The Princess and the Soldier
Once upon a time, in the weird land of earth, there were multiple nations at war. It was because one of those nations was having a very bad time. Hunger and poverty drove that nation to fear and anger and one man used that anger to assend to power and use that nation for his own intentions. Conquering.
This not only happened to one nation but to others as well and soon the world was threatened to be divide into pieces if the war didn't stopped.
Both sides of the conflict did their best to overpower the other, claiming that they represented a bigger good and the enemy was evil incarnated that only wanted to destroy them. Although one of those sides was as evil as their enemies claimed it to be, in the battlefield they were almost the same. Only soldiers fighting for their nations and praying to come back home alive, even if to do so they had to kill. It was hell.
After years of struggling, with the decay of one of the sides which committed a lot of mistakes, the conflict seemed to reach its end. The allied nations did all they could to end this as soon as possible and that was what a group of brave men were doing that fateful day of May on a lonely road to Berlin.
***
Celestia woke up. Her head feeling ten times bigger and a cold sting in her stomach. It takes her a time to get her ideas clear. After debating over coming out of bed or not she finally took the sheets with a hand an put her feet on the floor.
'Wait! Bed? Hands? Feet?!' She thought. 'What's going on?!'
"It was about the damn time." Someone said from her left. Her vision was still blurry and her head pulsed with the promise of further pain if she didn't went back to the bed right now. She ignored it in order to find the source of that voice. Putting a hand over her head and putting the other in a close wall to keep he balance she slowly turned herself.
"Who--" But even talking proved to be sicking. Suddenly, she was very thirsty, as if all the water in her body had just left her and her throat felt like sand.
"Over the nightstand, to your left." The voice told her.
Instinctively, she opened her eyes again and managed to focus them to her left. There she saw a metal canteen over a wooden box. She rushed over the bottle and drank its content as fast as she could. As the liquid passed through her throat she could feel her heart calming and breath returning to her lungs. The dizziness came back again and she almost fainted over the bed but a pair of strong hands held her in place till her head stopped spinning. When the world stood still and she could finally use her senses she managed to look around her.
She was inside of a very small room. The wallpaper was torn and dirty, the curtains replaced by planks covering the window and her bed was actually a mattress with some old blankets over it. Then, her eyes meet the man holding her. He wasn't taller than her, white skin and brown hair cut in a military style. Celestia recognized the U.S. Army uniform in his clothes but something was different.
Then she realized that she was different too. "W-what..."
"Is happening?" The man continued the unfinished question. "You appeared from literally nowhere naked and unconscious. My men and I took you from the cold and brought you here." His voice harsh and deep.
Trying to understand what happened, she put her hands over her face. When they touched her forehead she noticed that there was no horn. Immediately she turned around to discover that she hadn't her wings neither. 'What happened?' Also, she was wearing a set of clothes similar to the man's ones. While examining her new vestment he spoke again.
"Hope you like U.S. Army's uniform. It was the only spare we had and I can bet it's better than nothing." She gave him another glance and finally hit her. In front of her wasn't a regular soldier like she assumed before. Instead, she was in the presence of the legendary Sergeant Frank Rock. American, human. Dead since 1945.
"So, are you gonna tell me where are you from?" The dead soldier asked the lost princess.
"I-- My name is Celestia."
"Not a name I had heard of."
"I'm sorry, I..." But she stopped dead in her tracks. What the fuck was she supposed to say? 'Hi, I'm the Princess of a race of magical intelligent ponies that will appear seventy years in the future to interact with humanity.' Yeah, that doesn't sounds right to say.
"From the look on your face, let me take a wild guess here." He snapped her from her thoughts. "You're from the future and don't even know what the hell is going on." It has to be. Blackhawk already sent some weird reports of a guy in a scarlet suit running faster than bullets, Lt. Stewart was still babbling about his tank being haunted by a ghost from the civil war and he didn't even wanted to start with Shrieve and his 'Commandos'.
This was a weird ass war.
"Look miss, right now we're on some serious shit. If you need some help I'll do whatever I can but I got a mission first. Are we clear?" Lighting a cigarette. "Now, what's next?"
"I don't know. Where are we? WHEN are we?"
"In a abandoned house, some clicks from Berlin." He thought for a moment. "May, ninety forty-five."
That was it. Celestia had read about human history and now she knew exactly where and when she was. Those were the last days of the World War Two.
Well, she knew where she was, now to find out why. I'm in the last month of one of the human's cruelest war.' And to top it all, she was human now. No unicorn magic, no pegasus flying and no earth pony strength. 'Why?' Was all she could think of.
Before any of them could say another thing someone banged at the door. "Sergeant! We got company!"
"Fuck!" Was the only thing he said before storming out of the room. Celestia followed him to a room where six other men were waiting.
"Bulldozer, report."
"At least a dozen of krauts, maybe more." Said the biggest one. "My machine is empty and Li'l Sure Shot only has three more on his riffle. We only got eight full loaded and no grenades" Concluded Bulldozer.
"And they?"
"Apparently only infantry or we would be dead by now." Pointed the human north.
"Okay, so we're not completely fucked, yet." He looked at his men. "Bulldozer and Ice Cream, cover the right. Jackie, the door. Four-Eyes and Sure Shot, go the second floor an cover the windows. That leaves Wildman and I to the left. Move!" They race immediately to their positions, leaving a very confused Celestia in the middle of the room. One of the soldiers -the one that Rock called Jackie- approached Celestia holding a gun by its cannon.
"Here." He handled the gun at her. "You don't seem like a soldier but I got a good feeling about you and we need all the help we can get, give it a good use." Then he went to his companion's side.
"But I don't-- This is not what I--" But nobody payed her attention as someone said.
"Incoming!"
A squadron composed of fifteen men was advancing through the snow and firing their sub machine guns to the house. Although they where well positioned, the Easy Company were having a rough time holding their ground. Only one or two nazis felt as the rest kept advancing slow but sure to the surrounded house.
While all of this was happening, Celestia couldn't help but look at what was happening in front of her. When she read her first book about World War Two, the author made it look like a pony's tale of heroism and she even thought of said war as a parallel between her and her sister against Sombra. She was wrong.
After a time on earth, her hunger for books led her to read every book on her reach thanks to the Equestrian-Earth embassies. It didn't took too long till another book about the subject ended on her hooves. She read it with expectation, waiting for more stories of heroism against evil. But this time, the author was a veteran of that war and what those pages described her wasn't the epic tale she was expecting. It was hell.
And there she was, in the middle of a real battle. She once was blessed with powers that enabled her to defend a whole word from evils beyond any army. Now she wasn't even able to defend a small house for herself. She looked down at the gun in her hands, the cold steel almost hurting her skin. If the comments from Sgt. Rock were to be believed, these men saved her from freezing to death at the cold surroundings of the european winter. She owed them.
But.
She wasn't a murderer. And using that gun was definitely ending in death. The German's fire was getting closer and the Easy Company was running out of bullets. Turning around to see Rock shouting orders and directions to his men she tried to channel some of her magic but without horn it seemed pointless. Then she felt it.
It was a small tick on her hand. She looked at it, concentrating again, and the tick transformed into a coldness that covered her entire arm. 'The weather!'
Walking to the nearest window -the one where Bulldozer and Ice Cream were- she tossed them aside and looked down to the incoming soldiers. She put all her mind in only one thought. 'Avalanche.' Eyes glowing in gold, she commanded the snow around the house to move. The white mass of ice in front of her came to life and rose over the enemy soldiers's heads before dropping over them like a tidal wave. The fire ceased.
Celestia then let a breath she didn't knew she was holding and felt to her knees, the small amount of magic she managed to gather now extinct. Bulldozer helped her to stand as Rock and the others approached them. The first to talk was Jackie.
"Oh man I've seen some crazy ass shit in my time..." But Rock interrupted him.
"That was quite a show miss." Getting closer to her and retrieving the gun still in her hand. "But you never even tried to use this first. Mind to share it with us?."
"Killing, is not what I do."
"I can see that." Both admiration and regret in his tone. After pausing for a minute, he continued, "The snow, can you at least do that thing again?"
She concentrated as she did with the avalanche but to her frustration, she only felt a very tiny spark of magic gathering and burning out in a second. She concluded that however her magic was working now it needed to recharge first.
"Not now." She finally answered. "But if I have the time I can do it and more."
They left the house in order to get to Berlin. After discussing her situation -and without finding her true nature- they all decided to keep her around in case of emergency but as soon as she gathered enough magic to come back at her time and home she would left.
The days got blurry in a cloud of shoots, smoke and death. The closer they got to Berlin the worse it became. At some point they arrived at a settlement being disputed by tho bigger platoons. The fight is so equal that, even with Celestia using her powers in every moment she can, it becomes a stalemate as hard as any other around. The Easy Company is told to go back to friendly territory. They stay as so does Celestia. And when the Germans finally withdraw, Rock and his men chase them to clear the path for the rest of the troops as the Princess uses her abilities to heal the wounded. The days becomes weeks.
Celestia managed to evade the questions from most of the troops... But when the generals started making more questions she decided to get away from the camp one eventful night of May. She finally managed to gather enough magic to open a portal to her time, to Equestria. She's about to cross it when a voice interrupts her.
"¿Can I as you a question?" It was the Sergeant walking from the camp behind her. "The future, how it is?" Frank Rock was always a direct man, there was no use in rounding around it. "I mean, what we did. What we are doing, does it count? We won?"
Celestia thought about it. Star Swirl had warned her about the multiple problems with time travel and she already took some risks by helping these men. 'What if Sgt. Rock and the Easy Company were supposed to die in that house?' After thinking about it enough times she decided that after messing around Germany during World War Two had made the 'don't tell' rule very small in comparison. It couldn't hurt to tell him.
"Yes." She said. "Your side won." For a moment in time, the very first since war started, Franklin John Rock felt like he wasn't in hell. There was a light at the end of the tunnel.
"So, that's it? This is really the war to end all wars?"
"Not quite so." He lowered her head. That moment of hope was again devoured by the darkness of war. "There is men and women dying in the future, selfishness and tyranny still exist. I would like to tell you otherwise, but I won't lie to you. But." He looked up at her like a child on Christmas would. "They learned from the mistakes made here. The world will not be perfect but it's still there, better than now. And they are trying, Franklin, they are trying real hard to do their best."
"I guess that's all that matters." The soldier concluded. He took of his helmet and waved at her. "Go with God, miss."
"You too, Frank" She smiled and walked inside the portal.
***
-Epilogue.
It was the last day of war. Germany had surrendered, but the message hadn't reach all the troops yet so the Combat-Happy Joes from the Easy Company were right where they usually used to be. Exchanging bullets with the germans.
"Coverage, Easy!" Sgt. Rock barked at his company. "Keep your heads down! Those krauts got us covered!"
"Sergeant, we got a trouble." Ice Cream Soldier told him from behind his right.
"Tell me something I don't know Ice Cream."
"Okay, what about a little girl walking right to the line of fire?"
Frank Rock looked at where Ice Cream was pointing, and there she was. A little girl, no older than eight, blonde and covered in dirt, dressed in rags and completely lost. With all that heavy fire from both sides, it was a miracle that the girl hadn't get shot. Yet.
But miracles were what Rock specialized.
"Jeez, sergeant. How are we gonna get to her?" Bulldozer asked him.
"Dont do anything son, except keep shooting to cover--" He jumped to his feet and started to run. "--and maybe say a little pray!" Rock crossed the square like a football receiver and grabbed the girl as she was the ball, holding her against his chest. A rain of bullets covered his back and then, just like that, the fire ceased. The germans had finally received the armistice's notice.
Sergeant Franklin John Rock died that day...
***
"...from the last bullet fired in the last battle on the last day" Celestia concluded her book.
When she awoke again in the palace, she stormed to the Earth's embassy and asked all she could about World War Two. Luckily, one of the secretaries at the office actually had a book about the Easy Company. Thanking her for the book, Princess Celestia went back to her room -after asking Luna to cover her on the court- and read it from beginning to end.
'The only thing he ever wanted was to see the world at peace.' A tear was rolling down her cheek. 'But he died before he could see such thing.' She mourned him. Even if she knew that Rock was already dead in her time, she hoped that he could have survived the war to see how good could be the world after it.
'But' She stopped her tears. 'At least he knew that it wasn't in vain.' She told him that. Maybe he remembered it when putting himself to save a girl's life. To give her the chance to grow up and see a better world. At least he knew that war wasn't endless and that was more than most of other fallen soldiers got before and after him.
Celestia let a smile to form in her face, wiping the tears with a hoof.
"Rest in peace, Sergeant Rock."
Author's Note
Well, this is my very first one-shot and currently the only story of mine that says 'finished'.
As always, thanks for reading. Please leave a comment, this is the first time I do this kind of story and I really want to know how I'm doing it.
Dedicated to the memory of Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert, and to every soldier that died and keeps dying to our days
Now, to keep this to being too sad, here are some side notes:
You guys are not gonna believe how hard it was to find a non-EG 'human Celestia' image that wasn't suggestive in one way or another (not mentioning the insane amount of porn). Seriously, that's the safest image I could find. This fandom has some troubles.
Before you ask, yes. Rock had crossed paths with Superman before, so is not beyond impossible for him to deduce from where is Celestia.
If any of you even think of saying "CelestiaxRock. OTP" I will rip your ass out with a rusty spoon and hang it in my wall.
