Chapter 2: The Land of Ponies

I was feeling quite happy at the moment. Zlat was with me on the flight to the drop zone, where with our equipment (which was in a giant box), we'd jump from the back of our plane. We were all sitting on our packs, which we'd tied firmly to our legs.

"So how much longer do you think it'll be until we reach the drop zone?" One of the other militia men asked.

The only any actual soldier on the plane (which was also our new commanding officer for our battalion of militiamen) answered, "Not more than a few more minutes, so the red light should be coming on right about-" he waited a few seconds, "Now." The red light turned on. Our commander was Colonel Mien Bláha, a Tigarian man in his mid 40's. I couldn't see him from where I was, but I knew that he looked like a humanoid version of a orange and black striped tiger, grey only just starting to grow into the fur on the top of his head.

I turned back over to Zlat, "You remember how ta use the chute?"

He nodded, "Yeah, got my hands on the rings that I need to pull."

"Right, pull 'em after fifteen seconds. Otherwise the chute won' open right." The image of Zlat being splattered on the ground sent a shudder through me.

"Got it." Was my answer.

Minutes passed, and the bay door of the plane opened downwards, now becoming a ramp and revealing the bright daylight outside. Everyone stood up, and placed our hands on the crate that contained a fair bit of equipment, and prepared to push when the light turned green. In a few seconds, the light turned green. "Time to go Zlat!" With all our collective might, we shoved the crate out the back of the plane. As soon as it left the plane, the chutes opened. I turned around to get to Zlat as the others began to jump out, one by one.

I guided him to the edge of the ramp, "See ya on the ground!" I yelled above the roar of the twin engines roar.

"See you too!" He yelled in response, and he jumped. I only waited a second before I jumped out with him. I was face down, looking at the ground that was approaching. We were above a fair sized town, the centerpiece being a large, crystal tree looking castle. I looked around for where the flare that the path finder had dropped, the target landing zone. It was to the north of the town, about a mile away. We were facing west, meaning we'd overshot it by a bit. My countdown hit 15, and I pulled my chute. It shot out of my pack, flapped in the wind for a bit, and finally opened, halting my decent sharply, sending a immense pressure to my shoulders and waist. Pain was erupting from my leg, the one that I had tied my bag to. The leg was straining immensely from the strain of what I remembered to be nearly 75 pounds of equipment. That sudden stop must've dislocated something.

All I could do, however, was hold onto the straps of my chute, clench my teeth, and wait for landing as I listened to the wind. It felt like an eternity, but finally, the ground began to look close enough to where I could see figures on the ground that looked like horses. That can't be right. Why would such a new species look like horses? Well, there are creatures that look like animals, so I guess them looking like horses isn't too far a stretch of the imagination. Now, I was realizing something else. The pilot had told us to jump not only too late, but he'd also dropped us into an air stream that was dragging me into the town. I was getting closer to a massive building with a tower as a centerpiece, and to my horror, that seemed to be where I was doomed to land on. I was helpless.

My body missed the towers top, but my chute didn't. It caught itself on it, and I was left dangling above several layers of canopies. There was only one way to fix this, and it wasn't going to be fun. Painful, rather. I got out my Ka-Bar knife, and started cutting at the strings to my chute. Strings started flopping over me as I cut through more and more strings, until I got to the last one.

That's when someone from below me cried out, "Look! What is that thing?" I looked down, and low and behold, there was a massive crowd of horse... thingies gathering to look up at me. They can speak English? Lucky strike I guess. That'll make being here a little bit easier. I looked back up at my last string, and forced my knife to slice through it with a snap.

I fell with just enough time to sheath my blade before I hit the first canopies' railing, which promptly broke underneath me, and toppled me over the second without touching it. I then hit the angled roof of the base level of the roof, and rolled over and over down it. I was in the air once more for a brief moment, before coming down hard on my side. I couldn't hear the bone braking over the sound of my weight hitting the ground, but I sure felt it.

I cried out as pain lanced up and down my arm, and I grimaced, trying not to let anything else out. I could hear the panicked cries of several of the... horses. I sat up slowly, holding my left arm like my one hand was the only thing holding it together. I let the useless appendage hang freely as I untied my pack from my leg, which was indeed dislocated. I managed to get my good leg underneath me, and started to stand up, sucking in a pained breath.

I somehow managed to get my pack over my right shoulder, and address the crowd of cowering horses, most of which were about as tall as I was, "Good afternoon." With that, I started limping my way north towards the landing zone.

I'd only managed to go about a blocks worth before one of the horses trotted up to me, "Um, what are you doing, strange... thing?" It was a very shy, female voice. I turned, and saw that the source was a yellow... pegasus... with a long, soft pink mane and shy blue eyes.

"I gotta regroup with my unit." I said through clenched teeth, pain thoroughly obvious.

"Are you hurt?" She asks worriedly.

"Yep! Broke mah arm, an' dislocated mah leg."

She gasps in horror, places her hooves on my shoulders, and tried to push me down, "Please! Sit down and let me try to help you."

I try to limp away from her, "I'll be fine. The medic will take care of me once I reach him." But she just pushes me down further.

"No, you need to sit so I can at least fix your leg." She says this with a surprisingly firm voice. I can't help but obey, and sit down with my legs out. She gets around me, and asks, "Where is it dislocated?"

I gesture at my ankle, "The ankle, just jam it up towards where there should be a AAAHHHHH!!!! I screamed, as the yellow pegasus rammed my foot back into place. I proceeded to curse loudly, using every one I knew. "F***ING F***! DAMN F***ING S**T! C*** SUCKING MOTHERF***ER-!" I proceeded to curse a little more before I calmed down enough to where I just heaved in breaths.

Somewhere between breaths, I managed to say, "Thank you."

"You're... welcome? What do those words mean?"

"Just know that ya shouldn' repeat 'em." With that, I stand up, and start walking again. The sound of hooves follow.

"Um, where are you going? And why are you here? I've never seen something like you before." she asks.

"I'm goin' to the place my unit was suppose-tuh land at. I'm 'ere because, well, yer country is at war, an' my country is 'ere to help in its' defense. My battalion is suppose to be guardin' this town while the war goes on."

The pegasus gasps in horror, "We're at WAR! Who is it? The griffons? Yakyakistan?"

I stop and turn to face her, "What? You haven't heard yet?" She shakes her head. "Well, none of d'ose countries. It's a host of European countries an' South Africa. I don't remember most of the European countries, 'cept the Federation of Trade."

"Why though? We haven't done anything." she says defensively.

I shake my head, "It ain't 'bout what ya did or didn't do. It's what the soil of this country has. Plus, it'll get 'em closer to my country, so they could invade later."

"What do we have that they want? We could just give it to them and no one would get hurt."

"You ain't thinking it through. This country has been known about fer 'bout two months, an' no one 'as managed to get a good look at what the land has to offer. Besides, none of these countries 'ave much to trade with. This would be the firs' case of war bein' the cheaper option."

"Well, I guess that makes sense. Why aren't you consistent with your accent?"

"What do ya mean?"

"At first, you said 'as, then you said has, like normal."

I shrugged, " I don't know, it's just the way I talk."

"So, what's the name of your country?"

"Well, it's commonly known as America, cuz we have the same territory as that country did, as well as what's mosta old Canada. My country is called Chestien." I keep walking.

"So you're here to protect us?"

"And to train a new militia outta the people here."

"Oh." I walked in silence, the horse following me, stares from passersby were plentiful, "How did you get hurt?" she asks shyly.

"I jumped out of a plane, an' got caught in the tower. I had to cut the strings of my chute if I wanted to get down. The fall broke my arm."

"And your leg?"

"I had my pack tied to my leg fer the jump." A little quieter, I added, "Damn pilots are outta practice."

"What was that? I couldn't hear you." she asked innocently.

"Nothin', just angry at the pilot that messed up."

"I'm sure that whoever he is, he did his best." She sounded confident, kindly so.

"No. Those idiots have their heads in the clouds. Metaphorically and literally. If he'd actually done his best, then I wouldn't be in the condition I'm in."

This time, the silence is absolute. There isn't any pause for consideration on words, just the sounds of my boots, her hooves, and the sounds of gasping horses that sounded like any other humanoid.

Fluttershy

I didn't know what he was, but he seemed nice enough. I didn't think I could believe him about the war, and I'd never heard of such countries. But he sounded so sure of himself that it made me want to believe him. I also had to admit that he was quite fortuitous to still be walking. If a pony had dislocated their hoof, it was be at least a day or two for them to be able to walk again. If they'd broken a bone, they'd probably just hug the ground and cry.

He walked straight out of town, north, towards a field full of other creatures like him. They were all folding up large sheets of cloth, putting them back in large saddle packs. They were dressed just like this first creature, in a dull green uniform, but lacking in the helmet that this human wore. Some of them weren't even the same species as he was. They were like animals, but also like this one. Was he important in some way? Was he the commander?

The human called out, "ZLAT! BROTHER!" He (or at least I assumed it was a he) broke out into a dead sprint.

"Wait! Your leg!" As if on cue, a sickening crack emanated from his ankle, and he stumbled to his knees, but he recovered and continued his sprint with a severe limp. "He's certainly a stubborn one." I followed after him with a quick trot. He ran up to what looked like a fox, and embraced him with a wondrous glee. They laughed together as the creature I'd met lifted the other around the barrel with a single limb, and swung him about in circles. As I got closer, I noticed something odd. This fox creature had milky white irises. That was something new to me.

The creature set down the other, looking intently upon him as the the fox spoke. "What? You smell a horse? Oh! I know what you're talking about. Hey you!" This, he regards towards me. I've finally caught up.

"This is my brother Zlat! I'm Wolfgang Piatek."

Zlat held out a hand, his eyes pointed towards nothing. "Um, what is it?"

"It's a custom of ours to greet everyone we meet with a handshake." Zlat says kind and soft.

I put a hoof in his outstretched hand, and he shakes my hoof once with a firm grip. "A hoof? So you really are a horse."

"My-my name is Fluttershy. And I'm exactly a horse. I'm a pony. How come you were surprised that you had a hoof in your hand?"

He cocks his head, looking at me funnily, "Can't you tell?" he says, waving a hand over his face, "I'm blind."

HE'S BLIND?!?! "OH MY GOSH! I'm so sorry for you! How did it happen?"

"I was born with it. Is, is blindness rare here?" He asks this like it's a simple question.

"It isn't even a problem! If anypony is hurt so badly, they usually go to a unicorn who specializes on healing magic."

The brothers both look at me, with slack-jawed expressions, before breaking into laughter. "Did I say something funny?"

Zlat is the first to regain control of himself, "We're sorry, I'm sure that you have good reason to believe in magic, but magic doesn't exist as far as we can tell."

"Then I'm sure I'll be quite a surprise for you!"

Wolfgang

I take it back, magic exists. This purple cross between a unicorn and pegasus was certainly proof of that, as she magnified her voice from nowhere, and appeared not a foot away from me.

"I am Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Magic!" She declares with a purple lizard about the height of a 12 year old by her side, "And would be so kind as to tell me why you are here with hundreds of your kind and... whatever they are?"

My mind sort of just stopped working, what with the fact that she materialized right in front of me, was a princess of something that didn't need an authority of, and yet somehow didn't know what this was all about. I cleared my throat, trying to get some more time to understand, and throw together a response, "You- ah... We're the malitia that the Chestien government promised. If yer a Princess, then weren' you there to negotiate it?"

She looks at me as funnily as I must've looked, "No, Princess Celestia and Luna don't usually tell me about anything going on in politics. Where are you from?"

"Like I said, Chestien. It's to the west."

"Hmm, I've never heard of Chestien before. Is it perhaps that peninsula?"

Peninsula? Is she talking about that one that connected to the harbor? Or does she think that Chestien is that small, "Uh, no. We're from the continent of North America. Haven't you figured it out yet?"

"Figured out what?" the lizard asked in a young voice that suggested that he was probably about 13 if that voice crack was an indicator.

I take a moment to look at it, this being a very new thing for me. The scientists that had spliced the DNA of humans and people together never tackled lizards or amphibians. Just land based mammals. Mostly because it had been so easy.

"Well, the fact that the days and nights 'ave gotten longer, the moon is startin' to be ripped apart, an' the fact that there's a new continent to the west are some pretty 'ard to miss signs that one way or another, Earth 'as expanded. My personal guess is that something combined my planet with yours. In any case, you're a bloody Princess! How could you not know 'bout us coming?"

As I say this, the lizard thing burps louder than his age should have allowed, a green fire erupting to reveal a wax sealed scroll. He catches it in his claw, breaks the seal, and began to read as if this was a common occurance, "Dear Twilight, I have been very busy for the past few weeks, and so I must apologize that I didn't tell you that a battalion of Chestien Militia has been deployed from our new ally (the nation Chestien) to act as the defending force of Ponyville, and to train ponies to fight against the other neighboring countries which have... d-d-d-d-d-d-DECLARED WAR ON US!" He stares in shock and horror at the Princess, who gasps herself. He continues reading with a terrified voice, "I know that you are more than capable of handling yourself in a fight. However, I am afraid that the weapons that our neighbors possess are too powerful for even me to resist for any length of time. Once they have arrived, which should be by parachuting from the sky, look for a Colonol... can't say that, who looks like a lot like an orange striped tiger, who should have a silver eagle on his helmet to distinguish his rank. Sincerely, Princess Celestia."

I sigh, "Well, looks like we gotta go find the Colonel." As I walk through the camp, I see that a large number of soldiers had suffered sprained and dislocated ankles. Twilight and Fluttershy take notice as well, "What happened to them?" Twilight asks.

"We had tied our packs to our feet so our parachute pack could be on our backs. But when we opened 'em, the sudden drop in speed caused a whip lash of sorts. Dislocating our ankles. In hind sight, we probably shoulda strapped them higher or something."

Twilight and Fluttershy say that they're sorry to hear that, and that the doctors here could probably help out. When we finally found the Colonel, it is almost comforting to see that he didn't sport the splint around an ankle. He was just as much of a tough badass as the rumors said he was.

I salute him, "Colonel, the... uh, Princess of 'Friendship', is 'ere to ask about the goings on, sir. She jus' got a letter from the princess our diplomats talked to."

The Colonel salutes me back, and after looking at my badly twisted ankle and limp arm, asks, "What happened to you son?"

"Wind blew me intuh a tower sir. I think it was Town Hall or somethin. 'Ad to cut myself down sir. My arm's broken, an' my ankle is dislocated like everyone else here, sir."

Fluttershy interrupted, "That's because you ran on it after I reset it."

I turn around briefly from the Colonel, "Hey, I was worried that somethin' had happened to my brother. I was jus' 'appy to see him alright!" I turn my attention back to the Colonel. I might not be military, but I knew it was still a bad idea to anger a man in such high respects.

"Get yourself some rest. You're going to need it. Everyone is pulling their weight here, even our wounded, so you won't be going home."

"I wouldn' dream of abandonin' my brothers in arms, sir!"

The Colonel smiles, showing his sharp teeth. I can see he likes my enthusiasm, "Good! That's exactly what I need out of my men! Dismissed."

I salute him again, and lead my brother with me over to where a medic is trying to ram a large black man's ankle back into place. I sit down next to the man, giving him a piece a of cloth to bite down on as the medic tries again. The man grunts out in pain as the medic finds success.

"Thanks man." he reaches out a hand, which I shake, "Name's Danial."

"Wolfgang." He hands back my cloth, which I now put in my mouth as the medic, a pencil thin, white furred Mousian, grabs my ankle. He looks up at me from under his cap, "Ready?" I nod, and he shoves, trying to fit my foot and ankle back into place. I scream into the cloth as I bite down in agony. I feel a pop, and I know that it's in place. The medic knows too.

I practically rip out the cloth out of my mouth, breathing heavily. "Thanks man." The medic just pats the side of my leg and moves on. Fluttershy taps my shoulder before I could get up, "I think we need to get you to a hospital for your arm."

I brush her hoof off me, "Yeah yeah, just let me find my sarge first." I get up, and limp off to find the man. It takes nearly half an hour of me walking pass rows of men laying down, waiting for someone to stop and help them. Fluttershy makes us stop several times to help soldiers who seems to be in particularly bad pain. After, of which, she would recommend that we go to the doctor in the town.

After a while, I do find him, a thin white man that was seemingly unhurt, "Hey sarge, yer lookin' well."

He looks at me, grimacing at how my arm was hanging, "Hey. Bad landing eh? You get a medic to look at you?"

I shake my head, "No, the pegasus here, Fluttershy, wants to take me in to see the local doctor an' get 'im to fix me up."

He nods approvingly, "I don't know what good their doctors can for you, seeing as how our biology is so different. Well, good luck then." He waves me off, and I leave the field with the yellow pegasus, still leading Zlat. We walk through town, and I'm still being stared at, though these... uh... ponies didn't look like the same ones from when I crashed. I ignored what comments that were made, and just kept walking.

By the time we'd reached the hospital, my arm had started throbbing. The secretary inside was no different from any of the other ponies. Seriously, are all of these people so fragile an' easy to surprise? SERIOUSLY? Come on! Sentient horses are f***in' strange too!

"Hello nurse Redheart! I need some help for my friend here. He broke his arm falling from the roof of Town Hall. And do you have an eye specialist? His brother is blind."

"Sh-sure. We can fit them in the same appointment." Wait? Zlat might be able to see? I'm going to owe them so deeply for this! In my head, I started celebrating and laughing. Looking over at Zlat, I could see he was grinning ear to ear.

We were greeted by a unicorn in what looked to be a ponified version of a lab coat. He hesitated before he spoke, but nonetheless, he maintained an er of confidence, "So. I hear that I have some more work for me to do."

"Yes, Dr. Hoofinton. One blind, the other with what we think is a broken arm. You think you can help them?"

"Well, I've never seen their kind before, but I think that I can do something to help them." Addressing us, "Come with me." Fluttershy nodded to us encouragingly. With that, Zlat and I followed the unicorn doctor down the hallway, and into a hospital room with two empty beds.

"Please, sit down and make yourselves comfortable." The doctor said warmly.

I thanked him out of reflex, sat Zlat down on one bed, and took the other for myself. The room reflected the style that most hospitals back home used. White floors, tan walls, the weird paneling on the ceiling, and the dull green curtains for the window.

The doctor came up to me first, "Please, roll up your sleeve. Thank you, now how did you break your arm?"

"Well, I ain't so sure it's broken. I'm thinkin' a fracture. I fell off the roof of Town Hall."

The doctor had been lighting up his horn, brown light enveloping my offending arm, and sending off more light to black sheets of paper. He'd shone the light on them when I told him I fell off Town Hall, "How did you even get up there?!"

"I parachuted down from the skies." I say bluntly. The doctor just stares at me, no doubt trying to picture the scene I'd painted.

"So you got stuck on the roof? You know, you could've easily gotten in through one of the windows. There wasn't any need to jump off."

"I said I fell off the roof. I didn' jump. My chute got caught on the tower, so I 'ad to cut myself from the chute." The doctor seemed to be understanding now, made more obvious by the, "Oh." he emits. He places the black paper in front of a wall light, and suddenly a white picture appears of the bones in my arm. There are minute fractures that ran up and down both the bones in the lower arm as well as the upper arm.

"Hmm, you were right. You have multiple hair-line fractures."

"So how long do you think that it'll take for my arm to heal?"

"Well, I'm no expert in medical practices regarding your kind, however if I had to guess..." he visibly mulls it over in his head, his eyeballs rolling around upwards, "about 5 hours."

"Well hot damn! That's pretty cool! How 'bout me doc?" Zlat says excitedly, quite literally on the edge of the bed leaning forwards.

"Well, eyes are much easier to heal, believe it or not. I can indeed bring you back your sight. It is usually a very simple task when it comes to repairing the nerves in the eyes. There are just too coax into working harder in the arm that the eye.
How, might I ask, did you come to be unable to see?"

"Glaucoma, since I was born."

"Ah, very common, and very easy to fix. You'll be able to see in about 10 minutes. However, in that time, you cannot open your eyes whatsoever, as the spell used takes time to repair the nerves and their connections. So in that time, I will place cloth over your eyes. Who would like to go first?"

I point over to Zlat, "I think he should. This's a day he's been prayin' fer since he understood what sight was, an' I'd say this is a long time comin'."

Zlat smiles gratefully at the sound of my voice, and he turns to face his milky white eyes at me, "Thanks brother."

I get off the bed, and walk over to hold his hand, "Yer welcome furball."

He chuckled, "Skinny."

I had been smiling before, but now my grin was starting to hurt. I beckon the doc over, "Come on! Time's awastin'."

The doctor walks over, each clop of the hoof ringing out like wood hitting wood. His horn lights up, and gently, ever so gently, touches his horn to each of Zlat's eyes, a short pause before moving on the next. Quickly, he levitates over a cloth, which he binds tightly over Zlat's eyes.

"It's done? The spell?"

"Yeah bro, he's done. I'm counting down fer ya."

He grunts in acknowledgment. I sit down on my own bed, and look at the doc, "Do I need to do anything?"

"Be very still." The doc brings over a table, the legs forming an "x", and makes the table elongate to reach me. He then places my arm on the table. His horn lit up in the familiar light, and touched my skin at my shoulder, where the first crack was. A very eerie, powerful chill ran up and down my arm, followed by a feeling of being numb. He ran his horn up and down my arm, following each fracture if I had to guess. He continued this for what felt like an hour, but I kept my mouth closed about this. He was helping me out.

"So why is it that you are here?" he asks. Oi, this is gonna be tiresome.

As gently as I could, I told him the situation, "I see. So your Chestien militias have come to be stationed as last resort defenses against invading military's. If what you say about your weapons and warfare is true, it would be a bloodbath for our soldiers to fight in."

"That's putting it lightly. Only you unicorns could really put up a fight, but only if they attacked from a considerably short distance."

"Even then, I think we would still be easily defeated. I'm glad to know you were willing to come and protect us. Now, did your militia come to protect every city and town?"

"To the best of my knowledge."

"How many men came?"

"Well I don' know fer sure. I think that we were gettin' 'bout a battalion here with us, but I can't say with absolute certainty. We might 'ave gotten more or less."

"Interesting. Well, I'm done with the spell. Now, time to wrap your arm in plaster." He brought out a bucket, filled with a liquid grey substance that I recognized to indeed be plaster. He took both the bucket and my arm, and dunked my flesh into the liquid. He drew out my arm, the plaster already hardening.

"Now, all you need to do is wait. Would you like to do this in the waiting room?"

We waited in the waiting room. I focused on the count down, finally hitting the 10 minute mark.

"Hey, time's up. Ready to see again?"

"Born ready!" He attacked the cloth with enthusiasm, and when he finally withdrew them, I saw his eyes in their full splendor. Green, with shrunken vertical pupil. It reminded me of an animals eyes in the way they looked so ferocious. Zlat was crying with a beautiful smile on his face.

"I can see!" He reaches up with shaking hands, and he feels my face, knowing now what I looked like.

Zlat

The world of darkness was gone. In front of me, I saw him. My brother. His face was relatively square and hugged the bones, with high cheekbones, lazy Italian eyes that were a deep color of brown, with black eyebrows, wearing that steel helmet of his. He was smiling his crooked teeth grin. Any doubt I had that this wasn't him was dashed away when I felt his face, it was him. This face belonged to my brother. I now knew what he looked like, and I was never going to forget. This, with no doubt, had to be the best day of my life.

Wolfgang

We were laughing as hard as we could without busting a lung, and we held each other in brothers embrace. He couldn't stop looking at things and immediately start describing the details of what he saw. It was sort of annoying, but what else could I do? He was having the time of his life, and I'd be damned before I stopped it.

"Come on, let's go outside! I want to see the world!" He says happily after he's found that he'd gone over everything in the room.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" I say as I get out of my seat, Zlat pulling on my one good arm to pull me up faster. Once I'm up, he's peeling out of the building so quickly, that I'm having trouble keeping up with him. I can't help but feel warm inside when I see how amazed Zlat is at the world around him. The ponies around us seemed to be more concerned than before.

"Is he alright?" a mare asks me.

"He's more than alright. This is first time he's been able to see." I would be asked this question repeatedly throughout the day. Finally, my countdown of my time for healing was over. I smashed the cast on the side of a building, and the cast crumbled into large chunks and dust. By now, the sun was starting to get low in the sky.

I didn't want to do this, but I had to bring an end to Zlat's fun and amazement, "Zlat, we need to get going back to HQ. We're long overdue."

Zlat's smile stays on his face, "I can guess why. Man, you shoulda said something earlier."

"Aahh, I didn' want to spoil yer fun."

We walk through the streets, heading north to the field we landed at. Lo and behold, they weren't there. All I could see was that the field had been thoroughly trod upon, "You sure they were here? All I see is a muddy field."

"That's from them walkin' all over the place. Looks like we're gonna have tuh find them." We head back into town, asking the ponies that were still in the street about a bunch of humans gathering. It didn't take long to learn that they'd set up camp on the east side of town on the Canterlot bound road. When we arrived, there was a full blown party in motion underneath tents. Electro-party-polka music blared loudly, and the militiamen listening were dancing like no tomorrow, badly.

What the hell is this? I walked through the tents, looking for my unit. I had to have passed nearly a hundred tents before I found my sergeant. He was sipping whiskey out of a shot glass with a smile painted on his face. Something I don't think I'd ever seen before.

"Sarge, what's with the party?" I ask.

He turns to look at me, "The pink pony, whats-her-face, she started a welcome party for us! Brought out cake and stuff. You want in?" He sounded drunk. The half empty bottle of Jack Daniels providing ample proof. I wondered how he managed to get alcohol here, but then I remembered, this was sarge I was looking at. He probably replaced all of his equipment with alcohol, again.

Zlat nudged me with an elbow, "Is this normal?"

"Yes."

"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?"

"Depends on whether 'r not he's drunk enough to share." I whisper to him, "Hey sarge! Got any love to share?" I put on my best smile, and sarge gives in without any resistance.

"Hells yeah!" He reaches over to the other side of the bed he's sleeping on, but falls over. He stands up, stumbling drunkenly. In his hand, a bottle of vodka from Russia, as made evident by the alien Russian letters.

I smile, grabbing the bottle. "My weakness! Oh no!" I say sarcastically. The drunken sarge laughs overbearingly.

"Whatcha laughing at?" a high pitch voice asked. I yelp at the sudden new voice appeared beside me. Beside me, is a bright pink pony, with an even more vibrantly pink mane that was in a crazy swirl.

"Uh, something stupid. Who're you?"

"I'm Pinkie Pie! Enjoying your welcome to Ponyville Party?!" As she says this, she pulls out a large cannon that looked like it belonged to a circus. It fired out confetti, the blast sounding like a party-noisemaker going off.

I look at the vodka bottle fondly, "I just got here, but fer a party, it sure looks good. Guess I should introduce myself. Name's Wolfgang Piatek. I'm a Private in the New York City Militia."

"And I'm Zlat Zavala. Pleased to meet you!" Zlat says, extending a hand in greeting.

Pinkie grabs his hand with both hooves, and shook powerfully. She then cheerfully bounces off to talk with some other soldiers. I sigh. This war is gonna kill her.

I twisted off the cap, and took a swig. It burned down my throat with a fire I hadn't felt in years. I coughed and wheezed, "Damn that's good!" I started coughing harder as the liquid settled to warm my stomach.

I look at Zlat, who was shaking his head in disapproval, "I will never understand your love of destroying yourself."

I cackle out a laugh, "Cuz it's fun!" I take another swig, this time the burning liquid went down a little smoother, and I don't cough as much. I cap the bottle, and look about wondering, Is our bed stuff here?

I look over, and see Jackson, a gangly redheaded boy, sitting on his bed, drinking up a Coke. "Hey Jackie, is Zlat's an' my beds 'ere?" I ask.

He looks over, nods, and points over at two beds that had been half set up towards the opening of the tent. I thank him, and walk over to the beds. I took the one closest to the opening, finish moving the parts into place, and dropped down onto it. I didn't bother trying to pull the blanket over me as the alcohol began to take effect. I yawned, and fell asleep.