Blood and Shadows

Operation: A Rough Start

Location: 91st Pegasus Division Base Camp, Training Grounds.

Date and Time:December 25, 2028. 00:00 Hours.

Subject: Rainbow Dash

Objective: Survive Boot Camp

The trumpet sounded, playing the Wonderbolts wake up call, which meant you better freakin' hurl yourself out of bed, because the General expected everybody front and center before the short song was over. I threw the covers off of me and flew into position in front of my bunk. The other privates joined me in falling in rank. Soarin, or as I knew him at the time, Foxtrot, was standing next to me just as the song finished. This directed the General's attention towards us, which normally meant trouble.

"PRIVATE FOXTROT," the General screamed, "WOULD YOU MIND TELLING ME WHY THE FUCK IT TOOK YOU SO LONG TO GET OUT OF BED?"

"SIR," Soarin started, "I HAD A LATE NIGHT LAST NIGHT, SIR!"

"A late night? Why, were you masturbating to hot young boy-bands from Europe?"

Everyone giggled at that, everyone except Soarin who turned bright red, then a huge grin crept over his face, "SIR, NO, I WAS UP WITH YOUR SISTER LAST NIGHT, SIR!"

Everyone instantly stopped laughing, and whatever sense of happiness from the General's face had completely left and took a train nine miles south. Everyone stared at the General, waiting for their punishment, because in boot camp everybody gets punished, not just an individual person. The General turned bright red, and Soarin's grin disappeared. It seemed as if the General was an overheating teapot, but instead of steam coming out, it would be a wave of cuss words.

Then, the General surprised us all, by responding very calmly, "Do you know...how a man settles a dispute such as this with another man?"

"Uh...Jenga, Sir?"

Nobody laughed, the General was very serious, which meant that if you weren't then you'd be in trouble. The General was still calm, "No, they fight about it." And with that the General took off his jacket, leaving him in his camo tank-top.

"Sir?"

"You heard me private," The General replied, putting his fists up, "those are fightin' words, and if you think you can take me down, then I'll buy the whole platoon ice-cream!" his voice now loud again.

"Uh, Sir, I don't want to fight you, Sir!" Soarin nervously replied

"Well then if you don't then you have gone down without a fight, and then I get to nick-name you pansy cakes! NOW PUT UP YOUR FISTS!"

Soarin put his fists up very slowly and nervously took a fighting stance, everybody just watched in awe. Soarin had a tear streak down his face and, he peeked over at me as if begging for help. The General was now bobbing back and forth, as if in an imaginary cage match. The General took one swing and it was over. The General gave Soarin a right hook to the face and knocked Soarin on his back to the floor. Nobody ever agrees with me, but I swear that Soarin skidded a few feet when he hit the ground. Soarin was struggling to get up from his helpless position, but the General was far from done. The General pounced Soarin and punched him two more times in the face, sitting down on his chest. The General, now satisfied with his example, got up and turned to face us, his face was bright red, and he was sweating a little, "DID ANYBODY ELSE HAVE SOME FUN WITH MY SISTER LAST NIGHT?" he screamed, louder than he ever had before.

The room remained silent, all except for Soarin who was grunting on the floor as he struggled to get up. When he finally did the General approached him, and Soarin put his hands up in a hopeless/defensive position. The General stopped right in front of Soarin, inches from his face. He gave him this thousand-yard glare that said, 'one more crack like that and my foot will be so far up your ass that it will come out your mouth!' The General was really good with giving faces like that, some say he could tell you his life's story just by looking at you a certain way. Soarin, now with two black eyes, whimpered before the man in front of him. The General simply said, "GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR PANSY CAKES! GIVE ME A THOUSAND!" then he turned around and faced us, "AND AS FOR THE REST OF YOU, I WANT YOU ALL TO-!"

Suddenly, the air raid siren came on. The General looked at the door in astonishment, as if a giraffe with three heads was standing there. His expression was pure surprise, then he gathered his senses and looked back at us again, "I WANT YOU ALL TO GET READY FOR BATTLE! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"

Soarin got up and approached the General with a smirk on his face, "What about me Sir? I'm not in fighting condition!"

The General punched Soarin in the nuts, "Fuck you that's what! I hope whatever is attacking us shoots your balls off because you don't deserve them!"

Ouch, that must of hurt, I'm a woman so I didn't really understand, but I was too busy putting on my gear to care. When we were all finally ready, I met up with Soarin, because he was my partner and we were supposed to stick together in situations like this. We headed outside and rushed towards the AA guns, I grabbed Soarin and started yelling to him over the siren, "Foxtrot, let's hang back! You're not gonna be shooting very well with eyes like those! If we're lucky then all of the AA guns will be taken and we can just take cover!"

"Good idea!"

I could hear the jets incoming now, I decided that NOW would be a good time to take shelter. I grabbed Soarin and we dove into the nearby AA bunker and shut the hatch behind us. The AA guns were placed underground in little bunkers so you could shoot the AA gun out of it and take cover in it as well. The gun stuck out the side and rotated in the window so you had maximum protection. There were already two guys inside operating the gun, and they handed me a rifle, they would have handed Soarin one, but they said it wouldn't do him much good if he had a hard time seeing anyway, so they saved it for the next soldier to stumble inside. Suddenly, the bunker started shaking, bombs were falling outside. We could hear feint screams and Soarin heard somebody scratching at the door outside. He was about to open it when the man who wasn't at the gun stopped him, just as he did a loud boom could be heard just outside the door, and the scratching stopped. We waited there for a while, just letting the ground shake as the man behind the AA gun fired away, the other man kept a tally of how many planes he took down. I came back to that bunker after the assault and saw that he shot down exactly thirty-seven planes.

The bunker shook and rattled, and eventually the AA gun ran out of ammo and we were just sitting there, doing nothing. Finally, the bombing stopped, and the gunner looked out the window. We were cheering but the gunner had a really dreadful look on his face. His partner looked out the window too and he got the same look, me and Soarin took a look and we instantly realized why. The Elites had stopped bombing, just so they could send in paratroopers and Pegasi battalions. We quickly opened the hatch, and I left the gunner there with Soarin, and me and his partner ran to the front lines.

"What's your callsign?" I yelled to him

"Delta!"

"Mine's Alpha! Let's get over this embankment and see if we can get a better position!"

We advanced through the camp over the edge of the embankment that ran along the side of the base against the water. There was a retaining wall that a lot of Wonderbolts were taking cover behind, so we decided to join them. What a coincidence, the General was right next to where we jumped in.

"What's the laydown Sir?" I asked him

"Well Alpha, it's not lookin' good!"

"What seems to be the problem?"

"We're probably outnumbered five to one! That airstrike took us totally off guard!"

"How many casualties?"

"At least a hundred KIA and twice that in wounded!"

Delta cut in, "Sir, I think I have a plan, Sir!"

"Well any plan's a plan, private! What did you have in mind?" The General responded

"The mounted guns sir, the crews who were supposed to assemble them got scattered in the initial attack! If we could gather up the guns then we could clear these bastards out in ten seconds flat!" Delta suggested

"And just how do you suppose we do that, private? If we don't know where they are then-!"

Gunfire erupted from the beach, I peeked out and saw the Elites advancing. The air teams had taken to dog-fighting and a stray would come in for a gunning run every few seconds. They were only fifty yards away at most, and getting closer. Our side opened fire and rained hell upon the enemies without cover. The General turned to look at Delta, and gave him a confirming look. Delta ran back up the hill in, what seemed like, a hopeless effort. I turned my attention towards the Elites advancing on our position. I aimed down the holographic sight on my M16 and opened fire. I started counting the kills so I could brag about them to Soarin later. I got up to about twelve when a Pegasus thought it would be good idea to drop a grenade on our encampment, "GRENAAAADE!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, diving on the General, who was in the opposite direction of the explosive. I heard the grenade detonate and felt shrapnel stab into my backside, my ears began to ring and all I could feel was the pain of the fragments in my back. My hands and feet had gone numb and my vision was blurry. The General pushed me off of him and I fell on my stomach, he called out to me to see if I was okay. I gave a quiet response which I was sure he didn't hear. At some point the General pulled me back up against the embankment and I regained my focus. My back was still singeing with pain at the shards trapped in it, but I bit my lower lip and fought on.

For what seemed like hours, we kept the Elites at bay, until eventually they started to get very close. Their forces seemed to never end, and they kept rising out of the water. One of them was able to reach our encampment and stabbed one of ours with the bayonet on the end of his gun. It looked like an over dramatic death from one of those old war movies, where the man who was stabbed was lifted up into the air as he helplessly fought at the knife in his chest. The Elite raised him up in such a manner and twisted the gun that was supporting the Wonderbolt in the air. The Wonderbolt stopped moving, and the soldier next to him opened fire on the Elite, but it was too late. Another Elite had broken the ranks and shot down even more Wonderbolts. This was it, this was the end.

I looked over the embankment to see how close they were, and then an Elite grabbed me by the throat. He was about to stab me with his already drawn knife, but he stopped dead in his tracks. I noticed a large red hole had appeared in his chest, and he let go of me and fell over. I looked over my shoulder to see none other than Delta with his machine gun mounted on the top of the hill behind us. I quickly fled up the hill to get behind him, and when I safely reached him, I saw that other crews were setting up their guns as well. At some point, Delta had opened fire on the Elites. I passed by him and heard him yelling something about being all out of gum. I assisted the other crews in setting up their guns, and found myself on one of them. The machine gun was heavy and the sights were inaccurate, but it felt like I was playing Call of Duty or something as I mowed down rows of Elites. I felt more like I was cutting a lawn than shooting at an enemy. All of the gunners had kind of silently chosen their own killing grounds, and we kept within those boundaries. I got the section in front of my gun, and the guys next to me got theirs.

After another few hours of conflict, we finally cleared the beach, but the base was being overrun by the Pegasi forces at this point. Time to take to the skies. I ripped my jacket off and slapped my wings against the open air. I pulled out my sidearm and started firing at anything not wearing Wonderbolt colors. I downed about five Elites when two ended up on my tail. I pulled a loop and ended up behind them, downing them both in seconds. I continued my killing spree until the Elites began to flee. One of the recruits looked at me and said, "Woo! We won! Score one for the Wonderbolts, zero for the Elites!"

Soarin was in the bunker chatting with some Medic over Delta's partner's lifeless body. I asked him what happened, he told me that an Elite came in there and attacked them. Soarin grabbed the rifle they didn't give him earlier and shot the Elite, moments after he killed Delta's partner. We had a moment of silence then went to find Delta to break the bad news. Delta didn't take it too well, him and his partner were apparently brothers. Delta went to the medical ward to give his brother the proper dog tags for burial. I later learned from the General that we had a very important person MIA. Spitfire, who ran the Armory for the base, was nowhere to be found. We all assumed she was KIA and went on with our lives, but nobody ever got closure. There was a service held for her and Delta cried the whole time. I had heard Spitfire had a thing going with a new recruit, but only after Delta admitted it to me did I know that he was the one she was seeing. I still can't figure out if he was crying because of Spitfire, his brother, or both.

Me and Soarin had a long talk that evening at dinner, he told me his real name, which was highly against the rules, and Delta was assigned to our squad. We weren't the only squad with three people, at this point, it was odd to have a two person squad. I didn't sleep that night, I was afraid they would come back. In the morning, everybody was having a late start, even the General. So we got let off easy and we got up at about six o'clock. The General didn't really push us and the whole day went by slowly. After that the guns remained set up at the shoreline, and the air raid siren was always at the ready. Things didn't go back to normal after that, they just kinda set into a new normal and we went by that routine. From then on, the General and Soarin hated each other, but since I saved the General's skin by diving on him, he cut him some slack. I still have the scars today from the shrapnel in my back, and I can feel the pain that I felt that day when I lay on it. It's been much harder ever since then, because that was the attack that proved the Elites knew where we were, and that they could attack us.

The worst part was, was that the Elites weren't even supposed to know the Equestrian Republic existed, much less that it had a military force. If they knew that, then what else did they know?