Forget About Freeman

"Ah shit, man, I ain't gonna make it!" I rapped a bandage around the arm of the soldier before me. I didn't want to admit it, but he may have been right. The guy was a mess; his uniform was torn, bullet holes were scattered across his lower body, and a large gash ran up his side.

"Ya' know, I'm surprised you lived this long." I said. "You sure you don't do steroids, sport boy?"

"Shut the fuck up." he choked back, before spitting out a tooth. A pool of blood was forming underneath him, but I didn't let it put me off. Despite the sight before me coupled with the distant gunfire and explosions, I felt pretty calm.

"So, Syria was a bust." I mumbled, before applying a bloodpack.

"You got that right." The op was simple; disarm a chemical weapon outside of Hama, stored in an old car factory. Good old 2016.

Bullets zipped all around me, and I almost tried shooting back. Adrenaline pulsed through me, and I turned to the men next to me. Two soldiers, just like me, scared out of their wits. This car wouldn't last long, but luckily it had already exploded earlier, leaving the steel skeleton of what was once a pickup truck.

"Any ideas?" I shouted to the two other guys, both from another squad. I had gotten split up from mine after a relatively bloody firefight. The two men both shook their heads, causing me to panic inside. No more frags, out of flashbangs, and smoke wouldn't work because they could just shoot through it. An idea struck me upon realizing that one of us three had an MG.

"Think you ca-" my question was cut off by a shot that landed very close to my head. The bullet plinked off a strip of metal right next to me, and I almost screamed.

"Fuck this!" one of the men said, before standing up and making a dash for more cover, before the MG's fire focused on him. Bullets ripped through him, spattering blood across the ground behind the soldier. My eyes widened with shock, before I came to my senses and made a dash for a new source of cover.

An ear splitting explosion made me jump almost ten feet in the air, and it took me a moment to realize that the Osprey was now plummeting towards the facility below. Instinctively, My hands flew for the strap in the ceiling above me, and I held on for dear life. Meanwhile, the guy next to me - Shepard, I believe - was flung against the wall and was presumably knocked out. The lieutenant was saying something, but I couldn't hear anything through the blood roaring in my ears. Moments before impact, the world slowed down. I observed the scene; outside the Osprey, an alien-looking aircraft was flying away from us. The doors had been ripped off our transport, and one of the medics was mashed against the wall of the plane, blood welling out from under him. Meanwhile, the guy next to me was puking, and the air smelled of smoke.

Time once again kicked into full speed, and an explosion announced our crashing. I flew out the doors of the craft, landing roughly on the sandy ground. Surprisingly enough, I was still alive, but unable to move.

It took all of my strength to pull Shepard away from the crash. He was the only one that had survived the crash besides me, and I couldn't just leave him there. I held my pistol out ahead of me, staying as alert as I could in my current state. My back screamed in protest, but I pushed onwards anyway. The current situation didn't allow breaks.

I dragged Shepard up to the nearest scientist, without saying a word. The man was about to speak, but I promptly left without listening. I didn't have time.

Stepping through a randomly picked door led me into a room that made me puke in my mouth. There was several soldiers and scientists alike, each of which laying in pools of blood. What was eye catching was the strange creatures resting on their faces. A single scientist was in the room, poking one of the creatures with a ruler. I left the room without making a comment.

I wandered through the halls of the lab, very eager to find the rest of my squad. They had abandoned me in a security office, and they must have thought I was dead, considering I was soaked in blood. The thing was, it wasn't my blood. It feels like I'm doomed to lose my squad every mission.

My thoughts were cut off by a clicking sound nearby, signalling the cocking of a pistol behind me. I spun around to see a scientist, aiming a pistol right at my face. I ducked just before he shot. The booming sound of the handgun firing sent a pulse of adrenalin through me, and I pumped his stomach with a burst of rounds from my G33. The man fell to the ground, blood spilling out behind him. I breathed in deeply, before taking out my radio and transmitting;

"Scorpion 1-3 to HQ." I said. After a moment, a choppy reply came in;

"Send it, 1-3."

"Lab staff proven hostile, it is requested you notify all callsigns." I said, internally facepalming at what I said. That came out wrong.

"Copy, 1-3." I switched channels to the universal line, and listened. Surely enough, the bomb was dropped.

"All callsigns, eradicate lab staff on site. Subjects proven to be hostile." Mistakes were made today.

My eyes rolled open, and I was happy to see a concerned looking Celestia gazing back at me. Her stare softened after a moment, and she looked past me as though there was something behind me. I turned and was moderately surprised to see an alicorn that looked a lot like Celestia. This one, however, was deep blue. I swore I saw the entire galaxy when I stared into her mane.

"What did you see, sister?" Celestia asked the alicorn, worry in her tone.

"I'm afraid that while what I saw was hard to understand, it is clear that his dreams speak of dark times." the sister replied. That's some deep shit.

"Who are you?" I asked. Kinda rude to talk about me in the third person when I'm right here.

"My name is Princess Luna." the sister replied, looking down at me. "You need not introduce yourself, Henry." This was just too weird.

"Nice to meet you." I sighed, before standing up out of the chair I was slumped over in. "Where are the guns?" I asked Celestia. I had blood on my hands, and that blood better have been worth it.

"The weapons are in the guard barracks." she responded. "The captain of the guard would like some instructions on how to use them." I nodded. "Speaking of which, I believe part of your objective was to refrain from killing, rendering your mission as a failure." the princess scolded, taking me aback a little. before I could respond, however, Luna stuck up for me.

"You should understand that killing is in his kind's nature. While killing is something not even the most evil of individuals would do here, it is quite common in his world." the princess explained. Jesus, how does she know this?

"How do you know?"

"Why, your dreams have proven such." she replied, raising an eyebrow. What the fuck does that mean? I had taken it upon myself to stop asking questions like that for now.

"Care to show me the way to the guard barracks?" I asked, eager to train the soldiers. Celestia nodded, before turning to one of the guards at the entrance to the throne room.

"Show Henry the way to the barracks, if you'd please." Celestia ordered. The guard saluted, before motioning for me to follow him out of the doors.

-Ten Minutes Later-

"Get your asses in order, before I replace you lot!" Armored Blaze shouted to the line in front of her. I found it slightly entertaining that she had a British accent. These guys were pretty tough for ponies. "Our new comer - Dutch, - is gonna teach you to use our new weapons!" she pointed her hoof at me. A voice mumbled from the fifteen soldiers before us.

"What the hell is he?"

"I'm a soldier, and I'll kick your ass if you complain about the new guy training you." I snapped. He glared at me, but kept his mouth shut. "Anyway, I hope you're aware that this next war is gonna be pretty different from your last few." I informed the group. From what I had gathered, they had rarely killed in their past wars. That was why this fight was going to be a game changer. "Instead of incapacitating your enemies, you'll kill them." I got a few frightened looks, but dismissed them. "Please bare in mind this is the decision of your leaders, and that they didn't exactly want it to come to this. Blaze, would you please lead your men to the training grounds?" I asked the sergeant. She nodded, picked up a nearby sack with her magic, and led them off through a doorway that went into a field. I followed close behind.

The air was chilly outside, and frost covered the field like a blanket. In the distance, there was a few pony shaped dummies supported by wooden poles.

"Right, colts. You lot are the special guys that get to use our new hardware." Blaze said. She levitated the bag onto the ground in front of us. "I have in here the most modernized weaponry you'll ever hope to use." It's a bit bold of you to say it like that. The mare opened the sack to reveal the goods I had retrieved what was assumed to be yesterday. I was surprised by how much I had managed to load up, even if seven of the weapons were just handguns. "Dutch, you take over." the sergeant instructed. I nodded, before stepping out of the line and up to the sack. I turned to face the line.

"I must teach you the basics of these weapons." I said, pulling out an L1 as an example. "This is an FN-FAL battle rifle, also known as the L1." I presented it to the stallions, surprised by how unimpressed they looked.

"I don't mean to be rude, but how does that chunk of metal kill?" one of the soldiers asked, raising an eyebrow. I aimed it at a nearby tree and fired, the wood surface splintering, sending wood chunks everywhere. I the turned back to the soldiers.

"It does a lot more damage to flesh." I said. The majority of the soldiers seemed happily surprised. "And it does even more damage when you do this!" I switched it to full auto, before firing again, this time plowing the entire mag into the tree. A few exclamations of joy emanated from the soldiers. Pulling out a new mag from the sack, I reloaded the rifle, before placing it carefully back in and presenting a handgun.

"This is the Browning Hi-Power handgun." I cocked back the slide. "Most of you are gonna be using this." They didn't seem as happy about this one, but I didn't care. I couldn't exactly fit anything very big into my backpack.

"Shining Armor, I presume?" I asked the unicorn before me. He nodded.

"Yeah. I'd like to see these new weapons. Guns, right?" I nodded.

"You're an officer, right?" He nodded. "Then you get this;" I held out a Sten, and he curiously levitated it to his face to inspect it. "That there is a Sten submachine gun. It fires faster than you might expect, so be careful." Shining Armor nodded subconsciously.

"How does this kill?" he asked.