The Equestria Offensive

Fort Celestia Military Base, 10:32 A.M., April 17th, 2013

After their greetings, Midnight, Storm, Ace, and Thunderstreak headed off to their first training course. They came upon the room in which they’d all be training and went inside. “UNACCEPTABLE!” They all jumped in shock from the sudden booming voice. Once they regained their composure, they looked over to the far side of the room to see what had to be their new drill sergeant. “Who the hell do you ponies think you are? Why in Celestia’s name are you all here two fucking minutes late?!” He marched up to them, a stern expression on his face. “You!” He pointed at Ace. “Mister doom and gloom! What is your name?!”

“Um...Ace.” He answered questioningly.

“When you answer me you will address me as sir! Do you understand?!”

“Uh, sir, yes sir?”

“I can’t hear you!”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“Took you long enough! Now drop and give me 50 as punishment for making me wait!”

“But-”

“Are you back-sassing me boy?!”

“Uh...Sir, no sir!”

“Then do what your told like a good little colt!” Ace, begrudgingly, got into position and started his 50 push-ups. The drill sergeant went on to his next victim. “And you! Stripey!” He yelled to Storm “What is your name?!”

“Sir, Winter Storm, sir!” Storm replied with a smile, knowing he caught on quickly on what to do.

“Wrong! Your new name while in my presence shall be Snowball, got it?!”

“Wh-...b-...S-Sir, yes sir!” Storm answered, a saddened, bewildered look on his face.

“What’s with that face?! You have three seconds to wipe that look off of your filthy mug!” Storm was just too caught off guard with that last statement to obey the sergeant. “One! Two! Three! That’s it, your turn for punishments!” Storm sighed and started to get into push-ups position, just as Ace flopped down onto the ground from his 50 push-ups. “Oh no, you’re not doing push-ups for your punishment. No Snowball, you and your magic horn are going to levitate that boulder over there,” He then gestured over to the opposite side of the room where many rocks lied, a humongous boulder laying in the center. “and keep it levitating for a full minute! If you break your hold of it, you will have to start over! Speaking of which...” He went back over to Ace, still lying exhausted on the floor. “Your nose didn’t fully touch the ground on your twelfth, thirty-second, and last push-up. So! You have to do it all over again! Both of you! Start, now!”

“Sir, yes sir!” Ace and Storm said in unison, then began their punishments. The drill sergeant went back over to Midnight and Thunderstreak. He looked both of them over carefully, then stopped and looked Thunderstreak in the eyes. “And you? What’s your name?!”

“Sir, Thunderstreak sir!” He yelled firmly, looking straight ahead as if he’d done this all before.

“What the hell’s with that accent boy?!”

“I am not from here, my homeland is Kouma. It is-”

“I didn’t ask for your life story!” The drill sergeant interrupted. “And what’s with that sword you got there?! Give it to me!” When Thunderstreak hesitated, the sergeant demanded, “Now, private!” Thunderstreak gave over his katana to the drill sergeant, who then proceeded to throw it across the room. When Thunderstreak tried to go after it, the drill sergeant got in his way and pushed him to the ground. “You can go and get it after our training is done with! And I don’t want to see you bring it in here again! Got it fancy talker?!”

Still looking concerned for his blade, he yelled back, “Sir, yes sir!”

“You will look at me while addressing me and/or the other way around! Is that understood?!”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“*Hmph* I can’t stand your voice...it sickens me. Go fly around for twenty minutes as fast as you can, no letting up! Got it?!”

“Sir, yes sir!” Thunderstreak flew up into the air towards the edge of the room and began to fly along the perimeter, slowly gaining speed until he couldn’t fly any faster. The drill sergeant looked back over to Ace and Storm.

“Your nose, private! It’s gotta touch the ground every fucking time! Start over! Same goes for you, Snowball! That boulder can’t touch the ground whatsoever! Start over! Can’t you fly any faster mister ‘I have a butter knife’? Don’t let up!”

Simultaneously, they all yelled. “Sir, yes sir!”

Finally, he turned around to come face to face with Midnight. “What do we have here? You’re an alicorn? What do we have royalty doing goin’ to war?”

“Told you.” Ace replied gasping on the floor

“Don’t interrupt me, maggot! Just for that I want another 50 out of you! Anyway, it doesn’t matter to me what you are, you’re still the scum of Equestria while I’m in charge of you. And for being late, I want you to join your friend in the sky while at the same time levitatin’ a boulder behind you!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir.”

“Did I just hear a no?! I will not take no for an answer! You will do as I tell you, you got that fancy-boy?!”

“Sir, I’m not trying to disrespect your authority, I’m saying it’s not possible for me to do that.”

“Enough of this! Get out there, get flying, and get levitatin’!”

“But I-”

“I said now! Do you want me to make it 40 minutes?!”

“Alright, I guess I’ll show you, then.” Midnight trotted out the doors he came in. Outside, by the fence were a few large boulders  stacked up on top of each other.

“Take your pick. They’re all equally heavy.”

“It really doesn’t matter how heavy they are...”

“When you address me-!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know sir. Just watch.” Midnight interrupted, firing up his horn, getting ready to show the sergeant exactly why he couldn’t follow his orders.

“I will not stand for your insubordination! Now hurry up an-” Right then, Midnight sent a giant burst of fire at the group of boulders. There was an explosion upon impact, followed by thousands of small, flaming rocks falling all around the two of them. The drill sergeant remained silent, carefully avoiding the storm of flaming pebbles. “...and? So you can control fire at will. What of it?!”

“That’s just it, sir. My magic is purely fire based. I can’t use magic for anything else.”

The drill sergeant stared Midnight down. “...hmph. And what good will that be in the battlefield? You just gonna turn up the temperature and hope the griffins will all give up and say ‘It’s too hot to fight.’? Useless...” He started to walk away, stopped, then turned around. “Well then, for your punishment, you’re gonna fly around here for a while, exploding boulder after boulder, and then making sure no pebble hits the ground by hitting them with fire, too. Got it?!”

Midnight hesitated. He hasn’t tried anything like it, but he was sure it wouldn’t be too hard. He then replied, “Sir, yes sir!” Taking off into the air, he aimed at the first boulder, sent a burst of fire at it, and tried to blast every pebble that came down afterwards.

“Again! You missed some chunks over there!” He turned back around and entered the training room again. “And how are you three maggots doing?!” He had the four of them doing these punishments for hours, not letting them rest for a single minute. The sergeant looked over to a clock on the wall. “Alright maggots, it’s break-time.” Midnight, Thunder, Storm, and Ace all fell, exhausted, to the ground and let out a collective sigh. “Not for you, you idiots!” He snapped. “For me! Get back up and keep going at it! I’m going back to my office. Now I’ve got cameras watching each and every one of your moves, so I’ll know if you stopped or if you try anything funny.” He turned and went to the exit. Once he was gone, they all stopped to rest.

“*pant* *pant* Ugh...why the hell...are we doing this again?” Ace asked in between gasps for air.

Thunderstreak spoke up. “Because...because we were late...late by two...two fucking  minutes...” He went back to panting heavily on the ground.

“At least...at least you guys...aren’t being called some stupid pet name... I mean seriously...’Snowball’?!...” Storm complained.

Midnight crawled into the room, exhausted. He looked up to find the camera the sergeant was talking about. He saw one in each top corner of the room, and four more, each on one side of the room. “Well...he wasn’t lying about the cameras...there’s eight in here and a few more outside...pretty sure we don’t have long to rest before he gets to his office...” They lied there for a while longer, savoring the time they had left to rest, until they heard a loud thundering voice that seemed to come from nowhere.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU FOUR THINK YOU’RE DOING?! GET UP AND GET BACK TO TRAINING!!!” Midnight and the others jumped yet again from the sudden voice, and went back to their respective training regimens. A few more hours passed by, and one by one, they all reached their limits and fell to the ground, paralyzed with fatigue. Again, the sergeant’s voice blared from nowhere. “Is that really all you pansies can do?!” The four of them couldn’t speak, yet the voice waited for an answer. “...Well?!” He demanded.

Under hard, shallow breaths, they spoke slowly. “Sir...yes...sir...”

“Pathetic... Alright, 10 minute break! After that, back to training!” Relieved, the four of them took some time to catch their breaths. Midnight sat up and lied back on the wall for support. He looked up to the ceiling to try and see where exactly the voice was coming from. A few moments passed by until he finally saw a megaphone hooked up to the high part of the wall.

“So that’s where it’s coming from...” The others looked at him and followed his gaze to the megaphone.

“Don’t think he’d be too happy if we were to destroy that thing along with the cameras, huh?” Ace said, still resting on the ground.

Midnight shook his head. “No...I think he’d have us doing these for a full week without rest if we did that...” They sat there for a while longer, taking in the rest they had left. “Well...I dunno about you guys...but I think I’ve gotten better with my aiming after all that training.” Midnight said boastfully.

“Yeah? Well, I don’t think I’ve ever been faster.” Thunder added, showing pride by expanding his wings.

Storm was the next to speak up. “I bet I could levitate and throw five boulders at once by now!”

“Anyone up for a hoof-wrestle?” Ace asked confidently. They all broke out laughing at each other’s newly found arrogance.

“Well, well, well!” The sergeants voice blared again. They all looked up to the megaphone in panic. “Looks like you maggots are all rested up! Good! Now get back to training and stop giggling like a bunch of fillies!”

Midnight and the others let out a collective sigh. “Well, looks like it’s back to training.” Ace said, tired and defeated.

“Look at it this way,” Thunder spoke up. “After this is over with, we’ll be ten times stronger than we were this morning!” He looked over to Midnight. “What do you say to a little race later?”

Midnight smiled. “Heh, better hope this training will help you keep up with me.” He said with a sly look on his face. He then glanced over to Ace. “Maybe I’ll even take you up on your offer for a hoof-wrestle!”

Ace grew a smile on his face too. “No problem, but first we’ll have to see which is stronger, my muscles or Storm’s magic.” Ace peered over to Storm, who was already grinning with anticipation. “See who can throw a boulder farthest?”

“Sure thing!” Storm answered cheerfully. They all looked at each other, a new glow of confidence and life surrounding them.

“What in Celestia’s name are you maggots doing?! If you’re gonna talk, talk while you train! Now hurry up and get to it! Hup, two! Hup, two!” Midnight, Storm, Ace, and Thunder gave each other one last motivational glance, and went back to training, no longer complaining, but trying even harder. Thunder flew faster than ever before, and with each passing moment, static electricity built up on the surface of the walls he flew passed. It just kept building and building until the electricity of each wall connected to each other and made a solid glowing field of light. Ace alternated from push-ups to a bucking station in the corner of the room. After two sets of fifty push-ups, he went to the bucking station and relentlessly bucked dummies, punching bags, trees, and boulders. With each new round he wouldn’t stop until whatever he was bucking was completely destroyed. Storm was levitating three boulders now, and while he was doing that, he made them spin around him. Eventually he added more boulders, and ended up with ten floating all around him. Midnight was flying outside, sending down multiple bursts of flame at the boulders below. As soon as his fire blasts hit the boulders and made them explode, he soared down into the middle of the destruction. He got into position in the center of the storm of falling rocks and sent out a shock wave of flame, destroying every last pebble with a fiery vengeance. They continued to do this for hours, not having another rest until the day was over. The drill sergeant came into the room to announce the day’s end. “Alright maggots, training session for today is over. Head back to your room and rest up. You’ll need it for tomorrow’s training.”

“Oh thank sweet Celestia!” Midnight gasped. The four of them collapsed to the ground. After a few moments of catching their breaths, they took a look at their handiwork. The parts of the wall on which Thunder had been flying by were completely scorched, and was still sending off small jolts of static here and there. The bucking station that Ace had been training at was completely totalled. The dummies were ripped to shreds, the punching bags were across the room, the trees were broken in half, and the boulders were nothing but a pile of rocks now. Storm smiled at his artwork. He had lifted and smashed boulder after boulder into the wall to spell out his name ‘STORM’. Midnight had successfully obliterated any trace of rocks outside, and the ground and outside wall of the building were barren and burned to a deep and searing black. Once they had regained their composure, and after Thunderstreak collected his katana, they headed out of the room and back to their living quarters.

“So, what’re we supposed to do now?” Ace asked.

“I think they’re giving us another half-hour of rest if I remember right, then we’re being shown some secret military tech.” Midnight said, “I have to say, I’m fairly interested to see what they mean.”

“Wait, what do you mean secret military tech?”

“I’m not sure what they mean. I guess we’ll just hafta wait and see.” Midnight said.

“Hey,” Thunder said, “have any of you wondered if there’s any reason we were chosen to be in the same cabin?”

“What do you mean?” Ace asked, “I thought they were just selected randomly.”

“That’s what I thought. Then I realized we have something unusual in common. Three of us were personally asked by Princess Celestia to fight in the war.”

“What about Ace then?” Midnight argued, “ Princess Celestia never asked him.”

“What? Yeah, Princess Celestia asked me.”

“Wait, “I thought you said you joined the war to support Equestria.”

“I did. Princess Celestia asked me to, and I felt obligated to help.”

“Okay then.” Midnight replied, “So how do you know the princess, and why did she ask you to fight?”

“I worked for Celestia a few years back as a doctor in the palace. Because of my medical knowledge, Celestia wanted me to help out on the battlefield. Everypony that enrolls is required to go to basic, then you go onto training for your specific job. So I’m going to be trained as a medic.”

“Really?” Midnight said, “I wonder what I’ll be trained as.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that’ll be for you to decide.”

*Attention everypony* A voice came up on the intercom outside *Training will begin again in 5 minutes. Please meet outside at the Area 34 gates*

“Shit, we better get going to that, shouldn’t we?”

“Yeah, I don’t want us getting our asses chewed out again.” The four darted out of their door and across the dirt trail to the large steel gates lined with barbed-wire. On the other side of the gate was a large field with hundreds of targets set up with stations varying in distance from each, and a large steel building with one door and no windows with a large “34” painted on the top. Hundreds of ponies gathered around the gates, anticipating what they were to find in the mysterious Area 34 on the other side.

“What in the name of Celestia do you think is in there?” Thunder asked

“I have no clue.” Ace replied, “but I hear there’s much more to that one building than we see. I hear there’s a gigantic area underground with multiple floors spread across the entire base filled with fleets of secret military vehicles just waiting for a war to break through.”

A light on the gate lit red, a buzzer went off, and the steel doors slid to the sides opening up. *Please proceed in an orderly fashion through the gate. You will be organized into your new squads, and then brought inside for a basic presentation* The crowd funneled through the entrance in the gate. In front of them stood at least 20 ponies dressed in army green uniforms with sergeant pins on the front of their hats. One brown stallion with dark green tinted sunglasses and a short trimmed tail and mane stepped forward. “Ace, Midnight, Storm, and Thunderstreak!” His voice boomed

The four stepped into position in perfect sync, “Sir yes sir!”

“You’re the four Celestia asked to fight, am I right?”

“Sir yes sir!” They responded in sync.

“Come with me...” He trotted off to the side, the four ponies following close behind. He stopped just a few feet away from the training stations outside.  “Well then...” He quickly bolted around. “It’s good to meet all of you! I’m your new squad leader, Sergeant Mahoff! When I was told I was gonna be your squad leader, I was so stoked to hear I’d be in charge of such important ponies! We are gonna kick griffin ass out there! Ooh rah! But of course, that’s after you learn what you’re doing out there. We’ve only got a month to teach you, so we might as well get started A.S.A.P.!”

“Sir yes sir!”

“Alright, you don’t need to say that after everything I say. Now, let’s get going to your presentation.” The four walked behind their new leader, to the crowd who had just finished dividing into their new squads.

“Alright everypony, you have a lot to learn in the next month.” One pony said from a stand. “We’ll be taking you inside so you can learn the basics for today. Follow me.” The soldiers all followed behind their squad leaders into the large steel security door that slid open. Stepping through, the crowd saw more than they had ever expected. Machines, vehicles, weapons that none of them had ever seen spread across the enormous room as far as the eye could see. “As you can tell, there is a lot for us to go over. Obviously, everypony won’t be learning everything, but everypony will need to learn the basics. We we’ll be starting that today. Come with me to our first station just to our left.” To their left was a station with a table lined with hoof-held weapons that looked similar to the ones in the hands of the griffins in Canterlot. Just next to that was a line of three stations with targets at the end of them. “These here are the weapons you’ll all be carrying around with you on the battlefield. They’re called ‘firearms’ or ‘guns.’ How they work is somewhat like a bow, but instead of shooting arrows, they shoot these.” He held up a small yellow cylindrical piece of metal with one end pointed. “It’s called a ‘bullet.’ You take them and put them in these.” In his other hoof,  he held up a small thin box with one bullet sticking out the top. “This is called a ‘magazine’ or ‘mag’ for short. When loaded with bullets, you put them into one of these.” setting the bullet down, he picked up one of the weapons off of the table. “This would be your gun. As you can see, there is more than one type of gun. Different guns have different mags and different bullet sizes. This is your standard M-16A1 assault rifle. When loaded, I will have Sergeant Wampole here demonstrate what it can do.” The pony standing by took the gun over to the first station and set it on the table. “I recommend you cover your ears, because these things get loud when fired.” The crowd all covered their ears and the front of the gun burst with a flash of light with bullet after bullet bolting out of the gun and into the target. The bullets stopped and smoke poured through the front. “As you can see, a gun is much like a deadlier, faster, and more accurate version of a bow. Every gun has something called a ‘trigger.’ Guns vary in something called ‘rate of fire’ which affects how pulling the trigger will shoot the bullets. Like a lot of guns you will see, this M16 is ‘full-auto’, meaning that as long as you’re holding the trigger, bullets will keep firing until the mag runs out. ‘Semi-auto’ where pulling the trigger fires off one bullet making you need to pull the trigger to fire again. ‘3-round-burst’, similar to semi-auto, fires 3 bullets per trigger pull. Some guns, such as shotguns and sniper rifles, require a bolt or pump to be pulled to fire again. Next, we have ‘iron sights.’ Those would be these pieces on the top of the gun that you line up while looking down them to aim at your target. Some guns will have special sights like this red dot sight where you line up your target with the red dot. Sniper rifles all have scopes on them like this one.” He picked up a new gun off of the table. “This is an L96A1. It has a bolt right here that you need to pull back, and a scope on top. A scope acts like a weaker telescope that lets you see your targets from farther away, therefor letting you kill from farther away.” This caught Midnight’s attention quickly. Killing from a distance sounded good to him. “Now, do we have any questions so far?” Hooves across the crowd rose to the air. “Hmm... You up front. The alicorn boy.” Talk began stirring around the room as soon as the word ‘alicorn’ came up.

“I’d like to know when we can start practice. I’d like to try out using a sniper rifle ASAP.”

“Well, I can see we’re eager to start. I don’t have much left to say, but it’s nothing that your squad leaders can’t tell you if you need to know it. Anypony object to training now?” Everypony stayed silent. “Alright then. Come on everypony. Let’s get you to your first training day.”