Originally published May 2015

Mission 1: Discovery
> We wake up alone somewhere in the Everfree Forest.
> Had been moving with our flight of other Royal Guard pegasi to a camp within the Everfree, responding to reports of activity from a portal around the Gates of Tartarus.
> Head towards the sounds of fighting in the distance, we find a crashed chariot that had been carrying Royal Guard unicorns.
> One (Whispen) is still alive but injured, and we take her along.
> After a time we stumble into another guard unit attempting to ambush a force of unknown creatures.
> The ambush goes badly when the creatures call in two large flying things to attack the Guard force from above.
> We flee, starting to make our way out of the Everfree - bypassing a group of the creatures caught up in a skirmish with a young dragon.
> While spending a night in a cave we are stumbled upon by an injured creature, who we kill and take his weapon to bring back to friendly lines.
> Continuing our travels, we increasingly observe that the creatures use machines rather than magic to do everything with and identify the things that halted the Guard ambush as a sort of flying machine.
> We meet a civilian named Ivy Climber, but she fucks up hiding from a patrol and turns herself over to them to spare us.
> Shortly afterwards we're found by a Night Guard unit and brought back to the Royal Guard camp.
> Luna explains the creatures are not from Tartarus but another world and are reacting to what they see as an attempt to invade their world.
> Whispen's kind of pissed at us for repeatedly leaving ponies behind to face the creatures while we ran.

Mission 2: Stemming the Tide
> Sent back into the forest, we are ordered to protect other guard pegasi as they build a super-storm to throw at the invaders and halt their advance.
> In particular, we're an early warning system, using a special unicorn we've been assigned to communicate with the camp.
> We also get some ponies to work with - Whispen, Boulder Dash, Hot Pot, Tele Type, Buzzy, Downspout, Scupper, Silver Star, Rowanoak.
> Setting up camp in a field, our first night is spent avoiding enemy flying machines the first couple nights.
> An enemy advance scout patrol finds us soon after.
> We kill one, maybe injure more; they eventually fall back, but Buzzy and Downspout are killed and Rowanoak is badly wounded.
> As we return to our camp, we hit a tripwire-triggered explosive that wounds us and Silver Star.
> Worse yet, storm is on the way and the Guard can't send anyone to pick us up.
> Whispen panics about being the effective leader as we're wounded, but we calm her down and start back towards friendly lines under cover of the storm.
> Again deciding to try and spend the night in a cave, we accidentally walk into another enemy patrol also making use of it
> Ending up in a mexican standoff, we forge a temporary ceasefire with them to avoid any more deaths.
> Talk a bit to pass the time; they identify themselves as humans and claim ponies invaded them first.
> We realize they might not be the monsters we thought they were.
> Leaving as the storm breaks up; we nearly get to camp before our infected wounds cause us to black out.

Mission 3: Easthock Intel
> Spend 3 weeks in a haze while our wounds heal.
> Get back to our group, learn that Luna accidentally royally pissed the humans off by walking into their dreams.
> They're going full-on invasion now instead of just pushing the Royal Guard back from the portal; they broke out of the Everfree already and are demanding Equestria's surrender.
> We are sent behind enemy lines to the town of Easthock to monitor enemy supply convoys through there.
> Ponies under us are Whispen, Boulder Dash, Hot Pot, Chilona, Dusk Shadow, Spark Flash, Copper Cog, Byline, Caravan, Quick Step, Ornithea
> Easthock is under martial law, but they're not acting like asshole oppressive conquerors.
> Setting up near their camp to observe, we're forced to quickly leave as someone tries to burn Chilona and Dusk alive in the night.
> Through some logic and well-placed threats we realize it was Copper Cog; he blames the Night Guard for the loss of his last unit.
> Some of us go into Easthock itself to get medical treatment.
> While hiding out there we realize we kind of like Whispen.
> She's also begun to mellow out from her previous position about leaving ponies behind, her own time in command having been a rude awakening for her.
> Assorted small things happen; we mostly spend our time finding work and keeping an eye on our injured while watching human activity in the base.
> Rumor comes in that a human attack on Ponyville might have killed some of the elements of harmony.
> Easthock slides towards riots in response; humans are not amused.
> We get thrown in a makeshift prison in their camp for a bit after being caught trying to leave the city, but they can't pin anything on us so we leave as soon as we can.
> Turn Copper Cog over for justice when we get back to friendly lines in Las Pegasus.

Mission 4: Las Pegasus Overrun (AKA, 'The Namek Mission')
> Las Pegasus gets hit in the face with full mechanized assault.
> We make a token defense outside the city before being pushed back in.
> Hot Pot and Quick Step are wounded (right after we promised Quick Step everything was going to be okay to keep him from panicking).
> A botched attempt to remove the bullet mangles Quick Step's leg, so we send them to the hospital.
> Most of our unit ends up hiding out in a house on the docks.
> There's a tense moment as Byline challenges out command, claiming we've become too emotionally involved with Whispen.
> Meet a pony named Tariff who claims to be a former guardspony and agrees to give us some food.
> The city's being overrun so we keep our heads down; unfortunately, Quick Step gets recognized as a guard and taken prisoner.
> We start to see ponies collaborating with humans; they are not popular with locals, to say the least.
> Over time we realize that Tariff is a changeling.
> After some tense moments we form a truce with changelings in the face of a greater enemy.
> Though, we are not amused as we were at Canterlot during the whole royal wedding attack thing and are periodically nearly sent into PTSD-driven flashbacks.
> We spend a bunch of time fucking around doing nothing because I'm bad at planning.
> Big change comes when a human cargo plan crashes into the ground nearby our home.
> We rescue two of the pilots, which gets us taken in for questioning.
> While we're there, overhear a human mention 'Wendigos' and start to suspect they might be similar to pony 'Windigos'.
> Some of our other ponies stole weapons from the plane wreckage on our orders; they get imprisoned.
> Twilight Sparkle shows up and promptly proves she's an incompetent commander, pushing a plan to attack a human supply convoy.
> We get dragged along for it and barely walk away, needing to literally slap our superior out of being suicidal for getting a bunch of his ponies killed by following orders from a princess.
> In the aftermath Copper Cog shows up again, working with another group ponies intent on fighting the humans through more aggressive tactics.
> They're inflicting casualties, but also more likely to bring retribution down on Las Pegasus civilians.
> Solidifying our alliance with the Changelings over a pot-luck dinner, they give us one of their number (Iridescent Glaze) to accompany us when we leave the city.
> In the aftermath of that, a drunk and distraught Whispen tries to offer herself to us in bed; we pass it up but let her stay the night to comfort her.
> Do a little cooperation with the humans to get our imprisoned ponies back and then decide to bail from the city and go investigate Windigos.
> Unfortunately, we're followed out of the city by both a vengeful Copper Cog and a ruthless human Special Forces unit.
> We beat the shit out of Copper, but all get taken prisoner ourselves and Caravan is badly wounded.

Mission 5: To the Heart of the Matter
> We are interrogated for a while.
> Agree to work with the humans to try and keep the guards from being slaughtered, hunt down any more militias like Copper Cog's, and look into Windigos too.
> We also finally get in bed with Whispen, who repeatedly finds empty bunk rooms for us to spend the night in.
> After a while working like this, we're called in to do some kind of press conference/show-off thing with human political figures.
> Some insane pony tries to use dark magic to kill them; we distract her long enough for her to be taken out by human guards.
> Our human handler Warren turns out to be kind of decent; at our recommendation, he finds out what happened to Quick Step for us.
> Unfortunately he was interrogated pretty hard, maybe even tortured.
> Humans are pretty pissed about this actually, and we're given a chance to work just with Warren now and focus purely on Windigos.
> Loaded on a plane, we're sent to the human camp at the heart of the Everfree.

Mission 6: R&R (or, "The Beach Episode")
> Brought into the human camp, we start by checking in on our squad.
> While most of them seem okay, Iri is significantly distraught.
> Pushing her continuously, we eventually get her to admit that she sold out some of the Royal Guard in Las Pegasus in exchange for human information on Changelings.
> Unfortunately they knew nothing, and our continued kind treatment of her as left her wracked with guilt and bitter.
> We short-circuit her plan to seemingly rationalize her actions through forcing us to hate her by telling her that we forgive her.
> With Iri given something to think about, we wander the base a bit and meet up with a team of human mechanics working on their vehicles.
> They're willing to chat, and we learn a great deal about the human machinery.
> We also end up attending a human movie, 'Star Wars', which gives us hope that they can imagine humans and other creatures working together.
> We're next assigned to brief a set of newly-arrived soldiers on do-and-do-nots of Equestria.
> They're more than willing to ask certain hard questions, including how we regard Princess Luna and what to do if they encounter a changeling.
> At last the human squad we're to be working with shows up; we begin training with them, including getting started on some of their equipment.
> Fitted out with four sets of human-made armor four ponies, we're just about to go when Iri again confronts us with a hard question:
> Whether she should reveal herself now, or allow it to happen in combat.
> Telling her to let it be - and checking with Warren that there are no conflicting directives to attack changelings - we're also certain to make sure she knows we'd protect her if it comes to that.
> After a thoughtful goodbye to an injured Quick Step and still-comatose Caravan, the time comes: 
> We're shipped up to the north to seek out Windigo activity.