All Quiet on all Fronts

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.