A Time Of War

Ryan kicked the door open and ran to my side, the world was still hazy, and I had trouble seeing anything farther than twenty or so feet.

"Shit... Kaikrussians... they took... they took the princesses... We gotta get 'em back." I said trying to breath, my voice raspy from ash and dust.

"I know, I know but first we should head back into town and regroup." Ryan said lifting me up over his shoulder, he carried me over what was left of the floor towards the elevator. This made me assume that the helicopter was taken out in the attack, I heard the screech of metal and watched over his shoulder as a large metal object fall, my vision was too blurry to tell what it was, but I had a pretty good idea of what it was.

"I am really good at driving fast, I could have us back to ponyville in no time flat!" She said with a smile, almost as if she was excited that she would get to drive fast. The next thing I could remember was being in the back of a heavily armored guard car, it made sense that she would be able to drive well, me and Ryan had wings so we usually flew everywhere, but she was an earth pony, which meant that her only mode of transport was driving, or public transport. Ryan was sitting in the front seat next to her, and from what I could see through the rearview, Ryan was just about scared to death of how she was driving. All around me were guns, guns and various foldable stocks.

"I have a really good idea." I muttered quietly to myself, I knew Ryan wouldn't be able to hear over the music he was playing, I think it was Metallica. As quickly as I could I began to disassemble three of the shotguns that had fallen off the racks as pinkie drove, then I took apart some of the stocks. With ease I put all of parts together, layering the firing mechanisms to support the now triple barreled automatic shotgun. I looked it over with pride before attaching a clip to each barrel.

"Would ya look at that. Hey Ryan! You like shotguns and stuff yeah?" I ask keeping my latest masterpiece out of sight, not wanting to reveal it yet.

"Yeah! Biggest fan, why?" He asked half turned towards me, although he didn't seem surprised that I was awake.

"Here you might want this, Kaikrussians are ruthless and I think they are planning an attack." I explained as I passed the gun up to him and watched his face for a moment before I began to strip down some military grade rifles.

"holy shi... where did you find this, I didn't think we had this kind of weaponry." he said his face lighting up at the masterpiece of a gun I had created.

"you don't, you have these." I showed one of the automatic shotguns, one of the ones I hadn't used, Then I went back to creating my own gun, layering the metals together. He sat in stunned silence, admiring the gun, turning it end over end, eyeing all of the pieces carefully. I clicked the final piece into the gun, and loaded it, my gun had three barrels as well, I cocked the gun as pinkie pulled into town next to what appeared to be an old farm. I figured Ryan had called his friends and told em to meet up out here.

"So who's this new guy you brought back into town?" I heard a female country accent call out. I kicked open the back doors, my gun in hand, and a cigar hanging out of the corner of my mouth.

"That'd be me." I said slamming the back doors as I stepped over towards the circle, I recognized Rarity but that was it, around her was a purple mare in a dress, an orange mare in overalls and a cowcolt hat, a light yellow mare in a sweatshirt and some lightly fitted jeans, and a blue mare in tight fitted jeans and a jersey.

"He needs to be about twenty percent cooler." The blue one said eyeing me up and down, her hands were in her pockets.

"And you could be about twenty percent shutting the hell up." I said taking a step towards her my teeth gritted in frustration, she obviously didn't understand the seriousness of the situation.

"That's RainbowDash, and this is Twilight sparkle, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity, and of course you already know pinkie pie." He motioned to the respective mares and mentioned pinkie as she got out of the driver seat.

"Well what's the plan Ryan?" Applejack asked as she sauntered over towards him, he wrapped his arm around her waist, shaking his head and letting the group know he didn't have one, and that I could come up with one.

"Well these guys we are dealing with, they took the princesses, and they won't quit until they destroy your country, that must have been what happened, Ludesma, my country probably defeated them and the came here." I said motioning with my hands, I couldn't stop that, it was a natural thing.

"Okay then why don't we defeat them and take the princesses back." Rainbow blurted out, her arms crossed in defiance.

"Its not that simple, My country had fifty thousand soldiers deployed, and it took us eight months to stop them, We would need a hell of a lot of ponies to stop them.' I say shaking my head slightly, her expression turned to one of fear once I explained how dire the situation truly was.

"Okay well then what's the best thing that we could do to help Mr...." Twilight said trailing off as she got to my name, okay Ryan hadn't told them my name, not a big deal.

"Its Ember, Ember Sparks. The best thing you could probably do is get everyone out of the city, I don't know where to tell them to go, just get them out, me and Ryan will go round up whatever police we can." I said before using a map and sectioning off parts of the city for everyone to take.

"Um Ember What happened to your wings?" Twilight asked as I was walking back to the truck.

"I was shot." I say gruffly opening the back doors, throwing my homemade rifle into the truck, preparing to step in.

"How long ago?" She shouted out stopping me from getting into the truck, I found this strange, why would it matter.

"two months, why does it matter?" I asked stepping away from the door folding my arms, I had grown accustomed to having the bandages, but at the mention, I became aware of their uncomfortable presence.

"I know a spell that can heal wounds over a month and a half old, I learnt it from the hospital, if you just come back with me to my house, I can heal your wings with no problem." She said moving towards the drivers seat. After a moments thought I agreed and she drove us back towards, a giant tree at the edge of Ponyville. Inside amongst the books was a work table, with dark red candles, accompanied by vials full of purple liquids that seemed to glow. Soon I was strapped into a chair and being warned that this would hurt like hell, I nodded and she began to chant words in a different language.

Her eyes began to glow white, and her horn began to glow purple, the same color as the stuff in the vials. It surrounded me before pushing itself into the exposed holes in my wings, it was agonizing. Screams soon filled the air, screams coming through my gritted teeth, my hands clenched the chair so tightly my knuckles began to change to a lighter color of purple.

The pain was so intense it caused my vision to fade, and for me to loose consciousness.

• A few Minutes Later -

I woke up and stood warily, I stretched my back and my wings spread out around me.

"Impressive wingspan, what is that seven feet?" I heard what I thought to be RainbowDash ask from behind me. I spun and behind me everyone stood, all six of those girls and Ryan.

"We got everyone out, and the police are waiting outside to be briefed." Ryan informed me, it felt weird stretching my wings in front of everyone, so I furled them tightly against my back.

"I'm guessing I was out for quite some time then wasn't I?" I asked sheepishly rubbing the back of my head, upset I didn't get to help.

"No you were only passed out for two or three minutes, that's record time, everyone is usually asleep for at least an hour."Twilight said in a matter of factly tone.

"Alright, well, somebody get me a ladder so I can do this. " I asked, looking towards a window that was up high.

Ryan produced a ladder and I climbed it to the second story window, I opened it and stood on the ledge, there were sixty to seventy ponies below me, some were in uniforms, while others were in day to day clothes. Rainbow offered me a mega phone but I politely declined, I was in the military, my voice would be plenty loud enough.

"Mares and Gentlecolts, we have gathered here today with an army lurking at our door, I can assure you this army does not want to sell us Foal Scout Cookies! This army is ready to tear us to pieces, and break our lovely home down. We cant let them do that, We must take arms and fight, repel the enemy! Now who is with me!" I shouted out to the crowd, holding onto the window frame, they cheered back.

"Everyone take a Machine Gun or a Shotgun from the back of that truck, divide into groups and divide the city into sectors, one group to each sector! Anything suspicious report on the radios, otherwise stay off them, we don't want to compromise allies! Remember we have they home field advantage! Your orders are to shoot and kill any opposing threats! Hoorah!" I shouted looking over the crowd pleased, they all filed into lines and began collecting weapons, I climbed back down the ladder and picked up my gun off the floor, I had brought it in when I came in earlier.

Pinkie Pie and RainbowDash were holding assault rifles, Rarity and Twilight Sparkle were both holding high powered sniper rifles, AppleJack and Fluttershy held double barrel shotguns, and Ryan held the custom gun I had made him.

"Look girls I think its sweet you want to help and all but..." I began to say how it was to dangerous, but Ryan cut me off.

"These mares wont take No for an answer Ember, just don't argue. So what do we do now?" Ryan interjected, diffusing a possible fight, and asking a crucial question.

"Well the only thing we can do, wait for them to make the mistake of knocking at our door."