Nighthawks

Chapters

Prologue
FNG
On a Dime
More Than Just the Operators
Trial Run
Bad Timing
Aftershock
Hitting Back

Prologue

Nighthawks

The Dawn

Mustang took in a deep breath as he walked off the ramp of the sky carriage. The familiar smell of freshly paved runway and sweaty pegasi would have overwhelmed any normal stallion, but Mustang was used to it. Enlistment in the Equestrian Air Guard forced one to get used to it.

The base was abuzz with activity. Carriages were constantly going in and out of the base, carrying troops here and there across Equestria and the globe. Everyone was always rushing to get out since nopony liked the heat of the San Palomino Air Base. Mustang didn’t mind it, though. He was too happy and proud for his reason to be here to care about the heat.

He had been enlisted in the 51st Assault Battalion for eight years, the Mustangs. That was where his current name came from. He didn’t quite get why he couldn’t use his real name, but he didn’t mind it all that much. Starstep didn’t have as much of a battle ring to it anyhow.

During his time with the 51st, Mustang had worked hard and proven himself to be an exceptional soldier. He always flew faster and harder than the other stallions in his unit. He was better at combat, too, both air-to-air and ground fighting. His superiors took notice of it after a time and gave him a special choice.

The choice was to lead a platoon or to go onto a more intense unit in the Air Guard. Mustang had enlisted because he didn’t qualify to lead a unit the size of a platoon, something that was heavily reinforced in his mind during training. He opted not to take the leadership position and instead transfer to the new unit.

Before he was allowed, though, he had to go through a selection process. The process was grueling and filled with pain and suffering. There were many other stallions there with him, but a lot had dropped out and returned to their home units. Mustang was determined, though, and by gritting his teeth and pushing himself to go harder every day, he made it through.

His new unit was an often talked about, little known about unit referred to as the Joint Strike Force, or the JSF. On paper, it was the 35th Joint Assault Regiment. It was a truly prestigious honor to be on this unit. Stallions came from every unit of the Air Guard to join this one, from the Heavy Ordnance Battalions like the 2nd and 52nd, Rapid Assault Brigades, like the 15th and 16th, and more. Mustang was one of the few to get in from a standard level unit, and that was something he was extremely proud of.

Here, at San Palomino Air Base, was located the home base for the 35th. Its CO was, as Mustang was told, a hard, rough, no-messing-around stallion named Meteor. Mustang had seen a picture of him once in an office somewhere. He was a green stallion with a short mustache, and eyes that looked like they could drill holes through you. Mustang heard that he was from Trottingham originally and had the accent to match it. Meteor had created the 35th to fulfill important special operations roles after serving with the Secret Air Squadron, directly under Celestia.

Mustang trotted off the runway to get out of the carriages ways, since they wouldn’t stop for him. Immediately, he saw a dozen barracks buildings that housed the carriage maintainers and the draggers. They tended not to get much credit, but the stallions and mares of the 130th Herculean Helpers and 17th Globe Mistresses did an important job, one that no one in the rest of the Air Guar was allowed to forget. Partly because they whined all the time about being uncared about.

Down the path Mustang trotted, eager to arrive at his new CO’s office and get assigned to a team. In such a good mood, Mustang greeted everypony he passed by with a smile and a wave. A lot of them waved back, oblivious as to Mustang’s new level of prestige, and kept on working. With any luck, Mustang would be working soon as well.

Mustang thought about a lot of things on his way to Meteor’s office. He thought about his mother back home in Canterlot. When he told her that he was going to a new unit, she was so proud of him. Naturally, as any mother would, she worried about his wellbeing, but Mustang didn’t let that stop him. Nor did he let it be. He assured her that he would be fine and have good new friends watching out for him. At least, he hoped to make some new friends. He didn’t want to be the Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia’s personal protégé as of recently, of the unit.

He left the runway area and started heading over to the side of the Air Base, where all the combatants were stationed along the fence and by the armories. These barracks were much bigger and housed a disproportionately larger number of soldiers in them, and even worse, they weren’t air conditioned with spells like the maintainers’ were. The fences around the base were topped with barbed wire to keep civilians and potential attackers out. On the outside of the base, there was only the desert expanse in one direction and the lights of Las Pegasus many miles in the distance on the other.

Mustang stopped in front of a barracks building to figure out which building exactly it was he had to go to. He knew the area, but he was only told that the building he would have to go to would stand out distinctly from the rest. The problem with that was that the barracks buildings all looked the exact same. They all had evenly spaced holes that served as windows, letting came Spiders in on occasion, and they all had one door in the front and one in the back. Nothing stood out.

“Now which one do I go to?” Mustang wondered aloud.

He didn’t want to be that new guy who had no idea where to even go, so he had to choose carefully. Which building stood out the most? They were all the same shape. The ground was about equally stamped down in front of most of the doors. Each door had a label-

Except one. One building had an unlabeled door, and actual windows made of glass. The ground was stamped down before the door, but hoofprints were more recognizable in the dirt there. Inside, through a window on the door, Mustang could just see a small light shining.

“Bingo,” he said.

Mustang started forward toward the unmarked barracks doing his best not to look too excited. Meteor didn’t sound like the kind of guy who would tolerate happiness, much like Mustang’s old sergeant, but he was a Captain, so it would be even worse. Mustang just had to keep a cool head, like he was trained to do, and come off as professional and capable.

He knocked three times on the door. “Yes, come in,” a voice replied.

Mustang opened the door and walked on in. On the other side of the room, behind an unimpressive desk, writing something down on a piece of blank paper, was Meteor, the commanding officer of the Joint Strike Force. He was an impressive stallion, to be sure. Even sitting down, Meteor was tall and had a powerful build. Not quite the build of a Heavy Ordinance soldier, but he had clearly been quite a fighter in his day and took good care of himself now.

Mustang saluted the old stallion. “Sir, Mustang, reporting for duty, sir!” he said mechanically.

Meteor looked up from his paper. “Hm? Yes, yes, good,” he said, throwing up a small salute. “Take a seat. Your fellow new guy will be here shortly.”

Meteor threw a cushion at Mustang and went back to work. Mustang blinked, then sat as he was ordered to. He hadn’t ben informed that there was another new guy coming in. Where was he coming from? Mustang brought fighting capabilities to the unit, but would they bring in two of the same type of soldier? Maybe the other guy was from ordnance, or an armored battalion? Would they be assigned to the same team, or never see each other again?

Meteor looked up from his paper again at Mustang. “Jeez, you look like you just took a shit and noticed that it was bright green,” Meteor said.

He shocked Mustang out of his thoughts. “Uhh, I… what?” Mustang replied, confused.

Meteor laughed once. Just once. “You’ll get used to it,” he said, returning to his work. “Your carriage arrived early, so you’ll be waiting there awhile.”

Mustang nodded and continued waiting. Avoidant of being shocked out his thoughts again like that, he decided to watch what Meteor was doing. Meteor looked calm and relaxed, and didn’t seem to have a care in the world for Mustang’s watching him. Mustang turned his attention to the walls of the office. They weren’t bare like in most others; they had pictures and framed documents and medals. Meteor had earned everything on that wall, ranging from the Ribbon of Excellence to the Valor Medallion, the second highest honor in the Equestrian military.

It was clear that this stallion had a high expectation and standard for those under his command. You were expected to be ready to jump into harm’s way to complete the mission or help your injured comrade. Only under the most extreme circumstances could one earn any medals for valor and bravery, circumstances only heard of when fighting gryphons or dragons.

Three knocks broke Mustang out of his stupor. “Come in,” Meteor answered.

Mustang turned as the door opened and felt his jaw drop. The individual walking through the door was the last thing he was expecting to see any time in his life. Before him stood a Bat Pony, with a deep navy coat with black stripes, startling yellow eyes, his characteristic bat wings, short-cut mane and tail, and a crazy grin on his face.

“Blazer, reporting for duty, sir,” he said.

Meteor looked up, looked down, then quickly looked up again. “My eyes must be deceiving me,” he said, standing. “I haven’t seen a Thestral since back when we worked ops in Zebrastan.”

“You’re seeing one now, sir, “ Blazer said. “Blazer, from the Royal Guard, Detrot station, Firefighting Department. I transferred to the Air Guard a couple of years ago and tried out for this unit. Made it, and I’m ready to fight.”

“Detrot, huh?” Meteor said, sizing the bat pony up. “Pretty rough there. I guess you’ll survive for at least a little while.”

“Sounds like fun,” Blazer replied. Meteor smirked at him, and then went back to his paperwork.

Blazer took a seat next to Mustang and waited there with him, doing exactly what Mustang was doing leading up to Blazer’s arrival. He was clearly impressed and did nothing to hide it, awing at the medals and oohing at the pictures. Mustang had learned to be as stoic as possible in basic, so Blazer’s constant noise was growing rather irritating.

Mustang kept his discipline and looked with his eyes, not his head. Ahead of him, Meteor was just sitting and doing his paperwork like neither of the new stallions was there. Mustang was growing impatient, but he did his best to hide it.

Blazer, meanwhile, had taken to observing his new teammate. He freely stared at Mustang from the side and did nothing to hide it. It made Mustang uncomfortable, and he wanted to turn and tell Blazer to look somewhere else, but he had to stay disciplined. But Blazer had another idea.

“So, where do you come from?” he asked.

Mustang quietly sighed. “I’m from the 51st Battalion of the Air Guard.”

Meteor looked up for a second, then back down. “Very cool,” Blazer said. “I don’t really come from a combat unit. I was in one before this, but didn’t get deployed. My experiences come from living in Detrot and fighting fires.”

“I’m sure that made you a very fit individual,” Mustang replied.

Blazer laughed. “I sure hope so!” he said. “If not, I’m afraid that you and I won’t be working together for very long.”

“I don’t expect that we will,” Mustang thought.

Mustang turned back to Blazer. “So, boss, what’ll our first assignment be?” he asked. “I’m ready to get out there, sir.”

Meteor looked up. “Since you thought to ask,” he said as he set his pen down. “I have a team for you. You’ve been assigned to fifth squad. A stallion named Aardvark will be your squad leader. Meet him in Barracks eleven at once.”

Both new stallions stood. “Yes sir!” they said together, one with a smile and another with a soldier’s discipline.

Together, they marched out of their new CO’s office and walked to their barracks to meet their new team, feeling excited for the adventures that awaited them in the near future.

FNG

Mustang and Blazer walked through the camp to Barracks Eleven as fast as they could without running. They had to do the best they could to appear calm if they wanted to win any respect from the new teammates. It was the 35th; to be the best, you had to act like the best.

Even while trying to stay calm, though, Blazer was chatting away. Most of his words were directed toward Mustang, but some were for anyone who heard. Mustang listened half-caringly, wishing that Blazer would wait until it was time to meet the whole team to introduce himself.

“So yeah, I fought fires in Detrot,” Blazer said. “Most of the fires up there are arson, really. That’s why the Royal Guard set up a fire division there.”

“Arson? Really?” Mustang said. It really did surprise him.

Blazer nodded. “Yeah. Crazy ponies, mostly pyromaniacs. They were always on scene, so the fire division had to be able to arrest them. Other times, we were dealing with more dangerous individuals or groups, and the groups were always the worst.”

“What group would want to start a fire in Detrot?” Mustang asked.

Blazer chucked. “The very guys I’m here to fight,” he said. Mustang raised an eyebrow. “I was proud of fighting fires up there, but if I want to help put an end to most of them, it’ll take us bringing the fight to the source. If we don’t take these guys out, the fires will continue and ponies will keep dying and being injured.”

“I hadn’t known that the gryphons were causing fires in Equestria,” Mustang said in shock.

Blazer nodded. “It’s part of why we’re invading. They keep talking about taking our resources and ‘totally annihilating us, but the real problem is that they’re trying to weaken us. They can say what they want, but if they can make a real possibility, then we need to act.”

Mustang took it all in. He hadn’t known about all this, that the gryphons were bringing the war to their very home. It made Mustang’s blood boil. Who were the gryphons to attack the ponies, just because they wanted what the ponies had? That’s what trade was for, after all. The gryphons were just selfish, savage brutes that would stop at nothing to fulfill their primal desires for battle and get the material possessions they wanted.

“I can hear that,” Mustang said. This guy was more than he was expecting.

“So, what brought you here?” Blazer asked.

“Me? I was already in the Air Guard for eight years. I was doing well in the 51st, and I was given two options: leadership, or a newer, tougher unit. I wasn’t born to lead, so I decided I wanted to come here.”

Blazer nodded slowly. “I see,” he said. “In the fire division, we were taught that leaders are made, not born. I never led, but I saw some guys who started out weak become incredible leaders.”

“Good for them,” Mustang said. “But I wasn’t interested, really. I want to be a part of the best, and leading the 51st would have been good, but not the way I want.”

Blazer finally stopped talking with one last nod. Mustang was glad to have learned those things about him, but he was glad for the brief respite from the talkative stallion. His respite didn’t last, though, because Blazer only stopped talking because they were before their new barracks.

They both looked at each other once, then Mustang knocked on the door. From inside, the pair could hear music playing, though they couldn’t place what kind. Some voices could just be heard over the music. When Mustang had his hoof back on the ground, the door swung open.

A tall stallion stood before Mustang and Blazer, looking down coldly and directly into their eyes. He was a light, sandy brown with a blonde, short cut mane and tail. His eyes were large and a deep shade of hazel. There were several scars on his forelegs and chest, burn patches on his sides, and he was more muscled than most stallions on the base.

He raised an eyebrow at the silent stallions. “Can I help you?” he asked.

Mustang swallowed lightly. “We’re here to meet our new unit,” he said. “Fifth squad. I’m Mustang.”

“And I’m Blazer,” Blazer said.

The stallion continued to look down at them with an ice-cold expression and drills for eyes. Neither Mustang nor Blazer moved, just stared back, trying to hide their discomfort. Then, out of nowhere, the stallion before them laughed and closed his eyes, instantly warming up.

“Well, come on in, then,” he said. He turned and walked inside. Mustang and Blazer followed without hesitation, happy to be past that little moment.

Inside, it was incredibly roomy. At least, it would have been, if not for all the equipment everywhere. There were many fewer stallions inside than the other barracks, so it was less humid and putrid smelling. Aside from their greeter, Mustang and Blazer saw three stallions, going about their own business as if Mustang and Blazer weren’t even there.

“It’s good to finally have some new blood,” the stallion leading them said. “One of our guys just retired to pursue other interests, and the other was injured pretty badly. Had to get his whole ugly mug fixed. Looked better, honestly.”

Mustang blinked and Blazer chuckled. “Hm,” Mustang said. “I don’t think I asked your name.”

“You can call me Aardvark,” the stallion said. “I’ll be your squad leader.”

“Well, hello sir,” Blazer said with a little salute. “I’m Blazer, from-“

“I know where you both came from,” Aardvark said. “You’re from the Fire Division, Detrot Royal Guard. Fun stuff there. You-“ Aardvark pointed at Mustang. “Are that boy from the 51st that we’ve heard about. I hope you can fill in the horseshoes of our retiree.”

“I’ll do it, sir,” Mustang said.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Aardvark said. They arrived at the back end of the barracks. “Welcome to the ass end of our living quarters. You two are the newest, so you go back here.”

Blazer saw a bed and hopped over to it. “Sounds fine to me. I’m just glad to be here.”

Aardvark smiled. “A glass-half-full kind of guy, eh? It’ll be nice to have another of them.”

Mustang looked at the other bed and headed over to it to stake his claim. When he hopped onto it, he was more than a little surprised to find that it wasn’t hard as the bedpost underneath it. It wasn’t nearly as used as the beds of conventional forces, so naturally it would be a little nicer.

“So, when are we heading out for our first mission?” Blazer asked.

Aardvark turned around. “Hold your horses, buddy boy,” he said. “You still need to meet the team.” Aardvark put his hoof in front of his face. “Alright guys, we got some new blood! Introduce yourselves!”

The other stallions looked up from their work at the new guys and put down what they were doing and walked over. One of them looked like he was smiling, but two of them didn’t look like they could care any less about the new teammates. Whatever they were doing must have been important in some way.

“So,” Aardvark began. “As you know, I’m Aardvark, your squad leader. I expect for you two to do what I say-“ he gave them a mildly menacing look- “but to always take the best possible action. You’ll report to me, or, though unlikely, directly to Meteor should he request it.”

“I imagine that would either be very good or very bad,” Mustang commented.

“You don’t know the half of it!” one of the other stallions shouted with a laugh.

Aardvark laughed as well. “That’s a story for later, Strat,” he said.

The stallion stepped forward. “I’m Stratofortress, but you guys can call me Strat for short.”

It was easy to guess that the guy was from the 52nd Stratofortresses; he was huge. His back and wing muscles were absolutely enormous. The Pegasus was a light, ashen gray with a black mane and tail. He wore a cowcolt hat on his head that complimented his accent nicely. His eyes were a light gray, like his coat, and he wore a black Kevlar suit with a gray armored tactical vest. He had a lot of pockets and holsters to carry the no doubt huge amount of gear he carried.

“I dropped bombs on the Dragons six years ago when they were hittin’ our crops by the western border. Hah, those were fun times.” He walked up to Mustang and slapped him on the side, nearly knocking him over. “You speedy boys are cool, but it’s us big guys who get all the mares, hahaha!”

Mustang grinned and rubbed his side when Strat left him alone. “If only I were so endowed,” he said.

Another stallion stepped forward, but didn’t speak for a moment. He wore a pair of black sunglasses that covered a lot of his face, plus the same Kevlar suit as Strat and a Navy Blue vest. His coat was gray with splotches of white all over, and his mane and tail were flat gray with white tips. He wore a green watch on his right foreleg, weirdly standing out on his otherwise dark appearance.

“Falcon,” he said curtly. “Though some call me Viper. As long as you pick just one, we’ll be cool.”

“Alright, Falcon,” Blazer replied.

Falcon nodded. “Good,” he said. “I know you’re new, but this unit moves fast and hard. Keep up, and you’ll be welcome. Lag behind, and you’ll be unpopular. Keep that in mind.”

“Will do,” Mustang said.

Falcon looked to his right where the final teammate stood. He was frowning at the new guys, scrutinizing them mercilessly. He wore what was probably a more or less permanent scowl on his face. His snout, mane, and tail were all a stark white, while the rest of his body was pitch black. His eyes were a faint bluish green, and he wore a barely visible red Kevlar suit with an also nearly invisible earth brown vest. His watch was black and could hardly be seen on his leg.

“Eagle,” he said. “Do good and live, or do bad and get killed. We’ll talk again if you can manage the former.”

Mustang and Blazer blinked and simply nodded in response. Eagle was satisfied with that and went back to working on whatever he was doing before.

“Ah, don’t worry about him,” Aardvark. “He was with the fifteenth, and he was the fastest Pegasus there. He wanted to go to the 22nd, but they weren’t accepting, so he went here instead. He’s still looking to go there.”

“Ah,” Mustang said. So Eagle was just bitter about his place: good to know. “So don’t bring it up.”

“You boys can’t,” Strat said. “We do all the time. It pisses him off so much, pfft-ha!” Strat laughed heartily at Eagles’ misery.

“We have a special kind of chemistry here,” Falcon said. “You’ll get it fast enough.”

“I sure hope so,” Blazer said. “It sounds like it’ll be all kinds of fun!”

Falcon smirked. “The hardest workers get to play the hardest,” he said. He turned and walked back to his work.

Strat didn’t immediately go back to his work. “Hoo, boy, it’s good to have you boys here. We were short on bodies here, so they wouldn’t send us out much for missions. Now that we’re back in stock, we’ll e real popular with them gryphon customers, if you know what I mean!”

Mustang and Blazer smiled. “Can’t wait!” Mustang said. Strat smiled with closed eyes, then turned around and went back to his work.

Mustang sat on his bed and watched as his new teammates went about their work. He couldn’t tell what they were doing, as most of the time, they were blocked by the massive amount of stuff in the room, but he did see some of what they were moving around. They moved swords, spears, knives, armor, smoke bombs; every possible piece of military gear was here. They even had those fancy new Night Vision goggles, the magic ones that were just two lenses with a strap.

Mustang would find out later if he would be given gear or if he would have to get his own, but right now, he needed to set his space straight. He had just enough space for all of his stuff, most of which would arrive soon. It was set to arrive with the Globe Mistresses, but those mares took forever just to get in the air, so he wasn’t counting on having anything until later that day or even the next day. If they were tasked with a mission, he would have to make due with what he had.

“Maybe I can borrow stuff,” Mustang said to himself.

Blazer overheard him. “Yeah, I’ll have to borrow stuff too,” he said. “My stuff is coming with the Globe Mistresses. Yours probably is too actually. Maybe they’ll arrive at the same time? Anyway, we’ll both be borrowing stuff for the time being.”

Mustang sighed. “I had actually been hoping that I could borrow from you. I didn’t want to be that new guy who didn’t have his stuff together.”

Blazer snickered. “Well, I guess we’re those new guys who don’t have their stuff together, so at least we can share the burden!” Mustang smiled and chuckled at Blazer. More and more, he was getting to like him.

Who knew what kinds of adventures they would have together? They were both new in a different, fast-paced lifestyle and career now, so they would have to stick together to survive both the enemy and their own team. One thing was certain;

They were about to live a hell of a life.

On a Dime

Mustang and Blazer got their stuff later that day and set up their quarters neatly and efficiently, something the other guys must have mastered to the point that they had a system no one else understood. Compared to the rest of the barracks, Mustang’s and Blazer’s sections looked like they were made by the stallion’s mothers.

The sun was getting ready to go down, and the land was getting that bright orange glow that comes from the sundown. Mustang could see it outside his south-facing window, the sunset over the mountains of the Southern Gryphon Colonies. The major fighting was in the heart of the country, but that wasn’t the most dangerous part; outside that, there were insurgents and asymmetric fighters who would ambush soldiers and civilians on the streets. The ponies didn’t care much about the civilians being attacked right now, but they would later, so if someone helped them out now, it would make life easier later.

Mustang and Blazer donned most of their gear to make sure it fitted properly and they could make whatever adjustments were necessary. They both had light armored vests, but they were like sand compared to what their teammates used. Their ceramic plates, to their teammates titanium plates, their standard issue gear from their previous careers to the advanced weapons and equipment of the new team. Hopefully they would get some new stuff for themselves soon.

Satisfied with their gear, Mustang and Blazer removed it all and set it aside where they knew they could get to it quickly and left for dinner. The others had already left for the mess hall, but Mustang and Blazer wanted to make sure they were set to go first. They needed to be able to prepare as fast as their teammates if they wanted to even go on missions.

Together, they set off for the mess hall to get their food. One of the major differences, Mustang had heard, between the gryphon militaries and the pony military was the food situation. It was much easier to feed pony soldiers because the food was more easily preserved. Most ponies couldn’t complain about the food, even if it did taste stale a lot and tended to be cheaply grown. Not exactly Sweet Apple Acres apples, but they could survive off it.

When they arrived at the mess hall and walked in, they quickly spotted their team and noted their location. Before heading there, they went to the line to get their food. The hall was serving freeze-dried hay, tater tots, oatmeal, and as always, lots of leafy greens. It was the strangest thing, how they never seemed to get grass, the most abundant food in the country.

Food on hoof and stomachs growling, they joined their teammates at the table and chowed down.

When they sat, Strat was the first to greet them. “Howdy fellas, how are your bunks looking?” he asked. “I imagine they must look spick and spotless.”

“Just about,” Mustang replied.

Strat chuckled. “Trust me; that ain’t gonna last long. Once you get some of your own, better stuff, and more of it, you’ll need a system.”

“Like you guys?” Blazer asked.

“Nope,” Strat said. “We don’t have a system. We just remember where we put everything when we set it down.”

Mustang wasn’t sure how to respond. “Well… whatever works?” he said.

Strat nodded. “And it works very well.”

Aardvark overheard Mustang and Blazer and scooted down to talk. “Hey guys,” he said.

“Sir,” Mustang said.

Aardvark shook his head. “No need for that,” he said, dismissing the formality.

“Sure thing, siii- uhh, dude.” Mustang gave him a sheepish smile.

“Yeah,” Aardvark said with a chuckle. “Anyway, since we’re all here, let me give you a brief schedule of what we do.”

“Schedule?” Blazer said. “I thought this unit was always on call.”

“We are,” Aardvark said. “But there are shifts. We aren’t the only squad from the 35th here. There are four. We take turns throughout the day being on primary call and getting planned missions. If there is ever a situation where one squad is out, the one on rotational duty, another will pick up the mission and go out. Really, the only thing the schedule means is that one squad is fully ready and geared up to go at all times.”

“Oh,” Mustang and Blazer said together.

Aardvark shrugged. “Yeah, that’s all there is to it. Half the time, only one squad ends up still on base during the day because we all get called out.”

“So, what are the shifts?” Blazer asked. “Back in Detrot, we had two, morning and afternoon.”

Aardark smiled and nodded. “Yes, and you had two groups,” he said. “For Meteor to get the four squads he wanted, he had to make it look like all four would be in use all the time. That’s why we have four rotations, not two; first half morning, second half morning, first half afternoon, second half afternoon.”

“And which one is ours?” Mustang asked.

“First, afternoon,” Strat cut in. “When the most patrols are going out. From noon ‘til six, we’re on standby with all our gear, ready to hop on a small, four-pegasi carriage or fly out ourselves. With a speedy boy like Eagle, we usually fly out ourselves so he can go first, get information on the situation, and act if necessary or wait for us to arrive if he’ll need support.”

“I also bring small bombs with me in case I need to scare ‘em a bit,” Eagle said with a grin.

“So we’ve sort of got until tomorrow at our shift to just keep our stuff up to standard and-“

An alarm started to blare. Mustang and Blazer frantically looked around, wondering what it meant, but their teammates all knew and were already standing up. By the time Mustang turned back to them, they were leaving, and only Falcon remained.

“Move your asses, newbies, we got to get going!” he shouted before floating up and shooting out.

Mustang and Blazer got up and shot out right behind, sparing no time for questions or looks. This was their first mission here. They had to keep up and set a good first impression, or they would be left behind and probably not invited to go with them again. It wasn’t hard to get kicked out of a unit for being inadequate.

They rushed to their barracks, where they found the others already about prepared. Mustang and Blazer flew to their bunks and started throwing their gear on. They took swords, knives, small, single-shot crossbows with limited range, their armor, and helmets and goggles. It was practically nothing, compared to what the others had, but if the mission went how Mustang expected it to, they would end up doing most of the fighting while he and Blazer sat back and learned the ropes.

With their lesser amount of gear, the two new stallions were ready at about the same time as the others and ran out with them. They followed wordlessly behind Falcon at the rear of the group, wondering what they would do. Would they get a ride? Would they fly in on their own? What would the site be like?

They approached the runway and ran on, where Mustang saw no other stallions. It was clear; they were flying on their own. Since they were already running, it was easy enough to get the speed to take off, and everypony flared his wings halfway down. Strat took a bit longer to get airborne, being so much larger, but when he took off, he still soared like the others.

Aardvark took the center of a V formation. To his left was Falcon, and to his right, Strat. Behind Strat flew Mustang, and behind Falcon, Blazer. Eagle shot ahead at an unimaginable speed, something even a Wonderbolt probably couldn’t do. Mustang was looking around at the group, admiring the intensity of their battle mindsets and focus. He looked to Blazer, who was looking up at Aardvark.

Blazer saw Aardvark tap his ear, where a radio sat, and Blazer turned to Mustang to do the same. Mustang got it and turned on his radio, coming in just in time to hear the mission.

“Alright boys, we got ourselves a standard ambush today,” Aardvark said. “A patrol of Royal Unicorns was moving along a path on the side of a mountain just along the border. There were twelve of them; now there’s ten.”

Mustang blinked. They were going into some serious combat. Royal Unicorns were fabled for their toughness.

“From the Intel we got, it sounds like they’re outnumbered at least five to one, maybe seven to one. Eagle is heading out with some small bombs to weaken the assault on our guys before we arrive. He’ll do a flyby to fluster them. When we get there, we get up to the gryphons’ positions and engage them in some CQC. Be careful with any bolts you send; you never know who they might hit if they miss.”

“Sir, is there any info on their geographical advantages?” Blazer asked unexpectedly. “Altitude, rocks for cover, caves?”

“They’re up above the unicorns, or else they would be gone already,” Aardvark replied. “Blazer, you fight with Strat, and keep each others’ backs covered.”

“Yes sir,” Blazer replied.

“Mustang, you and Falcon will fight together until Eagle comes back from a fly around. When he does, you fight with me.”

“Will do sir,” Mustang replied. He felt honored to be ordered to fight alongside his commander.

“Get ready; we’re ten seconds out,” Aardvark said.

“I can see the magic blasts,” Strat commented.

As they approached, Mustang took in the sight with some humility. He had always thought himself and the 51st to be tough fighters, but they were never trapped in situations like the Royal Unicorps could be. These guys didn’t flinch when the bolts and arrows shot past them and always took careful aim before shooting. Mustang had respect for them before, but now, it was only increased.

There was a pretty good-sized crater up by where the gryphons were taking shots from, courtesy of Eagle. When Aardvark said Eagle would drop a small bomb, Mustang thought of a basic packing of a few kilograms of explosives. It looked like the stallion dropped a forty-pound bomb on the gryphons. The crater took out most of the available hiding places for the gryphons, forcing them to bunch together and take turns taking shots.

The gryphons were in a tough spot now, a perfect time to attack. Aardvark wordlessly swooped down toward the enemy, followed close by Strat and Falcon. Mustang and Blazer followed behind their respective partners, keeping up their formation on the approach.

The gryphons didn’t see the JSF soldiers coming; they thought Eagle was close air support. When the team landed on top of them, the gryphons faltered in their attacks on the unicorns and lost a lot of their footing as they tried to redirect some of their fire onto the pegasi among them. A couple of them loosed bolts, but ended up hitting their comrades instead. The lack of training in most of the insurgent fighters made them easy to falter when surprised.

“GO GO GO!” Aardvark commanded.

The team went on the offensive and closed in on whatever gryphons they could. Mustang and Falcon flew over to distract some of the ones in the front so that Aardvark, Strat, and Blazer could take them even further off-guard. By the time they landed, they could already hear the fighting behind them.

The tactic did put them in a tough position though; they were in the center of the group. Mustang prepared himself by pulling out his short sword and crouching low. Behind him, at his back, Falcon stood unfazed by the gryphons with a grin on his face.

“Ready kid?” he asked. “This is how you do CQC.”

The gryphons attacked, and Mustang jumped up into the air to fight them in the most maneuverable way possible. He cut down two off the bat, sending them to the dirt with almost no noise. He still had several in front of him, though, and he wasn’t sure he could take them.

The unicorns, however, were still firing up at the gryphons. With the introduction of the Air Guardsponies, the gryphons were mostly forced out of cover, and exposed to Unicorn fire. Magic blasts came up and struck down three gryphon almost immediately, distracting the remaining two for long enough that Mustang could attack.

He started with the one on his left, who was just returning his attention to Mustang. He saw Mustang coming and drew a small sword, which he used to block Mustang’s incoming strike. Mustang responded to the block with a jump and a flip, landing behind the gryphon. The gryphon was fast, though, and turned around just in time to parry Mustang’s stab.

The other gryphon had no sword, and lunged at Mustang with his talons out when he came back to the fight. Mustang feigned a sidestep, but went quickly backwards, fooling the gryphon into sending his claw in front of him. Mustang ended his fighting spirit with a quick thrust of his sword into the gryphon’s torso. He had to carry the word in his teeth for now because it made for his most powerful strikes, and he could feel his face growing wet with his foe’s blood.

Mustang was in a compromising position now, though. He was in no place to respond to an attack, and the other gryphon decided to take advantage of it. With no regard for the body of his fallen friend, the gryphon swung his sword around at Mustang’s neck, intent on beheading him and ultimately landing the blade in his dead comrade’s chest.

No sword is worth a stallion’s life, so Mustang let go of the dead gryphon, sword still in him, and hopped back. The body fell backwards and rolled just far enough to land on the ledge, then roll down the hill. The Royal Unicorns below must have thought he was trying to escape, because they were basting away at the dead gryphon like he was the ringleader of the entire group.

Weaponless now, and with no chance to pull his secondary, Mustang thought. He had his wrist-mounted mini crossbow, but he didn’t want to use it. With the gryphon advancing on him, though, he might have to. It wasn’t big enough to kill without a neck or eye shot, but it would do to distract him.

Mustang raised his foreleg and tensed, activating the firing mechanism and loosing a bolt at the gryphon in front of him. The bolt hit home and buried itself in the gryphon’s chest, knocking away feathers and drawing blood. The four inch long bolt was about halfway in when it stopped.

The gryphon looked at it, then Mustang, then at it again. He began to laugh. Mustang was confused; these little bolts were supposed to be strong and have at least some stopping power! What gave?

“You think something as puny as that can stop me?” he asked.

Mustang looked at him, then noticed something in the sky far past him. He focused on it for just a moment, just long enough to see what it was. It was Eagle, coming back from his fly around, wearing an expression of pure, frozen combat rage. Mustang couldn’t help but smile.

“No,” he said, then leaned on a rock. The gryphon looked at him, confused. “But I think that can.” Mustang pointed at Eagle coming up fast.

The gryphon turned just fast enough to see something blurry shoot toward him, then a sword ripped through his neck and sent him spiraling into the air and back to the ground.

Eagle used the strike to slow himself down and flew back over to Mustang and Falcon. He ignored Mustang and went straight to Falcon, whom he high hoofed and shared chuckles and praises with. Mustang was a bit peeved at being ignored, but it was to be expected. He tore the sword out of the dead gryphon from the fight and put it back into its sheath.

And even if he would have stayed peeved, it wouldn’t have lasted. When he saw Falcon’s foes around him, his jaw went slack. There were at least six gryphons around him, all dead, with no cuts or bleeding wounds. Not a drop of blood anywhere, not a scratch on the stallion.

“How did you do that?” Mustang asked him.

Falcon knew what he was asking. “By being just that good,” he said with a grin. Mustang felt the grin become contagious and shook his head in mild disbelief.

“Yo, Speed Racer, Sunglasses, Newbie! Over here!” Aardvark ordered. The stallions share done look of agreement on a job well done and walked over to him.

“Sir?” Falcon asked.

“Some of the gryphons appear to have gotten away after Eagle dropped his payload,” Aardvark explained. “They’re long gone by now, but the Unicorns have regrouped and are gonna go on the hunt. We’re going to take the bodies of their boys and escort them back to base, where they will be prepared for transport back to Equestria. Are we all good?”

“I think we can go for it,” Strat said. “We’re all fine. Who carries the bodies?”

“I say we make the new guys do it,” Eagle said. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to carry any more this week.”

“Same here,” Falcon said.

Aardvark frowned, then looked to Mustang and Blazer. “Are you good for that?” he asked. “I understand if you feel weird.”

“Sir, I carried the bodies of little ones out of burnt out buildings,” Blazer replied solemnly. “I can do this.”

“If I need to get used to it, I’ll take it,” Mustang said. “Better to do it when it’s safe for the first time than when it might not be.”

“We’re never totally safe out here,” Aardvark said. “But sure. You guys can take them.”

The team flew down to the unicorns, who had draped black plastic bags over their lost stallions. Some were teary in the eyes, others tense at the jaw. They all looked upset by the loss, but whatever reaction they had, they all had the same emotion in their eyes. They were ready to go out for blood.

When the team landed, the dead ones were brought up to them and laid down gently so as to respect the dead. The lead unicorn walked up to Aardvark to explain the nature of their injuries and deaths so that he obituaries would be written properly and detail the heroism they had displayed.

Mustang and Blazer loaded the bodies onto their backs. Before they could return to their own guys though, one of the unicorns came up to them.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Blazer replied. He wasn’t affected by the body on his back at all.

“So… yeah. We owe you our lives. If you hadn’t come along, we all would’ve been killed.”

“When you send out the call, we’ll answer,” Mustang said.

The unicorn smiled a bit. “Good to hear,” he said. “When you get back, you’re going to have to bring the bodies to the mortician, everyone’ll want to go in and see who died. You can’t let them in.”

“We won’t,” Mustang assured the unicorn.

“The one on your back,” the unicorn said to Blazer. “He had a lot of friends. Especially at San Palomino. Our unit went though there a lot to get to our base down in the colonies. He had this list of contacts for everyone…”

The unicorn handed a sheet of paper to Mustang that had names and addresses of a lot of ponies, mares and stallions. Some of the contacts were even gryphons back home, and one was actually labeled as Shining Armor, a rising Canterlot guardspony.

“Some of them are labeled as being at San Palomino,” the unicorn said. “You need to tell them one on one that he’s gone. They deserve to hear it that way.”

“Will do,” Mustang and Blazer said together.

Behind them, Aardvark was waiting. “Chop chop, boys, let’s get these guys home before they can’t be properly cared for!” he said.

Mustang and Blazer waved goodbye to the unicorn and flew off with their team, eager to bring the dead home to rest in peace and be done with the first mission of their new careers. As great as it was to be in the elite it had certain aspects that neither stallion really expected.

Aspects that, if they wanted to survive this war with their psyches intact, they would have to get used to as soon as possible.

More Than Just the Operators

The team landed back at base with the bodies and brought them straight to the morgue. Other ponies on base were gathered around to see who died and help if needed, but they stood out of the way when told to.

The mortician took them solemnly and silently, merely pointing to a few tables to leave the fallen stallions. The stallions did so with a deliberate, but not slow, pace. When they were no longer needed, they happily walked out and back to their barracks.

They were on the opposite end of the runway from where they stayed, so they had to walk the whole way there. Eagle didn’t feel like walking, though, and took off ahead of the team. Falcon shook his head disapprovingly at it, but didn’t move to stop him. Aardvark and Strat ignored it, more focused on the new stallions.

“You guys alright?” Strat asked.

“Yeah, as alright as we can be,” Mustang replied. “We did just bring the bodies of our guys back.”

“But do you feel particularly upset?” Aardvark asked.

“Sir, I was a firefighter guard in Detrot,” Blazer replied. “I have seen my share of the dead. Handled ‘em, too. After a while, you get used to it.”

“Used to it, eh?” Strat said.

Blazer nodded. “Yeah… had to pull a little filly out once. She wasn’t dead, but she was burned real bad. When I went to the hospital to check on her, they said she didn’t make it.”

“Damn,” Mustang whispered.

“You, Mustang?” Aardvark asked.

“I’ve seen combat casualties,” Mustang said. “But this was my first time bringing them back. It’s humbling, to see a guy who could’ve easily been you being brought back for burial.”

“And never forget that,” Strat said. “It can always be you. But never let it be you.”

“Rest peacefully, Phantom,” Falcon said, reminiscing the past.

They continued to walk on down the runway, watching pegasi and air carriages take off and land. It was a long runway, about a mile and a half, and they weren’t in a particular hurry. They were allowed one hour to decompress after a mission, where any and all of the others squads would be called on instead of them. Unless they were all called out, which could conceivable happen.

Thanks to their training and prior experience in the Air Guard, or the Detrot Fire Guard, the stallions all knew how to decompress quickly to maximize their rest. Already, they were zoning out and breathing calmly again. Halfway down the runway, they were back in their proper minds and ready to lie down and read books or naughty magazines.

Not long before they got to their barracks, though, they stopped at the armory and checked their gear for damages, dents, and other malformations. They wore light, non-metal armor, and the plates were fragile, so if they took any hits during the fight, they had to replace the plates. Helmet visors had to be replaced if the glass was scratched or cracked, and dulled blades, spent crossbows, or other used equipment had to be replaced or fixed.

The team walked in without much notice and went right to the back. The armorers were too busy to see anything but their work, which was good, because they were the lifeblood of the warfighters. Without them, they couldn’t possibly fight the gryphons, because they wouldn’t have any weapons. That was a part of how the 35th helped; they found hideouts of the gryphons and destroyed them, hopefully taking away their industrial and manufacturing capabilities.

“Hey, we’re back,” Aardvark said. A large blue stallion looked up from a table and smiled.

“Good to see you came back again,” he said.

Aardvark walked up to him and bumped his hoof. “Always good to come home, Comet,” he said.

Comet looked back at the team. “So. These are your new guys eh?” he asked, looking right at them. “Where they from?”

“Blazer is from the Detrot Fire Guard, moved into the Air Guard and then quickly to us, and Mustang is from the 51st, did strongly there,” Aardvark said. “Stallions, this is Comet. He oversees our gear specifically. Along with the other 35th boys.”

“I been working this unit for a long time,” Comet said. “Was a part of it myself, then left for an injury. Wanted to keep helping, so I offered my special talent to Meteor.”

“Good to meet you, sir,” Mustang said.

Comet shook his head. “I ain’t your superior, kiddo.”

“You certainly used to be,” Mustang said. “Still are to me.”

“That’s his military career talking,” Blazer said. “But he raises a good point. Though, I come from a unit where we all do the exact same thing and we all respect each other’s judgment, so I see ponies more as equals.”

“Quite a difference between these two, huh?” Comet said to Aardvark.

“Quite,” Aardvark replied. “But I like it. Variation is a good thing to have in our line of work. More flexibility and fighting abilities.”

“I hear that,” Comet said. “So what do you boys need today?”

“No more than the usual,” Aardvark said. “Check what we have, hold onto and fix whatever’s broke. We’ll pick it up when you call for us.”

“Alrighty then, just bring it to the back to my minions and we’ll get started right away,” Comet said with a grin.

The stallions took their gear behind Comet’s desk and went through another door labeled Authorized Personnel Only. On the other side, there were several ponies milling about, checking things, playing with tools, and otherwise doing little of use. When they saw the soldiers come in, though, they snapped to attention and took whatever they were asked to.

Mustang started removing his gear and setting it in front of himself like the others. His sword seemed all right, but he couldn’t quite tell in the light, so he set it aside. His plates felt perfectly fine, so he left those on. His visor, he noticed, had a little crack on the side, so he put that with his sword. The crossbow he used was evidently worthless, so he decided to put that aside as well.

“Can I take anything for you?” a feminine voice asked.

Mustang looked up to answer but stopped. Before him stood the most beautiful mare he had ever seen. She had a deep red coat of finely cared for fur, trimmed just to Air Guard standards but still somehow astonishing and standout. She had three little freckles on her face under each of her eyes, which were a brilliant shade of green, displaying earnest hope and honesty of soul. Her silky, wavy mane was not as short cut as those of other mares, and it was a soft shade of brown, like milk chocolate. Swirling with the brown was a small amount of dark green. Her well-preened, red wings stood out on her light green maintainer’s uniform.

“Uhhhhh…” Mustang replied.

She looked funny at his face. “You alright?”

“Der,” he said, trying to get his speech to function. “Yes, I am!” Mustang replied with a nervous smile. “This is my first time here. In the back of the armory. I’m new.”

She smiled. “Oh, you’re one of the new guys?” she asked. “What’re you called?”

“Mustang,” Mustang replied. She hadn’t asked for his actual name.

“From the 51st?” she asked. Mustang nodded. “My brother is there, just signed up a year ago. It’s a good unit.”

“It certainly was,” Mustang said. Then he remembered his gear. “So, this is what I think I should leave.”

“That choice isn’t really up to you,” the mare said. “I have the last say on that.”

“Oh. Well,” Mustang said, a little surprised. “What do you think needs maintenance?”

“That sword, definitely,” she said, picking it up. “It still has blood on it. Gotta clean it right, sharpen it. Your visor clearly needs to be checked and replaced, too.”

“Yeah, I saw the crack,” Mustang said. “And I don’t know if it’s screwed up, but the crossbow? The bolt didn’t do anything to stop the gryphon I shot. He actually laughed at it.”

The mare made a frustrated face. “I’ve heard about that,” she said. “Our crossbows as they are don’t do anything for us. I and other armorers have complained, as have soldiers, but the company that makes them has a firm hold on the military leaders. And they don’t seem to have new crossbows as a priority.”

“Ugh,” Mustang said, also frustrated. “I won’t even bring it any more if that’s how it is.”

The mare looked away, behind Mustang, then at the crossbow, then at Mustang.

“You know, I know exactly how these things work. Every part. If you want…” She looked back one more time. “I can adjust it for you and get you some other bolts. Pack more punch, see how they work.”

Mustang smiled. “That sounds like a good idea,” he said.

“Cool,” the mare said. “I’ll have them ready for you when I send for you to come get your gear. For now, I really need to get this done.”

“Thanks,” Mustang said. “I owe you.” He turned to walk away, but stopped when he realized something and turned back. “I never caught your name.”

The mare smiled. “I’m Serene,” she said. “You come to me for any of your personal gear needs.”

“Got it,” Mustang said with a stupid grin.

“Mustang!” Aardvark lightly shouted, getting the stallion’s attention.

“Sir!” Mustang responded like he was always trained.

“Let’s get out of the armorers’ way, let them work,” Aardvark said. “You can embarrass yourself some other time.”

Mustang blushed a little. “Yes sir,” he said.

The team left the armory and went to the barracks, where they unloaded all their remaining gear and got to relaxing. Eagle was already there, face buried in a tactics manual and not noticing the other guys coming in. Falcon walked right over to him and started talking to him, but Mustang and Blazer went right past them to their spots in the back. Whatever they were talking about, it sounded heavy, and the new guys didn’t have any place being a part of it.

Aardvark and Strat went to their own bunks, but kept their eyes on Falcon and Eagle. The two seemed to be a pair of sorts, and Falcon was the only one who would talk to Eagle. After a minute, Aardvark looked to Strat, who nodded, and left the pair to him, then walked back to Mustang and Blazer.

“So, now is when we get a bit of relaxation,” Aardvark said as he approached. “Anything you two like to do?”

Blazer grinned at his squad leader. “I got exactly what I need,” he said, pulling out a magazine. On the cover was a fancy carriage with no one pulling it. “And it ain’t carriages.” He let the carriage magazine slip just enough to reveal a playcolt magazine underneath.

Aardvark grinned. “Well, when you’re all finished, you’ll have to share with the rest of us. We don’t get to see it much, since it isn’t strictly allowed by base regulations.”

Blazer understood. “Every stallion has to feast his eye son something,” he said.

Aardvark turned his attention to Mustang. “This one wants to feast on more than just pictures!” he said, laughing and slapping Mustang’s back.

Mustang coughed. “W-what?”

Aardvark laughed. “Don’t even try to hide it! You thought that Serene was gorgeous, didn’t you?” Mustang blushed a little. “No need to hide it, she’s a pretty mare. Not to my taste, or age, but I can see it.”

“Am I hearing that the new guy has already got a crush?” Strat said, walking over. “I missed the details. Who is she? What she look like, eh?”

“It’s Serene,” Blazer replied quickly.

“Ooh!” Strat said. “She’s pretty. Good pick.”

“I didn’t pick anypony,” Mustang said.

“That ain’t what it sounds like,” Falcon said, coming back with Eagle.

“Sounds like Mustang has a secondary mission here on base,” Eagle said with a grin.

Mustang snorted. “No, there isn’t a second mission. Yes, she’s pretty-“

“So you DO find her attractive!” Eagle said.

“Yes, but so do you guys-“

“But she isn’t really in our age ranges,” Strat said.

Mustang blinked. “How much older could you guys be than us?” Mustang asked.

“More than you think,” Aardvark said. “We take pride in our youthful appearances.”

“Good for picking up mares?” Blazer asked, keeping his eye son his magazine.

“Nah, just good for photos,” Falcon replied. “But anyway, back to Mustang.”

“She’s pretty, but I don’t know her,” Mustang said. “And I don’t know how much time I’ll even have, or she’ll have-“

“Don’t give us that BS, dude,” Strat said. “You know you’ll have time. And so will she. You just gotta go for it.”

Mustang was having trouble thinking of a response. “I don’t know- I can’t… Never mind.”

Strat laughed along with everypony else. “You know this won’t end any time soon,” Strat said.

“I have a feeling it won’t,” Mustang replied with a groan. Aardvark stayed while the others went back to their own spots.

Aardvark patted Mustang on the back. “This is just one kind of harassment we give each other,” he said. “We all went through it. I’m married; imagine what that was like. So’s Strat. Falcon has a steady marefriend, and Eagle is more concerned about work than mares.”

“You must give him flak for that,” Blazer commented.

“Sometimes,” Aardvark said. “But now, Mustang is in our sights.” Mustang sighed. “Buck up, kiddo. You endured training.”

“Something tells me you’ll make this worse than training,” Mustang thought.

Not long after that, the team went to the mess hall for a good, hot meal. Flying at altitude and fighting in the mountains got cold, and even though they were in the desert, the bone-chilling cold of the mountains had set in. Only a hot meal could help them.

At the mess hall, they received a special meal because they just came back from fighting. They were given bowls of tasty onion soup with lettuce sides and bread. The bread was nearly stale, but dipping it in the soup made it taste good again.

The team took their seats at a table toward the window to watch pegasi and a select few others walk by. Maintainers were always running around like ants bringing food back to the hill, keeping the carriages and big weapons in top shape and usability. They were vital to the base, like the armorers, the carriage pullers, often called pilots, the tower controllers, and more.

The team even saw Meteor walk by, briskly and with a purpose. He may have been their commanding officer, but he was always going places, most of which the guys didn’t know. It was probably el above their pay grade anyhow.

“Where do you think he goes?” Falcon wondered aloud.

“Who knows?” Eagle responded with a full mouth. Maybe he has a lady on base he doesn’t’ want anypony to know about.”

“He is a stud muffin,” Strat said. “Probably gets some from mail mares, like in the cheap films they sell in Las Pegasus.”

“Nah, he’s classier than that,” Aardvark said. “He’s probably got a secret lover here on base. If I were to guess, she would be in the tower.”

“Not like our friend,” Strat said with a grin.

Mustang stood up. “I gotta go to the bathroom,” he said quickly. The guys laughed as he rushed off. “He’ll get used to it eventually.”

Mustang went to the restroom and relieved himself of what felt like a fifty lb. bomb. When he finished, he washed his hooves and rear, dried off, and strode out the door feeling fresh and light. When he came back to the table, he wasn’t paying attention to the new pony standing nearby.

“It always feels good to drop a massive deuce,” he said.

He looked at the guys at the table, who sat there silently, staring at him. Then, without warning, they burst into laughter, smacking the table with hooves and leaning their faces on it. Mustang raised an eyebrow at them, wondering why they were laughing, but it became all too clear a moment later.

“I bet it does,” a female voice said.

Instantly mortified; he recognized the voice; he turned to see Serene, standing there giggling. His face turned red, getting more laughter out of her, and he went and sat right back down. Next to him, Aardvark could barely even move, he was in such hysterics.

“What brings you here, Serene?” Blazer asked, as the first one to recover.

“I actually came here to see Mustang,” she said. All the guys looked to him with a grin. “But I don’t know how many more sorties he needs to make before he has the time.”

“He’s all ready now, I suspect,” Aardvark said. “Mustang, go ahead and talk to this nice young mare. We’ll meet you back at the barracks.”

“Oh, we don’t need you to leave,” Serene said, hoping not to inconvenience anypony.

The guys all got up. “No, not to worry,” Falcon said. “We were just leaving anyway.” They weren’t even done with their food. They had to shove it down their gullets before leaving to eat their good meals.

Mustang shook his head with his hoof over his eyes. “Those guys,” he muttered.

Serene giggled. “I’ve always thought they were funny,” she said. “And you’re a good fit.”

Mustang turned to her. “Mostly by accident,” he said smiling. He was glad she thought he was funny.

She sat down next to him, making Mustang move a little. “Anyway, I came here to tell you that I’ve got your crossbow ready.”

“Already?” Mustang asked. “What about the other gear?”

“I work fast,” she said. “That’s how I like to work. It gives me more ‘me time’.”

“Always a good thing to have,” Mustang said, trying to avoid sounding nervous. “So do you know if it’ll work well enough?”

“The only way to know is to test it,” Serene said. “You’ll have to use it to find out. I think it’ll work; I’ll get you heavier bolts to give the shots more momentum, on top of a stronger and more powerful crossbow.”

“Great,” Mustang said. “So, is there any catch?”

“You have to come to me to get new bolts,” Serene said. “No one else can provide them.”

“Sounds good to me,” Mustang said a little eagerly.

“Excited for a working weapon?” Serene asked, amused by the stallion’s apparent eagerness.

Mustang caught himself without grace. “Uh, yes, definitely,” he said. “It’ll help us out a lot.”

“But it’s just for you,” Serene said. “I don’t want to risk this being found out. That could end badly for both of us, what with the regulations on issued gear.”

“Our little secret,” Mustang said.

Serene smiled. “Exactly,” she said. She stood up. “Well, I have to be going. Me and the other girls always meet up in our barracks a little early to chat and eat some little snacks.”

“Sounds like fun,” Mustang said, also standing up. “I’ll see you later, then?”

“Whenever you need and after each mission,” Serene said. With that, she walked away.

Mustang stood stupidly at the table, watching her go. She didn’t walk with any swagger, just straight like any guard or soldier. She was fit; he could see the muscles moving. He found himself staring, despite his best attempts, and distracted himself by looking out the window.

He reeled back with a cry when he saw what was outside. The guys were all lined up outside the window, watching him interact with Serene the whole time. He hadn’t even noticed. When he recovered, he saw Strat mouth, Nnnnnice. With an embarrassed frown and a groan, Mustang left the mess hall to go back to his barracks and take the inevitable abuse from his team that he knew the only way to survive was to ride it out.

Trial Run

Mustang naturally had to take further harassment when he returned to the barracks after seeing the guys watching him through the window. He would have to be careful about them being around when he saw Serene for bolts and the like. That wouldn’t work, though, since they went to her and her coworkers after every mission.

Eagle was relentless on Mustang, but the new stallion was able to shoot back at Eagle’s apparent lack of interest in mares as him being too scared. Eagle took it in stride, and conceded, since he couldn’t think of a good response fast enough. The other guys, though, couldn’t be beaten. Blazer was minimal in the whole thing, but when he jumped in, he made clever comments.

The team wasn’t called on for the rest of that day, so they relaxed in their rooms, checking things, reading things, and making things. Mustang went and got his new crossbow and new stuff form Serene at the armory, careful not to be followed by his teammates. Serene happily gave him his gear and wished him well, making Mustang nearly stutter out that he wished her well as well. He had trouble not looking like an idiot around her.

When he got back to the barracks with his gear, it was starting to get late, so he and the others decided to hit the sack. Before the other guys slept, Mustang told them to get their gear, leaving him alone in the barracks.

Mustang set his gear, other than the crossbow, back into its proper order on the walls and floor. He looked over at the experienced soldiers’ bunks. They had a ridiculous amount of gear. Nightvision, not an easy thing to get, magic range finders, and other things that were too complicated for Mustang to make himself. He might get issued this stuff later sometime, but he didn’t know if that was how it worked. These Special Ops guys were known to get their own gear if they didn’t like what they were given, since they also had better pay.

He knew better than to touch any of it, but he couldn’t help but go and look. He carefully selected Strat’s bunk, since he seemed the least likely to get mad. Eagle would be pissed off, Aardvark might have other secret things since he was the squad leader, and Falcon was a little intimidating. Behind those sunglasses, there could be bat eyes like Blazer’s for all Mustang knew.

Mustang looked at the gear hung up on the wall. Up top, Strat kept his large pair of NVG’s, custom tailored for his head. Just above them, he had his hat, which was on a shelf with nothing else. Just its own shelf. It must have meant something to Strat, seeing as he always wore it.

“Seeing the special stuff?”

Mustang felt his heart skip as he jumped a little into the air. Just behind him stood Falcon. He must have snuck in while Mustang was looking at Strat’s stuff. Mustang turned to see Falcon, taking in a deep breath to calm back down.

“Is it issued, or do you guys get it yourselves?” Mustang asked.

“Some of it is issued,” Falcon said, pointing at the stuff by the floor. “We like the armor we get, and the rangefinders are nice. They give us comms, too, but they’re lousy. We talked to Meteor, and he said we would get some new ones. Good for you, you don’t have to replace anything.”

“What kinds of missions do you use comms and rangefinders for?” Mustang asked.

“Those are for more extended missions, where we’re looking for something and trekking through landscapes,” Falcon said. “We also have high-powered binoculars. Too bad our crossbows aren’t good.” Falcon gave Mustang a knowing look.

“Uhh…” Mustang said.

Falcon chuckled. “Relax, I won’t say anything,” he said. “I know this is how you’re gonna get to talk to her more.”

“That really isn’t why I did this,” Mustang said honestly. “I shot a gryphon on the last mission, and he laughed. LAUGHED. I need a better crossbow.”

Falcon probably blinked. “Well, that is a good reason,” he said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you’ll be seeing her a whole lot more.”

Mustang sighed. “I know she’s really pretty, but I don’t think I can pursue her. The job doesn’t give me easy times, I might be pulled to another base…”

“Silly Mustang!” Falcon said. “Aardvark made it work. Strat made it work. I’m making it work with my marefriend. And those armorers? They work with our unit. Where we go, they go. That isn’t an issue.”

Mustang shook his head slowly. “You guys aren’t letting this go, are you?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Falcon said.

Mustang had to change the subject. “So what’s so special about that hat?” he asked.

Falcon looked at Strat’s hat. “That? That’s Strat’s most personal thing on base.”

Mustang cocked an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”

“When he got married, his wife’s dad was a farmer,” Falcon explained. “One of those Apple family farmers, famous for their apples. Not the owner of Sweet Apple Acres, but still, a good farm. Shortly after that, he fell fatally ill. Strat happened to be home at the time with his wife. After the family was done seeing him, he called for Strat.”

“Sounds like he needed to tell Strat something,” Mustang said.

“Yep,” Falcon said. “He wanted to make sure Strat could take good care of her. By this time, he was a Nighthawk, so the dad didn’t know exactly what he did; only that he had a dangerous job in the guard. He told Strat something personal that Strat hasn’t even told us, and then gave him the hat.”

“Wow,” Mustang said. “So that hat is his wife’s father’s last memento to him.”

“That’s right,” Falcon said. “We all have some particularly important item from home or loved ones. You’ll have one eventually, and it’ll remind you of where you come from and where you’re always fighting to get back to and keep alive.”

Mustang nodded slowly. “I do have something,” Mustang said.

“Oh?” Falcon asked.

Mustang walked over to his bunk. “I haven’t shown it to anypony,” he said. He fished through one of his bags as Falcon walked over. “It’s this.”

Mustang held up an adjustable string, clearly meant to go around his neck. On the bottom, hanging, was a tooth, probably from a shark. It was a good size, around an inch and a half in length. It was razor sharp, too.

“Nice,” Falcon said, taking it in. “Where did you get it?”

“I found it along one of the shores off of Fillydelphia,” Mustang explained. “I brought it back, and my mother made it into a necklace for me. My dad drilled the hole, and she weaved the string.”

“Nice,” Falcon said.

Mustang put it back. “I come from there, and I’m damn proud of it,” he said. “Always gotta remember where you come from. It’s a part of you.”

“Amen to that,” Falcon said.

Soon, the other guys came back. No one else really felt like talking, so they all went to sleep, hoping not to be woken in the middle of the night.

The next morning, the team got breakfast and did its morning PT. It was way more intense than what Mustang and Blazer used to do, but they kept up nicely.

After they finished up, everyone sort of went their separate ways for the morning. Strat went to the weight area to get some serious working out done. The guy was a tank, so it was to be expected. Eagle went to the track to fly laps, and Falcon and Aardvark went to talk to the other squads on base.

When they were gone, Mustang grabbed his new crossbow and headed to the range to test it out. He was eager to see just how much more powerful, and hopefully stable, it had become after Serene’s tinkering. He put the heavy bolts in his case and slung the crossbow across his back and made his way out.

“Hey, wait up!” Blazer shouted as Mustang left.

Mustang walked out the door and waited for a minute while Blazer got whatever it was he was he needed. When he came out of the barracks, he had his own crossbow on his wrist and bolts across his back.

“Practicing with the ranged stuff today, eh?” Blazer asked. “I could use some practice myself, so let’s go together.”

Mustang had been hoping to go alone, but it didn’t matter too much. It would provide a good comparison, seeing a regular crossbow fire net to his.

“Sure, let’s go,” Mustang replied.

They walked to the firing range. From a distance, they could faintly here the signature twang of the crossbows releasing their locks and loosing their bolts downrange. Louder still were the unhappy groans and grunts over the ineffectiveness of the weapons. Mustang decided that he should go off to the end of the range, where no one liked to go because it was so far, so that he wouldn’t be seen with an altered weapon.

When the pair arrived at the range, a lot of stallions and mares were already leaving. Some of them looked indifferent, one or two were happy, but most were dissatisfied with their weapons’ performance. The officers usually would say that it just meant they weren’t good enough, but if the lack of holes in the wooden targets was any indication, skill was irrelevant to the current weapons. The Unicorps was lucky that they could use magic instead of crappy bolts.

Mustang and Blazer made their way quietly to the end of the range and set up their weapons and bolts. When they set them up on the table, Mustang’s crossbow only had marginal differences when compared to Blazer’s, but the differences were there. The materials looked darker in color, and the high-tension string was a little bit thicker on Mustang’s. Blazer didn’t say anything if he noticed, though.

“Let’s get shooting,” Blazer said.

They set up their crossbows on their forelegs and took aim. Blazer started firing as fast as he could, getting as much firepower downrange as he could in a short time. He was fast with his reload, but given the single-shot nature of the weapon, it wasn’t fast compared to any other weapon. The bolts pierced the target downrange, but it took a large number to knock it down.

Mustang took his time aiming, as he didn’t want to waste his special bolts. His crossbow came with a new sighting system, much more efficient and better for acquiring targets at range. He took his time aiming, and when he thought he had the target, he fired.

The crossbow was much more powerful than he expected, and the recoil sent his foreleg back, almost causing him to stumble and fall over. The bolt shot forward, whistling through the air and slamming into its target with enough force to make a loud clang sound against the metal pole holding up the thin wooden target. The target fell backwards onto the ground with a loud thud.

Mustang blinked, and next to him, Blazer just stared. The target was definitely down, and if that were a gryphon, he wouldn’t be getting up. Mustang looked at the crossbow on his wrist and smiled a little bit, happy that it worked so well. He would have to thank Serene after killing the first gryphon with it.

“Whoa,” Blazer said.

Mustang turned to him. “Guess I got the good one, eh?” he lied.

“Like Hell,” Blazer said, not believing his friend. “You messed with it.”

“I didn’t,” Mustang said truthfully. Sort of.

“No duh, I know YOU aren’t smart enough for that,” Blazer said with a grin. Mustang gave him a deadpan look. “Whodunit?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mustang said.

“It was Serene, wasn’t it?” Blazer asked. When Mustang didn’t answer, he got a huge grin on his face and walked over to his buddy. “Oooh, somepony’s got a personal helper! And he’s got a crush on her!”

“I don’t have a crush on her,” Mustang said with a small blush.

“So she DID alter your weapon,” Blazer said victoriously. Mustang realized his mistake and groaned. “Relax, I won’t say a word.”

“Good,” Mustang said. “’Cuz this here crossbow has a lot more range than yours.”

Blazer laughed. “I saw!” He looked out at the target. “That thing is ridiculous. How far do you think you can shoot?”

“Not sure,” Mustang replied. “Let’s find out.”

Blazer stepped back as Mustang took aim for a second time. He had to adjust to aim at the farthest target, about a hundred-fifty yards out. Blazer was doubtful that Mustang could hit it, even if he had the range, but stayed quiet while he waited for the shot to fly. When Mustang loosed the shot, they watched it together as it soared toward its target.

Mustang didn’t quiet hit the target, landing the bolt about two and a half feet a way, but it easily made the distance. Mustang was aiming at a twenty-nine degree angle, far from the max range possible. When the bolt hit the dirt, it sent up a plume of dust and buried itself halfway in.

Blazer whistled. “If you can get better at shooting, you could do what the Unicorps does and be a ranged marksman,” he said.

“That would be pretty useful,” Mustang said. “But I don’t know that Aardvark would want to leave a pair of guys alone while the now two-thirds-sized team presses on. It creates too much vulnerability. It might work for a larger unit, but not a six stallion team.”

“Agh, you’re right,” Blazer conceded. “It’s a good idea, though.”

Mustang nodded. “Certainly,” he said. “I’m going back to the barracks. I accomplished what I wanted to today.”

“Alright,” Blazer said. “I still need practice. I’ll see you later.”

Mustang left Blazer at the range and made his way back to the barracks. He thought about how he would go about thanking Serene for the crossbow. There wasn’t really much on base that one could do or get. There were a few stores that were meant to remind the soldiers of home, but there were mostly restaurants. He could get her lunch or dinner, that would be nice. He would need to find out where she was from originally from.

“Lunch seems good,” he concluded.

He went back to the barracks and put his gear where he could quickly get it for later and started thinking about the lunch date he would try to set. He had some money, so he could go someplace decent on base. The only problem was his deployment schedule; it wasn’t going to be easy. And he should really wait until after he takes down a gryphon, so he can truthfully say that the weapon is really good.

That meant waiting until after the next mission, which was fine. He was coming up on the time of day where he would be going out. There was never an official guarantee, but given the nature of the team and the nature of this war, his team had a high chance of going out during their deployment hours. It was just a matter of time.

Bad Timing

Mustang waited in the barracks as the time for his team to be ready approached. The other team from the previous shift was back and relaxing, so if there were a call, his team would go out anyway. Their shift had effectively started.

Soon, Mustang was joined by the rest of his team. Aardvark and Strat came in together, laughing hysterically about some joke. They glanced once at Mustang and then laughed some more, leading the stallion to believe they were joking about him. Following them, Blazer waltzed in, looking proud of himself after what must have been good shooting, then by Falcon and Eagle, looking serious but in a somehow casual sense. It was urgent seriousness.

Everypony started suiting up and getting ready for their shift. Normally, they didn’t just suit up and wait, but there was something about today that made them want to be ready. Mustang and Blazer picked up the cue from their teammates and suited up after watching them for a few moments.

Once they were all ready, plates in their clothes, helmets on, swords and crossbows ready, they sat at their bunks and killed time. To start, they played Marefia, a game where two members of the group are with the criminal group the Marefia, one is an investigator, one can save anyone from dying, and the others are just ponies. After that got old, they had a riddle contest, which Falcon took easily.

After that, though, Mustang had to cringe.

“So, Mustang. I see you have a new crossbow?” Aardvark mentioned.

Mustang looked down at it, pretending not to know what was going to happen.

“Yeah, it’s a lot stronger too. The bolts go a lot farther, faster, and stronger, and it’s really sturdy. Just gotta know how to play its strings.”

“I bet Serene played his strings real good,” Eagle said. Mustang heard and was about to come back when Falcon cut in.

“Hardly, he has no tact,” he said, grinning at the young stallion. “Can’t play an unturned instrument.”

“Sick, bro,” Mustang said with a shake of his hooves. “And yeah, Serene made it for me. She just wants to better arm the Air Guard is all.”

“Giving you a special order,” Strat said. “If you’re the Air Guard to her, you better be tough; represent us well in there.” Mustang turned a deep red over his blue coat. “Not what I meant.”

“Yeah Mustang, why so quick to think about her that way?” Aardvark asked. “Rhetorical, of course.”

“She's been very helpful to me,” Mustang said. “And I owe her big for the upgrade.”

“So whatcha gonna do?” Blazer asked. “Show her how your 'twang' matches that crossbow’s?”

Mustang blushed some more. “That doesn’t even make sense,” he said. “I’m gonna offer to take her to lunch eventually, or dinner if applicable.”

“Ooh, a dinner date!” Falcon said. “That never fails.”

Mustang put his head in his hooves. “Aah, cheer up little buddy,” Strat said, patting him on the back. “You’ll get your chance.”

“You guys are the most ridiculous…” Mustang trailed off.

The guys ignored it and Aardvark kept it up. “So, if this date works out well for you and you end up together, what’s the plan after that? They do keep married couples on the same base.”

“Alright, you know what-“

A speak in the corner of the barracks crackled into life. “Fifth squad, fifth squad, report to the runway immediately!”

Aardvark stood up. “How inconvenient,” he said, looking to Mustang. “Guess this’ll have to wait.”

“Maybe they’ll forget?” Mustang hoped.

The stallions gathered up their things quickly ad ran out of their barracks to the runway. Something about the voice over the intercom had given them a much-needed sense of urgency, one that wasn’t quite there the last time. Their hooves thudded roughly against the ground as they sprinted off, their hearts racing and minds putting together plans for potential encounters.

When they arrived at the runway, there was a large carriage waiting to carry them to their destination. Before getting any information, they were rushed aboard and told to strap in, as it would be a bumpy ride. They would be going through particularly windy area to get to their area of operation.

On the carriage with them was another team of Nighthawks. That was when Mustang came to realize that this was going to be a huge mission. Two squads of Nighthawks called out at once? This was high priority.

“Aardvark,” one of them said as Fifth Squad took its seats.

“Saber,” Aardvark replied. There appeared to be some tension between the two of them. But given the circumstances, there would naturally be tension in everypony. “What’s going on?”

“We have Intel on a high priority target hiding in some caves in a mountain range further into the colonies than conventional troops can safely go right now,” Saber explained. “It’s in a hostile-controlled valley. We need to drop in about three kilometers out, make our way there, and take out any anti-pegasus weapons.”

“They have those?” Aardvark asked.

Saber nodded. “Yes. We know that they have spread-bolt launchers, ones capable of firing up to forty bolts at once to a fatal vertical range of five hundred feet. They’ve also got explosives that they can tae us out with.”

“How?” Mustang cut in. Aardvark gave him a brief look for jumping in, but then ignored it as Saber continued.

“If they set them into the side of the mountain, and they’re powerful enough, they can use them to blast metal ball bearings or other hard debris to take us out form the sides or even above if we get low enough. Stealth is key for getting to the valley; violence of action is the key of making it fast once we’re there.”

“Sounds like a tough capture,” Aardvark said.

“Kill-capture, to be more reasonable,” Saber said. “If we can’t get him out by our means, we make sure that he does not get out.”

“Alright,” Aardvark said.

Mustang thought about what he just heard while Aardvark went to inform the others who weren’t sitting as close. Was he being sent on a targeted killing mission? He didn’t know what the policies were for wartime, but he had never heard the problem addressed. With the secret nature of the unit, was this a legal action? Mustang saw it as reasonable, but he still felt a bit of apprehension.

And this valley mission. This wasn’t going to be the same as the last mission, where they flew in and swiftly took down their enemies. This was going to be a fight. Last time, Falcon didn’t even seem to break a sweat. Now, looking at him, Mustang saw a level of seriousness and intensity that he hadn’t seen before. Eagle’s scowl was terrifying, like he wanted to rip someone’s heart out and make them eat it.

Blazer was in a similar state to Mustang, sitting a few seats down from him. He was glancing around at the other soldiers, trying to see what his face should look like. He experimented with several looks, but none of them looked all that sure.

“Hey,” Strat said, bumping Mustang’s side.

Mustang looked up at him. “Hey,” he said. “Sounds like quite a mission.”

“Yeah,” Strat said. “Don’t start worrying about things; that’s going to be the worst way to go in there.”

“How helpful,” Mustang said.

Strat smiled. “I know this is your first intense mission, so listen up,” he said. Mustang started listening. “The key to staying calm is your breathing. You remember that, right?”

“Yeah,” Mustang said. He had learned that in Basic.

“So, just because this is your first hardcore mission doesn’t mean breathing won’t work,” Strat said. “Try it. I do it all the time. Most of what I‘ve been saying has been off of a total of two breaths.”

“That sounds difficult,” Mustang said.

“Not when your lungs are as big as mine!” Strat said, smacking Mustang’s shoulder. “It’s the same for you. Just breathe in deep, let it out slow.”

“I’ll do that, then,” Mustang said. Satisfied, Strat turned his attention elsewhere.

Mustang took Strat’s advice to heart and lung and started slowing his breathing. It took some time to calm his breathing down, though, as the ride was bumpy and made for a lot of random forces exerted on him at the most inconvenient moments. When he finally had his breathing rate steady, he kept it going for a time until he felt he knew the rhythm. When he had that, he tried relaxing his muscles until he was loose and relaxed. Already, he could feel his heart rate going down from its previous rapid pace.

Then, it jumped back up a bit when a voice came over the cabin.

“Thirty seconds!” it shouted.

Everyone had their things ready. “Showtime,” someone said.

Mustang checked everything one last time and tried to get calm again for the drop. The back of the carriage lowered, revealing a light blue sky and cold mountain air. They were above the tree line right now, if only barely, but it was still hard to breathe. Once they were out, it would be better.

“Ten seconds!” the voice shouted again.

Everypony stood up in place and faced the back, in two lines and nice and orderly. Fifth Squad stood in the order of Aardvark, Mustang, Strat, Eagle, Blazer, and then Falcon. Saber took the lead on his side, but Mustang neither knew his squad mates nor cared to at the moment. They were going to separate once in self-powered flight and act as squads, so Fifth and the other needn’t know each other. Though, it would be a good policy to have squads know each other’s callsigns.

“Go! Go! Go!” the voice shouted.

Everypony started filing out the back of the back of the carriage and jumping into the icy knives that made up the air. Aardvark and Saber went out together, then pair after pair followed. When Mustang jumped out with his counterpart, he looked briefly at him for an idea of what to do. The other stallion had his eyes dead set on Aardvark, watching for any and all maneuvers. Mustang did so immediately, understanding the importance of keeping his eye son the guy in front of him.

As much as he wanted to and his instincts screamed to, he couldn’t open his wings up this high. He hadn’t been trained for it; only a small contingent of soldiers from the 22nd were trained for arctic warfare and were trained and conditioned for cold air flight. If Mustang or the others were to open their wings now, they would be too cold and freeze up, and they might not open for the landing. Mustang could feel the frosty air nipping at him, numbing his exposed parts and trying to distract him from the task at hand.

Aardvark and Saber, ahead with their legs sprawled out, exchanged a look and nodded. They then proceeded to fold their legs under them and straighten their necks. Mustang knew what that was; it increased agility in the air by reducing drag and giving a pegasus better control when exiting freefall and entering high-speed flight.

He, his companion, and everypony behind him folded their legs and prepared to spread their wings. Mustang felt the air getting warmer; it wasn’t warm by any stretch, but it felt a lot warmer than the higher-altitude air. The, as they were approaching just above five hundred feet above a flat path on the mountain, everypony flared his wings and started zooming forward.

Mustang had trained for this sort of thing, but it was his first time actually doing it now. Wings out and angled backwards for maximum speed, he and the other stallions shot past mountains, boulders, and trees as they lowered further into the valley. They had to be fast now, seeing as it was daytime, and that was where they would get their stealth. If they moved slowly in broad daylight, they would be knocked out of the sky.

The turns were small but fast as they descended and shot through the valley. Mustang mimicked Aardvark’s path perfectly, as did all those behind him. He couldn’t tell that, though; he just figured they were experienced enough to make it.

The squad leaders made a signal with their hind legs to indicate that everyone was to totally flare out, wings, legs, and necks, to slow down and be able to come to a hover. A few seconds after they gave the signal, they did just that, and everypony behind them followed suit. In a short minute, they were all stopped and floating in a hostile valley, hopefully undetected.

“Is everyone still with us?” Saber turned and asked quietly. If he spoke too loudly, his voice would carry through the whole valley.

“I see my squad,” Aardvark replied. “Yours is good too.”

“Solid,” Saber said. “Alright guys, we’re just a little ways out. On the other side of that mountain-“ Saber pointed at the mountain ahead of them. “-Is where we believe the enemy to be. We go over the mountain and separate into our squads. Aardvark, you take Fifth and take the north half of the AO.”

“Got it. You’ll get the south. If you catch our guy or kill him, fly straight up and start flying out. Everyone will see and follow suit.”

“What if we need to retreat?” Blazer asked. Saber shot him a glare, which Aardvark replied to with one of his own.

“Same thing; fly up, get out. We all leave together.” Aardvark looked to Saber. “New.”

“I see,” Saber said. “Make sure you keep him on a leash.”

“No tighter than yours,” Aardvark said. Saber grunted and turned to the mountain.

“Lets move!” he said, getting a head start.

The squads split up and made their ways to the AO. Mustang flew next to Falcon now, Blazer with Strat, and Eagle with Aardvark. Mustang watched Saber leave for a moment, wondering what exactly was going on with that last comment Aardvark made.

“Quite a character, tha tone,” Falcon said suddenly.

Mustang wasn’t sure how to respond. “Can’t say I’ve known him long enough to know his character.”

“Just watch out for him. He’s got a history.” Falcon looked distrustingly at the other squad leader as he left their view.

“What kind of history?” Mustang asked.

“A long one,” Falcon replied. “I’ll give you the brief later.” Mustang made a mental note to bring it back up some time so he could know exactly what was going on within the 35th.

Fifth Squad went around the mountain and landed on the side, keeping close to the rocks and dirt to avoid detection. Looking down, it was clear that this area was inhabited; there was a camp with fires, the retch-worthy smell of cooking meat, and tents. Mustang couldn’t see the inhabitants from this distance, but he could see some of those Air Defense systems that had been described. He did not want to be up in the air if those were in use.

“I see a convenient dividing line down there,” Eagle said. There was a thirty-foot wide river that split the camp into an upper level and a lower level. Fifth Squad had the larger, upper level.

“No kidding,” Strat said. “Perfectly giving us two thirds of the AO. Was there recon before we got called?”

“I heard that the Blackbirds from the 71st were flying all over the country, so there must have been Intel on this. Maybe even pictures,” Aardvark said.

“Again with this,” Falcon groaned. Mustang and Blazer just looked at each other confused.

“What should we do?” Strat asked.

“We have to be really careful with this,” Aardvark said. “With so much area to cover, there could be a lot of defense systems around us right now. We need to hop off the side and flare just enough to stop ourselves from smacking the ground to get down fast enough to evade their defense systems.”

“Are the launchers manned?” Blazer asked.

Eagle looked down. “Yeah, they’re manned alright. And there’s a few of them. We’ll need to watch out as we fall-“

Suddenly, a loud boom sounded off toward the south section of the AO. Upon looking over there, the stallions stopped, shocked; the mountainside appeared to have blown apart. Eagle made some noise and pointed at several figures gliding down to the encampment, counting them as ponies and noting that all were accounted for. The camp below exploded into activity, and already, Air Defense Batteries were firing groups of bolts into the air.

“Dammit, they triggered one! We have to move!” Aardvark barked.

The squad was about to shove off of the rock face when suddenly, up above them, more explosions sounded, powerful enough to shake the Earth. When they looked up, the squad saw huge boulders coming down at them along with blinding dust and debris.

“JUMP!” Strat shouted.

The squad shoved off of the wall and started down at blinding speeds. From below, the gryphons had already spotted them and were firing anti-pegasus bolts, an infamous type of bolt used by the gryphons in the war. It had a barbed tip that would rip apart anything it tore out of, especially wings. They were fired in massive groups from the batteries on the ground, trapping Fifth Squad between a bunch of rocks and a hard place.

Mustang was behind Aardvark, Falcon, and Eagle, followed by Strat and Blazer. Ahead, he saw the stallions evading the large and small bolts shooting towards them like masters, even if the bolts just barely missed most of the time. Mustang was close enough behind that he could mostly mimic what they did to evade the bolts, but still far enough to avoid a collision with one of them.

Eagle and Falcon peeled off to force the gryphons to spread their fire, taking the left and right respectively. Mustang remained with Aardvark, while Blazer and Strat still followed behind. Mustang saw the ground coming closer and closer; only seconds had passed since they jumped. They were nearly on the ground, and once there, they could carry out their mission and make it home to debrief.

But battle plans rarely ever work out like they do on a drawing board; there are too many variables. And now, there was one variable no one counted coming into play.

Aardvark’s left wing exploded into blood and feather as a bolt tore through it. It went cleanly through thanks to Aardvark going down with incredible speed and the bolt traveling up just as fast, and shot past Mustang’s face, peppering him with blood. Mustang saw Aardvark roll in the air and lose control.

His training instincts turned on in that moment. Without a thought running through his mind nor a hair of concern for himself, he sped himself up with his wings to catch up to Aardvark. When he was on his squad leader, he wrapped his forelegs around him and grabbed him, then flared his wings completely to slow down enough to avoid slamming into the ground. Strat and Blazer shot ahead of him to give him cover as he brought their injured leader down.

When they landed, Mustang set Aardvark down and Blazer and Strat set up a defensive perimeter. Falcon and Eagle swept in from the sides, just flying above the ground, to scare any gryphons off. They then circled back and took up positions with Blazer and Strat.

“You alright, sir?!” Mustang asked.

Aardvark looked at his wing. “My wife’s gonna be so mad at me,” he said. “That was one of our favorite things to do together.” He stood up. “I’m still in fighting condition, though.”

“Boss, we gotta move unless we want those rocks to kill us,” Eagle said, referring to the rocks which were maybe ten seconds away form rolling onto the camp.

“Then let’s move!” Aardvark shouted.

With the anti-pegasus bolts in use against them, the stallions opted not to fly and risk their wings again. They quickly ran away from the edge of the camp, where the rocks soon came down and landed in an explosion of dust and pebbles. The dust spread all over the AO, reducing visibility to around twenty-five feet. No one was going to shoot blindly in this, thankfully, so ranged attacks had actually been limited. Unfortunate for Mustang, though, he couldn’t use his special foreleg crossbow.

The team started moving through the dusty camp to find their HVT and take him down. Odds were much better now that this would be a targeted killing mission, not a capture, because the element of surprise had already fallen apart and one of their teammates was injured. They couldn’t be carrying back an injured gryphon when they had to bring back their injured squad leader.

Falcon and Eagle took the lead while Strat and Mustang took the back, with Blazer next to Aardvark, acting as his buddy. There were gryphons scattering everywhere, many females and children, trying to get out of the camp before the major fighting began. At first, the team didn’t actually encounter any enemy fighters, but with the size of their search area, if their target was still around, they would find someone to fight.

“Aardvark, how do we know the target hasn’t already left?” Blazer asked.

“This target likes to stay and fight. It’s how he proves his leadership to his fellow gryphons,” Aardvark explained. “He won’t leave until he has personally killed one of us, which means it’ll be that much easier to find him.”

“How inspiring,” Mustang said.

The team stopped and ducked into a large tent, checking for enemies as they burst in. There were no fighters, but a group of children cowered in the corner. Eagle and Falcon grabbed them and tossed them outside as gently as they could in such a hurry, then watched for anyone who might come into the tent. When no one came, the team regrouped and discussed their next moves.

“Alright boys, we got a large search area and probably lots of enemy fighters,” Aardvark said. “Be on you’re A game. And watch the corners.”

“How do we make this search quicker?” Mustang asked.

“We’ll need to split up,” Aardark said. “We go as fire teams. Falcon, Eagle, take Blazer and search the left half of our section of the AO. Strat, myself, and Mustang will take the right.”

“Yes sir,” Falcon said. He turned to Blazer. “Come on, new blood, let’s go!” The trio left, with Blazer giving one last excited, yet apprehensive glance to his fellow new guy. That left Mustang, Strat, and Aardvark alone in the tent.

“They’ll be swift and efficient,” Aardvark said. “And we have to be as well. Mustang, you’ll take center, Strat, you take the front. I have the rear.”

“With all due respect boss, that ain’t a great idea,” Strat said. “You’re already injured. Let me take the back, and Mustang the front.”

“I’m fine,” Aardvark said.

“Sir, you’ve bled enough that you’ll be just a bit slower; that’s always enough to throw you off and get you killed. Strat is right.” Mustang looked hard at Aardvark while he tried to stand with Strat.

Aardvark harrumphed. “Alright, but let’s get moving! We have an HVT to find!”

The trio left the tent led by Mustang and started sweeping through the camp. There were loud clashes of metal on metal and thuds of hooves against flesh in the distance. Other than that, most of the noise from the landslide had calmed down, so one could hear pretty far. The trio had to step lightly in order to make sure they weren’t detected in the cloudy darkness.

They met several small pockets of resistance, but nothing to tell tales of; the first was a pair of gryphons armed with clubs, quickly dispatched by Mustang in the lead. A bit after, a group tried to sneak up on them, and Strat removed two of them while Aardvark swiftly killed the third. He was noticeably slower, though, and was clearly avoiding exposing his wings to further damage.

After that, they didn’t meet much. The other guys were clearly fighting, as the clashes were still quite audible, but they weren’t finding anyone. The dust was beginning to settle, revealing more of the battlefield, and the team was starting to lose hope. What if Saber’s squad had lost a member to the HVT and he escaped? What if Saber’s squad had been wiped out? No one rose from the dust, and from Mustang’s trio’s vantage point behind the tents, the other half of the AO was unseeable.

Mustang stopped. “Did you guys hear that?” he asked.

“Hear what?” Aardvark asked. They all went completely silent.

“I think we have company,” Strat said.

The stallions took a defensive posture, forming a triangle and facing all directions to see possible enemy movement. In the distance, past the dust, Aardvark saw movement and warned the others, but they saw movement in their own sectors and had to keep their eyes on that. The movement became more and more frequent and more and more visible over the following seconds, until eventually, the trio could clearly see a group of about fifteen enemy fighters around them.

These gryphons weren’t what they had seen so far; they were well armed, and armored all over. They couldn’t fly if they wanted to. Their swords were huge broadswords and even some claymores, and they all had plate armor on. The helmets they wore had small openings at their necks and for their eyes and beaks, and their legs and arms were unarmored, but those were all their weak points. Body shots would do nothing.

There was one gryphon, though, who stood out. He wore no armor, but had paint all over his body in intricate patterns. His beak was cracked and crooked, but the paint on it distracted you form seeing that. His eyes had black circles painted around them, highlighting the whites of his eyes and emphasizing the twisted, evil, and sadistic glare set deep inside. His feathers were all white under the paint, and his claws were a stark black against his body.

“We found him,” Aardvark said. The gryphon started clapping his claws together, making an awkward squishing sound.

“Congratulations. Would you like a plaque, a medal, or a cookie and some milk?” he asked.

“How about your head to bring home,” Aardvark growled.

The gryphon lowered his stance. “How about that?” he replied.

Mustang expected the exchange to go on longer, but it immediately exploded into a violent frenzy of action. The HVT charged at Aardvark and tackled him away form Mustang and Strat and the armored infantry charged at the pair still standing. As much as they wanted to jump in to help Aardvark, they had to deal with the armored gryphons first.

Mustang couldn’t think about Aardvark, lest he wish to die from distraction. He focused on the group of five gryphons coming at him, while seven went at Strat. Three were watching Aardvark.

Mustang quickly assessed what he was up against; armored gryphons heavily armed with more melee range than him, high momentum, slow, and far from agile. The only way he would win this would be to outmaneuver his opponents.

When they were close enough, Mustang took the risk and shot up about ten feet into the air to land behind them. The gryphons were unable to turn quickly, and before they could stop and do so, he knocked out one’s legs and stomped on his neck as he hit the ground. As the others came at him, he hopped up to do it again.

This time, they were ready, though, and they took some swings at him in the air. Mustang was just able to maneuver himself to evade them, but decided not to try it again. Instead, he landed low and charged at one of the gryphon’s legs, head-butting its knees and breaking them. The gryphon collapsed under its unsupportable weight and Mustang chose to leave it. It would die there eventually.

That left three more to go. These ones were a bit more hesitant to charge Mustang, so he took advantage of the opportunity and took aim with his crossbow. None of the gryphons moved because they thought that they would be safe in their armor. They were wrong; Mustang took aim right at the face of one and loosed the bolt into its left eye, and the gryphon dropped to the ground like a sack of bricks.

The remaining two, seeing no easy way to fight their more agile opponent, chose to change their attack route to go after Strat, who had taken three of his own opponents down. With the two new additions, though, he still had five to go.

Mustang jumped into action next to Strat to cover his rear while he tanked through whoever fought him upfront. With Mustang at his back, Strat could comfortably fight how he wanted. When a gryphon came at him with a downward chop, Strat rushed him, stopped the strike before it came down, and used his knife to stab it through the face. Another attacked from the side, but was stopped short when Mustang tripped it and Strat came down full force on its helmet.

Aardvark struggled to get up. He felt weakened by the bleeding from his wing, and his opponent was taking every advantage of it he could. When Aardvark stumbled, the gryphon would press the attacks and force him to roll away, just barely getting back up before the attacks continued.

“Don’t worry Aardvark, we’re coming!” Strat yelled, still battling with Mustang against their own foes.

Aardvark didn’t hear; he was too busy defending himself. The gryphon slashed at him with its talons, cutting into Aardvark’s shoulder and knocking him down again. Aardvark rolled again, this time kicking back at the gryphon and hitting him in the chest. The gryphon was knocked back, giving Aardvark just enough time to stand up.

When he was back up and in a fighting stance, the gryphon took a moment after recovering to analyze Aardvark’s stance. He was clearly weakened and exhausted, and the beating he just received did nothing for him. His friends were too busy with the armored fighters to help, and Aardvark was all his.

“Such a shame,” the gryphon said. “You could have been so useful as a gryphon.”

The gryphon charged forward and head-butted Aardvark while using his talons to keep the stallion’s forelegs down with two stop-blocks. Aardvark saw a brief flash and stumbled backwards, dazed. The gryphon followed up with several slashes across the stallion’s chest, then stabbed into Aardvark’s right shoulder with three of his talons. Aardvark shouted out in pain and fell to the ground.

“Aardvark!” Mustang shouted form the side. He leapt up into the air to provide support to his squad leader and save his life.

But he was too late. Aardvark was trying to get up, facing the gryphon to fight. But when he was half standing, the gryphon brought his arm around and slashed across Aardvark’s throat. Aardvark’s eyes shot open in shock as blood shot form his throat, painting the ground before him and the white feathers of the gryphon leader standing proudly before him.

Mustang rushed to Aardvark’s side, not to fight the gryphon, who backed up and hopped up into the air. He watched with sick pleasure as Mustang hurriedly tried to do what he could to stop Aardvark’s bleeding.

“Aardvark, you’re gonna be fine!” Mustang shouted. Aardvark gurgled, locking eyes with the young stallion, trying to send him to chase after the gryphon leader. Mustang didn’t notice, though, and kept frantically trying to stop the bleeding. The gryphon flew off into the sky and disappeared into the distance. Away from the stallions on the ground, Strat finished off the last of the armored gryphons and ran over. He came over just in time to see the end.

“Aardark, you’ll be alright,” Mustang said. He started to pick his leader up. “We’ll get you out of here!”

Strat looked to the mountains and felt his heart skip a beat. Up there, he saw something they hadn’t been counting on seeing; a small army of gryphon fighters, sitting on the side of the mountain, waiting for an order to descend on them and attack.

“Mustang...” Strat said ominously.

Mustang didn’t look up. “Come on let’s get outta here!” he shouted.

Aardvark looked up, though, and in his fading vision, he saw what Strat was warning the young stallion about. He also saw the other members of his squad flying up into the sky, escaping from the coming storm. Without any kind of warning, he rolled off of Mustang with what little energy he had left, throwing the stallion off completely.

“Mustang, we gotta go! NOW!”

Mustang looked up and saw the massive enemy force. “Then let’s fly!” He tried to pick up Aardvark, but the dying stallion was too heavy and limp.

Strat shoved Mustang away. “We have to go NOW!”

“We can’t leave him!” Mustang shouted back.

A loud series of cheers erupted from the mountainside, prompting the stallions to look up. The army of gryphons launched off of the rock face and was about to fall upon the camp.

“We have to!” With that, Strat took to the air and flew off.

Mustang looked at Aardark on the ground. His squad leader was already dead, lying there, eyes and mouth open, the light sucked away from the shattered windows into the stallion's void where his soul used to be. Mustang could hear the gryphons coming at him. He wanted desperately to take the body out of here, but it would slow him down too much.

With tears in his eyes and guilt trying to drag him to the ground, Mustang took flight and escaped after his team, all the while hearing the victorious cheers and screams of the enemy who had the body of his comrade.

An enemy he would grant no mercy in the future.

Aftershock

When the teams returned to base, they were immediately shuttled to Meteor’s barracks for a debriefing. They hadn’t yet heard about Aardvark’s demise, nor of the fact that the body couldn’t be retrieved. But everyone noticed the absence of one of Fifth Squad’s teammates.

When they entered the small building, Falcon took the lead for Fifth. He and Saber explained what happened, with Saber going first explaining that there was an old mine n the mountainside next to his team that went off, forcing them to act. He regaled to Meteor the skirmishes he dealt with on his end of the camp, throwing in clearly prideful moments of his own and occasionally shooting glances at Falcon.

When Falcon spoke, everyone was silent. He explained to Meteor how the majority f the enemy forces were on Fifth’s end, and how they had nearly been wiped out on the initial assault. He went on to explain how they handled the low visibility, and eventually, to the fight he had with the gryphons after they separated.

When Meteor asked where Aardvark was and why he wasn’t giving the briefing, it was clear he already knew why from the softness in his voice. Strat took over for that one, going into detail how the gryphon leader killed Aardvark without much trouble.

Meteor was silent for a minute, then, without warning, slammed his hoof on his desk.

“Dammit,” he said through clenched teeth. “Get out.” In solemn silence, the squads started to leave single file through the door. “But not you, Mustang and Stratofortress.”

Mustang and Strat looked back at Meteor, then to each other, and then moved to the sides to allow the others to leave. As Saber passed by Mustang, he looked sadly at him. Despite the ego he had shown minutes before, he appeared genuinely sad now.

He leaned down to Mustang. “I know he and I weren’t close, but… You lost a great leader today. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” Mustang replied. “You shouldn’t.” Saber took the hint and walked out after the rest f his squad. The rest of Fifth gave Mustang worried but approving looks as they filed out.

When the others were all gone, Meteor let himself fall back into his chair and rubbed his eyes.

“Son of a bitch,” he said. Strat and Mustang took spots before his desk. “This couldn’t have gone much worse, other than losing all of you.”

“We’ll get them next time, sir,” Strat said.

“That I don’t doubt,” Meteor said, leaning back forward. “It’s personal now. This is about more than protecting Equestria.”

“We gotta find out how to end this,” Mustang said.

“I know how we need to end this,” Meteor said. He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a file, then tossed it forward onto his desk. “The gryphon who killed Aardvark is named Guifrond. He’s known for changing his appearance to fit whatever he’s doing. Normally, that isn’t ok in gryphon culture, but he’s a strong enough warrior that they can’t do anything even if they wanted to.”

“And this Guifrond, he’s the leader of the encampment we attacked?” Mustang asked.

More than that, he’s the leader of most of the resistance,” Meteor explained, sending both Mustang’s and Strat’s eyes wide as the open sky. “You weren’t told the specific target because it was too high profile.”

“That doesn’t make sense to me,” Mustang said.

Meteor frowned at him. “It doesn’t have to,” he said. “You just have to do what you’re told.” Mustang frowned back, but took his CO’s words in silence.

“So what’s the plan?” Strat asked.

“Falcon will take over Fifth Squad, at least for now,” Meteor said. “He has the highest qualifications and good leadership. Unless you object?”

“Not at all, sir,” Strat said.

“Good,” Meteor said. “As for your question… We need to locate Guifrond and/or his assets and take note of where they go, what they do, and, if need be, eliminate any and all threats to Equestria.”

“Sounds like an adventure,” Mustang said.

“Pretty simple, really,” Meteor said. “Track ‘em, find ‘em, kill ‘em.”

“Aye, sir,” Strat said with a determined look on his face.

“Good,” Meteor said. “Now, get on out of here. I need to make some calls to Aardvark’s loved ones…” Meteor trailed off and started reaching for a pen and paper as Mustang and Strat left.

Neither stallion was particularly intent on talking at the moment. Mustang didn’t know what the standard protocol was for when a teammate was killed in the Nighthawks, but he had to assume that they might still be called on missions. They would just be the last ones called for a time.

Strat stopped, prompting Mustang to ask why. “I’m gonna hit the workout area, hit the bag,” Strat said. “I’ll be along eventually.”

“Gotcha,” Mustang said. Strat walked off in another direction, and Mustang just watched him for a moment before leaving for their shared barracks.

He knew the mood would be solemn and tense in there, but he wasn’t sure where he would be. He didn’t know Aardvark like these guys, and neither did Blazer. They would be in serious mourning, while Mustang and Blazer could really only offer their condolences. If they had only known him longer…

“Oof!”

Mustang, failing to watch where he was going, walked straight into some unsuspecting pony, tumbling over them and knocking them both to the ground. He fervently started to apologize, unsure of who he ran into.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay,” a feminine voice replied.

Mustang looked at the mare’s face and recognized it instantly; he had run straight into Serene, dirtying up her mechanics outfit and getting dust all over her.

“Shoot, didn’t see you there,” he said.

Serene smiled. “I figured,” she said. She noticed that Mustang was wearing a sad countenance, much different from when he usually talked to her. “Is something wrong?”

Mustang wanted to tell her, but wasn’t sure. “I really don’t know if I can say,” he said.

Serene put her hoof to his shoulder. “I won’t tell a soul,” she said. Mustang believed her completely.

“Aardvark was killed.”

Serene’s eyes shot wide and she stopped completely. Watching her, Mustang saw her world completely freeze up and her mind short-circuited. That one statement had sent her train to a grinding halt, slamming every brake and screeching all the way.

“He… he’s dead?” she asked, starting to tear up.

Mustang felt himself tear up, too. “He’s gone,” he said.

Serene’s lip started to quiver and she looked to the ground. She desperately wanted to make sense of it, to figure out why it had happened, but she had no explanation. She looked up into Mustang’s eyes for an answer, but got nothing but sadness and empathy from them.

“No,” she said.

Almost slowly, she walked forward into Mustang’s shoulder and pressed her face there. Mustang felt her start to cry, her tears soaking the section of his coat that her face was pressed against. Mustang patted her on the back and hugged her close, then moved her out of the walkway in case any other ponies showed up to see what was happening.

“Shhh, shh, it’s going to be alright,” Mustang tried to reassure her.

Serene kept on crying. “I… He was one of my best friends… he can’t be gone…”

Mustang continued to hold her. Aardvark must have been quite a guy to draw such a reaction from his friends… He couldn’t imagine what Aardvark’s wife’s reaction would be.

“Come on, let’s go find some place to sit,” Mustang suggested. He felt Serene nod, then slowly pull off of his shoulder. When he looked at her face, he saw her fur was matted down by the tears, her eyelashes were all astray, her eyes puffed up, and her nose was scrunched up and running. It pained him to see her that way.

Mustang led her to one of the restaurants on base, the smallest one so that there would be minimal ponies around. When they got there, the Sub Connection, the few ponies who were there saw Serene and immediately left, understanding what was happening. Mustang brought her to a table and then went to the counter to order two small subs for them.

When the subs came, the couple of ponies chowed own furiously, using the better-than-MRE food to distract themselves. By the time they were done, they were both able to speak coherently and had calmed down a bit.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Serene said.

“I know,” Mustang said. “I didn’t know him long, but… damn, what the hell. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“He was my first friend here on base,” Serene said. “He was so nice to me. At first, I thought I would have to call the SHP sergeant, but when I found out he was married with kids, I figured out he was a decent stallion. I signed up to handle the 35th gear, and I worked with him for five years.”

“You knew him well,” Mustang said.

“Yeah, I did,” Serene said with a humorless laugh. “I got to know the other guys, too. One of them would hit on me sometimes, but… he died too.”

“I’m so sorry,” Mustang said. It didn’t escape him that he was likely the replacement for that guy.

“It’s all happening so close together, like the entire team is going to die before long,” Serene lamented.

“We won’t,” Mustang said. “We’ll find those responsible and bring them to justice.”

“I hope so,” Serene said, looking up at Mustang. “I just want this war to be over.”

Mustang checked the time on the restaurant’s clock. “Shoot, I should probably get back to my team,” he said. “But if you need someone to stay with you for a bit…”

“No, I’ll be alright,” Serene said. “You go. Your team needs you.”

“Right,” Mustang said. He stood from the table. “See you around.”

“See you,” Serene said with little energy.

Mustang left Serene in the restaurant and looked in through the window as he walked away. She was just sitting there, quiet, staring at the table. She wasn’t crying any more, the time for that had passed. She was trying her best to make sense of what had happened. But this was war; a lack of sense was the reason it was happening in the first place.

Walking back to his barracks was tough. As he walked, any time another pony passed him, they would look after him, fully aware that something had happened. They all knew that Mustang was in a special operations team, so the impact of losing a member tended to resonate a lot more on base. The uniqueness of the soldiers was a horrible thing to lose.

At his barracks, Mustang stood before the door before entering. What would his team be doing in there? Strat was beating on a bag. The other guys were in there, though. Mustang was afraid of what their reactions would be; but he had to go in.

Slowly, he pushed the door open and walked in. Inside, he found Falcon, sitting silently on his bunk, Eagle, looking distraught in his own space, and Blazer, quietly sifting through his things in the back. None of them looked up at Mustang as he walked in.

Mustang made his way to his little area and saw on his bunk, breathing as quietly as possible to keep the silence. All anypony could hear was the sound of Blazer ruffling through his things until he finally found whatever he was looking for. Falcon had his eyes down and Eagle was shaking his head nonstop.

“So what happened?”

The question took Mustang off guard. “Huh?” he replied.

It had been Eagle who asked, and now, he was letting his frustration out. “What the hell happened?!”

Mustang blinked. No one else cared about the outburst. “Meteor talked to me and Strat-“

“I know what the hell happened in the boss’ barracks!” Eagle shouted, jumping off his bed and stomping over to Mustang. Now, Falcon was looking up with concern.

Mustang backed up. “What are you asking?!” Mustang demanded.

Eagle ran up to him and poked Mustang’s chest. “Back in the camp. You and Strat and Aardvark. Why did Aardvark die?”

“Guifrond separated him from us-“ Mustang tried to say.

“Obviously!” Eagle said. “Why did it have to be Aardvark?! Why couldn’t it be you!?” Mustang blinked in shock at his teammates words.

“EAGLE!” Falcon boomed. The angry stallion looked over. “Outside. NOW.” Eagle grumbled as he left, looking back at Mustang as he left.

Falcon shook his head as the door slammed when Eagle left. “Son of a bitch,” he said, taking off his sunglasses. “Mustang, I apologize. That was completely out of line for him to say that. I’ll make sure he receives proper disciplinary action-“

“No, it’s fine,” Mustang said. Falcon raised an eyebrow. “He would rather have lost me than Aardvark. I get it. And I’ll make sure I remember that when we find ourselves in tough spots like that in the future.”

Falcon frowned. “I hope I don’t hear what I think I’m hearing,” he said.

“That I would like to avoid being partnered with Eagle?” Mustang said. Falcon took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Not what I thought, but far from ideal in any sense. You two will have to go to team counseling.” Mustang opened his mouth to object, but Falcon put his hoof up. “We all have to go as it is. You two will just have to go to a separate session after the group one.”

“Fan-freaking-tastic,” Mustang said, drooping his shoulders.

“If the issue can’t be resolved, Eagle will be moved,” Falcon said. “As much as I like him, if eh can’t get over this and blames you for it, he isn’t fit to be here. We all have to constantly earn our way here. I want you to trust him, but if you simply don’t think you can, I understand.”

“We’ll have to see,” Mustang said. “It’s all up to him.”

“That’s more like what I need to hear,” Falcon said. “Makes things less complicated.” Mustang nodded his understanding. “Where’s Strat?”

“He went to punch some bags,” Mustang said.

“Alright,” Falcon said. “When he gets back, we’ll all take some time to cool down, then head to the psych specialist. I know it isn’t a great time, but this is what happens.”

“Let’s just get it over with,” Mustang said. Falcon understood. “Did you get the news of the new squad leader?” Blazer overheard the question and looked up from what he was doing.

“I haven’t,” Falcon said. “Is it Strat? If it’s Eagle, that’s a problem.”

“It’s you,” Mustang stated simply.

Falcon blinked. “Oh. That’s… ah, shit.”

“You’ll do well,” Mustang said. “Meteor had only the best to say on your behalf.”

“I hope he’s right,” Falcon said. “After this… I don’t want to screw up.”

“You won’t,” Blazer said from his seat. “Honestly, you look badass enough anyway. I’d follow you just for that.”

Falcon chuckled, despite the overcast of Aardvark’s death. “Thanks for the confidence boost,” he said. “I need to go talk to Eagle.”

“You do that, boss,” Blazer said. Falcon turned and left to see his other teammate.

Mustang looked to his fellow newbie. “You think we’ll be alright?”

“I think so,” Blazer said. “I just want to get out there and kill these bastards.”

“Exactly,” Mustang said. “Track ‘em, find ‘em, kill ‘em.”

Blazer looked to Mustang and smiled. “I like that,” he said.

“Thank Meteor,” Mustang said. “What were you rifling for?”

“Hm?” Blazer replied. “Oh, just something personal.”

“Ah,” Mustang said. He wouldn’t ask anything more right now.

The two stallions stayed in their barracks, waiting for the rest of the team to return so they could go and do what they had to do. At least, the rest of the team minus one.

Hitting Back

Mustang and Blazer remained silent for the memorial ceremony. Their teammates all spoke for Aardvark’s memory, his brave actions, good leadership, and great qualities as a regular stallion. Mustang and Blazer didn’t know enough to say anything like that, forcing them to stand off to the side as teammates but not really friends.

As far as Mustang could tell, Falcon had taken care of Eagle pretty well. Eagle hadn’t looked at Mustang with any anger, sadness, pity, or anything. He didn’t avoid looking at him, either. Mustang was just kind of there.

Falcon was clearly qualified to lead. He could handle any situation with a calm, collected head and make important decisions. He was also able to take a problem and flip it on its head to deal with it. Strat had seemed happy with the decision to make Falcon squad leader earlier, and Mustang was more than happy to trust Strat’s judgment.

Blazer was oddly solemn the entire time. Quietness was to be expected, but he seemed even more so than was normal. It was like someone had taken something personal from him, killed one of his closest friends. Mustang was sad, but he didn’t know Aardvark, and couldn’t really say that he was as affected.

Whatever the reason, when the ceremony was over, the team was told that, as much as the brass would have liked to have given them a break, Fifth Squad was needed down south. They were rushed over to Meteor’s barracks and hurried inside.

The blinds were down, the door was locked behind them, and Meteor hadn’t been alone in the room. The stallions couldn’t tell who it was, standing in the corner, but they could see the familiar green shade of Meteor’s coat in the room. Only one light was on, over Meteor, shading out the other stallion.

The stallions saluted. “Sir,” they all said in unison.

“Gentlecolts,” Meteor said. He was staring down at a piece of paper. “I’m glad you got here so quickly.”

“We were pretty much carried here, sir,” Falcon said. There were no jokes though, nothing silly. This meeting was serious.

Meteor went along his train of thought. “I understand how you colts are feeling right now. Losing a teammate, especially a team leader, is not an easy thing to get over.” He looked over the squad. “Normally, policy dictates that you get several days off to cool off from the loss and get your heads together. Sadly, this is an exception.”

“What’s going on?” Strat asked.

Meteor pointed at the mystery stallion in the corner. “The Celestial Intelligence Agency came across some Intel that must be acted on immediately,” Meteor explained. “Mr. Sun?”

The stallion “Mr. Sun” stepped forward. “We received information from a reliable source that we need to use ASAP,” he explained, still in the dark. “We have a possible lead on the location of Guifrond… the guy who killed your squad leader.”

“Where is he?” Eagle asked a little eagerly. Falcon put his hoof on his side to keep him in check.

“He’s deep in the Southern Gryphon Colonies,” Mr. Sun explained. “It’s a region just south of our border, but what makes it deep isn’t its distance. Given the valley and the weather patterns there, it is constantly raining buckets. Even the gryphons have a hard time flying there.”

“We can fly through it,” Strat said confidently.

“I don’t doubt it… that’s why your unit was selected.” Mr. Sun looked over the team. “We have other assets who would normally take this, but they are all currently occupied elsewhere. The other squads of the 35th are also occupied, leaving only you.”

“You’re the only chance we’ve got at taking this guy out now,” Meteor explained. “It won’t be easy. You’ll need to keep level heads. You’ll need to be able to fly calmly into a shitstorm and calmly fly out, either carrying a bird for the zoo back home or a rotary chicken.”

“Preferably the second option,” Mr. Sun said. “This gryphon, Guifrond, is too dangerous to let him walk this earth any longer. We need to take him out.”

“So where exactly are we going?” Falcon asked. “We’re ready to roast some chicken.” Mr. Sun looked to Meteor and nodded.

“Alright, boys,” Meteor said. The squad advanced on the desk and looked at a map. “We-“ Meteor placed his hoof on the map on San Palomino Air Base. “Are here. The target-“ He moved his hoof down to a spot in the Southern Gryphon Colonies. “Is here.”

The region in question was one that every stallion knew. Even if you weren’t active in the war, you heard about this region. It was the Wetlands, the mountain range where it rained from the beginning of time and where it would continue until the end of time. At the bottom, supposedly is a river that leads to dozens of whirlpools that suck you up and asphyxiate you only after beating you to a pulp against the rocks. Nopony who fell down there ever came back.

It was a region exclusively operated in by Special Operations Forces. Unicorps Force Recon, the 35th and 22nd Air Guard Battalions, the all Earth Pony Echo Group, and other units that supposedly existed but weren’t proven. Conventional troops didn’t “have the discipline, training, mindsets, or strength” to operate there.

It presented a unique challenge. One that Mustang was more than ready to pursue.

“And that’s where Guifrond is hiding?” Blazer asked. Meteor nodded. “He chose a good area.”

“That isn’t going to stop us,” Eagle said.

“You’re damn right it won’t,” Mr. Sun said from his corner. “This is high priority and time sensitive. You have the rest of the day and tomorrow to prepare, but then, you head out. You’ll need some specialized gear, which I brought, and you’ll want whatever weapons you’re best with. Over-encumbrance like you’re used to will get you killed out there.”

“We only ever carry what we need,” Strat said with slight offense.

Mr. Sun laughed once. “You carry only what you think you need,” he said. “Be wise with your selection. And say any goodbyes you think you need to; this won’t be an easy operation.” With that last morbid comment, Mr. Sun made his way out and disappeared from the squad’s life. For now.

Meteor sighed. “What a world we live in,” he said.

“That guy was quite a character,” Blazer said.

“He has every right to be,” Meteor said. “I can’t give you any information on him because it’s well above my own pay-grade.” Blazer whistled. “He used to be like you boys. But he’s beyond that now.”

“Fascinating,” Eagle said. “But let’s get back on topic.”

“Right,” Meteor said. He leaned forward. “Like Mr. Sun said, this isn’t going to be an easy op. It’s possible that you won’t come back if you don’t do things right. That’s why I trust you to do things right.”

“We will,” Falcon replied.

“Don’t let emotions get in the way of good judgment. Don’t let a loss of equipment or information or even the target threaten you. Unlike Mr. Sun’s agency, we value ponies more than hardware here. No one is expendable.” Meteor sat back. “I don’t want any of you getting killed out there. We lost one already; can’t afford to lose anyone else. I don’t think my heart could take it.”

“We’ll come back sir,” Falcon said. “With or without Guifrond’s beak.”

“I know I can count on you boys,” Meteor said. “Now get out of here and prepare yourselves. You only have about twenty-six hours before you ship out.”

The stallions saluted. “Yes sir!”

The squad left the barracks and started getting themselves ready independent of each other. The next day, in the morning, they could get together and discuss more team things, but for now, they had to personalize their weapons, armor, and gadgets. Falcon and Eagle went back to the squad barracks, Strat made his way to the Armory, and Mustang and Blazer went off toward the range.

“We can get more bolts there,” Blazer reasoned.

“I’m down with that.” Mustang liked his new crossbow from Serene, and he would enjoy having more bolts to punch those birds out of the sky.

He thought about Serene for a moment. Mr. Sun said to get their goodbyes out of the way. Mustang knew that saying goodbye to her for the time being would reveal that they were leaving, but he felt he could trust her. Nopony would find out about a top-secret mission from her.

“Actually, wait,” Mustang said. Blazer stopped. “You go on ahead, and pick up fifteen bolts for me. I need to see somepony.”

Blazer nodded. “Gotcha. Tell Serene I said hi.” Before Mustang registered his response, Blazer ran off to get the ammunition they would need.

Mustang took a turn and started searching for Serene. She had been in a rough shape when she Mustang told her of Aardvark’s unpleasant demise. She might not want to hear about the squad going out so soon after, but he felt that she deserved to at least see one of them one last time.

Mustang made his way to the armory, where Strat had gone earlier, to see Serene. On his way there, other Air Guard stallions and mares watched him pass. Everypony recognizes a stallion with a purpose, one moving with a mission. They all stood out of his way to let him do his thing.

When Mustang arrived at the armory, he was greeted with the sight of Strat walking out with an exhausted look on his face. Mustang stopped where he was to wait for Strat to pass as he walked with his eyes closed. When he came up on Mustang’s position, he sighed loudly and patted Mustang on the shoulder.

“She asked me what was up, so I told her I couldn’t tell her,” Strat said. Mustang felt himself deflate a bit; he wanted to tell her. “She knows we’re going. Be ready for her to be unhappy.”

“Roger that,” Mustang said. Strat went along his way and Mustang walked into the armory.

As soon as he walked in, he saw Serene, furiously working on something at a desk. She had razor sharp focus on whatever it was, and she was trying to work hard and fast, making mistakes as she went. She quickly corrected them, though, and when she finished with one thing, she wiped her brow and moved onto another.

Until she noticed Mustang at the entrance.

She jumped up and ran over to him. “Mustang!” she said. “What’s going on!?” Other ponies looked for a moment, but quickly returned their attention to their assigned tasks.

“I can’t say,” Mustang said.

“Ugh!” Serene grunted, frustrated. She spun around. “You stupid Spec Ops guys and your secrecy. You ‘can’t tell me things because of operational security’, you ‘have to stay tight-lipped’. It’s so aggravating!”

Mustang frowned sadly. “We don’t like it either,” he said.

“Then why do it?” Serene asked.

Mustang thought for a moment. “Because we want to serve, and this is the best way we can do it,” he said.

Serene looked back at him and sighed. “I know… I just want to know if my friends are going to be alright. I already lost one in the last day. I don’t want to lose more…”

Mustang stepped forward and put a hoof on Serene’s shoulder. “We’ll be fine. It isn’t anything we can’t handle.”

Serene looked into his eyes. “Ha, it’s a funny thing,” she said.

“Hm?” Mustang asked.

“Strat said the same thing, but I don’t think I believe him. But you…” Serene put her hoof on Mustang’s. “I feel like I can believe you.”

Mustang smiled. “You have no idea what it means to hear you say that.” She really didn’t.

Serene smiled back. “I know you wouldn’t lie. I don’t know why, but I know you won’t.” Mustang knew why, even if he wouldn’t admit it to himself. “If you need anything, I have it here. Whatever it takes to bring you home.”

“I think I have the gear I need that I can get right now,” Mustang said. “That crossbow and my sword and my armor are all I need.”

Serene stepped back and set her hoof down. Mustang’s hoof slid off of her and went to the dirt. For a moment, they just stared into each other’s eyes, feeling security and calm come over them. Before long, though, Mustang had to stop and get ready.

“I’ll see you when I get back,” Mustang said.

“I’ll hold you to it,” Serene said softly. They waved goodbye as Mustang left.

Serene went back to work at her station. Meanwhile, a couple of other ponies at their stations had been watching the whole ordeal and felt like adding silent commentary.

“War really is Hell,” one said.

“It is,” the other said. “But when two ponies are willing to fly through Hell for what they believe in, for the pony they love, they can find themselves in Heaven afterwards.”

“Assuming they don’t actually find themselves there,” the first ended.

Serene just kept on working, oblivious to the commentary and the foreboding tale it told for all soldier ponies in the coming years.

The next day, Fifth Squad was ready to go and waiting on the runway. They had brought only what gear they expected to need. Strat, Falcon, and Eagle all had their armor, weapons, and whatever special gadgets seemed useful. They brought Nightvision, magic rangefinders, flares, and other assorted pieces of gear Mustang and Blazer knew nothing about.

Mustang and Blazer brought their light armor, blades, wrist-crossbows, and small medical kits. They didn’t have any fancy gear yet.

At around 1700 hours, Mr. Sun finally showed up with a couple of similarly sketchy stallions in tow, carrying gear bags. As they approached, the stallions offered no salutes or sings of respect, only watched. It didn’t seem to bother the Intelligence agents though.

The stallions dropped the bags and Mr. Sun walked up to the squad. “I trust you five are ready?” he asked.

“More ready than we possibly could be,” Eagle replied.

Me. Sun went silent for a moment and just looked over the squad. The stallions felt uncomfortable under the experienced Mr. Sun’s gaze, fully aware that he was judging them and their preparations. He looked over each stallion individually, starting with Falcon on his left and ending with Blazer and Mustang on his right. When he got to the two new stallions, he took much less time in judging, making them nervous.

“You three-“ Mr. Sun said, pointing at Strat, Eagle, and Falcon. “-Brought quite a bit of stuff.” He turned his attention to Mustang and Blazer. “Traveling light is always wise.” Mustang and Blazer blinked at the unusual compliment, unsure of how to receive it.

“Uh… of course, sir,” Mustang replied. Mr. Sun smiled.

“Got a good mind on ya,” Mr. Sun said quietly. “Anyway. If you colts are ready, I have the specialized gear you’ll need.”

“What kind of gear are you handing us?” Falcon asked.

Mr. Sun motioned with his head for the gear to be brought over. “The rain can’t be dealt with much at all,” Mr. Sun explained. “With the weather down there, it’s gonna get cold. Being wet won’t help. On the flight to the drop zone, you’ll be putting special insulation in your armor.”

The other two stallions dropped what looked like basic fabrics onto the ground and then went fishing for more things in the bags. Each stallion took one set of fabric, according to his size, which Mr. Sun seemed to have known. Each of them removed their armor for a moment to put the insulation in.

“But wait, there’s more,” Mr. Sun said, jokingly excited. “From what we understand, there may be doors that you’ll have trouble getting through. For that-“ The other two stallions brought two boxes forth and opened them up. Eagle, Start, and Falcon whistled. “-You’ll need charges.”

“This is some heavy stuff,” Falcon said. “PETN clay? That stuff’s pretty powerful.”

“That’s why you only use small amounts at a time for doors,” Mr. Sun explained. “Lots o fuses and less weight. The new guys will have to carry it since you boys are so encumbered.” The squad looked at Mustang and Blazer, who nodded their agreement.

“If you ever need to blow up something big, you can do that with what you’ve got here too,” Mr. Sun explained. “To use it, you use one of the twelve timers we put in the boxes to give it an electrical charge and detonate it. Be careful; this shit is intense and loud.”

“Gotcha,” Blazer said.

The two other stallions got to strapping the explosives and timers separately on each stallion. Mustang took half the PETN and half the detonators and Blazer took the other half. If one of them were downed in the fighting, at least they would have something.

“Anything else for us?” Falcon asked.

“One more thing,” Mr. Sun said. He reached into his own bag and pulled out several small devices, handing them to each stallion in the squad. “If you get separated, get lost, or generally find yourselves unable to get home, these beacons will tell us your location. Meteor insisted.”

“That’s why he’s the boss,” Falcon said.

Mr. Sun went on. “You clip them to your ears. They give off a constant, powerful magical signal we can find that the enemy can’t. We won’t be able to come fast; it may take several hours or even a day if the weather is really bad. So this isn’t a combat support communicator.”

“So you’re saying that we’re gonna be entirely on our own,” Blazer said. Mr. Sun nodded. “Just as well.”

Mr. Sun smiled a little. “You colts are gonna be heading into the meat grinder on this mission,” he said. “I trust that you won’t fail us.”

Falcon nodded to Mr. Sun. “We won’t.”

“Good,” Mr. Sun replied. “Now, board that carriage. You’re almost behind schedule.”

Fifth Squad saluted once out of habit and grabbed all their stuff and boarded the carriage. Mustang and Blazer moved at a deliberate pace out of fear of screwing up the PETN clay or a detonator, but they still moved fast. Once everypony was on the carriage, they strapped in and took off.

They all watched out the back of the carriage as they took off, feeling nervous but excited for a chance to get back into the action and hit back at the enemy. That was what they signed up to do, and dammit if they weren’t going to do it.