John "8-Ball" Hutch was pretty much your standard field medic. He carried his ACE 23, threw out med crates to the wounded, and when possible, used his defibrillator unit to bring the recently deceased back to life.
Operation Locker, 1800 Hours
He was currently fighting for his own life, on Operation Locker. He was holed up with Bravo Squad's Support unit, Chain, until a barrage of bullets buried themselves into the soldier's comrade, causing the Support to crumple and collapse into a blood-splattered corner. The HUD on 8-Ball's end displayed the bright lime green defib symbol over the recently deceased Marine, and seeing as how he had no other alternative, he brought out his chest paddles. After a quick rub to charge the hand-held device, 8-Ball pressed the paddles towards the dead Support, releasing the spark of life. Chain pulled up his MG4, yelling "Enemy soldier in my line of sight!", or as 8-Ball heard "Enemy sol-" as the rest was cut off by the double tap of an Saiga 12K, and the once-dead-but-now-alive Chain became the dead-then-shortly-alive-but-dead-again Chain. The words "LAST SOLDIER IN SQUAD" flashed on 8-Ball's HUD. "Figures..." muttered a still-alive 8-Ball, but as he was reloading his ACE 23. Mid reload, the same Ruskie that had killed his comrade poked his Russian, shotgun-wielding face around the corner, his shotgun pointed at a defenseless 8-Ball. "Well, Fu-" The Marine's sentence was cut short as the Russian pulled the trigger, dropping another American soldier. Mr. Ruskie, thoroughly pleased at killing two foes in one clip, happily skipped off to find some other idiotic American, only to trip a claymore. Of course, the now dead 8-Ball was unaware of that. He expected to wake back up at his team's spawn, or perhaps on a fellow squad member.
???????? ??????, ???? Hours
When the Marine opened his eyes, he found not the bland grey of concrete, but a slight breeze blowing against his uniform, and the soft rustle of trees. He glanced around, making sure to check for a possibly lurking Russian or Chinese soldier, hoping for 2 kills, but found only thick jungle. Chain was up, checking on another sprawled out body, which according to 8-Ball's HUD, had all his health. Chain, upon noticing 8-Ball's awakening, saluted. "Haven't spotted any enemy activity, Sir." 8-Ball nodded, looking around.
"Where's Wack?"
Chain paused, looking around. "Wack should be somewhere around here, he was the first one up." Rustling from behind drew both Marine's attention. Another Assault pushed his way out of the thick undergrowth, looking at them.
"Glad to see you're up, Sir." Wack remarked, walking more out into the clearing. 8-Ball nodded.
"You too. I see that Scorch and Buzz are still out cold?" The squad leader asked, motioning to the last two unconscious marines.
"Yup. I tried everything, shaking 'em, hitting 'em, yelling at 'em. Nothin." 8-Ball rolled his eyes behind the uniform's goggles, think that is was rather in character for Wack.
"Did it occur to you that you might have given away our position by yelling at unconscious men?" 8-Ball chastened Wack. The other Assault nodded.
"I checked our AO first thing, Squad Leader." 8-Ball took solace in that, while Wack might be crazy, and he could easily get himself killed, Wack was tactically smart. 8-Ball had never seen a man more wise on where to put a 40mm grenade. After waiting for a few more minutes, Buzz and Scorch were back in action, and the squad leader gathered his troops before him.
"Alright, Men, I want a list of our equipment. I need to know what situation we can and cannot end up fighting in." The men checked their gear, nodding. Chain stepped forward, holstering his MG4.
"Primary: MG4, HOLO Sight, Flash Hider, Bipod, and Green Laser Sight. Secondary: Shorty 12G, Delta RDS, Green Laser Sight, Full Choke. XM25, Ammo Crate, M67 Grenades, Two, and my Machete. All ammunition accounted for." Chain stepped back, after 8-Ball nodded. Wack stepped forward.
"Primary: M4, ACOG, Suppressor, Vertical Grip, Green Laser Sight. Secondary: G18, Suppressor, Delta RDS, and a Green Laser Sight. Med Pack, M320 High Explosive, Boot Knife, V40 Mini's." The marine received a nod, and he stepped back. The 3rd marine, Buzz, stepped forward.
"Primary: SCAR-H SV, ACOG, Flash Hider, Angled Grip, Canted Iron Sights. Secondary: P226, Laser Sight, Ghost Ring, T-UGS, and C4. SEAL Knife, and Flares." The final marine stepped forward.
"Primary: M1014, Laser Sight, Full Choke. Secondary: MP-412 REX: Ghost Ring, Laser Sight, Heavy Barrel. FGM-172 SRAW, and M2 SLAM." 8-Ball nodded, facing his squad.
"I've got an ACE 23, and my .44 Magnum. I want a situation report, Wack." He looked over at the marine.
"We appear to be in a forest, but not one I've, or us for that matter, have seen before. This isn't Caspian, the trees are too thick." The marines nodded. Rustling behind the squad caused the men to turn around, raising their firearms.
"Prepare to fire..." 8-Ball whispered to his squad as he switched off the safety. The rustling grew until a small horse pushed through the undergrowth.
"Zecora? Are ya-" The small horse was cut off when she spotted the 5 marines, weapons drawn. The miniature horse let out a small 'Eeep' of fear. "M-Monsters!" The small horse turned around, going to run off into the brush, until 8-Ball rushed forward, grabbing the miniature horse, not hard enough to hurt it. The horse began kicking, and whimpering "P-Please don't hurt me, mister monster!"
"Relax. I'm not going to hurt you. None of us are." The miniature horse stopped kicking, and 8-Ball put it down.
"W-Who are ya?" Asked the inquisitive horse. The Marine smiled, but the tiny horse didn't see it beneath his mask.
"I'm 8-Ball, and over there is Chain, Wack, Buzz, and Scorch." Each marine raised their hand as they were named off. "We're Marines. We fight bad guys." The little horse's disposition towards the group improved considerably.
"Ah'm Applebloom. Ah live in Ponahville with the rest of mah famahlly." 8-Ball removed his helmet and mask, showing his smile, along with his sandy blonde hair.
"Listen, Applebloom, tell me, can you help us? We aren't from here. We need help getting home...from...wherever this is..." 8-Ball trailed off. Applebloom looked up at him.
"Yer lost?" 8-Ball nodded in response.
"Simply put, yes." Applebloom nodded. She looked back at the undergrowth.
"Ahlraht. Ah can help ya'll." She started to move off into the bush.
"C'mon Marines. Fall in." 8-Ball put his helmet and mask back on, the marines following behind him. 8-Ball took the lead, Scorch taking rear. When the group had exited the forest, they saw a small cabin, as well as a larger yellow miniature horse talking to Applebloom. The tiny yellow horse looked over at the men, and reacted almost instantly.
"Go, Applebloom! I'll hold off the monsters!" The marines sighed inwardly, as they figured this was how all of these ponies were going to react.
"No, Fluttersha, they're good folks! They faht evil!" The yellow horse, whom the marines assumed was 'Fluttershy', stopped, staring at them.
"A-are you s-sure, Applebloom?"
"Yup. Ah got a feelin from 'em, lahke they were good folks. Ah'm sure." Fluttershy slowly approached the marines.
"I'm s-sorry...w-we've just had so m-many m-monsters..."
"No need to be sorry. I know we can be a bit intimidating." 8-Ball interrupted the horse. Scorch smiled at her, as if to show his genuineness. "We're Marines. We fight evil, like Applebloom said, but we're not from here. We need help getting home." After a moment's pause, Fluttershy responded.
"I think I know who we can go to."
Fluttershy's Cottage, 1400 Hours
While not too pleased with being stuck on an alien world, 8-Ball was at least grateful for at least not being shot at. He, along with the rest of Bravo Squad thanked Fluttershy, and Applebloom, for agreeing to help them. Fluttershy led them to her cottage, opening the door and leading the marines inside. "Sorry if it's a bit cramped. I normally don't have more then one or two ponies over at once, and we ponies are much smaller than you Marines..." The Marines shrugged it off, noticing that this was a homely type of cramp, as compared to the claustrophobia-inducing closeness of something like Operation Locker or Metro.
The marines crashed in Flutershy's living room, depositing their gear in one corner, Wack and 8-Ball taking off their helmet and mask, Chain taking off his baklava and helmet, and Scorch taking off his sunglasses and headset. Chain chuckled, looking around the room at his fellow squad mates. "We haven't been this relaxed since when we all got pulled from battle for a whole day..." He sighed, leaning back into the plush couch. "This isn't half bad, y'know? As much fun as getting shot over, and over, and over again was, I think I'd take some R&R here. How about you, 8-Ball?"
The other marine glanced over at him, smiling and laughing with him. "Yeah...no constant 'I need a medic!', or 'Doc, I need some first-aid!'. I swear, these guys could stub their toe, and they'd scream in my ear for some medicine. Or the guys that get mowed down by a machine gun that had been there the last 5 times, only to respawn and yell at me for not reviving them." Most of the squad laughed at that. The only member of the squad not sharing in the laughter was Buzz, who was still in his full uniform, glancing around the room. He was positioned in a way that was ready to move.
"Hey, man, lighten up." Scorch said, tapping him lightly in the shoulder. As if on instinct, the Recon drew his knife, going for the kill. Just before he drove the knife into Scorch's throat, he stopped himself. Buzz looked around the room of silent marines, giving one last look at Scorch before standing up and walking back outside. He muttered his apologies at the squad as he exited, pushing past a surprised Fluttershy.
The remaining marines stared at each other in silence. Scorch picked up Buzz's knife off the floor, putting it in the Recon's bag. 8-Ball went towards the door, pushing past a still-confused Fluttershy. When 8-Ball caught up with the soldier, he was standing out in the middle of a field, staring off into the distance. 8-Ball placed a hand lightly on the younger soldier's shoulder, drawing a questioning glance from him. "Look...what happened back their...with Scorch...I'm sorry." 8-Ball shook his head.
"Look, I know Scorch can get annoying, and sometimes I want to stab him too. You just need to control yourself." Both marines chuckled, staring off into the distance.
"It's not that Scorch is overly annoying. Yeah, he can get on my nerves, but he can do that to anyone. It wasn't him that made me almost stab him. It was when he punched me. Ever since I started sniping, I've always feared tight, close quarters engagements. Maybe it's the sense of irony, but it seems that whenever I'm within real CQB, everyone finds it funny to stab me. Maybe it's the joke of killing a sniper in hand-to-hand combat, but I hate it. More then being shot. More often than not, it's not them stabbing me that kills me. I wind up bleeding out on the floor, watching the A-hole who stabbed me walk happily on by."
8-Ball nodded. He knew how soldiers reacted when they found a sniper who was popping their teammates. He recalled many a time when he had driven his knife into an unaware Russian or Chinese Recon, making sure to flip them over. He made sure they saw it coming, they just couldn't react in time.
"This one time, me and this Recon from Alpha were sniping off this rooftop. This Chinese asshole just comes up, stomps my face into the ground, flips me over, and forces his knife through my eye socket. God...I hated that...ever since then, if there's a ladder, I always put a claymore near it. I'm just really jumpy when it comes to being touched, y'know?"
The squad leader nodded. He knew the feeling. "Still, you should apologize to Scorch when we get back, and you do need to relax. I know we've been in combat for quite some time, and you're used to that, but we're on down time while we're here. Might as well make the most of it, right?"
Once the two marines had gotten back, Buzz had agreed to lower the neck of his uniform, as well as taking off his prized Boonie hat. Buzz sat down beside Scorch, apologizing to the marine. "Hey, look, I'm sorry I almost stabbed you in the throat. It was really unprofessional of me." The second Marine chuckled, as did most of the room. Fluttershy simply sat there, a bit confused and shocked at the idea of stabbing somepony, or somemarine, in their case.
"Not all Marines are like you all, right? I mean, there's got to be mare marines too, not just stallions." The squad paused, mid-laugh, to stare at the butter pegasus.
"What does that mean?" Asked a curious Wack. The squad was indeed confused, looking around at them.
"What was a mare? What was a stallion? What did she even mean?" Asked the squad mentally. Fluttershy, however, just stared at them as if it was the simplest question in the world.
"Well, wherever you're from, there has to be m-" she paused mid word, choosing instead a more logical choice "Marine of a different gender, right?" Scorch stared at her, finally catching on to what she was saying.
"Oh, no, all Marines are male, as last time I checked." It was now Fluttershy's turn to be confused. She glanced around the group.
"So, there are no girl Marines?" She gauged the reaction of the men around her. She concluded that they at least knew what "girl" meant by the shaking of their heads. "Then how do you make baby Marines?" The Marines paused before bursting into laughter. "W-was it something I said?"
Chain shook his head, wiping away a tear. "No...no...'Marine' is just our job title. Our species is known as 'Humans'." The pegasus nodded, thinking that her question was now rather funny as well.
Fluttershy went to the door. "I need to go get Twilight. She's the first pony you should talk to about getting home." The Marines nodded as she left the 5 men alone in her home. Scorch kicked back, sighing contently.
"I am really enjoyin this. These ponies got weird names, though." The rest of the squad nodded in agreement, relaxing as well. Chain and 8-Ball agreed that if, in a worst case scenario, they couldn't get home. While Chain and Wack would likely miss their families, these ponies were seemingly very friendly. As far as Scorch was concerned, as far as worst case scenarios went, that wasn't a pretty bad one.
