They ran and never stopped.
The sound of their husky breath and the thumping of their hearts bantered and hummed, intensely. Marred by the war that was corrupting the once beloved city of Canterlot, they could not help but wonder for the piling bodies that suffocated their hooves. Wrapped in worn out steel-toed boots, these marines hustled along the foggy streets. One particular street light beamed at the far corner towards the end of Belle Ave, and into the Brandenburg Street marching on were dozens more insurrectionists. They were side by side, their hooves stomping in unison. It scared the daylights of the men that trudged through the mud uselessly. They were soaked from the night before, but unlike the enemies that catered to their supply-line at the east side of Canterlot, where far more able-bodies rested their heads at night soundlessly on cots while the soldiers of Equestria had to sleep in blown out shops with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
The international conflict was getting to be hazardous in these last couple years. And it didn't help when the belly of Equestria began cracking at it seems. Ponies left and right began to distance themselves from the nation that promised far too much, and in return they rebelled. Created their own tribes. Formed their own militia's and now the Equestrian Military was at cross-hairs between their own ponies, and the latter. They caused such a out pour of rage that hate filled their systems to the max. Leaving nothing out, they destroyed small towns, villages and now are amassing giant waves of forces that are curbing the balance between peace and anarchy.
The soldiers moved in through quietly. The marching sound of militant's walking through the street with no self-restraint sparked an unrelenting terror inside the platoons gut. Not only they had to clear out this street, but also they had to be quick and wise about it too. There was no telling in what the Militants would do, as they had heard rumors of what they do to Equestrian soldiers if they ever captured them, and the stories are not pretty. Talks of torture remain high in the platoons mind as they traversed through the littered streets. Mangled bodies were splayed all over the ground and the smell of rotting flesh didn't help with the troubling thoughts also.
Enticement abraded every second of their time since they had gotten here. Spending their time up against the naval warship battles that plagued most of the pacific ocean. In some ways they now considered it their peak from the war with a hot meal every night, or when anyone got a chance at least. A cot to sleep on and the beautiful sky to marvel each and every time they were outside - which was almost always in their case. Now being stuck down here on ground assault to take back a city from their own ponies was just downright insulting. Grey Eyes sniffed the air, sickly he replied, "Blimey, this stinks like a butchered cow." Solo retorted mockingly, as he had never liked that stallion from the get-go, "Stinks a little too much of you, Grey Ass." Grey Eyes scoffed his insult with a lick of his dirty lips, he casually sounded with an invigorating tongue, "Up yours kettle-head."
They continued through, and had originally planned to set up camp on the balconies of two large buildings staring directly from one another before they realized that the stomps of the militants had become far too loud. Throwing their plans into disarray, their leader sergeant Mcgrass ordered them into the blown out shop with a big gaping entry wound in the center. Steadfast, they all huddled quickly into the building that was merely meters away from their position. Shuffling past against one another. They all eventually made it and now they cornered each other like hunters chasing their prey while bracing for the stairs as quietly as possible. Without a hitch, they gained pace and soon enough, the second floor was theirs to keep. For now. In the second floor, the damage wasn't as obvious, with small gashes at the walls or the main windows broken away. The only real shocker was the caved in wooden floor at the middle of the room, like some poor soul that fell through, or must have gotten a scuffle with one of the militants. It didn't matter in the end, as all fourteen troops set camp at this little patch of temporary heaven.
The troops all dropped their bags and sat down for the first time in hours. Since this was a medium-sized second level, they all had room to breathe and have some sense of external privacy. Some chit chatted very quietly while others simply watched or made their own personal space for themselves. Some only peaked through the four windows laced around the two bedrooms and the kitchen and diner. And watched to see when their rivals would be showing up. At this rate, within minutes they should all be starting to bleed onto the Avenue, and with that, they're artillery, they're overwhelming numbers and their attitude for destruction. If there was an end approaching for Equestria, it have to start with their own ponies.
"Alright, everyone keep a lid on it! They'll be approaching any second." Sergeant Mcgrass warned with enough venom in his voice that everyone piped down almost instantly.
The throbbing heart that bustled against everyone's chest was helping everyone realize how serious this was. With everyone hunkered down, Private Gunny chirped up quietly and plotted himself beside the commanding officer and offered details of how to approach these enemies.
"Sir, if I may." Private Gunny pointed out. "We should take inventory of our grenades and lob them as they begin to weed outside of this building and onto the next."
But Mcgrass wasn't having any of that, as he'd already devised a plan that was both simple and effective to their cause. Unfortunately, in order to show that he is the alpha male and no one else mounts up to him, he carefully worded his response with nothing short of his usual vindictive spat. "Listen, that's great and all. But if you want to get your ass out of the naval core, and shape up to the realization that we can't just go Clint Eastwood every time the enemy comes a knockin'."
Gunny tried to sound reasonable, but his voice was beginning to crack at the sides of his throat. "But sir, we could have a surprise attack, and though I-"
"Listen here! Are you itching for death?! Because I as sure as shit ain't, so why don't you take hint that not everyone is planning a death wish like you are and buck off before they realize that we got ourselves loose straw in the group. And start firing the buck out of this building!" He was now chewing away the poor boys self-esteem, but most of them could understand why. As Mcgrass has been in two wars before hand, and he had seen enough bloodshed to know what was right, and what wasn't. In terms of experience, he was the ultimate badass of all, it's a wonder why he hasn't been awarded a general's badge at this point.
Everyone muted and silenced by his cruel response, they all continue to sit quietly and wait while the militants began to start crossing the street. All of them kept their heads down. The tightly coordinated hoof positions with their rallying march shook everyone to the core, just the weight of their immense power frightened them all. They all looked like they were in the due or die approach, no emotion, no retreat, just subliminal rage of despair and destruction onto those around them. They were brutes. Animals freed from their cage, and hungry for their next feed. They wore their uniforms proud. It was amazing how they managed to assemble outfits that were retrofitted to do only one thing, and that was to make sure all of Equestria's power was taken away and be rightfully given to the new blood that demanded them. It was hard not to compare Equestria's broken military to the tightly knit bunch that stood below them. And everyone in this platoon was thinking just that.
One pony looked up to the sky, the city that was once clouded by smog in some of the most busiest of parts. Now only the smell of the dead feigned the skies and the red drenched the sidewalks, while the bleak and morbid bodies clung to the recurring red grass that filled this once prosperous city. The dimly lite sky that beamed just the few sparsely rays that managed to peak through the clouds. It was all tangled up in the cities blood, but it was blood that would forever be still. The one soldier who looked up to the sky, Syd Craft, he wished for one thing only, and it was something that he was sure that everyone else had thought about at one point in all their time stuck in this miserable city.
Let there be more light.
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
The cornfields....
The magnificent-
Syd Craft's eyes fluttered back with the sweat trickling down his face, and the booming of his ears popping back into reality.
Medical Officer Private Donald Gringy grabbed him by the scruff of his uniform, the stench of dirt and blood invaded his nostrils while the whiff of the moldy green protruded his grimy hooves. He hastily lunged for the far corner with his gripping hooves still clinging onto Syd's uniform. And they tumbled into the hard floor that screeched out an aching cry for pause before the floor caved into the first. With an invigorating crash, a pulsing rhythm of debris falling with them, they landed knees first into the debris filled-dumping ground. The weight of their bodies submerged with building materials of all diversities. Their hearts pounding in unison with the roaring flares of gunfire. Their bodies wrapped around one another, four others fell with them: One dead, another injured. The other two; Corporal Rain, and Private Groot grabbed both Syd and Donald and leaped over each others bodies onto the bottom of the mound. The injured one, Private Dillion, screamed like a child pleading with his parents to stop tickling him. But in this sense, his chirps of hoarse screams ached like an injured animal. With random spurts of random mumbling and the beckoning screeches for his mother. He begged and pleaded, but they couldn't go out and rescue him, not at this time when conflict was so inviting and asking for the hooves of death.
Everyone remained still while the enemy continued to fire, razing tartarus on the poor building; with nothing but a weakened structure from tumbling down. The only living things that came to embrace it's broken beauty were the soldiers that came to hide in its belly, and the external invaders that came to disassemble it's once-held former glory. The scathing invaders deprived the building of life by leaving it's machinery entrails laced around the internal shell of the building. Peaking through the external walls that once held privacy for its former owners; now the building was reduced to a mixed bag of utter wreckage swirled with the bodies of allied ponies. It was hard to address Dillion's cries of suffering with the muffles of bullets buzzing through the air and the cursing of stallions. Corporal Rain tried firing off a couple of rounds but was butchered by an automatic turret-gun through the right shoulder, his blood pumping out by the gallon from the looks of it. Private Donald tried applying pressure to both Syd and - reaching for an extra pack of gauze from his medical bag - he manged to wrap a temporary bandage around Rain with the help of Syd applying extensive pressure with his one good arm. Thus, now realizing he was injured, sought to strap his head back in the fight and did exactly everything that Donald advised him to do. Through the loud shouting he grabbed his pistol out of his holster and laid down some cover fire while his legs splayed out on the side of the ground. But he missed every shot, and was about to reload when Private Groot went to assist by laying down extra firepower on the edge of their limited cover, facing towards the beam on the right, a few feet from the stairs.
Private Donald was hunched between the two soldiers with Rain under him. If not for the last few inches of rubble he would've lost his head minutes ago, but the consistent firing whittled down their cover, which meant leaving was soon to be the next priority. Corporal Rain was the most advanced one of the four, an expert sniper he would've whipped off the heads of the first dozen if he hadn't been injured. Groot, taking the right position he was able to evade some of the oncoming discharge of their raging bullets. In return, he kept his part of the bargin and managed to wing down one militant while shaving two others in their lower calf's at the precise moment. He had a standard rifle, and while it was easy to place down on a object and whip off a few rounds the recoil often jerked back a little too much. Enough that his shoulders felt s vibrated jar afterwards. Syd still kept a firm pressure on his shoulder while he struggled reloading his next clip, the cover was depleting rapidly by the second. Donald was literally on Corporal Rain now that choosing to leave would mean he would have to drag Rain through the rubble while crawling himself.
Donald, always the fast-thinker, he tried to shout the next objective, barely etching out a word through the toxic gunfire Syd crammed his ear right beside Donald's head while it rested on his hand that was keeping pressure on Rain's wound.
"Listen!...We need to....far-right...you and Groot give Rain and I covering....upstairs when were ready!"
Syd tried yelling what, but Donald already made his decision and with that, he started dragging poor Rain through the grime and dirt while he slugged his own body hopelessly on the ground. Looking like a snail trying to save another insect from a nest of ants, he mopped onward and Syd immediately crawled for Groot quick as he could, his kneecaps bleeding through the broken wood, glass and bricks. Syd laid out the plan and to his surprise, Groot understood perfectly, and then he suggested that Syd goes first and give him covering fire on the pillar behind him. Syd complied, and rushed quickly behind before stopping and charging his fresh new clip through the gun, and clocked it in before taking a few deep breaths of reassurance. Private Groot fired off a few more rounds before he checked behind his back and saw Syd give him the clear with his thumb. Just before he was set to go, Private Dillion manged with the last of his strength to fling out a grenade in the air. But backfired when the militants shot through his upper wrist, puncturing his main artery he cried in agony with blood shooting all over Groots face, and before he could reattain his foothold of the situation the grenade exploded on Dillion's chest and his mangled guts flew everywhere with the rubble scattering all around the floor. A chunk of Dillion's leg collaborated with Groots face before his body was blown back against the room. Landing on his side, he sputtered words in furious rage before convulsing into a mangled nest of overwhelming tears. His body was filled with shards of shrapnel painted and spattered around his upper chest and face. He quivered in pain with his leg broken in two, Syd was blown back too, but no damage was succumbed to him, not like Groot. He was a big guy with a welcoming heart in the platoon, and having to see him torn to pieces proved to Syd that war was not just a matter of winning and losing, but it was a matter of what comes after when the ones you love or know best are all gone. Groot's face was prickled with blood stroking the layers of his cheeks. Sculpting the bumps around his forehead he scolded in pain. His gun thrown from afar it laid unwillingly far away from its master.
Private Syd, in the heat of anger with flashes of what was happening flaring at his brain he stood up and ran to the pillar and stretched his left arm outwards and screamed in vigor while unleashing his rounds of fury. The hiss and cracks flared up in the sky, with the smoke choking his breath but he didn't care about what his circumstances might be, but what he hoped to achieve with his gun and his rage all in the moment.
Suddenly he resisted the instinct of survival and dived out like a commando with his wounded arm wobbling around with his torso. His hooves filled to the brim with so much rage he could crack some enemies skull in a heartbeat. Against the wishes of Donald, who was screaming from afar he continued to fire until he pinned two down to the ground and killed one with a single head shot. By then, the militants gained range of this lone commando and his uber-eagerness to die without regard for others that they fired back instantly. Missing a few, but three bullets went deep inside Syd's body. Two in the lower abdomen, the final hitting his upper right leg. He fell backwards while still firing his gun, the rounds all landed in the wooden steps except for one ricocheting and splitting his upper bone on his left shoulder.
Private Donald yelled with distress, "You stupid idiot!" a few tears began developing under his eyes while he left Rain on the side of the wall facing behind the pillar. Donald rushed back to Syd and jumped right to the ground and pulled him back to the pillar that was now degrading by the minute with continuous rounds from the other side. The bullet engagements seemed to decrease and now the rest of the platoon from upstairs were more audible than before.
Private Groot wasn't looking too good while his crying finally came to an abrupt halt. That meant he was either losing consciousness or was simply dead. Donald didn't have time to worry about him anymore, so he concentrated his efforts on the current two patients that needed treatment right now. He unbuckled his medical bag and began lynching out the morphine that would help with Syd's current pain, initially he persisted, almost quietly nodding in plea for no drugs, but Donald shook his head bemusedly. He finally piped up. "Enough of you playing hero, you already almost costed your own life, so don't try it again." And with that, Syd, who was already settling with the stab of morphine that already began melting away at his brain. He simply nodded in a faint wry smile. It was rather cruel for Donald, but anything to shut him up was plentiful.
