Same old song and dance... with a twist
Sergeant Roebuck breathed in the rotten air as the fight for Shuri castle came to a close, he’d lost… no, they had lost far too many good men. He stood on shaky legs as Miller, his good friend and brother marine came up behind him and put his hand on his shoulder, his rifle tucked under his arm. The two didn’t say a word, they only glanced at each other before staring at the devastation in front of them. Bodies, both whole and ones that looked like they were put through a meat grinder littered the ground both Marines and Japanese soldiers, it was a stomach turning sight.
Roebuck’s throat was dry, he swallowed his saliva before he spoke softly, “Alright Miller, lets report back to Major Gordon.”
Miller nodded and followed the mobile Roebuck who went to an officer with aviator shades on that was descending from the same walkway he, Roebuck and Polonsky had come down an hour earlier. The two saluted him as Gordon spoke.
“You boys took some knocks,” Gordon said as he moved in between the two marines, “Get some rest, Colonel Shaw wants to see the two of you in an hour at the front gates.”
“Yes Sir,” Miller said, his first words in the last seven hours, his voice was scratchy from not speaking that entire time.
Major Gordon stalked away from the two marines and went to speak to another officer. Miller saw the smoldering look that Roebuck was giving the back of the Majors head, he utterly hated the Major. The private let out a sigh and maneuvered himself in his friend’s line of sight as he held out his canteen to Roebuck. Roebuck’s vision adjusted to the face in front of him and stared at the canteen before taking it and drinking from it.
The two then found a room that was less than half destroyed and sat down in it, Roebuck pressed his back against the wall opposite Miller who let his head rest against the wall that he was leaning on. Neither man closed their eyes to nap, every time either did for to long it ended with whimpering or at other times screaming from both men.
Roebuck noted that Miller was still holding Polonsky’s dog tags, the sergeant looked down ashamed. It wasn’t Miller’s fault that the enemy had decided to trick them, nor was it his fault that he’d reacted the way he did, saving him.
“Miller…,” Roebuck whispered, making the private’s gaze fly from the tags to him before he resumed speaking, “I’m sorry, for giving you those. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I’m sorry too, for not-," Miller was cut off by Roebuck.
“Corwin, don’t, don’t go beating the hell out of yourself. It was them, not you,” Roebuck reprimanded lightly before he stood and moved to sit next to Miller before he changed the depressing topic.
“So, back home, what will you do?”
Miller raised a grime covered eyebrow at his friend who’d questioned him before he sighed and looked at the ground in contemplation.
“Back to Biloxi, see my Mother I think, maybe Joe too if he’s still at home. You?” Miller answered thoughtfully with his drawling Mississippi accent in full swing before his gaze went back to Roebuck.
“Back to North Carolina, maybe work at the rail yard,” Roebuck answered before he stood and helped Miller to his feet.
“Let’s go meet this Colonel, get it over with,” Roebuck said as he took the dog tags from Miller and pocketed them before he clapped Miller on the shoulder and backtracked through the mess that was Shuri castle.
Miller fought the urge to gag as they did so, bodies upon bodies greeted them along the way. The smell was simply grotesque, as if someone had dropped the two of them into a garbage dump, no worse, a sewer.
“Oh damn,” Miller cursed aloud as they passed the room that he’d thrown a grenade into, before descending into the tunnels.
“Almost there Miller,” Roebuck urged as he fought his gag reflex upon witnessing the scene.
When they reached the front doors both Marines dry heaved before they took note of an officer who was staring at them expectantly. Miller and Roebuck saluted him after getting ahold of themselves.
“You two Roebuck and Miller?” The officer asked with a southern twang to his voice, from Texas most likely.
“Yes Sir,” the two men said simultaneously as the officer sized them up.
The officer was an older man, medium build with his weight shifted to his right leg.
“Colonel Shaw, good to meet you two. I’ve come here to enlist your expertise with a mission that needs getting done. Could get you two early tickets home, if you were interested.” Shaw said with a sly smile, as he moved in between both of them.
Miller and Roebuck glanced at each other, something wasn’t right.
“What kind of mission sir?” Roebuck asked almost hesitating, the sly look on the officer’s face morphed into a frown.
“The secret kind, one that could get you both shot if word of this gets out.”
Shaw’s words made Miller clench his right fist, before Shaw continued, “Mission is top secret, if any word gets out there’d be a panic. Japs are up to no good, that’s all I can say.”
This statement changed the atmosphere between the Marines, if it was that bad how could they refuse?
Roebuck glanced back to Miller who looked back at him before the private nodded, “We’ll do it.”
“Good, there’s a jeep down the ways, it’ll take us back to base. We can discuss the mission there,” Shaw said as he motioned into the distance with his arm.
***
After a meal and a shower Miller found himself in a dark closed tent with a projector screen in front of a row of chairs that were behind a projector. Roebuck soon joined him and went to sit in one, with Miller following suite. Colonel Shaw, whom was already in the room motioned at the screen that now had a picture on it. The picture was from the air and distorted, whatever it was looked like a black blob with tiny black dots in seemingly random locations.
Miller squinted, as he tried to make out what the hell he was seeing, Roebuck tried to do the same with his eyes before Shaw began to speak.
“This, is a picture of a Jap airstrip that was taken about three days ago during a recon run to check if Tojo is operating in the north of their main island,” Shaw said before he switched the slide, this one was more clear than the last.
Miller’s eyes widened at the size of the thing, it was some kind of gyroscope looking thing with a telescope sticking out of it.
“What in God’s name is that thing?” Miller heard Roebuck ask, he wanted to know too, he really wanted to know.
“We don’t know, or we didn’t till this morning, when this happened,” Shaw answered as a movie projector replaced the slide machine.
A video played, it was silent and was kind of hard to make out due to turbulence of the plane that it was shot in, but the two grunts stared in fascination as the gyroscope began to turn, slow at first then faster and faster. There was a bright light which made the screen glow white for a moment before it faded and in an empty spot on the ground something had appeared. What it was no one could tell but it began to attack the Japanese until after a few moments of them shooting at it the thing stopped moving.
“What the hell did I just watch, sir?” Miller asked Shaw who grimaced.
“Those Japs built some kind of teleportation device, we need to make sure that they don’t get the chance to try and do any kind of shit further with it. The mission is to go to that island and destroy it. Understood?” Shaw asked the two who nodded at the officer.
“Good, head over to the supply depot, gather weapons and ammunition. You’ll be leaving in ten, and God willing be on the main Japanese island at Zero hundred hours,” Shaw ordered and the grunts followed the command to the letter.
***
It was eleven o’clock PM the next day when the submarine that was carrying Miller and Roebuck reached the north most part of Japan. Roebuck sat in the cramped and confined space of the bunks as he checked his weapons with Miller a few inches away reading a letter that he got as they were heading to the coast of Okinawa. Roebuck glanced up at Miller to gauge what he was reading from his facial expression. The glance turned into a stare as Roebuck watched the blood drain from his face as he set the letter down and his breathing came out as if he was shivering.
“Miller? ...Corwin? What’s wrong?” He asked in concern, few things effected Miller profoundly enough to make him visibly shake, save for his brother or….
“Ma and Joe’s gone, car accident,” Miller whispered as he shook slightly before he regained his composure and stopped shivering.
“Jesus Miller…” Roebuck muttered, scared of what the news just did to his friend psychologically. He wasn’t a doctor, nor a shrink but he knew that the slightest bit of bad news from home could tear a marine to shreds mentally.
“I’m ok,” Miller responded as if he knew what Roebuck was thinking.
“Bullshit,” Roebuck called him out on the bluff, Miller wasn’t good at hiding emotion worth a damn.
“Let’s just get this over with…” Miller said as if he hadn’t heard Roebuck call him out, he was focused on the mission. Thus, at least for now, Miller wasn’t going to do anything stupid.
The submarine slowed to a halt as both Miller and Roebuck screwed silencers onto their weapons and headed to the bridge. They didn’t have far to go as it took about a minute to step inside of the bridge. The captain of the vessel turned to them.
“We’re surfacing now, once the objective is destroyed tune the Jap radio to our frequency, Seven eight point one. If that doesn’t work we’ll be back in two days, just light a signal flare.” He said before he shook both of their hands.
“Will do Sir,” Miller replied as he was the one with all the flares and half of the C2.
“We are surfaced sir,” a crew member said before the two marines began their accent to the outer hull.
The deck was slippery and unstable as waves battered the submarine, both Roebuck and Miller had to use all their strength on the rails just to stay out of the water. In another moment a raft was inflated by the sub’s crew and placed into the sea followed by oars. They then helped Roebuck into the boat then handed him his plastic bag covered weapon, in the next minute Miller boarded next, taking his M1 with him.
“Good luck boys, God be with you,” Cried a voice from the deck of the sub.
Miller craned his neck to see who said that, it was the colonel who somehow kept his balance on the deck, his presence identified only by the light of the cigar in his mouth.
Both marines maneuvered to where they were side by side and like a well-oiled machine used the oars to row themselves to shore. The trip made their arms ache, and the salt stung their eyes as the waves crashed into their boat, it took ten minutes to make it to the beach. The weather was cold, or colder than what they were used to, the water on their clothes made it worse as when the wind kicked up it sent shivers down Miller and Roebuck’s spines. The plastic bags were taken off of their weapons and Miller scanned the jungle as the raft was hidden in foliage by Roebuck.
There was to be no talking during this assignment until they were in a position to discuss the mission, which would take a while. Roebuck tapped Miller and used his hand to signal that they were going to move forward slowly. Movement was at a snails’ pace as both marines made sure to scan their surroundings each step. Roebuck took point and quietly made his way to the base of a tree. He turned to face Miller whose eyes were looking up ahead. Roebuck followed his gaze to find two Japanese soldiers who were sitting next to a fire, both facing away from them. However that’s not what Miller was looking at, the rifleman aimed his Garand between the soldiers who sat next to the fire. Moonlight flooded the area, that’s when Roebuck saw it. A trap, the two ‘soldiers’ in front of the fire were dummies and a sniper was twenty yards away in a blind that was attached to the tree. He then looked below the sniper and the situation dawned on him.
‘Shit,’ he thought in alarm.
This wasn’t one sniper it was a defensive line, there were three men in total, one sniper, one soldier who was gripping a well-placed machine gun and another who fed the ammunition for the machine gun. The light dimmed as the clouds provided more darkness to the marine’s advantage. Miller stopped aiming and slowly lowered himself to the ground and began to crawl to the left. Roebuck followed his friends lead and crawled right until both were lined up with the Japanese soldiers. Miller pointed to himself and pointed towards the sniper. Roebuck nodded and prepared to take out the two on the ground. Miller slowly squeezed the trigger of his rifle, a Thwap sound was all that was heard followed by a dull crack/pop sound. The snipers rifle dropped to the ground on the left, which made the other two look at Miller before Roebuck fired a burst from his Thompson and silenced the two men.
Miller let out a breath before the two continued forwards. The moon came out again and almost seemed to guide both Roebuck and Miller to their objective. It was about twenty minutes from their last encounter when they came upon a clearing. They crouched on the edge of it and scanned the opposite tree line, nothing. Roebuck turned to Miller and raised an eyebrow to question whether or not they should cross it. Miller shook his head no, the clearing was too exposed. Roebuck pulled out a map of the area, he’d marked where they’d started at and knew they only headed straight. The map had a ridge where they could over-look the sight, and where checkpoints were on the road leading to it.
He marked the path that they’d taken with X’s and used a compass to find where the ridge was relative to them. It was to the left of their position, wasn’t too far. Roebuck signaled Miller that they were going to move only for Miller to stop him. At Roebuck’s questioning look Miller took out a piece of C2 and placed it at the base of a tree and made a hand gesture of an explosion and of the Japanese heading their way.
‘A distraction? Good thinking Miller,’ Roebuck thought with a grin.
The bomb was armed and they had thirty minutes to get to the ridge for the fireworks. Roebuck figured that they’d be distracted long enough for them to man their emplacements and use them against the japs. Or most likely one of them would while the other set the bombs. Twenty minutes later they were overlooking the teleporter sight from the ridge, no soldiers were around them so they whispered.
“I’ll take the bombs Roebuck, need you to cover me as I place them,” Miler whispered as he took the bag from his friend and put it over his shoulder.
“Corwin, goes without saying, but don’t do anything stupid down there,” Roebuck pled quietly, he also prayed that Miller heeded him.
“I won’t Eugene, promise,” Millers responded with a look of determination about getting the job done with.
The silence resumed, save for the sound of Miller’s breathing. The adrenaline filled both of them as they waited. There was a loud boom in the forest, and the rest went like clockwork. Sirens blared, men took up positions before they began to head towards the noise. The Japanese officers shouted out orders and men marched to face the perceived enemy threat. Most of the men left as the two marines crawled down from their positions. Roebuck took down some of the defenders with a knife as the siren still blared, no one saw them coming save one who was in a tower glanced Roebuck’s way as he slit the throat of a soldier. The man aimed and fired as his head jerked back sharply. Roebuck fell to the ground, and clutched his shoulder. Miller was next to him in the next moment and dragged him to a wall of the trench he was in.
“Miller, set the bombs. I’ll cover you,” Roebuck growled out as the wound bled.
Miller, to Roebucks chagrin ignored him and took off his bandoleer for ammo and emptied the contents on the ground before he tied it over the wound.
“Go Miller!” Roebuck ordered his friend who went to his task.
Miller began to place bombs around the huge device as the Japanese had by now figured out that the explosion was just a diversion. Roebuck had meanwhile gotten to a triple twenty five anti-aircraft gun and aimed it at the jungle.
Shouts in Japanese were the cue that Eugene Roebuck was waiting for, as soon as he saw the silhouette of the enemy in the distance he opened fire. This caught the Japanese by surprise as they weren’t expecting to be fired upon by their own guns. Roebuck watched as bullets tore through the legs of one man then the upper chest of another and down into the guts of the one to his left. The Japanese fired back and Roebuck grunted as one shot grazed his right arm, but the marine pressed on, mowing down any who got in his sights.
Miller had used arming wire to make sure all the bombs would go off in quick succession, but he still had to arm at least three for them all to go off. He dared a glance at Roebuck who had unleashed hell on the returning Japanese until a shot rang out behind him and a bullet tore through his lower back. Miller fell to the floor with a yell. A kick to the gut sent the marine onto his back where he yelled out after another hit him in the thigh. Miller opened his eyes to see a soldier bearing down on him, ready to wrap his hands around his neck and strangle him. Miller, despite being downed grabbed the man’s wrists and turned him over to where he was on top and began to punch the Japanese man in the face. A blow was sent back to him and broke Miller’s nose, who scrambled away from the soldier who pulled out a knife and lunged.
Roebuck gasped in agony as a bullet lodged itself in his shin. The triple two five was dry and there were twenty soldiers left approaching. He used all of his strength as he dove into the trench and picked up his discarded Thompson then put his hand on a Japanese machinegun with the plan on using it in reserve. Roebuck quickly replaced the magazine for the Thompson with a new one and sprayed its contents into three Japanese that had decided to charge him. The weapon was spent and the marine went for the Type 99 light machinegun that was next to him, pain wracked through him as he opened fire with the weapon. Six men dropped dead and a seventh got off a shot which hit Roebuck in the left arm. The marine fell on his back and pulled out his pistol, his last resort.
Miller had managed to disarm the soldier of his weapon and the two now rolled around on the ground to get the upper hand, right now Miller was below the soldier who was beating him with his fists. Miller’s right leg shot up between the man’s legs and separated the two combatants. He then pulled out his own knife and brandished the weapon before body checking his foe. Miller wasted no time and with rage in his eyes brought the knife down as hard as he could in the chest cavity of the soldier below him. Once, twice, thrice, the man stopped moving, the light went out behind his eyes as Miller panted above him. He turned his attention to where Roebuck was only to find him on the ground with his pistol aimed for the sky, it took the span of three seconds for Miller to take a grenade off of his suspenders and throw it in front of the approaching group. It went off, and sent shrapnel into the group of five before a shot rang out and hit Miller in the ribs.
Roebuck shook, he lost a lot of blood and his vision began to swim. Two left by his count after Miller saved his ass. Roebuck turned his attention to Miller who crawled up next to him.
“Clear,” Miller wheezed out as he held his side, the bombs were about to go off.
Roebuck nodded almost drunkenly in understanding, “Meet you at the assembly area Miller.”
Miller nodded and put his arm over his friend and closed his eyes. There was the explosion, and a blinding light. Miller felt himself flung into a tree and onto flat earth, away from Roebuck as he lost consciousness.
***
The loud boom made Applejack shoot up from out of her bed and head into the hall that faced the orchard that the sound had originated from. The boom was probably enough to wake the entire town up, they’d have Rainbow Dash here first, then the rest of the girls followed by the rest of the populace.
“What in tarnation was that?” Applejack asked her brother Big Mac who was just as startled as she was.
“Don’t rightly know…” Mac said as he went down stairs.
“Applejack, what happened?” Applebloom, who had gotten up to see what the matter was questioned her sister.
“Don’t know Applebloom, but stay here with Granny. Make sure she’s ok, Mac and I will sort this out,” Applejack responded as she followed her brother outside to see what caused the disturbance.
The orchard was alright as far as she could tell in the dark as both she and Big Mac scanned for any damage.
“Let’s split up left and right, meet here in five,” She suggested to Mac who nodded.
“Eeyup,” was the only reply that the farm mare got.
Applejack headed left and looked for anything out of the ordinary. Some of the trees were bent sideways, the scene looked like it was out of an old war film that Granny watched every now and again.
There was a groan from the trees ahead of her just as Rainbow arrived.
“AJ you OK? There was a boom that came from over here and,” She said only to be shushed by the farmer.
“Listen, I thought I heard something this way follow me…” Applejack whispered as she crept forward with a slowly flying Rainbow behind her.
The trees ahead were completely knocked down, thus Rainbow went over the top as Applejack checked inside of the branches.
“You find anything AJ?” Rainbow questioned only to be answered by a startled gasp and AJ’s head poked up from the tree.
“I got two ponies in here badly hurt, we need to get ‘em to the hospital!” Applejack shouted as she tried to drag the ponies that were injured out from the tree.
By now a crowd gathered at the farm as Big Mac replaced his sister in the effort of saving the two lives. Applejack herself had headed towards the crowd to get anypony that knew about treating injuries.
“We need a doctor, got two ponies that are hurt real bad,” She shouted into the crowd.
Luckily Dr. Horse was there he followed her to the tree to see that both ponies were removed from the wreckage.
He lit his horn to inspect the wounds and reeled back in surprise at the severity of them, “By Celestia, Rainbow Dash, get the EMT’s out here quick. I’ll stabilize them and stop the bleeding… Go!”
Rainbow didn’t hesitate for a second and flew full speed to the hospital and returned with the EMT’s who loaded the two onto stretchers and transported them to the hospital. The two were separated based on race, one was a Pegasus and the other an earth pony. The nurses that were on duty were ordered to drop whatever they were doing to help tend to the stallions.
Nurse Redheart rocketed to the earth pony in the stretcher as she asked the EMT, “What happened?”
“Unknown earth pony, severe trauma to the body. Found him in Applejack’s orchard with a Pegasus, injured just as bad,” the stallion answered quickly as the ER was prepped for both ponies.
The one on the upper levels contained the Pegasus who jolted awake.
Miller heard shouting, then realized he couldn’t feel his fingers. He jolted awake and came face to face with a panicked pink horse. Miller scampered back in confusion and terror as he let out a curse.
“Holy shit!”
Just before he fell back and felt something unusual attached to him where his shoulder blades would be. Miller screamed as he tried to get away, only to discover that, to his horror, he had hooves instead of hands and feet.
Dr. Tourniquet watched in surprise as the Pegasus tried to scramble away.
“Sedate him!” He shouted to a unicorn nurse who blasted the scared Pegasus with magical energy.
It didn’t do anything however and so a bulky nurse, Strong Arm tried to hold the Pegasus back only to be nearly body checked. The unicorn Morphine went to sedate him again and this time it worked.
“You’d think he’s never seen a pony before,” Tourniquet muttered to himself as they put the stallion back onto the operating table.
Back in the lower levels Dr. Horse scanned the stallion with his horn before he jolted in surprise.
“Dear Celestia, he has ballistic trauma all over him, prep for surgery stat!” he shouted to nurse Redheart.
Nurse Redheart wasted no time in getting the operating room prepped.
***
“Patient had suffered severe ballistic trauma, removed most of the cylindrical metallic items from right shoulder, left foreleg, barrel, and right hind leg. Burn marks on coat suggest that he was caught in an explosion, from what I don’t know. How bizarre,” Dr. Horse mused to himself after the surgery as Nurse Redheart came up to him.
“Princess Twilight would like to see you Sir,” she said tiredly, the surgery was very taxing to her and all those whom were nauseous when it came to blood.
Horse nodded and went into the lobby to find Twilight there.
“I heard what happened, are the two ponies ok?” she asked in trepidation.
“My patient is alright, but still in critical condition. He lost quite a lot of blood,” Horse answered before Dr. Tourniquet spoke up from behind him.
“My patient is too, he was busted up badly, freaked out a little as well. Couldn’t tell you what from your highness.”
Twilight growled, her title was sometimes an annoyance, “Please, just call me Twilight. The reason why I’m asking is because I felt a magical aura from the Everfree forest two days ago, and again when there was that loud noise that went off and the ponies were found.”
“They were found within Applejack’s orchard, and were very injured Miss Sparkle. That’s all we know,” Horse replied seriously not knowing any more than he saw from his patient.
“Thank you both, I’m going to write a letter to Princess Celestia about this and I’ll check the area for any anomaly magic wise, wouldn’t want anypony else getting hurt,” Twilight said before she left.
Dr. Horse sighed after she shut the door and spoke to Nurse Redheart who began to resume her rounds, “Nurse Redheart, for the rest of your shift please watch over the patient when possible.”
Redheart nodded, “Of course Doctor, have a good night sir-“
She was cut off as the sound of panicked breathing pierced the air followed by a string of curses and shouts of the word ‘No’.
Redheart scrambled through the hall and through the unknown stallions door to the patient that was yelling. She was going to tell him to shut his mouth and go to bed only to find that he had his eyes shut and was kicking the covers off of his bed to the floor.
“Everything alright Nurse Redheart?” Nurse Strong Arm asked from the doorway before he saw the stallion writhing in the bed.
“I’m fine, please exit the room Strong Arm, let’s get somepony to cast a silencing spell. Poor guy must be having a nightmare,” Redheart replied as she left the room and shut the door.
Strong Arm whistled as the yelling and groans continued, “That’s one hell of a nightmare.”
Redheart gave him an annoyed look and motioned for him to get nurse Morphine who was coming towards their location.
“Such a shame, this one too. The other one’s upstairs screaming about fire. Bloody crazy if you ask me,” Morphine said as she rounded the corner towards Redheart.
“Whatever these poor dears went through must’ve been horrifying. Reminds me of the Blitz thirty years ago, stallions came back shaking like a leaf,” Morphine mused as she cast her spell on the door.
***
Princess Celestia stepped into the Ponyville hospital with a worried look on her face. There were magical anomalies all over the place. The most recent of which had come from the Apple family orchard. Now she was going to speak with the two injured stallions as they would be the most likely to know what happened, and she wanted to know what it was that put them in this state. That plan fell when ponies, doctors and nurses, hurried across the lobby and up the service stairs to the upper levels where muffled shouting was heard.
Celestia feared the worst and teleported up to the third floor to see the disturbance, she went unnoticed as everypony was facing the opposite direction. Due to her stature she could see everything that was happening, it was a frightening sight, Dr. Horse was in a chokehold and was gasping for air as an angry looking Pegasus who was attached to medical equipment shouted at the gathering crowd.
Celestia was about to interveign with force to halt the situation in it’s tracks until she saw the green pegasi’s eyes. They held not a look of malice only terror, from who Celestia knew not but she was determined to get to the bottom of this.
“Be still!” she shouted with the Royal Canterlot voice.
The crowd in front of the princess parted and bowed as the Pegasus took note of her with a sneer.
“Now my little pony, what is going on here?” she questioned in an angered manner.
“Get away the hell from me!” he shouted back to her in an accented voice.
“Princess Celestia,” a nurse said in an alarmed tone, catching the princess’s gaze before she explained, “This Stallion is crazy, he woke up this morning demanding to know what we’ve done to him.”
Celestia turned back to the stallion and tried to reason, “Please my little pony, let the doctor go and we can discuss this.“
She didn’t get to finish as the Pegasus yelled, “Shut up! What the fuck did you things do to me?”
The situation was getting more confusing, Celestia noted that the stallion looked even more panicked than before. Then all at once the situation was paused when out of the elevator in between the two limped out another injured stallion with the help of nurse Redheart, an earth pony with a nearly shorn mane.
“Miller, stand down. They won’t hurt us,” the coal colored pony said with a tired rasp in his voice.
Celestia grew confused at the odd sounding name, but let the situation unfold silently.
‘Miller’s’ face morphed slowly from panicked to a mixture of surprise and sadness as his voice cracked when he spoke, “Eugene, that you?”
“Yeah Miller, it’s me. These… people, won’t hurt you. Let the doctor go, and we can get to the bottom of this,” ‘Eugene’ said.
“Prove it. Prove that you are Eugene Roebuck,” Miller responded with his eyes narrowed.
“Your name is Corwin Miller and you hate your first name,” the stallion replied without missing a beat, despite the pained look on his face.
Miller nodded and let the doctor go then fell with an oomph to the floor on his flank. The hospital staff comforted the Doctor who coughed lightly before slowly approaching Miller and checking if the IV’s were still hooked up properly.
Eugene Roebuck turned his attention to princess Celestia and remarked, “I um, I think that we have a lot to talk about Ma’am.”
Celestia could only nod as Dr. Horse gently levitated the still slightly scared Pegasus back into his room while Redheart led the grunting earth pony back to his room via the elevator with Celestia following calmly behind.
“Thank you,” the marine apparently turned pony muttered to the nurse who glared at him in response.
“You shouldn’t have been out of bed in the first place, but thank you for dealing with the commotion,“ Redheart responded angrily.
Roebuck was returned to his room where he clumsily got in his bed. Celestia decided to begin the talk that would hopefully unravel the mystery of what happened the night before as nurse Redheart left the room.
“Thank you for helping with the situation… I take it that you’re not from around here, as in all my years have never heard of the names ‘Eugene’ or ‘Corwin Miller’. ” She began with a small smile, not really sure of how to begin.
“Sergeant Eugene Roebuck, Zero-four six eight nine six two six. United States Marine Corps, Ma’am,” Roebuck said as if he’d gone over it before.
Celestia’s eyebrows furrowed, it would seem that she was correct in assuming that Mr. Roebuck wasn’t from Equestria, but where was the ‘United States of America’? In her six thousand years of living she’d never heard of the country. She decided to try a different approach to get more information, “Perhaps we should begin differently. Please my little pony, tell me what you remember from last night?”
The coal earth pony gave her a look akin to thinking about the correct response until he spoke, “That’s… complicated, Ma’am.”
Celestia’s look became stern and her voice relayed such, “Then explain it simply so we may uncomplicated it.”
Roebuck smirked as he was beginning to like this tall horse, or as she preferred, pony. He would begin with the hardest part, “Well, get comfortable Ma’am. Going to be a long explanation, and you won't believe me.”
Celestia smirked back and retorted, "Try me."
