Dash was trying her hardest not to cry, only because she was in front of the majority of her crew, but she wasn’t doing too well.

“I was starting to think I’d never see you again Dash.” Scootaloo replied as she hugged her sister tighter. The barely detectable shake in her voice being the only give away she was on the brink of tears as well.

“Same here Squirt.” Dash quietly stated.

The two pulled away from each other finally, and looked over the other’s bandaged body. “You look like hell.” They said in near perfect sink, before laughing and collapsing back into the hug.

They embraced in silence for a few more moments, until, “What the bloody ‘ell is this?”

”Fucking Scottish prick.” Dash mumbled under her breath before turning to the members of her crew, her hoof hanging around Scootaloo’s neck. “Guys, this is my sister Scootaloo. She’s a pilot for the 49th.”

Her crew stared in shock, well all except for Ditzy, she was just smiling at the back of the group. “Wait wait wait wait, hold on a second. You have a sister, and she’s a pilot for the 49th. Since the hell when?”Ace yelled from the middle of the group.

Scootaloo cracked a smile, “Formation Commander and holder of the 2nd highest confirmed kill count in the air force, 49th fighter squadron pilot actually. And I’ve been with the squadron since the beginning of the war.”

Rainbow didn’t try to hide her smile, “That’s my sis, setting records and kicking Arabian ass!”

“But, you’re plane only had seven flags on it. How’s that work?” Ditzy asked.

Scootaloo caught sight of the fellow Ponyville native, “Oh hey Ditzy, didn’t see you back there. And that is actually easier to explain that you might believe. That’s my fourth aircraft, and I only mark down the victories I get on each plane respectfully.”

The whole crew’s, especially Dash’s, eyes grew at that. “You’ve been shot down three times?”Lucky asked.

Scootaloo burst out laughing, “Oh dear Faust no! I’d lose my spot as Formation Commander if that was the case. No, I’ve only technically been shot down once, wasn’t too much of a loss. I only had three kills with that P-51, seven from the scrap metal sitting outside, thirteen with my P-47 that’s back at the squadron base, and then twenty-nine with my P-38 baby that’s also at base.”

Everyone around Scootaloo started to do mental math, adding up the victory count. “.....carry the one, wait, that means you have fifty two victories! God damn girl!” Cannon said, being the quickest to put everything together.

“Yeah not half bad. Though a good few of those are tanks, mostly with bombs and rockets from my P-47. Actually, only six of the kills with my P-47 come from me downing other aircraft. Three of my kills in my P-38 are from tanks too, now there are a few stories there.” Scootaloo said as she joined the group proper.

“Well, don’t leave us hangin’ lass!” Lead Leg said when Scootaloo didn’t elaborate after throwing that bait out.

Scootaloo just shot him a look, “Keep it in your sheath Scotty. First, why don’t you introduce me to your crew Dash.”

Dash laughed at the look of pure rage that came across Lead’s face, before she gathered herself back up. “Well you already know Scotsman and Ditsy, the one with the busted nose in the back is Lucky, the one with the destroyed head is Ace, Turtle is the one was the broken leg, and then there’s Cannon, who has the shoulder bite. Oh, and the one in the back with the singed jacket is Sparky”

The four gunners and radio operator rattled off different versions of hello before Dash turned back to Scootaloo, “Course we’re still missing two of our own. Sorin and D.D. are still back in the hospital healing up from our landing.”

Scootaloo looked almost shocked, “You have D.D. on your crew, damn Dash that’s gotta be fun.”

“It's interesting to say the least. Sorin keeps her in line as best he can, but there really is no controlling that mare.”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes and laughed, “Don't I know it. I swear she is related to Pinkie someway somehow.”

“This is well good and all, but can-a-we get back to these stories.” Lead Leg asked, seeming to grow rather impatient.

“Huh, what?” Scootaloo asked, faking ignorance, “Oh right P-38 tank kill stories almost completely forgot.”

She then motioned for the others to gather around, which they happily did. “So the second kill I got wasn’t anything too special, base just strapped a couple bombs to the bottom of my plane and I got a good hit. The other two however, now those are interesting. So the first one happened about four months into the war. I was flying as left wingpony in a formation of four doing a scouting run. Another squadron had come in the day before with P-47’s and had done a ground strike, and we were inspecting their success, and loaded up to take care of any stragglers still in the area. We were cruising along at about 175 mph at about 250 feet off the ground, talking back and forth, when the pony flying tail-end charlie*(1) reported spotting a tank on the ground, tracking us. So I winged over slightly to get a better look at the ground and sure enough there was some sort of panzer on the ground tracking us with his turret. I saw this as kind of of, however those thoughts were quickly forgotten when he actually fired at us. And not just his machine gun either, his full on main gun.”

This statement shocked the entire group.

“So wait, a panzer, not some random AA truck, started taking shots at you with its main cannon? I’m just checking to make sure I heard that right.” Mason asked, not believing the words that had just left his mouth.

“Nope, you heard me right. Trust me, it took us long enough to come to grips with the fact it actually happened too, and we lived it. Anyways where was I? Oh yeah, so the tank fired his main gun at us, and the round hit our right wing pony, destroyed his right rudder. I didn’t know what to think, so I just acted. I winged over and dived from the group toward the offending tank. I still think it was an inexperience tank crew, because they left the grates over their engine compartment completely exposed.”

“They were experienced enough to hit a low flying P-38.”Ace interrupted.

Scootaloo nodded, “True, but I guess we’ll never know. Anyways, seeing those engine grates exposed, I took aim at them. I didn’t really have much time to maneuver or think with only 250 feet of altitude, but I was able to line up on them long enough for a quick burst. That few seconds though were all I needed apparently. The second I let off the trigger so I could pull up and go around, the tank went up in flames. My best guess is that one of my incendiary 20 mils got through the grates and hit their fuel tank. I flew right over the explosion, and took a little damage, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. We flew on for another half hour or so, talking about what happened, before the damage me and Rain Check received forced us to return to base. No one there believed us until they pulled the footage from my gun sight camera.”

The crew mumbled to themselves at this, “I wonder why?” Sparky said jokingly, before they all turned back to Scoots.

“What about the other one?” Ditzy asked.

“Well that one is one that I still don’t believe. So we had our P-38’s fitted with, at the time, experimental drop tanks to try and extend their range for bomber missions, and we decided to test them on a frontal assault mission. Turns out one of the mechanics didn’t attack my left drop pod correctly, so I couldn’t pull fuel from it. So when we encountered a few flights of Arabian fighters and I dropped the tank, it was still completely full. Now I thought nothing of it until three days later, when I got a letter from 27th infantry regiment. Turns out, my drop tank hit a tank on the ground that was pinning down some of the regiment’s soldiers and blew it up. Don’t ask me how, I still haven’t figured that out yet.”

The group of bomber ponies stared at the 49th pilot, in complete silence, that was until Lead Leg broke it. “Now what a Celestia damned second, that’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. Drop tank blowing up something on the ground, my ass!”

Scootaloo smiled, she been waiting for that, and hoping it had been Lead Leg that called BS.

She reached into her mane and pulled out a folded picture and shoved it in Lead Leg’s face. The rest of the crew gathered behind Lead Leg and stared at the picture.

In it were three soldiers climbing on the burnt wreckage of a tank. One soldier wasn’t paying attention to the picture being taken, and was smoking a cigarette and facing away. Another pony was on top of the tank pointing at a mangled metal piece sticking out of it’s top. The third was holding a piece of metal up so the camera pony could see the charred white paint which read, “loo, 49th”.

“Still wanna call bullshit Scotty?” Scootaloo said before folding the picture back up. The whole group laughed as Lead Leg spluttered, trying to come up with a retort.

“So Squirt, now that you’ve totally called out the Scotsman, wanna go for a walk and catch up?” Dash asked, walking up and throwing a leg around Scootaloo.

Scoots “thought” about it for a second, “Well, I’d rather go for a fly, but I guess I can settle for a walk.

Dash smiled and the two started to walk toward the exit of the hanger, when she yelled over her shoulder to her crew, “Any of you follow us, and I’ll put you back in the hospital!”

Lucky, Cannon, and Lead Leg, who had been planning to sneak off and eavesdrop on the pair, now found themselves hiding behind a laughing Ace, Sparky, and Ditzy.

Dash shot the group a smirk, before she and her sister walked out of the hanger, Dash’s leg still over Scootaloo’s shoulder. It was only after turning a corner and disappearing behind another B-24, did Dash speak up, “So since when do you guys fly P-51’s and P-47’s? I thought the 49th only flew p-38’s.”

Scootaloo chuckled a little, “Yeah, started off that way, then they started to add to our rosters as newer aircraft came out. We even do combat testing for new aircraft, command feels that if the best squadron in the Air Force can’t fight with them, then they aren’t worth the material, time, or money. In fact, that’s how this happened.”

Scootaloo then held up up her right wing and unwrapped the end of it, showing off how the feathers of the last three inches before the wingtip were melted together. “Command was trying out different ways to extend the range of the P-51 so they could stick with the bombers on long range missions. One of the ones they were trying out was extending the plane’s internal wing tanks. I was flying one of these, and it was performing ok, a little heavier than a normal P-51, so it took some getting used to. But, like I said earlier, I was able to get three kills with it. But while I was trying to turn out of a scramble, my ammo basically gone, a 190 jumped on my 6 and set me right wing on fire. The fire crept into the cockpit and burned me up pretty good, but it all went out thankfully. I flew as long as I could, getting as close to my home base, before my engine gave out from fuel and coolant loss. Bailed out fine, still had a two hour walk back to base proper, but it was all good.”

It was at that point Scootaloo looked up and realized that they were walking past her thoroughly destroyed P-51, and she couldn’t help but stop and stare as memories flooded back to her. Dash stopped when she felt her sister stop, and turned to see what was up, finding her sister staring at her wrecked fighter. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you Dash. For the last two months command has had us running non-stop bomber over watch. Even with us giving our all, bomber still were getting shot down. All I could think about when I saw them going down was you. You never told me what squadron you got assigned to, so every time I saw a bomber go down I would think it was one that you were on. They go down so quick and there always seems to be so much fire and, and.” Scootaloo didn't get out another word before she began to tear up.

Dash turned to her sister and watched as what must have been two years worth of blocked emotion finally start to show its head. Dash completely understood where she was coming from, and knew exactly how it felt.

“Is that what you were doing when this happened?” Dash asked ask she pulled herself closer to Scootaloo.

Scootaloo shook her head. “No, we were on a scouting mission, trying to see where the Arabians were hiding their aircraft. There were seven of us, I was leading the formation. I was laughing at something one of my wing ponies said when we got jumped by some 190’s.”

Scootaloo began to tear up again, “We knocked them down, but we got hit bad, an-and I only remember three of the others getting out of there with me. Now three ponies are dead and it’s all because I wasn’t paying attention like I should have.” Scootaloo said devolving into tears again.

Dash removed her hoof from around her sister before turning and wrapping her in her wings. The two stayed like that for a while as Scootaloo got herself back under control.

As she sat there, Rainbow came up with something, “Hey Squirt, follow me, I want to show you something.” Scootaloo looked up at her sister in confusion, before Dash stood up and began to walk in the direction of runway 4.

Scootaloo, confused further, wiped her eyes with her bandaged wings before standing up and trotting after her sister. The two trotted along in silence for a while as they slowly made their way through the air field.

It wasn’t long before they came to runway four and Dash turned, walking down the left side toward one of its ends.

“Um Dash, is this really a good idea? Isn’t this runway active?”

“Yeah it is, but it’s one of our least used runways, we’ll be fine.” Again, the two walked along in silence towards the end of runway 4, and the trees beyond.

It took them a little bit, but soon enough, they arrived at the end of runway 4, the grooves left from the landing of Speed of Lead still remaining. The ponies at base had decided to leave the landing grooves at the end of the runway intact, one of the two reminders of the landing that had taken place.

As she walked along behind her sister, Scootaloo inspected the grooved ground. Before she could ask what they were, she heard Dash mutter.

“And there she is.”

Dash couldn’t help but let a little sadness slip into her voice as she took in the sight of her ruined bomber. She turned around to look at Scootaloo, “C’mon Scoots, just gotta take a trip inside.” Dash once again said, emotions still hidden in her voice.

”One last time.” She said to herself in sadness as the two approached the wrecked B-17

Scootaloo, unaware of her sister’s emotions, was shocked by the state of the plane. Only growing more so as she pulled herself into the rear door of the bomber. Splattered around the left waist gun were small drops of blood, and every inch of the bomber was riddled with bullet and flak holes, and oh yeah, the nose was missing.

Scootaloo was so side tracked looking around the destroyed body of the bomber, that she nearly walked into the tree speared through said bomber, which just shocked her even more.

She then turned to Dash, who was standing in the small space next to the tree, “Dash, what is this? And what are you trying to show me?”

Dash turned to her and smiled slightly, “This, is Speed of Lead, she was my one and only bomber for the last two year.*(2) And we’re here for something I left behind.” Dash finished by motioning Scootaloo into the radio room.

The two walked into what was left of the radio room.

Surprisingly, Sparky’s radio still sat at his desk, ready and waiting for another mission.

One that would never come.

That, however, was not what Rainbow Dash was interested in. Instead, what she was interested in was one of the two drawers built into the desk the radio sat on. “Rusty put these in here while he was doing work on the nose before or last mission. I’m glad I forgot to move them back.”

Scootaloo, curious about what her sister was talking about, walked up next to her. Dash picked up a number of dog tags out of the drawer, before laying them out.

Scootaloo quickly counted them out, and found that a total of 19 dog tags were laid out in front of her.

“These tags all mean something to me.” Dash said, sounding almost distant. “Each one of these tags belonged to a pony that I was more than happy to call my friend. They were all good ponies that meant a great deal to me.”

It was then that Dash turned to look Scootaloo in the eyes, “Every single pony that belongs to one of these tags, all close friends of mine, are dead.”

Some part of Scootaloo knew that was coming, but it was still a shock to hear.

“Now these aren’t the only friends that I’ve made here at base over the past year and a half. I still have some that are hanging in there, and even more that have passed on, but I couldn’t get their tags for one reason or another. Usually because their bombers were shot down on a mission, and their secondary pair got sent to their family like it should.”

Scootaloo looked up at her sister, to see her eyes starting to water up, she then watched as her sister pointed to two tags in the middle of the group.

“These tags belonged to two ponies on the same B-24, Raindrops was a waist gunner, while Misty was the navigator. On their fifth mission, a series of fighters strafed their bomber. Killed Misty outright, along with the bombardier and co-pilot, while Raindrops got hit pretty hard. She died on the flight back to base in her sister’s arms, who just so happened to be the bomber’s other waist gunner. Both Raindrops and Misty had just turned 19 not too long before the mission.”

Dash then pointed to the third tag, “This was our base’s first General, back when it had just been made operational and only ten bomber crews called it home, including myself. He went up in place of the pilot of our lead bomber, and was killed by a flak shot directly to the cockpit.”

Dash then point to the first tag of the whole group, “This is the pilot he went in place of.”

Scootaloo looked back up at her sister, and saw that reliving all of the stories of these lost friends was hurting her sister. “Dash, I get it. I’ve been in the same boat. I’ve seen my fair share of friends get downed.”

“Hurts every time don’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah it does.” Scootaloo said as she cast a downcast look back down at the table of tags. “Making new friends is just getting so hard now, ‘cause it seems like every time I get close to somepony now, the arries come around and blow them out of the damn sky!” Scootaloo finished the sentence with a choked breath as fresh tears threatened to be pulled from her eyes.

Dash wrapped a wing around her sister as they sat there on the wrecked bomber’s floor, letting the grief, despair, and hopelessness the war had forced into them finally come free.

After a minute or so, Rainbow turned Scootaloo towards her, “The lives we live right now aren’t exactly the ones we were hoping for Squirt, but they’re what we got. Half the time we get out of bed, we’re not certain if we’ll be back in them that night. And that’s a lot of weight to hold on one pony’s mind, trust me, I learned the hard way after one of our missions. The point is that you need other ponies that you can rely on to make it through this thing, more than just the ones who tell you when someone’s on your six.”

Scootaloo sat there as she processed what Dash had said. A few moments went by before she spoke up in a voice barely above a whisper.

“How do you do it?”

Dash raised an eyebrow, “What was that?”

“How do you do it?” Scootaloo said a little louder. “How do you just keep going like this? You have no control over your own life up there! You just have to hope and pray as you watch your friends all around you do the same, wondering who’s not making it home this time. Just, just how do you keep living a normal life in all of that?”

Dash smirked, but it was not a cocky smirk. No, it was the smirk of a pony caught in the middle of a lie, "I don't think normal is what my life is considered at this point. But compared to the rest of the ponies here, I live a normal life by trying to forget the fact that I'm actually in this damn war."

Her smirk than faltered, “But, it’s all just an act. Half of what I do based off of a promise I made to a pony once upon a time.”

Scootaloo watched as Dash reached up her hoof to the table and picked up one of the tags in the middle. Scootaloo looked at the tag closer, up until she caught sight of the name on the tag, Night Wing.

That got Scootaloo’s attention real quick, “No, no not Night Wing too.”

Dash caught what she had said and turned to Scootaloo, “You knew Shadow?”

“Night Wing was the pony I had bunking with me before you turned up. I’m pretty sure he’s the only reason why I didn’t wash out of flight training, he was always there to calm me down when I started to overly worry about something I had messed up.”

Dash chuckled to herself, that definitely sounded like Shadow, “Yeah that sounds like Shadow alright. He was well known around base for helping ponies keep a level head. A lot of the new ponies that came to base looked up to him, his crew was kinda the hope for all the new ones.”

Scootaloo looked back at her, confused, “What do you mean?”

“Shadow and his crew earn a nickname in the early days of the war, Night Wing. Yes it was partly a joke on Shadow’s real name, but more importantly it was because the first seven missions they flew, they came back without a scratch. No hits to the crew, no bullet holes or flak hits to the bomber, not even a scratch to the paint. New ponies who got brought into the squadron looked at his crew and hoped their luck worked out like it did for Shadow.”

Then the smirk she had been wearing earlier returned, “Or, they hoped that they would end up like me and my crew.”

Again, Scootaloo was confused, but before she could say anything, Dash started to explain.

“Shadow's luck was what other crews hoped to have, coming home without a scratch on them. But that was hardly ever the reality. Most of the time, the bombers that did make it back were in pretty rough shape, more often that not with injured crew. So ponies started to turn their eyes toward my crew. We often came back, in the worst condition imaginable. Yet we came home every time, we all survived, and went our bomber was repaired, we went up and did it all over again. Us and Shadow became role models on base, so Shadow came up to me saying we should play into it. That's the act I'm talking about.”

“Really, how’d that conversation go?”

Dash smiled, “It was interesting to say the least. He brought it up to me after my 11th mission.

Dash walked along the road back to her bunk, the only noise from the surrounding area coming from the distant sounds of the mechanic’s shops, and the clomping of her boots. With her faux-leather bomber jacket laid across her back, Dash turned onto the final road toward her bunk, lost in her thoughts.

It wasn’t until she looked up and saw a jeep sitting outside her bunk with a pony inside, that she was pulled back to reality.

“Shit!” She yelled to herself before she took off running. It wasn’t until she grew close that she noticed that the pony sitting with the jeep was grey, with a two tone black and blue mane.

Dash sighted, before creeping up behind the pony and smacking him in the back of the head.

“Damn it Shadow, you nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought you were the general or something.”

Shadow sheepishly smiled from where he sat in the jeep, “Sorry ‘bout that Dash, I was just stopping by to see how Ditzy was doing. Where is she?”

“Back in a bed at the base’s hospital. That asshole messed her up pretty good. But the docs said that she’s alright and a few days of taking it easy will be all she needs.”

Shadow whistled, “Damn that sucks for her. But she’s a tough mare, I’m sure she’ll be out quick. Can’t say the same four those ponies who tried to beat on her.”

Rainbow shook her head, of coarse Shadow had been involved in the bar fight. For the good guy routine that he put up, he could be downright ruthless if you messed with those he held close. “You and the others didn’t rough them up too bad right?”

Shadow smiled, “No we went easy on them, they won’t be heading back to their home base with more than four broken.”

“All together?”

“Each.” Shadow said with a massive grin on his face.

Rainbow shook his head, “What are the general gonna do with you?”

“Nothing. Like he would jeopardize his best lead formation pilot over something stupid.”

Rainbow laughed, and soon after Shadow broke down as well. After a few moments, the two calmed down, “So I was gonna head over to the officer’s club and grab a drink, you wanna join?”

“You just got back from a bar in town, and you still wanna get a drink at the officer’s club?” Rainbow asked.

Shadow rubbed the back of his neck, “The others talked me into being the driver this time, so I didn’t drink much back in town.”

Dash rolled her eyes, “Sure you didn’t. But after a day like today, I could use a proper drink. So, why the hell not.”

Shadow smiled, and after they returned his jeep, the two made their way over to the officer’s club.

That night, the two bomber ponies got absolutely drunk. The two laughed and joked and talked for the entire night, letting the horrors brought on by the war get drowned away by the numbing effects of alcohol.

The next morning, Dash woke up to find Shadow asleep in Ditzy’s bed, and her head hurting like hell. After Shadow woke up, they both stumbled their way into the mess hall, planning to drown out their hangovers with burnt coffee and bad eggs.

After the hangovers the two both had, had dulled slightly, Shadow spoke up, “So I’ve been noticing something lately.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“It seems that your crew and mine have developed a bit of a reputation. A benchmark that some of the newer crews are trying to live up to.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re known as the crew that can get turned into Swiss cheese, and still come home. While my crew is the one known for coming home looking like we never took off. Ponies wanna be like up, either coming home without a scratch, or being able to survive anything and everything.”

“Sounds more like a fool's dream instead of a benchmark.”

“That it may be, but I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe we should play the part.”

Rainbow sighed, “Shadow, it’s nine in the morning and I’m running with a hangover, you’re gonna have to lay this out word for word for me.”

“We encourage the new crews. Instead of telling them the hard reality off the bat, give them a little something to hope for. At least for a little bit.”

“So lie and tell them that everything is sunshine and rainbows, except when it’s hailstorms and hurricanes, great idea Shadow.”

“Well think of it this way, what would you rather have if you were in the new crew’s positions? Come into a base fully of hardened crews that are all telling you you’ll probably be dead in two months, or come to that same base and have a couple crews tell you, it can be shit, but it’s not always bad, even when it is?”

Dash thought it over for a second as she shoveled the last of her eggs into her mouth. After a few moments, she nodded, “Alright, I see what you’re getting at Shadow, I’m in. The real challenge is getting the rest of my crew to agree.”

Shadow laughed, “True, but not everyone in your crew are all that bad. The ones who are, well, wave enough alcohol in front of their noses and they’ll agree to anything.” The two broke down laughing before toasting their coffee mugs to their plan.

Scootaloo couldn’t help but laugh when Rainbow finished her story, “Sounds like you two got along well.”

Dash sighed and smiled, “Like I said, Shadow was certainly something.”

Hearing Shadow being referred to in the past tense made Scootaloo remember that he was gone. “So, what happened to him?” She asked with a sigh.

“I don’t really know the specifics. He went up on a mission where we stayed behind due to battle damage repairs to our bomber. They went up in high spirits, it was their 25th mission, and is was supposed to be a milk run. At the end of the day, only four out of the 33 bombers that went up with him made it back to base. 13 others were later found close to base, but none of them ended up being Shadow’s.”

“So, you never found out what happened to him?”

“Nope.” Dash said with a shake of her head. But it was then, she thought of something, “But I do know somepony who might know. He’s the only pony left on base who went up with Shadow and came back. The others are either dead now, or chilling with the Lucky Bastards. Come on, we can go pay him a little visit.”

With that, Dash scooped up all of the dog tags and placed them into the pocket of her bomber jacket. The two turned and walked out the back of the bomber, before Dash put them on a course towards the base’s hospital.

It was getting late in the day when Dash and Scootaloo arrived at the base’s massive hospital. Scootaloo was amazed by its size and scale, “They really went all in when they did this place up.”

Dash chuckled, “We use it enough to justify.”

The two walked in and a pony at a desk looked up and slightly gasped at the sight of Dash, “Rainbow Dash, I thought after all the time you spent in here, I thought you’d never wanna set hoof in here again.”

“Yeah this isn’t exactly the first place that I wanna be around right now. But, me and my sis here wanna have a chat with Thunder.”

The pony behind the desk nodded and flipped through a few papers, “Ah here we are. They moved him up to the second floor a few days ago. Here’s his new room number.”

Dash smiled and took the paper from the unicorn nurse, “Thanks Long Shot, have a nice day.”

“You too Dash.” The other pony called as Dash and Scootaloo walked into the hospital proper.

As they walked toward the stairs, Dash spoke up, “It’s good to see Thunder got moved up to the second floor finally.”

“Why’s that?” Scoots asked as they began to climb the stairs.

“This place having two floors comes in handy in ways like this sometimes. When ponies come back from a mission and say, they have a two foot long piece of bomber sheet metal lodged in their lower body, which isn’t the craziest thing that’s ever happened in this hospital, they get rushed to the closest open room on the first floor to be operated on. If they pull through that, then they stay on the first floor till they are deemed to be in stable condition, they are moved up to the second floor where they are monitored till they are released. This is mostly done so that the ponies in the most unstable conditions are the easiest to reach in case of an emergency.” By now, the two sisters were on the second floor and just two doors away from Thunder’s room.

“Makes as much sense as anything else the military does.”

Dash laughed as she walked up and banged on the door, “Hey Thunder, you awake in there?”

”I am now I guess.” Came a muffled reply.

Dash nodded to Scootaloo before she pushed open the room’s door. She looked over to the bed that was holding the room’s only true occupant.

Dash remembered what the colt had looked like before that fateful day. He had been a decently handsome colt, his two tone yellow and grey on dark gray mane and body weren’t exactly to her tastes, but that didn’t change the fact. Even now, despite the massive scar that took up the right side of his muzzle caused by a ricocheting bullet and shrapnel, he didn’t look half bad.

“Hey Thunder, it’s been a while. You look a lot better when you’re not covered in blood and open wounds.”

Thunder laughed, “Yeah I imagine I do. Though last time you saw me I wasn't covered in blood.”

“No, you weren't. But you were covered in like six layers of bandages, so I'm counting it. Nice battle scar to the face by the way.”

Again, Thunder laughed, knowing full well what Dash was talking about, “Thanks. I've got plenty of the things now.”

It was then Thunder looked past Rainbow to see Scootaloo, who was still standing in the doorway. “Well hello, and who are you.”

“That's my sister Scootaloo.” Dash said before motioning for her sister to enter the room.

“Sister huh? I thought you were an only child Dash.” Thunder said as Scootaloo walked up next to her sister.

“It's a bit of a long story, I'll explain it later. We came here to ask you something.”

Thunder faked shock, “Are you saying the all mighty Rainbow Dash needs something from moi.” Thunder finished with lifting his IV impaled leg, wincing just slightly when he brought it to his chest and came into contact with one of his healing ribs.

Dash rolled her eyes, “Oh ha ha Thunder. But seriously, we have an important question for you.”

Thunder chuckled, “Yeah I'm just joking. What do ya need?”

“We were wondering if you saw what happened to Night Wing?” Scootaloo said, jumping into the conversation.

The happy go lucky smile that had been on Thunder’s face quickly fell, “Oh, right, Shadow.”

“Now Thunder, we don’t wanna drag up the memories from that da.”

Thunder held up a hoof to halt Dash. “No, it's alright Rainbow, I understand. Yes, I do know what happened to Shadow. I was off his left wing for the entire mission.”

Dash and Scoots took a seat on the floor as Thunder laid back in his bed, letting the memories from that day come flowing back to him.

“It was a beautiful day out, barely a cloud in the sky. Good for us because I think if there had been clouds that day, none of us would have come back. We had just gotten to the Hot Zone, but the flak was relatively light. It looked to be shaping up to be the milk run command had told us it would be.”

His face then crunched up in anger, “That was until, they, showed up.”

Thunder sat in front of his bomb sight, watching out at the formation of bombers in front of him.

Though his bomber, “Marauders from Manehattan”, was second in the formation from Tallahassee, just left and low of Night Wing, with Shadow leading the charge, two of the other three squadrons had formed up quicker than they had, leaving them around the middle of the pack.

The 62 bombers flew along through the very rare pops of flak, without a care in the world. It appeared as if only three or four guns were firing at them, which compared to what they were used to, was like they weren't firing anything at all. “Ten minutes to the DZ!” Star Chart, Marauders’ navigator, yelled over to Thunder.

Thunder nodded, before radioing up to his pilot, “Steel Hoof, ten minutes to showtime.”

”Alright, bombardier the bird is yours.”

Thunder flipped a few switches, taking over control of the bomber’s systems, “Roger that, plane is mine.” Thunder then began to sight himself in.

About two minutes later though, ”We got company. 20 enemy twin engines coming in, two o’clock high.” One of the formation’s gunners called out.

Soon enough the whole group had the incoming enemies spotted and, and lead began to fly. The enemy fighters broke into ten groups of two, and descended on the bombers. Since it had been estimated that the bombers would encounter little to no enemy fighter resistance, that had been sent with no fighter cover themselves, leaving it up the the numerable bomber gunners to protect the formation.

”They’re descending, everybody ready!” Another gunner called.

Thunder looked up out of the nose and watched as two groups swung around toward the front of the formation, before diving in for the attack. It was then Thunder would witness the beginning to the most ruthless attack on a bomber formation that anyone had seen up to that point in the war.

He watched as one of the twin groups, picked out a bomber in the formation and attacked. The two attackers opened up on a single bomber, and Thunder watched in horror as the bomber was torn to literal shreds, and fell toward the ground surrounded in fire. It continued like that, the groups of two singling in on one bomber before tearing it the shreds with cannon rounds, slowly inching closer and closer towards him.

And they were still five minutes from the DZ.

They had been able to knock down a few of the attackers, but their numbers still totaled 11. Then, ”Watch out, two of them are going for Night Wing!” called one of the formation’s gunners.

Sure enough, Thunder watched as two of the machines of death descended from the heavens toward Shadow and his bomber from their four o’clock.

The gunners held nothing back as they opened up on the two. Before they could get any shots off, one of the two had it’s left wing blown off by an exploding fuel tank, the other however, hit its mark.

Cannon shells rained down on the targeted B-17, holes being torn into the body and the #2 engine going up in flames.

It was as the attacker flew over, Thunder got a good look at the machine, and went white when he realized what it was. “Holy shit that’s a 217! The put eight cannons on the thing!”

Star Chart saw it fly by, and also paled, “Sweet Celestia, that’s just plain dirty.”

Thunder then looked back over to Shadow’s bomber, whose engine was still engulfed in flames. He looked along its length, taking in the massive holes that had been pounded into it. The waist guns now sat unmanned, and he hoped that wasn’t why he thought it was. Then he looked to the tail, which hadn’t escaped the cannon’s wrath, and saw a sight the nearly brought him to tears.

There was Night Wing’s tail gunner, Lightning, sat slumped over his guns, not moving, the glass in front of his gun sight coated in blood.

“Damn it they got lightning.” Thunder said to himself.

“The rest will join him if they don’t get that fire put out.” Star commented.

It was just about then, as if cued by Star’s comment, the #2 engine’s fire went out. Thunder looked to the cockpit to see that massive holes had been torn into the metal body, and Thunder could see straight in.

Straight into the blood covered floor and instrument panel.

Both Shadow, and his co-pilot Lead Slug, were still moving, but it appeared that they had both been hit by at least shrapnel from the 217’s attack. He could see Shadow motioning to Lead Slug, and it seemed that the crew was getting ready to bail.

He watched as Night Wing’s bomb bay opened, and the load they were carrying was dropped. He then watched as two ponies hobbled their way out of the nose and toward the bomb bay. He then watched as those two, along with five others, jumped out of the bomb bay, bailing out of the wrecked bomber, leaving only Shadow, Lead Slug, and the body of Lightning left on the bomber.

It appeared that Shadow and Slug exchanged a few words before Slug hesitantly got out of his seat, before heading for the bomb bay and bailing out as well, leaving Shadow as the only living pony left on the battle weary bomber.

Thunder wondered what Shadow was doing, not bailing out with the rest of his crew, until he looked over at him again, and it clicked. Shadow was fighting with the bomber’s controls, keeping it straight and level as best he could.

If he let go to attempt to bail out, it would most likely roll over, right into Marauder. He must have been waiting until the other bombers had started their turn for home to bail, to make sure that it wouldn't hit any others when he did.

Thunder cracked a smile, that Shadow had thought of everything. He then looked out straight, and paled. Diving on them from their one o’clock was another team of 217’s, and they were pointed right at him.

His bomber was their next target.

He began to panic as times slowed, watching the bringers of his doom grow closer every second. For some reason he wrestled his eyes away from the incoming attackers to look over and Shadow again.

Shadow was looking up, having taken notice of the attackers himself, before turning his head left and locking eyes with Thunder. They stayed like that for a fraction of a second before Shadow nodded towards him and pulled hard back.

Thunder watched as the bomber pitched toward the sky, right toward the path of the incoming fighters. It was then Thunder realized what Shadow was doing, he was trying to put himself in the way of the attackers to force them to wave off.

He was sacrificing himself to protect Marauder and her crew.

That was until the left wing, badly damaged from the run the attackers had made against Night Wing, and the fire on the #2 engine, couldn't take the G-force caused by the attempted quick climb, and caved.

Thunder watched in horror as the left wing folded, its supports breaking.

This unbalance pulled on the bomber and forced it to start to roll left uncontrollably. Yet, even though Shadow hadn't fully put himself in the attackers’ path, as the right wing swung over it came in contact with the first 217, destroying its wing, and leaving it in the same predicament as Shadow.

This contact broke apart part of Shadow’s right wing, leaving the pull it created lessened. This allowed a Thunder to watch as Night Wing rolled over above his nose being able to look up and straight into the cockpit at Shadow through the roof windows, which were both blown out. Again, him and Shadow locked eyes, and again, Shadow nodded before his bomber rolled over the top of Marauder, and fell toward the ground after just missing the left wing.

Thunder couldn't take his eyes off of the spot where he had seen the last of Night Wing descend past, that was until he was reminded that there had been two fighters when the right side of his face was shredded by shrapnel that came from the nose being blown apart by the cannon rounds of the second 217.

“Star Chart had to reach over me to drop the bomb load because all I could do was sit on the floor and wither and scream in pain. Who would have known that being given a second mouth on the side of your face hurts like all holy hell.”

Thunder’s half-hearted chuckling was the only thing that filled the room, both Dash and Scootaloo too lost in comprehending the story to speak. It was then that Thunder turned his head, and attention, to Rainbow Dash, “That was the single most selfless thing I have seen in my life Dash. Shadow risked his life to make sure his crew could safely bail out, and then gave it in an attempt to give me crew a better chance at getting back to base. I saw it in him that first time we locked eyes, he knew he was gonna die that day, but he would be damned if he was going out without a fight.”

The room was soaked in silence after that again. It stayed like that for a short time until Dash broke it, “He always did say he’d go down swinging.” She said, her tone of voice much like it was when she first saw Scootaloo that day.

She then stood up, “Thanks for clearing everything up Thunder, but I’m sure you’re still tired, so we’ll get out of your mane.” And with that Dash walked out of the room, not even waiting on Scootaloo. Scootaloo and Thunder looked at each other, somewhat shocked, before Scootaloo got up and took off after her sister.

She was just able to catch with Dash as she walked out of the hospital, “Dash, you ok? You kinda spaced out on us when you left back there.” Scootaloo asked as she finally stopped next to Dash.

It took Dash a moment to actually realize that Scootaloo was talking to her, “Huh, uh yeah, yeah I’m fine Squirt. It’s all just a lot to take in, that’s all.”

She then turned toward Scootaloo, “You should probably head back over to Rusty’s hanger. He doesn’t take to kindly to ponies leaving jobs half done.”

Scootaloo couldn’t believe what Dash had said for a few seconds, until she nodded, “Alright, I’ll go get back to it then. But you’re sure you’re ok?”

Dash cracked a very unconvincing smile, “Yeah Scoots I’m good”

“Alright, but if you need to talk, I’m here for you.”

Dash laughed, “What’s this role reversal you’re doing here? But I’ll keep that in mind, thanks Squirt.”

Scootaloo nodded, then hesitated for a second, before finally turning and making her way back over to maintenance.

Dash watched her walk away, keeping a smile on her face until she turned a corner, it was only then did she let her face fall.

She had come to terms with Shadow being dead a long time ago, but having the details of his death laid out to her had opened old wounds. Without even knowing what she was doing, Dash began to walk, her mind clouded with thoughts.

She didn’t know how to feel, one part of her wanted to smile, happy that Shadow had went out doing the one thing he had hoped to. The other, and somewhat more selfish part of her wanted to be angry at him, angry that Shadow had done something like that, basically resigning himself to death.

As she continued to walk in an undetermined direction, she let her head hang, “Why couldn’t you have just made it home. Even if I didn’t still have you on base I’d at least know you were alive.”

Dash was once again trying to hold in tears.

All the emotions from what had been going on that day had crashed down on Dash’s mind hard. It was then her head bumped into something metal. She looked up to see that she was once again standing next to the wrecked hulk that was once her bomber.

“Everything always seems to lead back to you, huh Speedy?” Dash asked with a chuckle. Once again, Dash climbed into Speed of Lead’s wrecked interior.

She slowly walked through the rounded body, making her way up toward the cockpit. After making her way over the slanted walkway over the bomb bay, she entered the cockpit, which sat still covered in dried blood and broken glass. After quickly checking it for shards of glass, Dash sat down in Sorin’s seat, one of the few times she had ever sat in the pilot’s seat of a bomber outside of training.

She took a minute and fished Shadow’s dog tags out of the pocket all the others were in, before staring at them. The only piece of Shadow she had left. And for a while, she just sat there, letting her thoughts wander, thinking over the times she had shared with Shadow.

It was then her mind turned to something, a song that they had heard during many of the drinking nights. Dash stood up, “I wonder.” she thought out loud before she walked out of the cockpit, once again crossing the slanted walkway back into the radio room.

Though Sparky’s radio was made for communicating between base and other bombers, it could be used to listen into any radio channel that could reach it, if you knew what you were doing. Dash took a seat in Sparky’s old chair, the ever present tree next to her all but forgotten. At one time Sparky had showed Dash how to hook into many of the military radio stations that were played around base, from their bomber.

Dash reached up to the radio and flipped a few switches. Sure enough, even after going weeks upon weeks without being charged, the batteries that ran the radio still held charge. It powered up to nothing but static, still tuned to the bomber formation station from their last mission.

She reached up to the tuning dials, and began to tune the radio, searching for the station that she knew would eventually play the tune she was looking for. Sure enough, with a final slight turn of a dial, a voice phased through the static.

”.....ow we know it’s gotta be hell for you out there, and we back here at home can’t possibly understand. But, the one thing we can do is offer our support to you all. And the best way I feel I can do that is by keeping these tunes coming from back home, keeping your minds off of where you are. So with that said let me hit you up with something to do just that.”

With that, the tune started, and to Dash’s surprise it was exactly the one she was looking for. As the song continued, she was doing all she could to hold back tears as Dash’s memories brought her back again. As the song came to the end of the first chorus, Dash couldn’t help but sing along.

“And I’ll stand my ground, and I won’t, back, down.”

She sang as tears once again freely flowed down her cheeks.

Scootaloo and D.D. walked down the side of runway four in the dying light of the evening, D.D. laying some of her weight on Scootaloo as she hobbled along. It had been silent since they had started walking, but Scootaloo was happy to break that, “You sure about this D.D.? We haven’t even checked her bunk house yet, what makes you think she’ll be in your old bomber?”

D.D. laughed, “Trust me, I’ve gotten to know Rainbow Dash pretty well, and if there’s one place that Bat would go it’s her cave.”

“Her what?”

Again, D.D. laughed, “Sorry, forgot you haven’t been on base for very long. Rainbow Dash has gained the nickname Bat, or Blind Bat, and it seems whenever she needs to think, she hides herself away in our bomber. So, what happened to get Dash all broke up like this, this time?”

Scootaloo couldn’t speak for a second, but eventually found her voice, “She was showing me her dog tag collection, then we went and asked Thunder about what happened to Night Wi-I mean Shadow.”

The look on D.D.’s face quickly fell, “Oh no, her wounds about Shadow must have got reopened.”

Scootaloo shook her head, “Ok, that is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth, and that’s saying something. Care to explain?”

D.D. sighed, “Dash had been having a hard few weeks. Our nine and tenth missions had hit us hard, and the nose of the bomber had taken some of the worst hits. Worst of the worst was on the ninth mission, while we were heading into the Hot Zone, the flak was thick, and we were getting tore up. But what messed Dash up was when a dud shot went up through the nose just a few inches to her left. If she had turned just slightly to, say, tell Ditzy something, she probably would have had her head torn off. We got back home in somewhat decent shape, and as we were all leaving the bomber, Ditzy noticed that Dash wasn’t moving. She was just sitting at her desk, staring at the hole that had been torn in the floor of the nose. Ditzy asked if she was coming, and Dash told her that she’d catch up. Ditz hesitated at first, but ultimately left her to herself, hoping that she’d figure whatever was on her mind out.”

“And did she.”

D.D. shook her head, “Ditzy went back a few hours later, and found her still in the nose. The only sign of movement was that Dash had relocated herself from her desk chair, to the floor in front of the hole. Ditzy walked up next to her and asked if she was alright, and that’s when the floodgates opened. She sat there and cried into Ditzy’s shoulder for Faust knows how long. That mission really broke Dash for a while, up until Shadow started hanging around her.”

Scootaloo smiled slightly as they reached the end of the runway, “Sounds like the two were close.”

D.D. laughed, “Close, the two were basically a married couple. I bet they would have become one if they had made it out of this damn war in one piece.”

“Really?” Scootaloo asked with wide eyes.

D.D. nodded, “Oh yeah without a doubt. I guess hearing about how he went out and having you around would open up some of those wounds she thought she had bandages on.” That comment made Scootaloo stop in her tracks, nearly making D.D. face plant.

“What does me being her have anything to do with Dash’s emotions. If anything I’d think she’d been happy to see me.”

“Oh I’m sure she’s over the moon about seeing you alive again, honestly.” D.D. said as she steadied herself against Scootaloo’s side again. “However, I’m sure you being here doesn’t help. Dash has developed a bit of a guilt problem around you.”

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow, but before she could say anything, D.D. continued. “It was something Ditzy told me about Dash bringing up on that night after mission nine. Dash feels like it’s her fault that you got into the war as early as you did. She feels that it’s her fault that you’ve been in danger like you have, being on the front with the 49th and all.”

Scootaloo was about to retaliate, when she began to think about what D.D. had just said. Even though she had been planning to go for the Wonderbolt Academy when she turned 18. But when Rainbow Dash had gotten wind of this plan, she had been more than happy to encourage Scootaloo into the choice. It was because of the fact that she was in the Academy when the war started that she was drafted in so early to begin with. If she hadn’t, despite the fact she was nineteen now and would have been drafted before this, the military had only started drafting in eighteen year old two months earlier.

And even if she had been eighteen at the time and had been drafted on that first day, she’d still have at least another month before she even saw combat.

“She blames herself for me being in since the beginning?”

D.D. once again nodded, “Seeing you so beat up, and learning the details of Shadow’s of Shadow’s death must have been too much for that mask of hers to take, and something must have gave. I'm surprised that it didn't give out sooner to be honest. She's been wearing that mask of hers for so long that its basically become a part of her, a part that pains her to keep up.”

D.D. finished as the two walked up to the wrecked bomber. It was then that they noticed the sound of music mixed with static filling the air around the bomber.

“Huh, she must have gotten Sparky’s radio working.” D.D. said as she and Scootaloo made their way into the bomber’s body. The two made their way around the tree blocking the radio room, to find a saddening sight waiting for them.

There was Dash, on the floor, hooves covering her face as she wept openly. “Oh Dash.” Scootaloo said, unable to take seeing her sister so broken.

She walked up and sat down next to her crying sister, startling her. “S-s-scootaloo.” Dash managed to choke out before Scootaloo wrapped her up with her bound wings. Dash hesitated for a second before she wrapped herself around Scootaloo as she began to weep once again.

D.D. stood and watched this for a moment, before she turned around and exited out of the back of the bomber, feeling that this was something that the two sisters need to work out on their own.

Hours later the two sisters exited the bomber into the pitch black night, feeling that a weight had been lifted off of both of their shoulders.

Author's Note

*(1): The rear most position in the formation. Oftentimes reserved for the least experienced pilot.
*(2): Dash and the others have only been at Tallahassee for around nineteen months, but for three months before that, they had Speed of Lead and were training with her. Just wanted to clear that up, time with bomber, 2 years basically, time at base, year and a half basically.

Hey guys! I did it, I finally pulled of a promised date! But in all seriousness I'm very happy to present to you Chapter 4! This is gonna be a very quick author's note, I just wanna say I hope you enjoy my hard work. I will be making a "blog" post soon that has a full explanation as to why this chapter took so long, and what to look for in the future. So with that said, this is Mason saying, keep an eye on the sky, and your family close. Thanks for sticking with me for so long guys, and I'll see you soon. This is Mason, signing out.