Alexander approached the lever, and with a simple yet firm tug, it pulled downwards. The lever at first appeared to do nothing, However, after waiting a few moments, the stone circle started to turn, and glow. The soldiers were speechless. The apparatus continued to glow bright until a loud crashing noise occurred and the entire inner part of the circle was lit up. On the other side, brightly colored green grass was there, it almost looked surreal.

 

The men just stood there and stared for a while.

 

The sergeant picked up his radio and talked,

 

"Foxtrot we have discovered what appears to be a portal. Everything we know about physics says that this is impossible."

 

"This indeed changes everything."

 

The sergeant took a deep breath, and said

 

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained." He said.

 

He then did something no one was expecting, and signaled the other soldiers to follow him into the portal. The soldiers hesitantly followed the sergeant through the portal. Touching the portal gave them a surreal feeling, but the transition between worlds was seamless. However, as opposed to the bright skies they saw through the portal, they appeared to be in some kind of castle.

 

They saw two ponies wearing armor.

 

"What the!?" The ponies both yelled simultaneously.

 

Some of the soldiers made a run for it, jumping through the windows and onto the roof, where they sprinted for the nearest way out of the castle they could find. Alex however, was not a quick enough thinker, he was tackled and held down by these two ponies. He had no means to fight back, his gun was too hard to aim while being held to the ground and his knife was out of reach.

 

A larger pony entered the room, Alex could say it stood about a foot taller than him, followed by a darker colored one closer to Alex's height.

 

"What is this?" Celestia questioned, moving her face closer to inspect Alex.

 

"I should be asking the same question." Alex managed to say.

 

An audible gasp emitted from all the ponies in the room. They looked at Alex in amazement.

 

"It talks?" Luna asked.

 

"It? I'd prefer he." Alex replied.

 

Both of the princesses looked at the soldiers and spoke.

 

"Keep him here, we're going to get the Elements." they said simultaneously before teleporting.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________

In Twilight's library

 

 

"Twilight, what kind of tea did you say you wanted?" Spike asked.

 

"Green, please." Twilight replied.

 

Spike nodded and headed to the kitchen so he could prepare Twilight's tea. She was planning to do some vigorous studying tonight. Spike was starting to make the tea, when a knock came on the door.

 

"Who could it be at this hour?" Spike asked, it was pretty late and almost everypony was asleep by this time. He approached the door and opened it. Outside stood Celestia and Luna.

 

"Spike, we need to talk to Twilight." Celestia said.

 

Spike only nodded, it wasn't his business what the princesses wanted, after all. He ran back to the room Twilight was in, and spoke to her.

 

"Twilight, the princesses are here and they want to see you." He said.

 

Twilight jolted up right at this and trotted to the door. He was slightly embarrassed and worried about Spike having left them outside. She would invite them inside for any reason at all. She approached the door, and sure enough, both her mentor and her mentor's younger sister were standing outside.

 

"Twilight, we need to talk." Celestia said.

 

"About what?" She asked.

 

"About the ancient portal in the archives." Celestia said.

 

Twilight looked a bit stunned at this, she knew of the portal in the archives, it was one of Clover the Clever's artifacts he built in the days of old. What she also knew however was that as far as the princesses knew, it was a failure. Clover theorized that several universes may exist in a multiverse.

 

"What happened?" Twilight asked.

 

"It's been activated." Luna said. She had a worried look on her face.

 

"And what's wrong with that?" Twilight said, she was actually excited about this. Such a magical artifact is very powerful and with Clover the Clever's reputation preceding him, she expected it to be something amazing.

 

"Well, something came through the portal." Celestia said.

 

"What? Really? Are you trying to say..." Twilight started to say before being interrupted by Luna.

 

"Yes, and it's alive. Well actually, there were several, but a few of them ran. The guards did manage to capture one. The strangest part is the fact that they appear to speak our language, the one we captured has a tag on what we assume is his clothing. It says 'Lance Corporal Alex Gray'."

 

Twilight looked extremely shocked. This was possibly the most exciting thing that she has been alive for, this almost rivals when she was accepted into Celestia's School for gifted Unicorns. She looked up at Celestia, Twilight knew what she was going to say before she said it.

 

"Gather your friends, we're going to the castle." Celestia said.

 

______________________

Meanwhile, with Foxtrot 24...

 

"Sir, do you hear that?" one of the soldiers said, referring to his commanding officer.

 

"Hear what?" He replied.

 

"That noise, it almost sounds like some kind of liquid moving, like a gurgling." He replied.

 

The soldiers looked around and readied their weapons. All at once, the doors along the corridor unlocked. Some kind of black liquid was seeping underneath the doors. It was slowly creeping towards the soldiers.

 

"What is this?" Phoenix said. Phoenix was the commanding officer, and not knowing what this was was bad news for the entire squad.

 

"Sir?" One of his soldiers called out to him.

 

"Yes?" He said, turning around.

 

"Why is there two of you?" The soldier asked.

 

"What do you mean, two of me?" He said, almost to answer his question, a tap on his shoulder came, and he turned around to see....himself.

 

"What the..." Phoenix said, before being punched in the face by this apparent doppleganger. Every detail was the same, right up the suit, the only thing missing was the rifle.

 

"I'll be taking that." The clone said, before stepping on Phoenix's neck and taking the rifle. The soldiers nearby started firing at the identical twin now standing over their commander. As the bullets hit the clone, black liquid shot out him. They kept firing until he hit the ground.

 

Some of the black liquid on the ground formed into another heap, and it started to form into another clone of Phoenix.