It was the height of summer, and I could feel the cool ocean breeze gently caress my face. I looked to my right and saw my mom and dad, laying on their towels in the white powdery sand of Cocoa Beach, Florida. The smell of salt and sun-tan lotion was thick, almost nauseating when combined. I always hated the beach, I was pale, and not the most confident about my body. But today, I didn't mind, because I was home. I would be deploying soon, 7 long months in a world away. I was scared to death, not knowing what to expect.
Sure, we were all told about how it was for our seniors, and shown countless hours of video footage that they took. But you never truly know until you get to the sand box and start hooking and jabbing with the rest of them.
As I looked around one last time, taking in the sight of all the beautiful girls on summer vacation, I closed my eyes and blocked everything out. I wanted to enjoy the weather for as long as possible. I sat there, finally starting to relax when I heard a sound that was very much out of place.
".....to Det!"
"What was that?" I wonder to myself as I listen more intently. It had an air of familiarity with it, like a memory you could almost recall.
"......minutes to Det!"
It was much louder this time. It was definitely someone screaming. What were they saying? It was still muffled so I couldn't make it out. Whatever it was, it wasn't important and I decided to ignore it and enjoy myself for a little while longer.
"20 MINUTES TO DET!!"
My eyes flew open and sudden panic over took my body. The kind of panic you get when you realize that you fell asleep in a combat zone, surrounded by people who were looking for every opportunity to kill you.
"Oh fuck!" I yelled out as I quickly got my bearings. I looked down at the rest of my squad to see a few others napping as well. I started slapping myself to wake up further and took a long swig from my camelback.
"You alright bro?" The Marine to my right looks at me with a smirk on his face, obviously getting a kick off my expression. He sits there with his half finished cigarette and his Queens attitude. I always would laugh when he got pissed, he would always finish with, "tsk, get the fuck outta he-ah!".
"Just peachy." I stated with a semi- annoyed look. "How long was I out?" I asked him as I looked around one more time, then gazed out at the now, very distant FOB. I could just barely make out the GBOSS that our great leaders used to watch us, to make sure we were clean shaven and had our boots bloused, instead of looking for anyone planting IEDs.
"'Bout 5 minutes. I was trying to wake you up since you were snoring, then I thought you died when your head fell forward." He said with a laugh and pointed at the pile of rocks and dirt that now covered my legs.
"You asshole!" I stood up to get all the dirt off, and used that as an opportunity to check over the berm once
He laughed hard this time and I couldn't help but smirk and shake my head.
"So, you think the GBOSS saw me?" I asked with a slightly concerned look. I didn't exactly feel like getting my ass chewed again. Lord knows I was already in enough trouble from putting anti-freeze in the generator's fuel tank. Don't ask...it's a long and painful story.
As I looked over at him for a response he just shrugged and lit up his third 5stars, judging from the butts on the ground. Pedro was the "two packs a day if I'm bored" guy.
"So where is the IED again?" After a minute of looking I had given up and resigned to ask.
He takes a puff of his cig before he stands up and brings up his SAW to look through the SDO. "You see over there towards the left canal?"
I brought up my SAW as well to look through its optic. "Mmmm..well I see the canal.."
"Ok, now look to the right and you'll see the little wall. That's where it is." He looked at me for a look of confirmation that I saw it. Once I nodded at him while maintaining visual with my optic, he pulled his pack of 5stars out of his sleeve pocket and offered me one just before he took one long drag to finish his current cigarette before throwing the butt over his shoulder.
"How big did they say it was?" I said while politely declining his offer. I was still looking through my optic at the IED location before briefly looking around, scoping out the rest of the village, with what good a 3.5x scope is at that. Without even thinking, he replied so low with smoke in his lungs that I almost didn't hear him.
"THREE THOUSAND POUNDS?!" I about yelled in shock and disbelief.
"What the fuck were they hoping to kill with that? Everything for a click?" I just shook my head with my mouth still agape.
We both sat down and I made a very exaggerated sigh as I held up my wrist to look at my watch. The damn thing had taken so many hits that I was surprised it even turned on, even though it did reset to mid-night every 6 hours. "How long have we been out here?" I asked getting very agitated at why this wasn't done already.
Pedro looked at his watch and I could see him do the math In his head. "I'd say about....3..3 and a half hours." He let out an equally annoyed sigh, as well as the rest of the smoke in his lungs.
"Jesus fuck..." I slammed my head against the berm in frustration. "Watch! The moment we get back, they're going to throw us on post."
He laughed a little and shook his head. I heard someone down the line shout something, but I couldn't make it or them out.
"What did he say?" I asked Pedro who looked at me with a blank look on his face. "What..did..he..say?" In repeated overly emphasized.
He simply shrugged and I glared at him.
"You're right next to him!" Pedro smiled and through up his hands. "You're useless" I said with a smile.
The Marine that yelled out the first time was getting closer, close enough to finally hear him. "WHO NEEDS TO SHAVE?!" It was Wil, holding up an electric razor like a salesman.
I turn to to Pedro with a confused and perturbed expression. "The fuck do we need to shave for?"
After another long drag from his fourth cigarette, he responded "I think Capt. America is coming to the FOB."
Yes, we really called him Capt. America. Rumor had it that he once delivered a baby, while riding a camel through Fallujha, while duel wielding SAWs. But, that's just what the word was in the Lance Corporal Underground.
I raised my hand and Wil came over to me and handed me the razor. I looked at him and mocked in my best impersonation of Capt. America, "You know it's against Marine Corp Order to use electric razors in the field!" He just rolled his eyes at me then grinned.
"Shut the hell up, Ski."
"Hurtful!!" I retorted, feigning a deeply wounded expression.
"3 MINUTES TO DET!!......3 MINUTES TO DET!!.......3 MINUTES TO DET!!"
"Thank Christ in heaven! Gonna get back, grab some chow, and then go to sleep." I wasn't talking to anyone, but I said it loud enough to be heard by Pedro. I looked over and saw him nod with another cigarette halfway gone.
*CRACK*
".......God...DAMMIT!!!!" Oh I was furious!
"Please let that be an ND." I begged to any higher power that would listen, despite the fact that I knew we were in for a much longer day than what we had already endured.
*CRACK CRACK CRACK*
"Oh boy, we about to get in the shit now." Pedro lit up another cigarette and racked his bolt back on his SAW waiting for his chance to open up.
I crawled up to the top of the berm and opened up the bi-pods and racked the bolt back on my SAW and took position to cover the last right half of the village. As soon as I got set up, I got a shower of dirt in my face from a bullet impact.
"WOOO..BOY!! If only they were a little bit better, they'd've had me." I called over to Pedro with a smirk. My blood was pumping now, and the euphoric feeling of adrenaline was beginning to take over my senses.
I maintain my view through my SDO, trying to see muzzle flashes. I notice out of the corner of my left eye, Pedro joining me on the berm, as well as two figures hauling ass through the field towards a small wall about 300 meters away. Pedro had noticed it too and looked at me with a "what the fuck" look.
"I hope they know that that area hasn't been swept yet. Who was that anyways?" I asked squinting to see, but the glare of the sun was making it impossible.
"I think it was Adams and Bellies." He looked through his SDO at the two that just made the "Medal of Honor run." "Yup! Adams and Bellies." He confirmed.
"Fuck Adams." I put my attention back to my sector and lost all concern instantly.
Next thing I know, Wil comes up to me and Pedro, and I can hear Adams talking through the handset. I turn to him, trying to listen to what Adams is saying. I didn't hear much, but then again, I didn't have to..I knew what he wanted just by looking at Wil's face.
"He wants us to rush to them, doesn't he..?" Wil simply nodded and me a Pedro did a double take of each other, and the distance they wanted us to cover.
"They're out of their Goddamn minds! They want us to rush..to them..with no cover?" I was just sitting there in, shaking my head when I heard Adams come over the radio again.
*"Wil! Get Ski and Pedro up here, NOW!"*
"I really hate that mother fucker." I stated loud enough to be heard when Wil keyed the mic to tell him we were coming.
"Alright Ski, me and Pedro will go first. We're going to buddy rush." He looked at be with a smirk as I could only laugh in that insane laughter you adopt when you're at the point that death doesn't even matter to you.
"Right behind you..." And with that, Wil and Pedro took off in dead sprints while I waited for them to get down. As soon as they dropped, I was up and sprinting as fast as I could. Not an easy feat for carrying 120 lbs of extra weight, what with all my equipment, weapons and ammo.
I passed them shortly after and got down about 20 feet ahead of them. We bounded twice more before Wil came up and kneeled down next to me. He was surveying the area while telling me we need to cut left to make it to the wall.
As he's telling me this, I'm watching rounds impact by his feet and in front of me.
"Wil, get the fuck down!" I look at him like he's retarded.
"I will. Just..let me catch my breath.." He's looking around still with his hand on the mic like he's going today something over the radio. This time, Pedro speaks up with obvious exhaustion and desperation in his voice.
"Wil! Get prone bro!"
Wil looks at us trying to figure out why we are so panicked.
"Why are you guys freaking ou..." *CRACK* *SNAP*
He doesn't get to finish his sentence when I get showered with dirt again.
"Because they're shooting at you, you dumb mother-fucker!" I reach up and pulled him down just as another round impacts in front of me and to the left of him.
"Oh shit!" His eyes went wide and mouth hung open when he finally realized just how close he had come to getting a free trip to Bethesda.
I got up and ran left about 50 feet before getting back down to wait for Wil and Pedro. A few more bounds and we were next to Adams and Bellies. We barely had enough time to catch our breath, when they began telling us their plan. I picked my head up once I heard a very distinctive hissing, swoosh noise. Just as I looked over the wall, an RPGS strikes the wall, knocking us all on our asses.
It took me a minute to get my bearings, and everything sound like it was underwater with singing crystal.
"EVERYONE GOOD?!?" Adams calls out while giving a thumbs up. We all follow suit once we check ourselves over. "I just pissed myself, but I'm good!" Bellies calls out with a smirk.
As we peered over the wall, we could barely make out the smoke trail that came from the RPG. From me perspective, it came from the left most buildings of the village. "I'll bet you anything, Rambo over here wants us to go and clear the village ourselves." I thought as I glared towards Adams.
"Wil! Give me the radio!" Adams calls out while holding his rifle over the wall. Will crouches over and runs the radio to him. "What channel is battalion tach?" Adams looks at us when Bellies chimes in. "Why? No one is hit." He looked around again at us, then back at Adams. "What are you going to do? Call in fixed wings?" Adams only smirks and nods.
"Good luck with that! Do we even have air on station?" I asked in disbelief. We NEVER got cleared to use anything.
After about a minute of nothing, Adams looked back at us with an irritated look.
"What is battalions call sign?" He asked finally, resigning to the fact that he was looking stupid in front of the "boots". None of us even got to answer before he switched to company tach and called it in.
"Patriot 6, this is 3 Alpha, requesting immediate air support. Over." Now the waiting game. I just sat there with my back against the wall, feeling the bullets impacting it and listened as they whistled and snapped over head. The afghanis were the most primitive people I had ever seen, yet they could build houses and walls that would take a tank round and laugh cause it tickled.
The radio crackled to life as a weak transmission came through.
"Last station, you came in broken and unreadable, how copy?" Adams undid the whip-antennae and put the radio on the wall. The rest of us didn't wait to be told, as we instinctively placed our weapons on the wall and started putting suppressive fire down in any direction we felt like, because none of us knew exactly where it was coming from. All we knew, is that they were terrible....
Adams was able to get a clearer signal from the extra height he was able to get. "I say again, 3 Alpha is requesting immediate close air support at our......." Adams stopped when he heard me call out.
"R..P..G!!!" I had just caught a glimpse of the rag-head holding the shoulder mounted system.
Everyone had just barely dropped to the deck when it flew over the wall and impacted the ground 10 feet next to us.
I slowly lifted my head up to see the tail fin and was sticking out of the ground, the tracer still glowing, slowly melting the thin metal housing.
"Uhhh...guys? I think we should move...like..NOW!" I slowly rose to my feet, not taking my eyes off the unexploded rocket. But my statement was drowned out by Adams, now screaming over the radio.
"Are we seriously just gonna stay.." *SNAP*SNAP*SNAP*SNAP*
My thoughts were quickly silenced as I put my weapon over the wall and returned fire with a 3 second burst right into a house.
"PATRIOT, THIS IS 3 ALPHA! AT THIS TIME, WE ARE DECLARING BROKEN ARROW!! I SAY AGAIN, BROKEN...ARROW! WE ARE IN A TIC!! HOW COPY? OVER!"
All the while Adams was calling for immediate assets to be directed to us, both SAWs, Wil's M16 and Bellies's M4 were opening fire in the general direction of the RPG attack.
While me and Pedro were dumping rounds at the rapid rate, Adams taps me on the should and shouts in my ear.
"We have fix wings en route and HIMARS are being spun up! ETA 5 mikes for CAS! We got Hornets boys!" A giddy smile washed over his face.
A huge smile crept over my face as I knew this whole village was about to get leveled. Right at that moment, a round hit my SAW right in the heat shield, causing it to explode and send shrapnel into my face.
"MOTHER FUCKER!!" I immediately ducked down behind the wall and took my Oakleys off. I felt around my face, but no blood appeared on my hands.
Adams looked at me with that stupid grin still on his face. "You good?"
"Yea I'm fucking good..!" I had to yell over the gun fire, and gave a thumbs up just to be sure he got the message.
After what felt like an eternity, we hear the beautiful sound of F-18s screaming about 200 feet over-head at top speed, breaking the sound barrier over the village. I watched as they climbed out of sight. Adams popped green smoke to indicate to them where the friendly pos was. TheY angled their noses towards the villages and let a 3 second burst of 20mm cry out.
BBBRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAP
it was the most beautiful sound, coupled with the most awesome display of dancing lights. They completely leveled two buildings right off the bat, then circled around to complete two more attack runs before left station to re-arm.
I looked over at Adams who had the radio to his ear again. He kind of startled me when he screamed.. "HIMARS incoming!!"
The words barely left his mouth before the first earth-shattering explosion, causing those of us not expecting it to duck.
We just recovered when the second one exploded, then the third. The fourth and fifth rockets exploded at the same time, and by time the sixth rocket hit, the area was completely obscured by smoke and dust.
All I could think at that moment, was "..Merica.."
We waited for about 10 minutes for the smoke to clear. And when it did, we about shit ourselves from what we saw. What once was a decent sized village, was now just craters and rubble. The sound of someone coming over the radio broke my awe inspired trance of the scene.
*"3 Alpha, Alpha Actual, can we get a BDA? Over."*
"Negative Actual, we are still engaging with hostiles. Break."
"BDA cannot, I say again, CAN NOT be ascertained at this time. How copy? Over."
Adams throws his hands up in frustration as the painfully obvious transmission crackles over.
*"3 Alpha, you need to get over there and get a BDA. This is not a request..OVER."*
I couldn't help but laugh in that, "laugh-cry" sort of way. "Of-fucking-course they want us to rush 400 meters, WHILE UNDER FIRE, just so they can stroke higher's dicks and say, "looky what we did."" I watched Adams and could tell his feelings were the same as mine.
"I don't like it either, Ski. But you know they won't stop until they get their confirmation." He simply took a deep breath and sighed before continuing.
"I'll get them start flanking left to provide covering fire, then we go, so..get ready for hell."
He pulls out his Black-Gear to inform the squad of the new Plan of Attack. I didn't listened to what he said, I was busy getting psyched for what we were about to do. Yea, the fire had died down, but they were still opening up with RPKs and small arms. Truth is though, you never truly are ready to do that, you simply rely on everything you've been taught and let your body take over.
No sooner had I taken one giant breath and exhaled sharply did I get a tap on the should from Adams.
"On me! We're sprinting, don't stop!" He watched us all make one final check to make sure all our gear was good and waited for the thumbs up from each of us.
Once he was satisfied, he turned and faced the impact zone and radioed the team leaders with simply, "We're ready!". And with the first volley of fire coming from the 240s and 249s, we were off. Till We Die, by Slipknot was playing in my head the entire distance. Once in while I'd look down and see the dust kicking up from rounds impacting next to my feet. I glanced over my shoulder to see Wil directly behind me, Pedro behind him, and Bellies as tail gunner.
A thought popped into my head that almost stopped me cold. "Did we even sweep the rest of this fucking field?!" But, at this point..I didn't really care. If I died, I'd never know it. My uncle had told me that before I left, which still makes me laugh.
At last we closed the distance and were at the corner of one the outskirts buildings. Adams looked at us for the "go" sign before telling the squad to shift fires left.
I about jumped out of my skin when we heard an AK fire 10-15 rounds from around the corner. It wasn't directed at us which told me we kinda had surprise on our side.
"Ski, Wil, Pedro. You three circle around back and start clearing. Myself and Bellies will go in from the front."
He notices the clear confusion on my face and rolls his eyes with an exaggerated sigh. "What, Skiiiiiii?"
"Shouldn't you take a SAW with you?" I mean granted, this was his and Bellies's third deployment together, but SOP was, well..SOP.
"Just shut up and do it. It's not like I trust any of you fucks to watch my back anyways. You have no idea what you're doing you dumb boot! If I took you or Pedro, y'all would probably shoot me in the back on accident" And with that, he motioned for Bellies to come up with him, and I went back to where he had just been.
"Oh, it wouldn't be on accident..mother fucker." I said low enough so only Wil and Pedro could hear me.
I "So who's leading?" I asked while momentarily turkey peaking around the corner. As I looked back Wil had a smirk on his face.
"You got this Ski!" Pedro said with a laugh, Wil following up with his own goofy chuckle. They were enjoying my disdain of Adams, and my unease about what we were about to do.
"Are you serious?!" I hoped one of them would them would reconsider, but they both just nodded. I RRRREEEEAAAALLLY didn't want to be the one that made a mistake that ended one of our lives. But, they trusted me enough to follow me into hell of their own volition. There was no need to has out a plan, we all had be trained together, so we knew how each other operated. So with one final sigh, I resigned to my fate to lead our little team into what would either be the worst day of our lives, or a moment of tiny greatness that we would always bring up with, "..hey, you remember that time when we..."
Well, it was now or never, and with a quick glance back to see Adams give the "GO!" signal, we were off.
As soon as I popped the corner, a PKM opened up with a round ripping through my shoulder and two rounds hitting me square in the SAPI plate. Pedro and Wil quickly went from behind, guns up and blazing as they crossed the street to find cover, while I recoiled behind the corner we had just left. I'm not sure which one did it, but they managed to kill the guy.
I could hear Wil call out in terror after he didn't see me. "SKI?! Where are you?!"
I waved my arm from behind the corner while still getting the wind back in my lungs. "I'm hit!!" was all I was able to call out. It felt like I had a few broken ribs. But that thought was quickly dismissed as I took a deep breath and didn't feel anything majorly wrong.
Wil called out to me again. "I'M COMING TO YOU!"
As I peered around the corner to asses our battle-space, I spotted one guy at the end of the street and got in the prone, kicking my bi-pods out.
"Negative! Stay put, I'm good." As if to emphasize my point, I opened up with a 10 round burst, clipping the insurgent as he ran across the street with an RPK. Wil looked at where I was shooting and seemed satisfied as the man lay dying in the street.
"Pedro! Lay down covering fire! I'm getting ready to move up!"
Pedro nodded and re-adjusted the SAW into his shoulder and laid down a 30 round burst while I moved to an adjacent alley way.
"SET!!" I cried out, slightly wincing from the pain that was still lingering in my chest
"MOVING!!" I heard Pedro shout. Once I heard that I opened up with my own 30 round burst and watched him out of the corner of my eye set in place.
"SET!!" I could see Pedro panting hard from the exertion we had been out under in the last hour. We had sprinted about 750 meters in the blazing 135 degree heat, we were running low on water, and we were all probably starving.
Now it was Wil's turn to move up. While I was thinking about how I wanted to clear the block, I couldn't help but hear the ditty from boot camp in my head. "SIR! HOUSE HOUSE STREET TO STREET IS, HUÉ CITY, SIR!!" It made me smile for a second before getting serious.
"WIL! On me!! We're going to clear this house first!" I stated while patting the wall of my building.
"PEDRO! Cover the street, and keep an eye on the windows of this building while we move up to the door." Once again, I patted the side of the building me and Wil were about to breach.
Wil was watching me intently when I made eye contact again. I raised my hand, holding three fingers up and slowly began to drop them one by one. Once I made a fist, I peeked around the corner and opened up with a 15 round burst. When I stopped, Pedro opened up with his weapon, allowing Wil to come up behind me. He tapped me on the shoulder, letting me know he was set.
"PEDRO! When we breach that door, get behind us."
He didn't look at me, instead he continued to face down range and gave me a nod.
With my gun up, we rounded the corner and Wil faced behind us and walked backwards to cover our flank. Once we were at the door, I did one final check of the surrounding buildings, and checked for any obvious traps.
Satisfied enough, I faced the door and brought up my leg to kick it down. However, when my foot connected with the door, it went straight through.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!"
I tried desperately to get my leg out of the sheet metal door, but my cammies were saying "no". All I could think about was the incredibly easy target I was making. All it would've taken, was a short burst from an AK to kill me right then and there.
"Well, if they didn't know we were coming in before, they do now!" Was all Wil could say with a smirk as he rushed behind me to help. He lifted me up and pulled me back ripping my leg free from the door, and my pant leg free from my body. To make things worse, I could hear Pedro laughing, and I could have sworn I could hear the Taliban laughing.
I simply shook my head at my, now, disheveled state. So we re-cocked and I brought the door down with my shoulder instead and went to clear right. Wil cleared left and Pedro was right behind him and turned to cover the now, gaping hole that used to be the doorway.
"I got an open doorway left!" Will cried out. I looked along my wall to make sure there was nothing to cover.
"On you!" I exclaimed while immediately moving behind him.
Pedro got up and walked backwards to us until he bumped into me. He placed his boot between my legs to let me know he was ready, which in turn made me give Wil the go ahead signal and we started clearing the second room. This time, Wil cut right and I hooked left with Pedro checking overhead.
"Left side clear!"
"Right side clear!"
"Overhead, clear!"
We all just took a second to catch our breaths and mentally regroup. We had a long ways to go, and I didn't want to get burned out and start making mistakes. We were all exhausted, but we need every once of mental fortitude we could muster. Part of me wondered how Adams and Bellies were fairing, not that I worried about them, just that I hadn't heard any gunshots or explosions since we started.
By this time, my shoulder was starting to really annoy me. I reached into my med bag and pulled out my bottle of 800mg ibuprofen. I took out two tablets and chewed them and then took two more whole. I also noticed I was running dangerously low on water, which made me extra eager to get this whole thing over with. I didn't feel like becoming a heat case and having to be medi-vact.
We began to look around the room for any signs that this building was being used by Taliban fighters. All the while we could hear both near, and distant gun shots. I could help but wonder why the rest of the squad hasn't come up to help clear the village, and Wil didn't have a radio any longer. "Way to think ahead Adams, you arrogant fuck.." I though while rolling my eyes.
"Alright, let's hit the next one." I called out while doing an ammo check on my current belt of rounds. I had about 50 rounds left and made a second drum ready. "Do you guys have anything to mark with?"
"Hold on a second." Wil was digging through a chest at the far end of the room. It was small, only about 2 feet tall by 3 feet long "I think I found something."
"It better be gold, or black tar. I WISH we could have Bad Company luck." As he continued to rummage, I heard a light *click* and a high pitched whine that increased in pitch and decibels.
"Oh FUCK!! SKI, PEDRO..RUN!!" Wil started sprinting towards the exit, but before I could respond or react, I went flying into the wall after being hit with what felt like a Mack truck, blacking out immediately after.
Author's Note
Well, this is the very first chapter to my very first story. I hope you enjoyed it, I know I probably made a lot of mistakes, so just message me with them and I'll correct them accordingly. Any advice is also greatly appreciated.
Ch 1. We aren't in Kansas anymore..
I looked out over Lake Ontario on one of the rare days that it was completely calm. My grandfather and I had taken the boat out to go fishing. I hadn't been on his bout in about two years, and I felt pretty refreshing. I had cast my line about 20 meters out, and began lazily reeling it in. I wasn't concerned about getting a fish, I was just enjoying spending time with grandpa. I hadn't seen my him in far too long, and this was a wonderful day to just enjoy nothing to do. It was a bit nippy out since it was just starting to become spring, which is probably why we were the only ones out on the lake, as far as I could see.
Suddenly my pole lurches forward and almost out of my hands, snapping me out of my casual observations and causing my adrenaline to start flooding my veins.
"Jesus!" whatever it was, it was big, and it was angry! I was reeling and holding on for all I was worth. I didn't have a very high test line, so loosing it was almost a certainty, and I was more worried about loosing my grandfathers lure that actually loosing the fish.
After about 10 minutes of playing the white knuckle "give and take" game, the thing finally started cooperating. I slowly started reeling it up to starboard side until I finally saw its dorsal fin break the surface. With my heart in my throat, I turned around to ask my grandfather to get the net, however, when I turned around, I saw the entire shore was engulfed in flames. The sky was black with smoke, the sun barely shinning through in its noon position.
My blood ran cold at the sight of the decimated landscape, but once I looked around and didn't see my grandfather, my heart and time stopped.
My attention was pulled back to my pole for a moment after it got another hard tug. No doubt the fish getting agitated again now that it had had an opportunity to rest. As I turned my attention back to my side of the boat, I could see the lake had turned to blood, with millions of floating bodies littering the surface who, themselves on fire.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I opened my eyes to a blurry starry sky and full moon. After a minute of rapid blinking and rubbing my eyes, everything started coming into focus. I sat up slowly and looked around and saw that I had somehow, I had ended up on the roof of the building, but it didn't appear to be the same mud house we had been in..weird.
"..ow....mother..fucker..." I took my Kevlar off and threw it next to me in the anger you get from a massive headache. I started rubbing my forehead and temples when the unmistakable sensation of nausea over took me. I leaned over and vomited everything I had in me, which also served to increase my head pounding.
As I went to take a drink from my camelback, I was disheartened to find out that I was out of water. Whether I had drank it all, or it had been burst by the explosion remained to be seen. But either way..I was now completely out of water.
I looked around again, this time in search of my weapon and day pack, which I quickly realized was still on my back. My weapon had been tossed a few feet further away, gleaming in the moonlight and teetering on the edge of the roof. Relieved that I still had a means to defend myself, at least I was hoping I did. I had no clue whether or not is was still functional.
As I slowly crawled towards it, I could feel the roof beginning to buckle under my weight. "Not good, not good, not good." I whispered to myself, praying in my head for the roof to stay intact long enough for me to grab my the SAW.
As I reached the spot where it was at, and curled my hand around the pistol grip, my fears were justified as the roof finally gave way and sent me plummeting 10 feet down. When I hit the floor, the bolt was knocked loose and allowed a 4 round burst to fire off.
"We'll, at least it works.." I just laid there recovering from the shock of falling, as well as the renewed pounding in my head, and unease in my stomach. I was now worried about how many fighters that little burst alerted to at least, my survival. I decided not to waste anytime and took off my daypack. I needed to find my sidewinder flashlight to start searching for Pedro and Wil.
"Where the fuck is it?!" Frustrated at having ripped everything out of my bag and being unable to locate it, I started feeling around all my stuff before I hit it with my hand and heard it skitter across the room. "God dammit.." I just couldn't win.
I crawled the path I was sure it took, sweeping my hand in a fairly large arc across the floor.
I did find it a few moments later, just, not with my hands..
"NNNGGGHHHH!!!!! Found it! with my knee..." I rolled on to my side and held my knee like Peter Griffin. It hurt so bad, I was biting my lip and my eye teared up slightly.
After taking a second to swallow the pain, I picked it up and switched it to "white" and turned it on. What I saw when the light flooded the room, dumbfounded me. We were not in the same house that we cleared, yet, all the damage that would have happen in that building was here. The hole in the corner of the building, the walls of the second room being blown out..Everything. But instead of a mud house, this was wood and stone with straw roofing.
I began sweeping the light from left to right, searching for any sign of my brothers. After searching the whole floor, it led me to the conclusion that they were under one of the piles of ruble.
"PEDRO!!...WIL!!" I shined the light through the beams that had fallen and formed one of the piles of ruble. While looking through the hole, I was able to make out the barrel of Wil's M16.
"WIL!" I called out once more but didn't bother for a response before I began my excavation.
It wasn't long into my recovery effort that pain started erupting from my shoulder. I instantly gripped my shoulder and leaned back against the wall. It was all I could do to keep from doubling over or throwing up again. I relinquished the grip on my shoulder to get my pain pills, but noticed the cold breeze on my hand, telling me my hand was wet.
The smell of copper was strong and I knew it was blood coating my hand, after I picked up the light, I saw my entire sleeve was soaked and droplets of blood were falling to the ground.
Well, shit I didn't know just how much blood I had lost, but I reached into my med bag and pulled out the bottle of ibuprofen, which wasn't really the smartest move since it also acted as a blood thinner. I took out three pills and chewed them up, but took my a second to get it all down since I was starting to get dehydrated. After wasting enough time trying to swallow all the bits and pieces that were now crowding and irritating my mouth, I refocused on getting Wil and Pedro out.
As i continued my excavation of my two brothers, I could swear I was hearing hoof falls of several horses in gallop. The only reason I would know what that sounds like is from movies such as Lord of the Rings and such. Every time I stopped to listen, they would disappear.
Finally, after 45 minutes of struggling, I was able to get Pedro's body clear of debris. I reached under him and dragged him into a corner of the room, by the door. This way, any incoming hostile personnel would be drawn to me, and be surprised by him..when he woke up that is.
"Pedro..Pedro!" I shook him gently and smacked his cheek a few times before I heard a groan.
"ooohh....Ugh! My damn head.."
"Welcome back to the land of the..."
"Bro! how much blood have you lost?!" He quickly got up and forced me to sit while reaching into his IFAK. He didn't even have to look to know what he was grabbing. countless days worth of training in JUST in Combat Life Saving exercises. In a flash, Pedro had torn off my sleeve and had begun disinfecting and dressing my wound.
"Alright bro, I'll take it from here." he handed me my weapon and nodded towards the door. The hoof falls had gotten closer and I think he noticed them too in the short time he was awake. I racked the bolt back and slid the safety on.
The minutes seemed to take forever to tick by as my nerves were, once again, on end in anticipation of the worst. I had all but tuned out Pedro's grunts of exertion when I heard him suddenly cry out in agony.
"FUCK NO!! GOD DAMNIT..NO!!!"
My heart stopped and my blood went cold. I didn't have to turn around to know what he was screaming about..but I did so hoping it wasn't true. I stood up and half sprinted the distance that separated me from them and stopped when I saw Wil...or at least...what was left of him. I couldn't stop myself from dropping to my knees from the sight. Lying before us, was Wil's body, that had been blown in half from about his ribs, down.
My hands went flying to my mouth as I tried to keep the vomit from spraying out and ran to the door and proceeded to empty my stomach once again.
"Over here!! I just saw something!" An unknown voice cried out. I looked towards the source and only saw what looked like very large dogs, larger than any I had seen before outside of internet pictures.
The words were in English with American accents. My heart jumped with elation, but, something didn't sit right with me at the moment. I didn't recognize the voice that I had heard first, nor the voices that followed. I assumed it was a search and rescue party so I began to get my gear on and picked up my weapon.
"Pedro, I think our search party is outside." He broke away from looking at Wil and turned to me with dead eyes. "I'm going to go out and bring them here. Hand me your GPS?" He simply nodded and took his GPS off his wrist, handing it to me, but before I had a grip on it, he dropped it.
It wasn't the time to tel him to get his head in the game. Our rescue party was right outside and we were going home soon. I put my kevlar back on and headed out the door, weapon locked and eager to get back to base. As I looked around, I saw a lot more green in the distance than I remember.Perhaps I'm turned around. I stayed silent, trying to listen for the voices to pick up again.
"Didn't you say you saw them over here?"
"Yea..well..I thought I did. I know I saw a large shadow from the moonlight."
"ALRIGHT! We're going to search this whole block. Fliers up and everyone, fan out."
Fliers? must be drones. That told me that these voices came from Soldiers, not Marines. This should be interesting.
I narrowed down where the voices were coming from, while still trying to remember every turn I took in order to lead them back to Pedro and Wil. As I rounded the corner, I saw the pack of dogs again, except now there were a LOT more of them. Oh boy! I flicked my weapon off safe and bought it to my shoulder as I began to walk cautiously around them. Just as I got behind them, one of them speaks!
"THERE!" I looked towards the one that spoke, completely dumbfounded. I then saw two of the dogs take to the air and start coming towards me while the other started running at me. I was freaking out. I brought my gun up and flicked the light on full, which stopped them for a split second.
"HALT!! IN THE NAME OF CELESTIA!" It was one of the flying ones yelling this time. I squeezed the trigger and let off short burst and saw one of them drop. I aimed at the other flyer who shot off towards the sky. Turning my attention to the ones on the ground, I saw that they had closed the distance and were now less than 10 feet away. What I saw at that point really confused me. They weren't dogs, I didn't know exactly what they were, but I knew that they weren't dogs.
"DON'T COME ANY CLOSER..WHATEVER YOU ARE!!" I was starting to breath heavy with my heart about to explode. That was it, I had officially lost my mind. In the back of my head, I chalked this whole night up to being in a very deep sleep. That was it. We had been Medivaced and I was In a coma or something.
"..ski!." I could hear Pedro's voice barely over my own heart beat. I aimed my SAW in the air and fired another burst to let him know where I was.
*WHACK* I felt a sharp blow to the back of my head and everything faded out to black.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When I awoke, I saw that I was indeed, in a hospital. I looked down and saw your standard hospital bed, with me in those stupid gowns. I was hooked up to a saline drip it looked like and the standard heart monitoring equipment. What wasn't standard however, was the fact that I was SHACKLED to the bed. That's right, not cuffed, but shackled.
I looked around again and found my nurse call button thingy. As soon as I pressed it, the curtain opened and what I saw completely blew my mind. Standing before me was a white...I don't know what..But, it was wearing the upper part of a pair of scrubs. It had a heart and syringe tattooed on its flank. I watched as it looked around at all the equipment and then pulled my curtain closed before leaving me..
"I must be on one hell of a drug.." saying out loud before the door opened up again and shut again. The curtain slide open once again and this time there were four of those things. One had a longer snout that went up at a shallow angle, while the other three had much smaller muzzles that that reminded me of an Apple Head Chihuahua.
The one with the longer snout looked at me and smiled. "How are you feeling today?"
My eyes grew wide and mouth dropped. after a second I shook my head quickly and tried to words properly.
"I...I...My shoulder is still sore?.." He simply nodded and tapped the IV bag before commenting.
"My name is Dr. Good-Heart. You came in about four days ago heavily sedated and bleeding. can you tell me a little about what happened?"
I proceeded to tell him the long winded and also very emotional tale of the days events that led to my being here. He never broke eye contact the whole time I talked, and only pipped up with the occasional "Hmmm.." and "I see". When I finished my story, he began asking for the explanation of most the things I had mentioned.
"So Doc..I have a few questions as well if you don't mind." I had a feeling that he would pull the In due time spiel.
"of course, I'll be happy to answer any questions you have." He gave another, seemingly genuine smile before I proceeded.
"What are you? I mean, all of you. I've never seen anything like you or those three." I pointed over at the nurses still fusing with the equipment and refilling IVs and Sedative pumps. He simply chuckled and waived them away once they had completed their respective tasks.
"We are ponies. I am a stallion, and they are mares..Male and female respectively." He responded a matter of factly.
"I'm sorry..ponies?"
"Yes sir, Ponies. And before you ask, you are in the city of Canterlot of the country of Equestria." It had been obvious what my next question was going to be.
I laid there struggling to process the information I just received. The doctor laughed at what must have been a very amusing look on my face which broke me out of my train of thought.
"There was another guy with me, Do you know where he is?"
He shook his head but suddenly perked his ears up. "Oh! that reminds me! There were three of you, correct?"
My eyes become downcast as I thought about Wil. Nodding my head I spoke up to correct him. "There WERE three of us.."
"The one of y'all that was severely injured? Um..missing his lower half?.." He was somber in his response. I only nodded before he continued.
"Princess Celestia was able to sustain his life force, with the help of Princess Luna and Princess Twilight Sparkle." I looked at him with a smile and tears running down my face. A part of me not wanting to accept this news that was, to me, too good to be true. Pinching myself for good measure and laughing once I was satisfied that I was indeed awake, I turned to look at Dr. Good-Heart.
"Can I see him?" The fact that I had these shackles on my wrists pretty much already told me the answer.
"I'm afraid that will not be possible." The voice sounded female, and had a lot of authority behind it. I looked towards the voice and saw a very large, white Unicorn, Pegasus mix looking...mare. Her mane and tail were a combination of pink, green, and blues. It also appeared to be blowing in a constant wind, even though there was none. She was the size of a regular horse, which honestly intimidated me a little bit since I was immobilized in this bed, having to look up at her.
I had been too busy sizing her up to notice Dr. Good-Heart bow down before her. This is obviously someone important.
"Princess Celestia, an honor to see you again." It sounded almost like he was kissing up to her, but then again, I think its kinda expected for you to do that.
"Please, rise Dr. Good-Heart. Tell me what you have learned from this creature." I'm right here!
He began to tell her everything that I had told him, verbatim. All the while she never took her eyes off me, or lost her scowling look. It made me pretty nervous. All I knew about royalty, was the one thing you should never do, was piss them off, and I had most certainly done that..somehow.
Turning her attention back to me, she walked right up to the side of my bed and acted like she were analyzing me. I saw a dark figure move behind her and craned my neck to look at the new visitor. She was a very dark blue with a dark blue mane and tail, She was the same mix of Pegasus and Unicorn and about a head shorter than Celestia coming to stand on her left. Behind her was yet another, lavender with a deep purple mane and tail with a single streak that was the same color as her coat. She looked to be the same kind of pony, but was about half the size of the dark blue one.
"I am Princess Celestia, Ruler of the Day. On my left is Princess Luna, Ruler of the Night. Beside her is Princess Twilight-Sparkle, she rules from Ponyville."
It was Princess Luna's turn to speak.
"Thou hast committed grave crimes in Ponyville. Thou hast trespassed on private land, and destroyed a private residence. Thou hast also gravely injured a guard of MYRoyal Court. Dost thou have anything to say in thy own defense?"
There was nothing I could say, I was in complete panic mode. I wanted to argue my case in front of all three of them, but my throat had a catch in it.
"Well? Dost thou truly have naught to say?" She looked at me from over top her nose, a bit of irritation in her voice.
Lowering my head I finally spoke up in what was barely more than a whisper.
"I'm sorry about your guard. I truly hope that he makes it through. I just.." I paused for a moment before looking at all three of them. "This isn't my world..if that makes any sense to you.."
They were now looking at me intently, but were still visibly upset.
"Your guards startled me when they suddenly advanced on me. I didn't know what they were, or where I was." I took another deep breath before continuing.
"I...WE...also did not destroy that house." I knew they were not going to believe me, and I scoffed a little at how ridiculous this all probably sounded to them.
"We were in a battle when the house we were in had been booby-trapped. A very large bomb had been placed inside the house, and we accidentally set it off. When we woke up, we were here. I went outside to get help, and that's when I ran into your guards."
I covered my face with my hands a prepared myself to be hauled off to prison, or maybe a dungeon in this case. Suddenly it dawned on me to ask them about Pedro.
"There was another with me, do any of you know what happened to him?" My eyes darted from one princess to another, trying to get an answer before they spoke.
"He has been arrested as well. As for the third, he is currently on life support. He will be placed under arrest and given a trial as soon as he is well enough to stand one. However.." Celestia paused for a few moments, almost as if she were choosing her words extremely carefully.
"Though we are doing our best, there's no guarantee that your friend will survive. And even if he does make a full recovery, it will not be as he is now." She saw that I didn't understand and quickly clarified.
"In order for us to fully help him, he will have to be transformed into a pony."
Twilight had been so quiet that I had completely forgotten about her until she spoke up.
"Um, excuse me? I have a few questions for you sir, If I may Princess"
"Twilight, I have told you many times. You are a princess now. There is no need for you to address us formally. But yes, you may ask him whatever you wish."
Twilight had a semi embarrassed look and her cheeks turned red in a mild blush.
"OK..Sir? My first question is; What species are you and your friends?"
I saw her horn glow purple before a notepad and an old feather quill appeared out of nowhere. I went to speak about the notepad, but stopped myself to answer he question first.
"Myself, Pedro; who you have in custody, and Wil; the one on life support, are a species called "humans."
I could see her quill all by itself with every word I said.
"Next question. Where do you come from?"
"Planet; Earth. Country; United States of America. Our country is split up into "States" there are 50 of these "States" each with their own laws and governments, but they all answer to our leader and the federal government. I am from the city of Orlando in the state of Florida. Wil is from the city of Birmingham in the State of Alabama. Where Pedro is from, is a city that is so large, that it is further broken down into boroughs. So he is from the borough of Queens, of New York City in New York state."
I saw she was about to ask me another question, but I stopped her by asking a question of my own.
"Princess Celestia. I ask that whatever awaits me and my brothers be carried out with quickly. The one thing I don't wan to do, is wait."
She looked at me, then over at Luna and Twilight. They were in turn, looking back at her. Luna's expression seemed to be a mix of quiet anger and slight compassion.
"We will convene with each other on what to do with you and and the others. For now, you will remain here, under guard." After she got nods from the other two princesses, she turned back to look at me.
"It is most unfortunate that your arrival here has been met with such a situation. But your crimes, at least the crime of you assaulting a royal guard, is a grievous one. There is nothing that even I can do without major back-lash from my subjects. You will need to stand a public trial at the very least, to plead your case. As for your friends; Wil, shall be exonerated of any involvement of these incidents. But Pedro..He also assaulted a guard, so he will stand his own trial."
I collapsed back down on the bed and starred at the ceiling.
"Twilight. You may stay with..." Celestia once again was looking at me "What is your name sir?"
"You can call me Ski..."
She nodded and continued her thought to Twilight.
"You may stay here with "Ski" as long as wish. I will send for you when we are ready to hold our meeting."
"Thank you Prin..." She caught her self just in time which got a smile from Celestia and Luna. With that, they both turned and left a grinning Twilight Sparkle holding the notepad and quill once again.
"I just have a few more questions for you Sir."
"Ok, shoot.."
She gave me a puzzled look when I said that, but continued on.
"Where you're from, what is your occupation?"
She looked at me with the enthusiasm of a grade schooler meeting her hero.
"I'm a Marine." This got me a blank look from her.
I rolled my eyes before thinking of something she would understand.
"Our nation has a military that is broken down into specialized branches. You have the smallest branch, Marines, that are the first ones, besides our special forces, to land in an enemies country. We are generally taken where we need to go by either our Navy, or more recently we use commercial airliners. Then you ha..." I was cut off as she quickly wanted clarification on "Airliners".
"Airliners a companies who own fleets of airplanes which humans use to fly all over the world."
Satisfied, she gave a little "Squee" and I continued my previous explanation.
"Then you have the Army which secures what we take over and start setting up semi-permanent bases of operations. They term we use for them is "Follow on forces"."
Her little quill was scribbling furiously.
"This is all so fascinating." she was engrossed in her notebook, making sure she had gotten every word. She looked back at me once she was satisfied with her very thorough notes.
I simply raised an eyebrow.
"What about your military?"
"Well." She began after a long thought. "My brother was in the equestrian military for a while, but he never really talked a lot about it. I honestly don't know much about military operations and stuff like that. But, please continue..If you wouldn't mind that is." *squee*
I was starting to mind, and my mind couldn't help itself go back to thinking about mine and Pedro's trials. I let out an exasperated sigh and continued where I left off.
"Then you have the Air Force which we use for bombing missions and other stuff like that. They are mainly what we use to evacuate our wounded ground troops from the battlefield. Then finally, You have our navy. Nothing much to say about them, except that they are technically the big brother to the Marines."
She looked up after her quill stopped and smiled once again.
"Thank you so much for letting me talk with you. I hope I get to talk more with you in the future, but for now, I'll let you get some rest."
And with the *poof* of her notebook and quill disappearing into thin air, she turned and made her way to the door. She stopped and talked to the guards outside, but I was unable to hear what was said. They both bowed before her and she turned to walk out of my sight.
Now that I was alone again, my thoughts started going a million miles a second. It was driving me mad. I couldn't get up and pace like I had the urge to do since I was still shackled to the bed. Nothing to do but continuously pick my head up and let it fall back on the pillow. I caught the guards looking in through the window a couple of times with concerned expressions on their faces. I laughed inside at the thought that I must look like a mad man.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It had been a month since the princesses had come in to tell me just how much shit I was in. I had become so bored and nervous that I often scared the nurses when they caught me off guard and talking to myself. There was nothing for me to do! I had already read every book they had in the entire hospital. I knew every doctor, nurse, and intern by heart and what each ones specialties were.
On the bright side, I had managed to convince the guards to undo my shackles which at least allowed me to move about the room. I think the only reason they did it was because I was actually getting bed sores, and the doctor said that I would start losing functionality in my legs. My shoulder still hurt from time to time, but I forced myself to exercise through the pain.
Twilight had stopped in yesterday, just so she could ask me some more questions and study my physiology. She also told me that Wil was still unconscious and stable. She also said that we would have to decide whether or not to turn him into one of them in order to better save his life. I really don't think he would e too happy to have been; A: Blown in half and let live. And; B: turned into a miniature horse.
I was in the middle of knocking out my third set of fifty push-ups when Celestia and Luna walked into the room with Twilight in tow. All three of them partially surrounded me in a semi-circle with guards just inside the doorway. I stood up and brushed my self off to see that I was about a head taller than Celestia's, but her horn was about a foot and a half taller than me. Luna came halfway up my chest, and Twilight was about mid stomach high. She would probably be the same height as me if she were to stand on her hind legs.
"Ski, your trial will begin next week. Pedro will be in the same hearing, and we three shall be in attendance as well. Would you like legal counsel, or will you represent yourself?"
The sudden crippling fear of my life being potentially over next week, completely shut off my ability to anything but babble like an idiot.
"Do I have to decide right now?" I wondered if Pedro had already had this conversation with them. I wanted to hear what he thought before I said anything.
"I'd feel better being able to discuss things with Pedro first. Is that possible?" Celestia nodded and made a motion to the guards.
The unicorn guard placed shackles on me once again and went back to the door before Celestia, Luna, and Twilight's eyes all suddenly glowed white, and a overwhelming white light engulfed the whole room and all four of us. When I opened my eyes again, I was in an enormous throne room. The ceiling had to be at least 70 feet high and 150 feet wall to wall. The 40 pillars supporting the roof had to at least 10 feet in diameter.
A sudden pull on my wrists caused me to snap out of my admiration of the room. I turned back to look at who was pulling me, and only saw a glowing yellow cloud around my shackles. I was confused for a second, then I realized that I had seen Twilight do the same thing with the pad and quill, only, hers was purple at the time.
I followed obediently behind the three princesses towards the two thrones, looking at all the stained glass windows that had to be 20 feet tall a piece. When I didn't feel the tugging anymore, I looked to see Celestia and Luna talking amongst them selves, and Twilight walking over to me.
"Hey ski. How are you doing?" The look in her eyes was that of concern for me.
"You know, I never went to law school.. too busy saving the world and learning magic to do that. But if you DO decide to get a lawyer, you could pick me!" The smile on her face was adorable, but I had to shatter that smile. She may have known what books taught about law, but she was forgetting one large point.
"Wouldn't that be a conflict of interest?" Cocking an eyebrow as I said it.
She looked down for a second before looking back at me with an embarrassed smile.
"Oh..right. Sorry."
"There's no need to be sorry. I'm actually surprised you even offered to help us. It seems everyone else is predisposed to hating me, including Luna and Celestia." I hung my head once more, letting out a long winded sigh, my mind now back on my looming trial. I didn't hold out much hope for a favorable outcome. Here we were; aliens in an alien world, and we had not only assaulted not only what amounted to Feds here, but I almost killed one.
"TWILIGHT SPARKLE!"
Celestia's sudden outburst about made me jump out of my skin. It seemed to have had the same effect on Twilight who had whipped around as fast as she could.
"Y..yes princess!" Her response was automatic.
Celestia didn't even try to correct her this time, but simply continued.
"The trial has been moved up. The case that was ahead of yours, ski, has ended with the defendant pleading out. Yours will begin tomorrow."
My face drained of blood and I suddenly felt the need to vomit all the contents of my body. I was about to ask a question when I was interrupted my Celestia calling out to her guards, ordering them to take me to the dungeon where Pedro was. I couldn't speak, even if I had wanted to.
After what had to be 20 minutes of walking through corridors and down many flights of stairs, we finally reached the cell that Pedro was in. He took one look at me at busted out laughing. All I could do was scowl at him.
"Yea yea, laugh it up asshole. I wasn't really given an opportunity to get dressed."
"Yo, if I still had my phone." He didn't even finish his statement before laughing hard once more.
The guards opened up the door and allowed me to walk in myself. As soon as it was closed and locked, they took my shackles off with their magic.
I took another look at Pedro who still had a shit eating grin on his stupid face.
"You know our trial is tomorrow?"
"Yea fucking right. The guards said it was in two weeks."
I shook my head and saw his smile vanish when I didn't.
"The trial that was in front of ours got out early." He got the same look that I had about an hour ago.
"..Wow.. So what do we do?"
"Well, I wanted to talk with you before now, but they weren't having it. I was going to ask you if we should get a lawyer, but now there is no time what so ever to get one and prepare."
He leaned his head back against the wall and nodded in agreement. I got up and went to the door to try and get the guards' attention. I was getting sick of not having any clothes.
"Hello?!" I kept rattling the door much to Pedro's amusement.
"Hey! Keep it down! Some us are trying to sleep in here!" An very familiar New York accented voice piped up from down the hall. So I put on my best impression of a New Yorker.
"Hey fuck you, guy!" That got Pedro rolling.
I had started to laugh too but tried to resume my mission of getting clothes.
"Guard!"
Soon, the unmistakable sound of hoof-steps echoed in the hall. After a minute, a pretty large Pegasus guard was at the door with an annoyed looked.
"Yea? What is it?"
"Sorry to bother you, but would it be possible for me to get my clothes?" This only got me a quizzical loom from him. In sighed and motioned for Pedro to come over and gestured to what he was wearing.
"Oh, Yes! We do have those but, why do you need them?"
I looked at him him in disbelief that he would ask such a dumb question.
"Beeeecause I don't want to be in this hospital gown any longer? And also because its a little drafty in here?"
"Alright, I'll retrieve them for you."
As he walked away, I went to rest my head in between the bars and found that I could slip it through the space. So I slowly pushed my head through so as not to get stuck. Lord knows how embarrassing that would be.
A moment later, I saw the guard coming back and straightened myself out before he stopped at the door, handing..or rather, hoofing.. my bloody clothes to me.
"Thank ya kindly" I stated in a southern twang.
As I was putting my clothes on, I had a sudden thought on how to better prepare our defense for tomorrow's trial.
"Guard!" I heard him sigh before walking back to us.
"Yes?"
"Could you put me in contact with Princess Twilight? Or ask someone who can?" This got me a very surprised look from him.
"Princess Twilight? Why would she associate herself with.." He suddenly stopped when he saw the look on my face.
"Can you do it, or not?"
"I'll make sure she knows that you are wanting an audience." He then trotted off leaving us alone once more.
A few hours later the guard came back and opened the door before standing aside to let Twilight through. She was smiling and nodded to the guard he quickly departed.
"Hello Ski. You wished to talk to me about something?" I was beginning to like twilight. She always had such a cheery attitude and was always glad to help others it seemed.
"Yes I did Princess." She had come all this way just for us, I figured I'd show the utmost respect, which she blushed at.
"I was wondering if you could make something that I think might help us in court."
Her face began to glow from her smile. Instantly her notepad and quill appeared and she listened intently as I began going over what I wanted her to do.
