

"Okay you two," Rune stops Francis and Rhys geeking out about some book. "you can talk after we're done with the work." And they all go back to work, with Rhys giving Francis a 'see you later' sign. Those two sure hit it off well.

Marcos is scanning the room for possible bugs a spy-bot might have left behind in the living room. He stops his small task when noticing something black out from the corner of his eye, but when turning, he does not see anything other than Francis's recent read. So he returns to his task at hand.

Marcos does not spot the shadowy figure disappear into said comic book or the slight green glow it gave off. For when he passes the spot once again, no sign of the intruder can be seen.

**evening**

After Jack has called that it was enough renovation of the building for today. Their work has made it better at enduring whatever assault Grey might throw at them; everyone goes to relax in each of their way. Sunset is still unsure what she can do in these times. She's so used to always working, improving herself and never taking the time to, well, enjoy life. She walks into the living room, and notices that Miss Pauling seems to be dealing with the same issue as her. Miss Pauling is still working on that blueprint to this building, though does snap away from it when Garry takes a seat and the two begin to chat.

"Whaat? How can you defend that guy?" Rhys' voice and Sunset turn to where the usual drake is. He is sitting beside Francis, who is holding that comic book Rhys got from his brother. "Hum Drum is utterly useless! All he does is causing problems." He argues with the cowboy dressed man, doing a lot of excessive hand moves.

Francis chuckles, "Indeed he is, but that boy— eh horse is the team's heart. Without him, the heroines won't be working as well as they do."

"They don't need Hum Drum for that!"

"You will be surprised in how much a team needs this heart— isn't that right, Garry!" Francis calls over to the sniper of the team. Miss Pauling and Garry turns to him, with the latter smiling and giving him a two-finger salute in his agreement. Chuckling, Francis turns back to the kid. "And maybe Hum Drum is useless now, but he is still a kid. He might grow up as a powerful hero."

Rhys is not convinced; he grabs the comic book and flips to the last page, showing Francis that Hun Drum is the cause of this conflict. "Oh yeah? I wasn't that dump back when I was at that age." The man gives him a look Rhys is unsure the meaning off, so instead Rhys returns to the comic but the argument he was about to voice gets utterly forgotten when he notices something. "Hey, what's with that text?" He asks and tries to read it, but it's too small.

Francis grabs the comic book, but even with the goggles he made back when he lacked eyes, he cannot decipher that small text. Guess it means a bit more desperate measures, "Hey Marcos, can I borrow your magnifying glass?"

Looking up from painting one of his miniature figures, Marcos blinks at this bit strange request. "As long you don't break it." He replies, puts down the figure and walks over to hand the magnifying glass to Francis.

Right, that moment, Sophia appears from seemly no-where and learns over her husband's shoulders: "You got the wrong hat if you're going to play detective, love."

Francis laughs, "This is a quick mystery." and uses the magnifying glass to see what this mystery text is saying. "Let's see…"You can return to the place you started when the Mane-iac is defeated."" He blinks and looks up to his wife, who looks just as confused about this as well. There's more text and he reads that aloud as well. ""Take a closer look to join the adventure in this book" what's that about?" He wonders out loud, it does not sounds like something a comic shop would put into a comic book series.

"Beat me," Rhys shrugs, he wasn't even aware of that text before now. He blinks confused when the book starts to glow green, then turns black and understandable, Francis throws the ominous comic book away.

The comic book lands on the floor, those inside the room stares warily at it and for a good reason for the book begins to levitate and dark vines explode out from the book, catching the Vanguard team. The vines go after Rhys, but Sunset intervenes by jumping in between, making the vine take her instead. All those captured by the vines are dragged into the black portal and in matter of seconds, the comic book lands seemly harmlessly onto the floor. Leaving Rhys and Miss Pauling in a very startled and horrified stupor of what just has happened.

"I think we better get the wizard." Miss Pauling speaks slowly; this portal book seems to be his domain.

**?**

Slowly the world comes into view again, Sunset groans from how sour her body is, "Ugh, this is starting to get repetitive…" she muses to herself and gets up. Only to lose her balance and lands back on her— wait, why does she have hooves again? Sunset Shimmer jerks seeing her amber-colored pelt again. Looking around, Sunset is unsure if they somehow have ended up in one of Equestria's bigger cities, it sure does not look like Canterlot with this dark and close quarters layout. She turns around and gasps, every member of team Vanguard has been transformed into what they would look like in Equestria!

"Ugh… what the hell just happened?" Jack asks, caressing his head from the hit it took at this sudden crash landing. One minute he was practicing on his guitar, next he got hurled through the air. That's about there he notices the strange creatures surrounding him. Jack jumps on his feet, reaching for his shotgun but it's not there and for some reason. He loses his balance due to his spine refusing to straighten up the way he wants and lands on his— wait, why does he have wings? "What the holy mother of all is going on here?!" Jack demands, realizing that he looks like some weird brown bird creature with cat feet. Only thing remaining of his uniform is a single piece of armor on his left shoulder and single blue cover on his back.

The sand-colored deer with a grey-blue cape on its back sits up and after having looked at its hooves. "Well, this is quite interesting." Garry's voice and when turning, reveal that it got the clawed scars the team sniper has.

"No fucking kidding…" Jack grumbles back, honestly, he would like to be free from this sort of weirdness. "What have we been turned into?"

"No idea about you." Chio gets up, standing pretty steadfast on her hooves and smiles to her given form. "But I can proudly say that I am a zebra!" Which does suit her, given her birth country. Unlike a real zebra, her stripes are light gray, and hair closer to her original style. She still got her head-cloth, the red shirt has been replaced with a single band around her neck, but at least her bag is still there. It just looks more like a saddlebag now. Her brother sits up and like her, is a zebra as well, though with much darker stripes and all he got from his human clothing is those gold rings he likes to carry around. "You're a zebra too little brother." Chio smiles and can't help but find it rather amusing to see this zebra form of her brother got both mane and tail still in a dreadlock style and sat up like he always has his hair as human.

No surprise there, but he just can't help. "Would've been cooler if I got turned into a lion." Amadi remarks, which makes his sister laugh.

"Team Fortress did mention this once." Tristan speaks, like his human form, dressed in the medical lab coat and his silver medallion still hangs around his neck. He lifts his left front leg, which is now a light tawny hoof. "They told that when going to a world called Equestria, they would turn into ponies and other creatures." And by the looks of it, he's a pony. Tristan turns to his brother, like him, he's also a pony, though most of his light tawny pelt is covered by black clothing, hair is free from the mask this time around and he got a horn instead of wings. Unlike him, Marcos looks to be internally screaming about what has happened to them.

"That's right." Sunset walks over to the turned humans, they all turn to her. She turns to Tristan and explains both him and Marcos, who has the same colors as the medic for some reason. "You two are ponies— a unicorn and pegasus to be precise." She then turns to Jack. "You're a griffin, a hybrid of a large bird and feline."

"Great, just what I needed, an entirely new form." Jack replies sarcastic.

"Have we somehow been sucked into your world?" Garry asks and now that they are onto naming what they have been turned into; "And what have Pyro become?" He points at Rune, who is hyperventilating, but Wei is, fortunately, helping the guy out in dealing with his new shape. "He looks like a weird flying dinosaur." Garry remarks, not sure what else he can call this slender orange, with green hair down the neck, a tuft at the tail and those wings attached to his arms are warm yellow— oh and Rune's freckles have turned green like the hair.

Sunset turns to the team pyro and…. "I have no idea what he has become." She admits, Rune looks like a dragon, except his arms are his wings, he is much more slender in build and instead of a spike on the tail, he got a tuft of hair.

"Oh no no no, this is not happening…" Rune muses to himself, he does not like what he sees, this is too weird— even if it's only a dream! Wei claps his shoulder in sign he's not alone dealing with his freakout, which is greatly appreciated.

Turning to the heavy of the team, Sunset knows that creature. "Wei has become a minotaur." Never seen a black one, but form still recognizable. Rune is still freaked out to translate and the big guy does not seem bothered at the weird dragon the pyro of the team has become. Sunset then turns to the African siblings. "Chio and Amadi are zebras."

"Which is quite obvious." Chio remarks cheekily.

Ignoring that, "I think Garry is some sort of deer, but I have never seen one in person." Sunset continues and turns to the love pair, here Sunset forget all her words, for those two… well…

Sophia, like when taking on a new persona, takes her new shape in strides. And instead of bothering with their current situation, she spends it by cuddling her husband's new form, which looks like a turquoise-green horse has been mixed with a lizard and lion with that green-scaled back and golden mane surrounding the neck. Oh, and he got a branch sticking out from his head. "You're so fluffy!" She cries and glomps him tightly around the head, adding with a slyly smirk up to him. "If you weren't my husband, I would've stolen you by now."

"You're not so bad looking either." Francis laughs from how his beloved reacted to this bit weird form of his, but like her; he likes what he is seeing. Sophia looks like a horse that is mixed with a dragonfly. Light-blue, with beautiful purple wings, oh and he could stare into those honey-colored eyes forever. "In fact," by hoof, he gets his wife right before his face, inches from each other muzzle. "You're gorgeous." She giggles and moves to kiss him.

The others either pretend they are not there or facepalm about those two lovebirds. However, that moment is broken, and when checking the area below the tall building they are standing on, tentacle green hair emerges from the smoke, closely followed by a manically laughing mare, who is holding some sort of orb. "Power Ponies! How kind of you to join us!"

Everyone but one voices their confusion, the one who knows what that manic mare is talking about. "Sweet potato, we're inside the comic book!" Francis exclaims, eyes wide from excitement. "That is so cool!"

"Focus Cowboy!" Jack tells the fangasme member and turning to the manic laughing horse below them. "And tell us what the hell is the deal with that horse."

"That's the Mane-iac, a mare who got turned a tad bit insane after she got thrown into a shampoo pool, which gave her mane insane superpowers. She is the arch-nemesis of the Power Ponies and now it's our turn to play out this very stage!" Francis exclaims the last one out, looking like a five-year-old that just got the news that Santa Claus is real from how he is unable to stand still.

"Neeerrd…!" Amadi calls quietly over to the guy, it was only meant for his sister and Garry's ears, but it seems Francis heard, for he replies loudly back: "And darn proud of it, kiddo!"

Jack facepalms, feeling a migraine is coming up at how insane all of this— "time for the mane event!" The mare below them calls and next, a mailbox got hurled up to them, almost hitting Rune. They all jerk and Jack goes into battle mode. "Alright people, time to get rid of that thing!" He moves to run, but forget he's not human at the moment and ends up stumbling over his own feet, landing embarrassingly right at the edge of the building.

Wei, the only one still in a bipedal form, steps over and drags their growling in embarrassment leader away from the edge. Sunset Shimmer is not sure what is going on, only that these people won't be able to fight unless they know how to move around in their new shapes. However, teaching them how to move on four will have to wait, instead, they will have to improvise. Sunset looks up and is relieved to see clouds, "Tri—" the current pegasus gives a sharp look, oh right, no names during combat. "I mean Medic. You're a pegasus, that means you can fly and manipulate clouds." She points at said dark cloud. "Kick that one! it should have some lightning bolts inside."

Well aware that doing their usual fighting won't work in this situation and not seeing any other option, Tristan does as told. He flaps his newly required wings and slowly gets off the ground— even though it shouldn't be physically possible from the size of his wings!

As he flies up there, Sunset turns to the two zebras. They seem to be those most stable on their hooves. "I don't know if zebras have special magic, but you look most sure on your hooves, try and see if you can distract—" a stall gets thrown at them, barely missing Wei who had decided to step to the side just that moment. Sunset turns back to the two siblings. "Try and distract her."

"Maybe throw our own stuff at her." Amadi jokes and gallops down, Chio is not far behind.

"Heavy," Wei looks at her, "get Scout away." the minotaur frowns as he does not understand her words, but the gesturing seems to be enough. He grabs Jack and along with Kreel, leaves the building before the

Mane-iac throws more stuff at them. Sunset turns to the two remaining, "Spy, you're a unicorn, which means you can do magic. How much I don't know, and Cowboy…" She eyes this horse-dragon hybrid with a lot of hair, and Sunset admits straight out; "Okay, I have no clue what you are, but you have something reminding of a horn, so maybe you can do magic."

"And how do we do this magic?" Marcos asks quietly, his mind still desperately trying to comprehend this whole situation.

"It's hard to explain." Sunset admits, a unicorn just knows. The closet she can describe it to a human. "It's like driving on a bicycle; no idea how, but you just sort of getting it at some point." Marcos frowns behind that mask of his, his body tense with a few tics with his head, his horn activates and his disappears from sight. Sunset blinks, that was not a teleportation spell. Instead it was a cloaking spell. Makes sense, he is a spy and it does explain the ghost cutie mark. "Do you think you can help the two others."

Getting a sense of this new magic of his was easy enough, moving on all four… not so much, but Marcos is willing to try. "It won't be much, but I will do my best." He replies and heads down to join the others in the fight.

Francis and Sunset follow, right then, Tristan has reached the cloud and no idea what else to do, he hits it like he would when hitting a punching bag. A bolt of lightning flies out and almost hits Jack.

The griffin does leap away in the last second and lands gracefully on the ground. He blinks a bit confused, then smirks and calls to the others that are having trouble with that insane hair maniac. "Hey, we have our alpha respawn powers!" and although Jack still doesn't have a good footing in this form, he can use his powers of agility to get past that issue.

"Really?" Amadi asks and turns, right as the Mane-iac throws a piece of brick at him, "Argh!" he cries and by instinct, puts his hoof up to his head. Right that moment, the shield granted by the alpha respawn appears, making the brick rebound back, although it misses the target. It takes Amadi a moment to realize what he just did. "Sweet!" He grins and runs into the fight with vigor to show off his powers.

Wanting to help out, Rune flaps his arm-wings; he does get off the ground but quickly loses control and crashes into a wall right beside the Mane-iac, who laughs maniacally and uses that freaky hair to grab and throw him into Chio. While he and Chio struggle to get back up, Wei runs in and grabs the hair, trying to get it under control, but he soon gets so entangled and that this manic horse hurls him away.

The Mane-iac bends her hair so she's using it as a chair. "You know, I'm beginning to enjoy this." She remarks and cackles right as one of her long locks whip out after Marcos, catching the unicorn's leg.

He would've gotten hurt, but a blast of raw magic from Sunset makes the Mane-iac let go off the black-dressed spy.

Tristan tries to kick the cloud again and this time he almost hit his own brother, who froze up in fear, making him an easy target for the Mane-iac.

She caught him again and while holding the just turned unicorn.

"Well, this has been quite the mane-raising experience." She does a short manic laugh and throws Marcos away, and she uses her mane to grab onto the skyscraper behind her. "But I really must be going." And with that maniacal cackle, the Mane-iac leaves the area.

Getting back up after this awkward and embarrassing battle, Jack turns to the only one who seems to know about this world. "Alright Cowboy, how did we get in here and more importantly; how do we get out?"

"Well, according to that mystery text, we have to defeat the Mane-iac." Francis replies with a face that he is having a lot more fun about this whole scenario than he should. His wife leans up against his left shoulder, sing-songs: "Someone is having fun~" Francis laughs, not denying that he indeed is having fun. But would more so if knowing how to fight in this shape, so he turns to the one that seems to be more home in her pony shape. "I don't suppose you can help us out getting used to our new forms."

"I will do my best" Sunset says and sure hope she can measure up to the task, for these turned people need to know their new forms if they are going to have any chance of getting out of this comic book world.


I'm in the same boat Francis is, I had a lot of fun throwing my OC team into that comic book world. If you're interested, I have drawn everyone from team Vanguard in their mlp forms. You can find them on my DeviantART page.