Relocation Factor
Chapter Three: Foot Patrol?
*AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to all that have read and reviewed, even you grammar Nazis ;) I wanted to bang off the first few chapters relatively quickly, so I could get past the usual "meeting everyone" stage and start getting into the real story. Updates from here on will be less frequent, but longer than before. Anyway, thanks very much for the support. Keep reading and reviewing and enjoy.
"Eh-kwess-tree-ah!" The rainbow coloured horse repeated itself phonetically as if it were talking to a deaf person. Bren had heard that name before. That's right! There was a small suburb of Pretoria, South Africa that he had passed through when he was doing a bit of close protection work. Still, he probably would have remembered talking Technicolor horses.
"Right," he muttered confusedly. "I'm assuming this Equestria isn't the same Equestria I'm familiar with. Let's move along to how the hell I got here."
The orange Texan one spoke again. "Y'all just appeared in a flash o' light out above the rabbit burrows in the hills. It was Fluttershy that found you and hauled you back over this way."
"Flutterwhat?" The plan of making sense of what was going on wasn't exactly working too well.
"Fluttershy…that's…that's me…" said the yellow one faintly, as it shuffled further behind the purple and white one.
"And I'd say you'd best be giving her an apology, mister. Yelling at her and scaring her like that ain't no way to make friends." The Texan asserted this loudly, puffing out its chest.
"Right, I guess. It's just that when you come directly from a warzone to a foreign place with a concussion, you tend to be a little wary and defensive. Anyway, for what it's worth, I'm sorry. This whole situation is just a little strange to me, is all." The yellow one cracked a faint smile. "You know what? Let's all start fresh. With names. I'm Sergeant MacMillan," he looked at the horses and decided they were clearly not military. "But you can call me Bren."
"I'm Rainbow Dash," said the raspy, multicoloured one. "I'm the fastest flier in all of Equestria!" Bren was already thinking about how Rainbow Dash sounded like the next instalment of a Tom Clancy game or something when the horse lifted itself off the ground and hovered triumphantly.
So they can fly, too, thought Bren. Awesome.
"I'm Applejack, pleased to be making your acquaintance. I work over at Sweet Apple Acres farm. If y'all are feeling hungry, feel free to come on over! Granny Smith has just whipped up a big batch of apple pie!" Bren mocked tipping his hat towards her, still struggling to get over the Texan accent. The fact that she shared the same name as a breakfast cereal didn't help either. Still, apple pie? One thing he learned in the military is that no matter what, there is always time for pie.
"Rarity, my dear," said the white and purple one. "And I'm absolutely charmed to meet you." This one spoke with a lilt that was equal parts posh English and Valley Girl. Bren shot her a nod and a wink as well. The yellow one behind her, Fluttershy, just smiled a timid smile.
With a lightning quick bound, the pink one jumped in front of the rest and began to talk in a manner so speedy it required her taking in huge gulps of air every few seconds. "Ooh, is it finally my turn? I'm so excited! I'm Pinkie Pie, and it's so great to meet you hand have a new friend! We should totally throw a party and celebrate! I could even sing the song I just wrote for it now!" The horse began to tear around the room with a combination of pogo stick-like vaults and cartwheels while she sang enthusiastically. "Oh welcome to our new friend Bren, he fell out of the sky! He got a great big lump on his head and he yelled at Fluttershy! He came into the…"
"PINKIE!" the other horses yelled in unison. Pinkie Pie screeched to a halt and smiled a toothy, unconcerned grin. Bren had now literally experienced pretty much everything. Teleported to a land of talking horses named after cereals and first person shooters that spoke with rich people and Texan accents that could fly and spontaneously broke into musical numbers. Maybe the Starlight engine had given him radiation poisoning and this was a side effect.
"Uh, excuse me?" said the purple and green miniature dragon thing. Bren remembered its voice as the one coming from the top of the stairs. "I always get overlooked. I'm Spike. My friend Twilight Sparkle is the one who lives in this house. She's away on Royal Duty with Princess Celestia right now, and she asked me to watch the place and make sure that PINKIE PIE doesn't have any parties without permission." Pinkie continued smiling and bouncing up and down in place. "I'm sure she won't mind you staying here, though. Come to think of it, I'll send her a message and let her know. I'm sure she as well as the Princess would love to meet you!" Bren's heart sank a little. Not only was he stranded in a strange world, but now he had a potential Royal Visit to worry about. He watched as the dragon scribbled some words onto a piece of parchment and rolled it up. Filling his lungs and then exhaling, the parchment evaporated into a green mist which escaped out the open window.
Bren was amazed. Instantly sending messages by blowing on them? Made the radios he was issued look like tin can phones. Half the time, getting the radio to work was an uphill battle. The radio. THE RADIO. He completely forgot that he needed to contact someone and warn them about Joson. The mild confusion and playfulness that had crept up on him during the introductions had now been replaced by cold hatred and rage.
Leaping off the table to his feet, all of the Equestrians took a step back. He absentmindedly walked around the table and began rifling through his pack. Pulling out a small green GPS device, he activated it and began running a start-up diagnostic. The ponies looked on quizzically.
"Uh, what's that?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"This," replied Bren, waving the GPS. "is a Global Positioning Satellite device. It'll help me find out where I am." The diagnostic complete, Bren frowned when he saw the result: no signal. Looking above him at the large wooden roof, he decided that might be the problem. This wasn't new; he recalled one instance during his basic training were a wooden drill hall managed to stuff the signal. All he needed to do was get to higher ground. From there, he could determine his position and grid location and use that to tell somebody where he was. From there…Joson. "Where's the highest point in the area?" Bren said abruptly.
"The top of the hills by Applejack's farm is pretty high up." Rainbow Dash still seemed confused.
"That's as good as anything, I suppose. Can you take me there?" The ponies all nodded in unison. "Great. Let me get my kit on." Bren walked over to the nightstand and donned his body armour, chest rig and drop leg holster. He press-checked all of his weapons to ensure that rounds were properly seated in the chamber. These six were nice enough, but his instincts told him to never get too comfortable. Talking ponies and a dragon? Who knows what else could be out there? After he made sure the radio and GPS were secure, he strapped on his pack and helmet and nodded towards the door.
The five ponies and the dragon marched towards the door with Bren in tow, until Rainbow Dash chimed in right before the group left. "Sorry Spike, but you have to stay here and watch the library, remember?" She smiled a snide grin. The little dragon slouched forward.
"Aw, I never get to do anything cool." He pouted. Rainbow slammed the door and rejoined the group as they headed off. Bren kept silent. What the hell could he have said, anyway? All he did was follow, rifle at the low ready, just in case. He was ready for anything…he hoped. As the group left, he turned back to see that the house he was in was in fact built directly into a giant oak tree. As they walked further, he saw more conventional looking houses, with hundreds of other multicoloured ponies milling about, doing everyday tasks like gardening and shopping at the many market stands set up around town. All stopped in their tracks just to stare at him. Bren stared back. He knew from experience that a firm, confident stare was a good way to deter any potential troublemakers. But would they understand? They all seemed docile, but what if one wasn't? He hoped the lessons he'd learned throughout his career would help him in this strange place.
After many minutes of walking, stares from the locals and bizarre silence from the rest of the five ponies guiding him, they emerged at a farm with rows upon rows of apple trees. Dozens of other ponies milled about, kicking the apples off of the trees, collecting them in buckets, or ploughing fields. Rising above the apple orchards was a large rocky hill. This must be the one Rainbow Dash mentioned. Perfect. It was more than high enough. "Thanks for the tip, guys. I'm gonna climb that hill and see if I can get a signal on my stuff," Bren said, nodding towards his pack.
"Why walk when you can fly? I can get you up there lightning fast!" boasted Rainbow Dash. Before Bren could answer, she stepped up to him and grasped the drag handle on his chest rig with her teeth. "Hang on!"
"Wait, what in the hell are you-" before he could finish, Rainbow Dash soared into the air, towing Bren all the way. "Oh SHIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" he screamed as he rocketed towards the clouds. Bellowing the entire way, they soared higher and higher until Rainbow Dash dropped him off unceremoniously on a flat patch of grass at the top of the hill. "Jesus Christ! Be careful next time!"
Rainbow Dash just giggled, smiled her sly smile and stood and watched Bren as he began to unpack his bag with still-shaking hands. Pulling out the GPS, the 521 radio and a telescoping three metre antenna, he ran a start up sequence on both devices and grabbed the GPS. He would find his position, relay it back to command and then…no satellites. The signal was good, the power was fine, but zero satellites were detected by the device. Even the compass feature had no reference point. The only info on it was a grid reference, blinking, which indicated that the GPS was unable to identify his current location, and was merely displaying his last known location. Bren recognized the number on the grid reference as the location of the hut he assaulted in Afghanistan. He definitely wasn't in Kansas anymore.
"No, no, that's not right. Gotta be at least one satellite…" Bren trailed off, mumbling in frustration, with the occasional "satellite" being the only coherent word. "FUCK!" Bren cursed as he tossed the GPS unceremoniously back into his pack. Rainbow Dash giggled again, amused at his frustration. Bren ignored her and connected the antenna to the radio. "2, this is 21, over." Nothing but static. He tried the backup frequency. "2, this is 21, please respond, over." Still nothing. He switched it to a non encrypted frequency, out of sheer desperation. Besides, the more people that knew about where he was…and about Joson…the better. "This is 21, can anyone read? Over." Nothing but crackling responded. Rainbow was still amused by all of this. Barely aware that she was there, Bren pressed the send button one more time.
"If anyone can hear me, this is Sergeant Bren MacMillan of callsign 21 Zulu. We were on a mission to assault an enemy camp and retrieve lost equipment at grid 097136. Colonel Joson was commanding the operation…he betrayed us. He activated the device we were supposed to recover, something called Starlight. I say again, Starlight. He is in command of a well trained and equipped group of private contractors who ambushed my team. All other members save for myself are presumed dead. I am not aware of my current location. If anyone can hear this, I will be monitoring this channel. I only have limited batteries for the radio, but I will be monitoring the channel constantly. Joson is not to be trusted. I say again, Joson is not to be trusted. MacMillan out." He packed up the radio and GPS to see Rainbow Dash still staring at him, this time with a look of sadness on her face. It was now that she understood what was going on: he was stranded here and unable to contact anyone he once knew.
"Uh…let me give you a lift back down." Rainbow Dash said nervously, trying to change the subject even before it started.
Bren shouldered his pack. "No thanks, Rainbow Dash. I could use the walk." He fastened his sternum strap and made his way on foot back down the rocky hill.