We waited.

They’d be here in seconds. But, when they opened the doors, they’d get an early Christmas present. Actually, a lot of presents. Made of lead.

They had other plans. The door only opened a crack. Something came in, and the door shut. Allen gasped.

“Flashba-“

Ow. I’d managed to get halfway down, so my cover had blocked some of it. I could still see – kind of – and hear, but barely.

I realized their tactic. I brought my shotgun up, but I myself stayed down. I blind-fired in the door’s direction until nothing came out.

By then, my sight had gotten so everything just seemed really bright. I pulled out my own personal pistol, came up, and aimed at the doorway.

Nothing came in for a second. My ears were still ringing quite loudly, but no longer deafening or painful. And I could hear.

That probably saved me. I heard a footstep outside, and then a Crimson-Justice-uniformed woman came in, gun already pointing at me.

But, because of my hearing, I was ready. She hit the floor, I still stood. My eyes registered that the emblem on her uniform marked her as a rank high enough to be a possible squad leader. Next to her, strewn about, lay the bodies of her comrades. My shotgun bursts had actually taken them all down.

I waited a little more. Nothing. Everything was pretty much back to normal, if you only counted the states of my senses.

I cautiously worked my way towards the bodies, checking each one for signs of life.

I heard everyone else standing up. Leon was moaning. He’d caught the full visual blast. It’d be at least half a minute more before he completely recovered. And unlike me, it’d be painful until he did.

Right when I finished checking the bodies, I heard my radio crackle to life.

“Yo, anyone alive in there?” Amber, asked.

“Yeah,” I headed over and hit the button, “you missed a he**uva party, though.”

“Ha! That’s alright. I’m not a big party girl.”

I walked over to the entrance and replied “Eh, wasn’t that fun, anyways.”

Jackie piped up with her own addition. “Flashy an’ loud things, size uh yer hoof. Ah’m not a fan.” She moved over to somewhere behind me.

Amber grunted sympathetically, and came up. She handed Allen his sniper rifle, which he holstered.

Amber looked behind me, and her head tilted in confusion. I turned around to see Jackie fiddling with one of the bodies.

I marched over. “Whatcha doin’?”

She pulled something out of a breast pocket from the body and held it up. “Enemy radio.” She hit a button, and a female voice came out.

“-ave one, what’s your status?... I repeat, wave one, what is your status?”… Da** it! Wave two! The veterans will accompany you! Move in!”

My mind started racing. I conjured up a mental map of the base and surrounding area. “Sh*t! Allen, cliff!” I pointed in the intended cliff’s direction. I knew that, technically, Allen was in command, but right now it didn’t really matter. I was on a roll. “Jackson, generator. Amber, comms station. Jackie! You hold here!”

I looked straight at Leon. “With me. We’re mobile.” Me and Leon would be the guys running around, dispatching stragglers and conducting hit-and-run attacks on the main units. Allen would supply hostile positions to us, and assist as needed.

Everyone nodded as I said their orders to them. When I was done, I dismissed them. “Go!”

Everyone ran off to their respective positions. Jackie propped herself behind the corner, and took cover. Leon just looked at me and held his SMG up, indicating he was ready.

Over the months, we’d reviewed – and trained – ourselves in hand signals. I gave him the ‘on me’ signal. We also used it for ‘recall,’ if we already had an order.

Leon and I moved out. After a minute, we encountered a half-dozen Crimson Justice guys. A firefight ensued. When there were only two guys left, I had to reload. I finished, and moved to aim, only to find one of them aiming at me before my gun was even up.

Before I could react, he pulled the trigger. At the same instant, he jerked to the side, and his head blossomed with red. His gun fired into the air. Less than two seconds later, the other guy fell, his head in the same state.

“You needed a little help?” A mock-smug reply came over the radio.

“Allen,” I started, “thank Celestia you got there when you did!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just didn’t wanna lose my Second. And Celestia had nothing to do with it.”

I chuckled, and heard the same on the other end.

“Alright,” I went back to serious mode, “get us locations, and we’ll go there. To all Wolves, if you need help, just call out.”

We’d decided that on operations, we’d go by Wolves 1-3, depending on what team you were in, as well as our names. It was really personal preference which one you used.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It took a while to clean up. Every so often I’d relay an enemy’s location to Allen, and he’d snipe the guy.

After a whole three minutes of nothing, I ordered everyone but Allen to start searching buildings. He’d stay up there, just in case anyone was left, and was just good at avoiding us. If they left a building, Allen would see them.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

After a whole hour of triple-checking every inch of the base, we concluded that we had actually fended off the attack. We gathered up all of the bodies and searched them for anything we could use.

We found a document on one of the officers that said that survivors of the Attack on Canterlot had reported extremely skilled, armed forces in two sectors, that had defended those entire areas. Crimson Justice Command had put two and two together – what with our base not checking in – and sent a few squads to investigate.

We could only hope that those squads hadn’t reported what they’d found, because we had nowhere else to go.

We noted down the frequency that the radios were on, and then stored all the ammo, weapons, and equipment we’d scavenged in the Armory or the underground cache.

I talked with Allen a while later. He said that he’d gone over the Attack on Canterlot recordings from our helmets, copied them, and sent them to Celestia. She had a few trusted people that knew about us. One of them had spotted something.

Allen had gotten the transmission after the attack, unfortunately. One of Celestia’s people had noticed that there were less Crimson Justice bodies than there were Crimson Justice personnel that we’d engaged. The same thing was noticed on Allen’s side. Members of both of our sectors’ attackers had survived and managed to get away.

I never asked what Jackie, Allen, and Jackson did to the bodies. But a couple hours later I did smell fire in the distance, the opposite direction of Appleloosa, which was also the same direction they’d carried the bodies. The fire’s smell was tinged with a very bad scent, as well.

Author's Note

I underdid the power of the flashbang, just so you know. In reality, they'd all - no matter what - be unable to see at all for minutes, nor hear at all. But, hey! It's a story. Not real life. Whatever. Onward!