The Melding of Two Worlds Pt. 1: The Battle for Ponyville

I knocked the massive knocker on the castle's door. No answer. I knocked again. Same result. For the next couple of minutes, I knocked. Nothing. I sighed, and left a scribbled note on the door, asking about writing letters to the kids back home. The only other place I knew of looking at was Applejack's farm. I walked down the road through town, following her vague directions to her land.

The ponies in the streets still looked at me with curious looks, but I guess that was to be expected. As far as I knew, nobody from camp was really talking to them. I continued down the street, out of town, and further down the road. In the distance, I saw the trees that were organized in strict rows. The trees were on the other side of a white fence that bordered another dirt road that splintered off from from the main road. The road continued for a fair distance until it arrived at a few large barns. One, of which, appeared to looked a lot like a farmhouse crossed with a barn. I walked up to what I surmised as the front door, and knocked.

I heard the sound of hooves clopping against the ground, so I quickly surveyed my appearance, straightening my fatigues, rubbed a few wrinkles out, switched my rifle strap from holding on just my shoulder to going across my back, and tried re-balancing my helmet. The door opened, and I was met with an elderly looking green pony with a greyish-white mane and tail done up into buns.

"Yeeess?" her very old sounding voice asked. She then looked up to my face, and before I could say anything, "Ooh! Yer one of them humans Applebloom has been talking about! Please! Come in! Come in!" She opened the door further, using a hoof to beckon me into the house, more specifically, a dining room full of the ponies and dragon I happened to know. I ducked my head underneath the short doorway, trying to sound polite as I thanked her.

"Hello there Wolfgang! What brings you here?" Twilight asks cheerfully, as if this morning hadn't happened at all.

"Actually, I've been looking fer one of you. You weren' at the castle, so I came to the only other place I'd been told about that one of you lives at. You see, I got a letter from the principal of my school askin' 'bout the students writin' to the guys in my unit. I thought that maybe, seein' as how there are thousands of kids in my school, that maybe, you an' some of the people in Ponyville would like to write to them. What do you think 'bout this?"

From the grins I was receiving from everybody in the room, it looked like they thought it was a good idea, Spike started, "That sounds kinda cool! It'd be pretty interesting to know what life is like over there."

"I bet I could get the printing press to put an add in the paper about this!" Twilight says enthusiastically.

"An' I bet the army would actually like this. It'll give the people another reason to be fightin' in the war besides it bein' the right thing to do. If yer fightin' fer yer friends, then you fight harder." I say. I collect their addresses, and names. I leave a quick scribble of a note for Twilight to give to the presses, and I was starting to feel a lot better.

I was starting to leave when Applebloom asked, "Where you going? Aren't you gonna stay fer dinner?" For whatever reason, she gave me an adorable begging face. I could quite literally feel my stomach and heart twinge with the desire to comply. I looked to the others, and I was greeted by nods all around. A growl from my unsatisfied stomach pretty much gave my answer.

"I guess it's unanimous! I'm staying fer dinner." She gives out a "YAY!" I take a seat next to Big Mac, where a new plate found it's way to. The meal was apple pie. And by God, if this wasn't the best I'd eaten in forever, I couldn't remember what had been able to beat it out. I was trapped between the urging of my stomach to eat quicker, and my taste buds telling me to slow down and enjoy the food. The ponies were talking mostly with each other, which was alright by me, that just meant I could keep eating.

When I'd gotten my second helping, Twilight asked me, "What do you think are the chances of Ponyville getting attacked are?"

Conversation stopped immediately, all attention was focused on me, with a fork full of apple pie halfway into my mouth. I sighed, placing it back on the plate, "Well, Ponyville is in the middle of Equestria, which in an' of itself is pretty large. The main concern is to the East, where Canterlot, Manehatten, Filliedelphia, Dodge Junction, an' the like are the most risk an' therefore, they got the most support. There are two reasons that Ponyville was given a garrison. One," I pointed at Twilight, "You an' yer castle are here. Apparently, the other princesses were pretty adamant about you gettin' some protection. The other reason is that this town has a major road runnin' through 'ere to some of the other cities. Stalliongrad, Los Pegasus, Trottingham an' more. Plus, beyond the town is the only split in the railroad that goes to the Crystal Empire in all Equestria, which would be a great way to flank them. This town is a pretty important strategic point if the enemy gets far enough. If either of these things were taken outta the equation, then I'd be sent somewhere else, an
this town would be like all the other ones. No one to protect 'em."

I look at their faces, and they looked terrified. "In otherwords, if they take the East, they're coming here!" Spike cried.

I nodded, "Yeah, but I highly doubt that they'll make it this far. We're talkin' 'bout thousands 'pon thousands of well supplied soldiers, who 'ave orders to defend their assigned cities to the death. No way those cities will be taken. Now, let's say fer sayin's sake, that if they manage to reach us. We're entrenched on a hill with pillboxes that are almost done dryin'. If my Colonel gets 'is way, we'll get artillery support place in the hills."

"Would you mind telling us how powerful your weapons are?" Rarity asks.

"Our 50 cal machine guns can shoot lead down range at 600 rounds a minute. Which is pretty fast fer such a large bullet. The standard rifle that we use, the M16, shoots at 950 rounds per minute. We 'ave a variety of other weapons that fire quickly, but I don't know 'em all. We also have mortars, which I think were already set up at the top of the hill. They blow stuff up." I look at the ponies around the table, who are now staring at me in disbelief, their jaws hanging freely.

I took the opportunity to start eating again, but when I had managed to get a mouthful, Applejack asked, "An' what do they have?"

I put up a finger, asking for a moment as I swallow, "Most of 'em got crap. They'll be lucky if their weapons don' jam every ten shots. The AK-47 schematics got messed up pretty badly, an' all the originals broke down a while ago. So now, they keep on tryin' to git it right. They got machine guns an' artillery too, but both are hard to lug around."

"Are you saying we're safe?" Applebloom asks cutely.

I nod, "Safer than the princesses themselves." That was probably a lie, but smiles spread around the table, and I felt a little better. I finished off my helping, put my plate and fork in the sink, thanked them for their hospitality, and left back for camp.

The next day, revali woke us up. We got up out of bed, and got our assignments. Take off the molds of the pillboxes. I had to say, along with everyone else, that we'd done a good job making the pillboxes. They looked exactly as they should. Our next order was to start equipping M2 Browning machine guns to them. This was actually pretty easy to accomplish. It didn't even take two hours to finish equipping the pillboxes, and we began setting up the .30 caliber machine guns, also Browning, into the divots of the trenches that was meant for a machine gun. This took much longer, as there were more divots than pillboxes, and we had to add sandbags around the guns to protect the gunner. Once we had achieved this, we loaded them, and piled ammunition boxes near the guns. We were more or less finished with the official preparations. All we had to do next was probably add some dugouts for us to stay in when we started living in the trenches. We were feeling pretty satisfied with our work when a loudspeaker screamed at us with the voice of the Colonel.

"Attention! LINE UP!" It took us a second to process this, but when we had, we scrambled up the hill in the remaining field on the hill. "NO! On the bottom of the hill! Get your guns while your at it." We got our guns, and dashed down the hill. The Colonel sounded urgent, almost panicky. We managed to get ourselves in formation just in time to see a carriage being pulled by two pegusi in gold armor. I'd seen pictures of carriages before, and let me say, this thing looked beyond expensive. It look like all the money in the world had been used up on this thing. It landed on the field atop the hill that we'd just left. From where I stood, there wasn't much to see besides the form of the carriage.

I shifted uncomfortably between my feet, waiting for something to happen. Several minutes went by, and a tall figure appeared to be walking down the trench lines, jumping over each gap, along with the Colonel who went down into and up out of each trench. It was only when they'd passed the 5th line of trenches when I was able to see a crown adorned the head of the white figure, who had both wings, and a very long horn. I wonder which princess this is. Celestia, or Luna? The princess walked straight up to us, and examined each one of us at the front of the formation. That included me. She stopped in front of me, and stared straight into my eyes, like a challenge. I stared right back into those pinkish eyes, emotionless.

She leaned in, and whispered into my ear, "You seem different." What? Different? What? She left me there in my stupor without explaining herself, though from the smile she was bearing, it appeared that she'd done it just to play with me. Sly. Looks like royalty knows how to have fun around here.

She continued down the line as she had before she'd stopped in front of me. She went back to the Colonel, who'd stopped at the edge of the lead trench. "They look, and smell like they haven't bathed in days, except for that one over there." she pointed at me with a hoof, "And while the defenses appear to be well made, I fear that they are too few in number to do any good. I've seen demonstrations of your machine guns, but I still believe that you might not have enough support."

The Colonel maintained an even, and respectful tone, "I've just been given the news that we'll be assigned a few 122 millimeter artillery cannons. I've also received news that a collection of town militias have put forth volunteers, so they'll reinforce us, and we've yet to deploy our land mines. We're waiting until we hear the news that an army has invaded us to deploy the mines, however, as they can't discern the difference between ponies and us. We'd rather keep as much of the local area open as much as possible."

The guy next to me turns around to look at the sky. He's a German Shepard, so he must've heard something with his ears. I nudge him, and whisper, "Dude! What is it?"

He doesn't look at me, he's just staring at the sky, like many of the other anthropomorphic guys are beginning to do, and says, "There's a plane coming from the east."

A plane coming from the east? We don't have any airfields there do we? Realization dawns on me as I turned around to look at the sky. The menacing shape of dozens of planes were coming into view. They weren't ours. "GET TO COVER!" I scream. I bolted from formation, picking up the startled princess, and raced for the trench. I barely registered her more than significant weight and size, but the bombers closing in on us was more pressing. I dumped us into the trench, and I peer out of the trench, my rifle in my hands. The princess is standing up now, periodically ducking as soldiers jumped over the trench.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Bombers! They're going to drop their loads on us!" I hear the popping sound of the quad-gun, an anti-aircraft gun, firing. I took futile aim myself, and started firing. All around us, automatic rifles fired until some men got into the bunkers and started shooting the .50's. A flame rippled from an engine in the lead plane, and it started to dip. My gun went dry, and I stepped down from the firing step to reload. I jammed a fresh mag in, pulled back the firing rod, but before I can jump up again, I see Celestia. She's huddled up in a ball, trying to cover her ears with her hooves. I looked up at the planes, another plane had lost a wing, and was falling fast, while the others had arrived in what I thought looked like the bombing position.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was on top of her, and I was yelling above the noise of gunfire, "Get as small as possible! They're gonna bomb us! I'm gonna cover you!" I was practically hugging her, and she was doing the same. Soon enough, the sickening sound of the whistle from the bombs attacked my ears, and my heart start pounding.

Each bomb shook the Earth below me, physically lifting me up, and dropping me back down on the princess. I felt like a ragdoll as I tried to keep myself on top of Celestia, who was now crying. At one point, I managed to grunt out, "If you scream, you won't suffer as much hearing loss!" I didn't know how true that was, but it couldn't hurt, right? And after that, she screamed. It was an ear piercing, bloodcurdling, demoralizing scream, and I instantly regretted saying my bit. A bomb landed right in front of the trench, and dirt was sprayed on top of us, creating a blanket. More bombs were landing, and it was at this moment that I realized, not a single gun was firing right now. The bombing continued for another minute, and it was over as soon as it had started.

I groaned as I pulled myself out of the dirt that had landed on us, and pulled the princess up with me. Her white coat was now filthy brown, and she looked shaken beyond anything I'd seen from humans. I asked her, "Are you alright princess?" She looked at me like she didn't even realize I was there, and once she had looked at me for a second, she nodded. I looked back over at the battlefield, and... holy crap. It had been bombed heavily. Craters were everywhere, but it didn't look like any of the trenches had been hit. I started feeling good again. We all survived a bombing, and our hard work hadn't been for nothing.

I felt good, that is, until I laid my eyes on the tail fins of a bomb not 10 feet away from me. And just my luck, it wasn't just any kind of bomb, this was a gas bomb. It had a vent sticking out, and a sickly green gas was now pouring over the ground. I screamed, "GAS!! GAS!!!" I ripped off the gas mask off of my utility belt, and thrust it at the princess, "Put this on!" She put it on using her magic, which is probably how the mask managed to fit over her long face. "Now run uphill!" I grabbed my dirt covered rifle, and jumped up and over the trench wall, and grabbed the gas bomb. My lungs, throat, mouth, nose, eyes, my everything burned like fire as the sickly green gas enveloped me. I screamed out in pain as I lifted it up, and started running away from the trenches. I was crying involuntary, tears streaming down my cheeks. I found that is was beginning to grow difficult to think, and put each foot in front of the other. Count steps. I thought.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9...99, 100. I dropped the thing in my arms, and I fell next to it, unable to breathe, but still coughing. My body was giving up, I could feel it. Damn it! Dying. No. I don't want it. My thoughts dissolved from thoughts that took the form of words, to feelings. I felt that I was dying, dying was bad, and I was afraid of it. I rolled over, and started pulling myself forwards in a crawl. Everything hurt. Everything hurt.

I couldn't take it anymore. I gave up. I couldn't feel anything anymore. No thought, no pain, I couldn't even feel the ground below me. It was flat out nothingness, except for one thing. I could hear. I could hear my heart beating slowly, and I could hear impacts on the ground, but from what I didn't know. I couldn't know. It was just there, without meaning. I then heard something being dragged. Slowly, my mind faded altogether.

I woke up suddenly, and all I knew was pain, pain, and more pain. I tried to scream or cry out, but I couldn't make a sound, so my mouth just opened and shut, opened and shut. I tried to open my eyes, but they had been forced shut. I tried to writhe, but not only was I being held down by strong hands, but everything cried out against me in the short burst of movement. The pain was growing.

"Someone give him morphine!" someone yelled. Over all the pain, I barely felt the needle prick me in the arm. Immediately, I felt a little better. Progressively, the pain died off until it had been halved, but all it did was give me the strength to try and writhe again.

"Another shot!"

"That could kill him!"

"ANOTHER SHOT!!"

Another needle, the pain was gone as if it never existed, and I stopped resisting. I felt funny. My mind felt like all the clouds in the sky had been pumped into my head and my fingers tingled like electricity was pulsing through it. I breathed cleanly, but I could still hear the vibration in it.

"How're you feeling son?" someone asked. My reply was a gurgle. I tapped my hand against the bed, asking for my arm to be released. All of the hands were lifted off of me, allowing me to raise a hand, and give them a thumbs up, though for some reason, I couldn't feel my hand closing, or, my hand itself really.

I heard a booming laugh come from the man, and I suddenly knew who that voice belonged to. It was the Colonel. The sound of cracking blisters seemed to suck up all the sound of the room. It was the only sound as I raised my arm to my brow in a weak salute. "Sssssir. I wheezed roughly.

I heard the other men in the room suck in their breath in unveiled gasps. I felt a small twinge of pride and satisfaction from this. The short rustle of clothes was the only indication that I was given a salute back, but I maintained my salute until the Colonel said, "At ease son." My elbow thumped against the bed, proceeded the rest of my arm. I coughed again, and I could feel something fly from my mouth. A splat later indicated that it was blood. Somehow, I fell asleep again.