Chapter 3

"I've been here as a kid quiet often, normally this forest looks beautiful." One of the soldiers said as they patrolled through it

"I tell ya, this forest is gonna be our doom." Thunder Spark said as he pushed as side some branches

"What do you mean Spark?" The soldier asked looking around the forest

"I swear I've seen this somewhere,  just can't remember where, but whereever I've seen it, artillery fucked them up good." He answered and jumped over a hole

"Let's just hope this ain't gonna happen here, right." Thunderhoof replied and looked back to see Thunder Spark nod

"I just hope we ain't gonna see more fighting for today, I've had enough already." Another soldier said and suddenly heard a few explosions

"*Sigh* You just had to say it." Thunder Spark said and they started to run

"Yeah, that confirms it. The world hates me." The soldier said as they ran to their foxholes

"If it would, you would blow up right now." Thunder Spark replied as suddenly artillery shells began to explode everywhere, sending dirt and, wood splinters and shrapnel everywhere. The soldiers jumped into their foxholes and held their heads as far underground as they could and seconds later everything was quiet. Everypony looked out their foxholes and out on the open field with their weapons ready, the only thing that one could hear was the breathing of the soldiers and the rustling of leaves as a small wind breeze came over the battlefield. Then there was a echo of an roar, and another, the ponies looked up in the sky and saw dragons approaching them.

"Just a quick question, anypony knows if we have like triple A (Anti-Air)?" Thunder Spark exclaimed looking around and waiting for an answer

"Except Vertibucks, no. I send most the Shadowbolts against the zebras up at Neigh Orleans and Fillydelphia, and even as far as Detrot!" Rainbow shouted, the dragons drew closer and closer with every passing second as suddenly one super loud shot rang out from behind them which ponies several miles away still heard, and another right after and another one after that, as the third round got shot off the first one hit his mark and a pained roar rang out from one of the dragons as he started to tumble to the ground. Thunder Spark grabbed his binoculars which he grabbed from a dead soldier before and looked at the dragons as suddenly more shots rang out and more frequently and small incendiary explosion where seen on the dragons, each shoot forcing a pained roar out of them, for every fifth shot that got fired one dragon fell out of the sky. Grins started to spread around by the ponies, while by the zebras everyone watched in disbelieve. As the last dragon started to fall out of the sky and everypony cheered they looked around to see who did that. Thunder Sparks saw Rainbow Dash aiming down her sniper rifles scope also the smoking end of the barrel and a light psychotic grin on her face. She started to laugh.

"I ... I seriously ... love this gun!" She exclaimed as the scope started to move away the scope and retract the gun itself into it's former position.

"Nice shooting!" Thunder Spark shouted with a loud ringing in his ears despite the sound protection in his ears

"WHAT?" Rainbow shouted as she saw his lips move but heard nothing

"I SAID... forget it." He replied and turned back to the field

"WHAT?! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" She shouted as she walked over to them, Thunder Spark just pointed at one of his eyes and then at the field and Rainbow nodded as she got ready for the surely oncoming Zebra force. It's been a couple of minutes since the dragons got shot down and still no zebras in sigh. The soldiers began to calm down, some of them thinking the killing of the dragons maybe scared them off. That was until somewhere from the left flank fire exchanges started and soon the whole company was engaged. Bullets rained in both direction, the ponies had the defensive cover advantage, but the Zebras had the numbers, they outnumbered them 2 to 1. Good odds for everypony that had at least a bit of guts. With every passing the second the bullet hail increased. For some reason the squad from Thunder Spark wasn't being directly shot at, as Thunderhoof looked around to see why, he heard dinging noise, the noise bullets make when hitting metal, he then looked at Rainbow saw how bullet after bullet flew against Rainbow's armor and either bounce or ricochet off. Even Rainbow was surprised, sure Twilight and Applejack told her how sturdy the armor was but this was insane. It seemed the bullets didn't even scratch the armors paint. Rainbow shot back at everything that moved on the other side of the field and everything that tried to cross it. Thunderhoof got ripped back to attention as a hoof tapped his right shoulder. Thunder Spark pointed at the left side of the foxhole, he then they got back to shooting Zebras. Bullet cartridges where falling to the ground like rain would, Zebras fell like apples on The Sweet Apple Acres nearly three decades ago, today everything is probably automatic, if they are even in business anymore, with Big Mac dead, and AJ leading the MWT they're surely not. Rainbow shook her head and got back to reality again and started to spray lead down range again. Suddenly something flew into the trench from Thunderhoof and Thunder Spark, they looked at each other and then threw the metal apple (grenade) back out, blowing the Zebra up with his own grenade. Minutes over minutes the firefight kept going over the whole line, no matter how harsh the fight became, both sides wouldn't give up, 2 minutes went to 5, 5 to 10 until finally after over 40 minutes the zebras finally had enough. They fell back, and we waited for our order to advance but it never came. It made no sense, "we pushed them back, why wait here?" This happened day after day after day, command didn't let us advance 'Not enough units' they said, whole lot of FUBAR, that's what it is. And finally after the 8th attack Rainbow Dash. She started to advance, no matter what command said "Heck, I'm Rainbow Dash I can tell them to get lost, I got speech in the military counsel too... at least when fighting on the battlefield with my units, with theirs I'm not so sure." Rainbow thought while they slowly pushed ahead, as the other squads saw this they too followed, some of them shouted to get back but tended to join the rest either way even the CO of the company shouted at them, but seeing how Rainbow didn't slow down and everypony followed her, he gave up and joined in too. The zebras tried to get some positions to ambush the ponies, but they are too slow, every time they got somewhere and where nearly ready shots flew by and soon they gave up on that plan and they just went full retreat. Until finally after several kilometers the assault was finally stopped by the next strong points of the Zebras. As we smashed into them, it only took a few seconds for us to see that we won't get through that one, so we fellback a bit and dug in again. A few hours after we pushed forward and got a little command post build up, the shit storm came.

"What the hell where thinking?!" The CO shouted into Rainbow's face

"I did my thing, if your company starts to follow me what can I do?!" She shouted back

"'Did you own thing' are you fucking kidding me? This is my company, my battlefield! You are getting your orders from me!" He barked

"I don't take orders from anypony else then Princess Luna herself, so either take it up to her or keep quiet!" She answered

"Fine, then you deal with the shit storm from the generals. Dismissed" He answered and pointed to the wooden door

"I will, just get me when they call and I'm here." She replied and walked out the makeshift CP (Command Post) and looked around the defenses waiting, her armor standing there waiting for her to get in again

"So how did it go?" She heard a voice ask, she turned and saw Thunder Spark walk up to her

"What do you mean?" Rainbow asked

"Please, everypony of the whole company could hear the shouting. Well we couldn't really understand something but we could still  hear it." He replied

"Oh that, not bad actually." She answered flatly

"Just so you know, you made the right choice." He replied

"I don't know, I think I'm not fit to be an officer in this new fancy war" She sighed "I mean if it would be after my plan I'd just take tons of soldiers and lead them against the zebras." She answered and sighed again

"You know, that's actually what's an army needs sometimes. An officer who rather has a half good plan now, then a good plan in several days or even weeks" Thunder Spark reassured "And even when your not the best at making plans,we got the... no offense, 'younger' officers for that." He added

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rainbow asked with a raised eyebrow

"Just stating facts ma'am, compared to you all in the military are 'young'." He answered

"gee thanks, you really know how to flatter a mare." she mumbled

"Anytime again, ma'am" He answered with a chuckle, Rainbow gave a small laugh

"Say, you wouldn't by some coincidence have a map of the surroundings?" She asked, Thunder Spark flew a map in front of her face a second later

"okay, so what do we know about their defenses?" Rainbow asked

"We know they have artillery somewhere here or here" He replied and pointed at 2 points a few hundred meters behind the enemy lines "We also know they have light tanks every couple of hundred meters for heavy fire support and suppressive fire, and the trenches are pretty much 2 lines, every time a tank comes the trench stops and another is build either a couple meters in front or behind the other trench." He answered "Rainbow this is too much for us to handel alone. That's like nearly a half a battalion, if not even a full one. And we don't know what support they got." He added

"I know, just wanted to know what we're up against, and our limits." She replied, moving a hoof to her chin

"If they make a full scale attack, we won't hold at least not for long. Not without support." He figured

"Of course we won't, not with supplies this short and only one company. When I charged forward I actually thought that we could push them back as far as Roan, and not just several miles." Rainbow replied she sighed "No mater, just gotta deal with how it is. I'll try to get some supplies and support up here, maybe even some Shadowbolts. Now what do we need the most..." Rainbow thought out loud

"You should as the CO that, but in my opinion, food, water, ammo and ponypower (see what I did there, instead of Manpower... yeah I'm just gonna shut up) would be best, but I seriously suggest you ask the CO." He answered

"I'm gonna give it a day rest and then call in for reinforcements, I'm sure for today the CO would skin me" She replied and hopped into the armor "I'm surprised your not a company leader yourself." She added and started to patrol along the borders, Spark walked besides her and inspected the defenses, a yawn escaped both soldiers.

"Tired, sir. Ma'am." A soldier asked

"A bit, was a busy day after all." Thunder Spark replied, Rainbow said nothing

"Agreed, and that Rainbow over there is tired isn't surprising either." The soldier added

"Why's that?" Rainbow asked

"The whole time you've been here, I haven't seen ya sleep once, not even for a second. Only ready to help and ready for a fight." The soldier answered

"I don't really have time for sleep, there's always something to do." She replied

"Agreed, but till a tired soldier is a bigger burden then a wounded soldier." Thunder Spark answered

"Still better then a sleeping soldier." Rainbow replied

"No disrespect Rainbow, but I'm ordering you to get off patrol shift and get some sleep. You earned it 10 folds." Thunder Spark ordered

"You are ordering me?" She asked a small chuckle escaped her mouth as she looked forward again

"Rainbow just do what I say for once... that isn't about tactics, okay?" He asked, Rainbow sighed

"Fine..." She answered with a yawn and started to walk to the bunks. The soldier looked after her, his moth open wide

"Better close that up, before something flies in there." Thunder Spark said and continued his inspection. As soon as Rainbow got out her power armor and into the bunks, she slumped onto a random bed and dozed of a few seconds later

Several hours later

Ponies who walked into the bunk room where surprised to see the rainbow-maned mare sleeping. Suddenly a firefight started, everypony (except for the mare) in the bunks where awake and up instantly. Even after the firefight and when everything was quiet again, and ponies walked in again the mare still slept. Even on the day after the mare kept sleeping until noon

"Rainbow Dash!" A pony shouted as he walked through the trenches "Hey, have you guys seen Rainbow?" The pony asked a few guarding soldiers

"Yeah, she's back in the bunks. Still sleeping. Sir" One of them answered, Thunder Spark nodded and made his way to the bunks. As he opened the door he saw nearly every bed inside used by somepony, some even doing hoof business in the little privacy you can get on the front lines. He spotted some of the colorful mane from the mare, she laid on her stomach, face in the pillow and her left fore hoofs dangling of the side of the bed

"hey Rainbow." Thunder Spark whispered, no reaction "Rainbow" He said this time a bit louder and her nudged too.

"Mrmph? (What?)" She asked muffled

"Command want's you at Reins." Spark replied

"Mmph mmmpphr hmmp? (What do they want?)" Rainbow once again asked muffled

"Don't know." Thunder Spark answered flatly "Now come on get up your Chopper starts in 10 minutes. Don't make me order you" He added and nudged her again, he heard a sigh and Rainbow slowly got up

"Fine" She said with a yawn "I hate you." She added and threw the blanked off from her, armor plates clanking together as she stood up and walked out the room, she jumped into her power armor and made her way over to the Vertibuck.