The weekend had quickly passed and everyone was antsy as the planned war game came to fruition. Because of how early it had been planned, there was barely any time to prepare. It was quite clear that Vice-Air Marshal Thunder Hammer had the clear advantage in terms of preparation for the battle, since she had been the pony who initially scheduled it and arrived in Ponyville, already prepared to fight the battle in advance. For the Lost Battalion, two days was not enough time to requisition extra equipment or supplies so they had to make due with what was available. Instead of the usual field gear that soldiers were expected to carry, the Lost Battalion ditched anything unnecessary and were told to only bring their usual field loadout, one day's worth of extra rations, and as much ammo as they could physically carry.

Both battalions, the Lost Battalion and the fighting battalion that Thunder Hammer brought along, had formed up at the Whitetail Woods to the west of Ponyville. Since it was now Fall/Autumn, most of the trees had lost their canopies and the ground was littered with piles upon piles of scattered orange/yellow leaves. Gathered there, it was obvious that Thunder Hammer had clearly cheated. The Lost Battalion's soldiers and the people/ponies who commanded it could obviously see that they were outnumbered twice over, if not even more. Every single member of Thunder Hammer's battalion were pegasi and they all looked just as cocky as the mare who commanded them, thinking they would win especially considering their numbers and preparation advantage.

The rules of the war game were simple. Once it started, any attacks or aggressive actions were not allowed for 3 hours. It was to give each side ample time to prepare themselves before the other side could try any underhanded tactics to achieve an early victory. No vehicles were allowed to be used and what each side could use were restricted to only what the soldiers were able to carry into the war game without the assistance of things such as carts/wagons. Once the war game started, no extra supplies were allowed in through any means.

A few hundred unbiased/outside officers and NCOs(Non Commissioned Officers, IE sergeants) were present to supervise the war games for safety purposes, to make sure no cheating was allowed, and to learn from anything effective/interesting that came to light that could be used in real battles. The war game had an expected length of three days but could end early if the opposing side had the entirety of their chain of command wiped out. There was an advanced system of magic ammo/explosives used to simulate the weapons so they wouldn't be needlessly killing off a bunch of soldiers in training.

With the start of the war game, both battalions were currently formed up facing each other, as an introductory meetup to see your opponent before the battle started. The Lost Battalion's primary chain of command included Tran, Wilson, Eric, Logan, Gilda, Rainbow Dash, Soarin, Spitfire, Applejack, Pinkie pie, Pharynx in his natural changeling form, Rarity, Prince Blueblood, and Princess Luna while their opponent's, the Flying Circus, chain of command included Vice-Air Marshal Thunder Hammer and a dozen random officers of varying ranks, all of which were the rank of Captain or higher. Standing between the opposing battalions were random officers and sergeants that were meant to act as the supervisors and safety coaches being led by Princess Twilight Sparkle and Air Commodore Surprise Party.

Every soldier of both battalions had their gear and extra equipment sitting beside themselves. Notably, the Lost Battalion's chain of command were doing the same thing and two of the humans had a few large trunks/chests in addition to their gear while Vice-Air Marshal Thunder Hammer and her officer underlings looked woefully underequipped, as the Flying Circus's chain of command didn't have any extra gear sitting on the ground besides them and were just wearing their uniforms with no combat equipment/gear/webbing. Thunder Hammer and her officers were clearly looking down at the non-pony members of the Lost Battalion disdainfully, occasionally sneering at them.

Princess Twilight waved at both chain of commands of each battalion and Vice-Air Marshal Thunder Hammer, Tran, and Princess Luna walked up to meet her. Looking at her fellow Princess, Twilight eyed Luna's long horn. "If you are to involve yourself in this exercise, I cannot allow you to use your alicorn powers, in order to keep this fair," Twilight explained.

Princess Luna looked to the frowning air marshal, making sure to make eye contact. Princess Luna bowed to the air marshal. "I accept those terms, they will need every benefit," Luna goaded before rising from her bow with a sarcastic smirk.

The vice-air marshal scowled. "Are you ready for this beatdown?" the mare taunted, looking particularly at Tran.

Tran showed no emotional reaction, simply displaying his usual emotionless expression. Despite the mare's taunt, he was completely unbothered. "May the best soldier win," Tran said in a very sportsman-like manner.

Princess Twilight looked in between both sets of leaders and spread out her wings and lit up her horn. A loud siren wailed, filling the ears of every soldier within miles with a deafening warning. "Alright, no fighting shall be allowed for the first three hours. Once battle is allowed, the same siren will sound," Twilight explained. Her magic field covered her neck and her voice was heightened with the power of the Royal Canterlot Voice. "It Begins."

Almost immediately, the Flying Circus and their chain of command took to the skies and flew off in one direction while the Lost Battalion spend a few valuable minutes gathering up their gear. Princess Luna used her telekinesis to do the same and equipped her body with a few set-aside saddlebags while Tran and Wilson grabbed the two set-aside trunk/chest/boxes after they had gathered their equipment. Once the Lost Battalion was ready with all of their gear gathered up, they took off, with all of their flying-capable soldiers taking flight, all of them headed in the direction opposite of where the Flying Circus had headed.

-X-X-X-

Ten kilometers out from the starting point of the war game, the Lost Battalion's fastest fliers, it's bomber escorts, led by Tran sitting on Princess Luna's back had found and scouted out a good area for the rest of the unit to take a hold of and fortify. Since the rest of the unit would take quite the considerable amount of time to ruck march to this fresh defensive position, half of the pegasi left to ferry/carry the rest of the unit while the other half started fortifying their soon-to-be FOB(Forward Operating Base). Within half an hour, every member of the Lost Battalion was present at their new position, fortifying it and building up defenses and fighting positions. Notably, Eric, Prince Blueblood, and Rarity were going through the ranks to lead the soldiers and help where ever they were needed. With everyone setting weapons up, the two trunks that Tran and Wilson had carried were opened up, each one revealing one of the pseudo-miniguns that Tran had worked hard to make. The trunks that carried the miniguns were also carrying a significant amount of ammunition and random other necessary equipment like extra charges of bottle lightning to power it or its tripod mounts.

All the while, as they were building up their fortifications, they were being shadowed/scouted out by their adversary. It was very easy to distinguish their foes, the flying scouts of the Flying Circus, from their own flying troops as they wore standard REA uniforms and gear while the soldiers of the Lost Battalion wore their uniquely customized uniforms, their battle armor, and the gear personally tailored to their tasks. Those enemy scouts were watching the Lost Battalion work, rather brazenly, as they were only flying at a few hundred feet in altitude and were well within rifle engagement range, knowing they were safe with the required neutral time still in place.

Eric walked over to Soarin and Spitfire who working hard, digging, in a partially dug foxhole. Spitfire eyed their guest and took a short pause, wiping the sweat off of her brow. Eric kneeled at the edge of the foxhole, looking down at the two. "What do you know about how this, Thunder Hammer, lead?" Eric asked.

Spitfire scowled upon the utterance of the air marshal's name. "Real cunt of a mare. She'll try to hit real hard and fast from every direction the instant she can, before we can finish setting up good defenses or make an attack before her," Spitfire replied.

Soarin, despite working with just one good foreleg, had worked up a decent sweat, digging. He looked up at Eric, while still digging. "We've seen her do this before and just like every other big officer in the REA or REAF, she doesn't change a damn thing," Soarin added in. "Anytime she sees other units that don't show results that falls in line to her standards, she'll try to get them disbanded and absorb their pony power into her own units."

Spitfire thought back to her past memories, back in the early portion of the war. "Early on in the war, after the Wonderbolts were the first to get into dogfights with the griffons, Thunder Hammer immediately petitioned to have the Wonderbolts disbanded once we started having our first failures, so she could steal all of the pegasi with dogfighting experience," Spitfire explained.

Soarin stopped digging and flared out his right wing, the metal magic prosthetic that let him somewhat fly, and held up his left arm, the fake wooden one. "Didn't even wait for Fleetfoot's body to get cold before she started," Soarin further added in, with a scowl on his muzzle. "She's a real treat." Soarin tapped Spitfire on the side with his prosthetic wing. "Remember how mad we made her?"

Spitfire chuckled and looked to Eric. "We didn't give her the satisfaction when she tried her hoof at stealing every former-Wonderbolt for herself. We disbanded our own unit and every remaining member of the 'Bolts transferred to different units on our own, just so we didn't have to work for that bitch," she explained as Soarin joined her in laughing at the Air Marshal's expense. "And boy was she jumping mad." Spitfire then spat on the ground. "She'll send as much of her forces in the first attack, probably in all directions all at once. She only has pegasi in the units she commands, she hates anything that can't fly," Spitfire said. Spitfire scowled and looked over at Soarin. "Tartarus, she doesn't even like pegasi stallions. She thinks stallions are only good for lugging around their equipment."

Eric raised an eyebrow. "So, she'll send all of her forces in a quick early surrounding attack?" Eric asked for clarification.

Spitfire nodded. "Yeah, to try to knock us out early on. They'll probably be all pegasus mares kitted for a quick assault," Spitfire replied.

Eric grinned. "Want to embarrass her?" Eric asked. Both Soarin and Spitfire suddenly had all of their attention on Eric and the two of them immediately stopped digging. "When she attacks us early on, I'm thinking about sending some small groups to her FOB to harass and sabotage them, in secret."

Soarin grinned and hopped out of the half-dug foxhole with the help of his wings. "I'll take every chance to fuck that bitch over!" Soarin exclaimed. Soarin turned to look down at Spitfire who was still standing in the foxhole. Eric sighed from pity and placed a reassuring hand on Soarin's shoulder. Soarin adopted an emotionally hurt look to his face. "Yeah, I know, I can't go." He held up his wooden prosthetic left hoof and looked at it with a pain expression.

Spitfire hopped out of the unfinished foxhole and took a position to the right of Soarin, placing her left wing on Soarin's back. "I'll cause enough trouble for the both of us," Spitfire consoled.

Eric looked at the two with pity. "We'll prolly send eight teams of five once their attack starts. During the chaos, they'll steal or destroy as much of their equipment as possible," Eric explained.

Spitfire directed her attention away from Soarin and over to Eric. "Let me guess, all of the teams are gonna be from Tran's scouts and you're gonna have, Rainbow Dash, Gilda, Logan, and me leading them?" she guessed.

Eric shook his head. "Nope. Rainbow and Gilda are gonna stay here to help defend home base and Logan still hasn't gotten the hang of flying faster than someone can sprint," Eric corrected. "It'll be just you and Pharynx. Remember, the goal is sabotage only, you don't need to fight them."

Spitfire shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I was a little too blood thirsty for that guess," she said with resignation.

Eric looked at the two pegasi, who were essentially cuddling up to each other. "So, how goes the, uh, relationship?" he brazenly asked.

Spitfire looked quite surprised from the question while Soarin just smirked. Soarin flared out his right wing, the prosthetic one and draped it across Spitfire's back. "Good, why? You trying to join our herd?" Soarin taunted.

Eric rolled his eyes and pointed off in a random direction. "A lil' birdy told me bout you four got caught by the Princess, doing, uh, stuff," Eric replied.

Soarin started laughing and turned to nuzzle Spitfire who was trying to disappear into thin air by covering her face with both hooves and both of her wings, trying to hide the massive blush that adorned her face from the embarrassment. "Ugh, does everypony know?" she asked, still trying to hide from reality.

Eric smirked and nodded, which Soarin noticed but Spitfire didn't from her attempts to hide her face. "Oh, yeah. Everyone's talking bout it," Eric answered.

Soarin, now laughing even harder, nudged Spitfire who refused to do anything other than hide behind her limbs. "Come on, you're the alpha mare of our little herd for a reason," Soarin joked. When Spitfire refused to do anything other than continue hiding, Soarin redirected his attention back to Eric. "Dashie and Gildie were being needy and Spitfire here arranged to have some, uh, fun."

Spitfire finally revealed her face from hiding, still blushing hard and showing a frown on her face. "He keeps interrupting us!" Spitfire groaned out. Meanwhile, Soarin started patting Spitfire on the back to playfully comfort her while he was still cackling off.

Eric turned to start walking away but before he did, he turned his head to look at the couple. "An hour before the ceasefire ends, form up at the gatling guns. We'll arrange your sabotage mission," Eric mentioned. With that, he started walking off to work on something else, leaving the two to their unfinished foxhole.

-Two Hours Later-

Everyone was nervous, having to wait for the incoming attack, the time limit to the ceasefire having ended recently with the same deafening siren from earlier sounding mere minutes ago. With only three hours available to them before the fighting would officially start, the Lost Battalion had to rush to build the most basic of fortifications. However, shoddily made and rushed defenses were better than nothing. It was however, enough time for them to setup what machine guns they carried into this war game, with sandbags to protect them and the liberal repurposing of the tree's fallen leaves in an attempt to hide certain positions.

The yaks from Eric's machine gun teams, the ones carried Model 14 HotKiss heavy machine guns, had said machine guns removed and emplaced. While the yaks could fire the machine guns from their backs, it was much safer and more accurate to have them setup on the ground to be fired by a dedicated machine gunner. It allowed the yaks to only focus on firing their primary weapons, the 20mm cannons that the yaks always boasted about. Also, with the machine guns emplaced, other ponies could help assist the machine gunners, working on loading them, bringing more ammo, cooling down the weapon, and or anything else. The other machine gunners of Eric's machine gun teams, the light machine gunners, built safe spaces for them to fire from, accompanied by an assistant gunner to help load their Model 15 ShowSaw light machine gun if they ran empty or take over if the machine gunner was lost.

On the sideline, Tran's aerial units were ready to bolt into the air when ordered to and Wilson's medics were hidden in safe hideaways that were well hidden with, again, piles of the trees' fallen leaves, ready to help the "wounded". As for Tran's scouts, they had been scattered around where ever they could bolster fighting positions or assist machine gunners or load ammo for the yak's cannons. Hidden on the outskirts of their defenses were eight teams of five pegasi or changelings with Pharynx and Spitfire accompanying them, ready to bolt the instant the expected attack started. In the air, there were a couple teams of airborne pegasi and or changelings patrolling the skies at every major direction of their base's defenses.

One obvious thing clued in that they were about to be attacked, the weather. Slowly drifting towards their position in skies above the Lost Battalion's position were large groupings of clouds blowing in from the west with the wind. To the humans, they didn't notice anything off about this but all of the pegasi that made up some of the ranks of the Lost Battalion were alarmed.

Rainbow Dash and Gilda quickly made their way to Tran and Eric, the two of them each manning one of the pseudo-miniguns, stationed in the very center of the Lost Battalion's defenses, where they could fire in every direction, but more importantly, see all of their soldiers and defenses. Rainbow Dash and Gilda, having flown up to the two humans, landed in front of them. "I think we might have a problem," Rainbow Dash stated while pointing up at the clouds. "The weather scheduled for the next three days is supposed to be a sunny forecast with light clouds."

Eric glanced up at the clouds blowing in towards their direction before looking back to Rainbow Dash. He and the rest of his friends knew the basics of the ponies' magic so he had an inkling of what the pegasus was implying. "You think they're hiding up in the clouds?" he questioned.

Dash smirked with cocksure attitude. "I'd bet my left wing on it," she replied.

Eric turned to share a look at Tran who tapped the minigun he was currently manning. Eric understood the suggestion and aimed the minigun he was manning at the nearest cluster of large clouds, a grouping that were roughly two kilometers away, and adjusted his aim for the extreme range. Eric squeezed the trigger of his pseudo-minigun and let out a short burst that lasted a few seconds or so. Of course, a couple seconds from a weapon like a minigun meant he fired around a hundred fifty rounds and from this distance meant that the burst was spread throughout the entire cloud he had fired at. For a while, nothing happened, after the bullets had effortlessly passed through the clouds but before anyone in the Lost Battalion's defense network could run around and question why someone had discharged their weapon, every nearby cloud started squirting out flocks of pegasi. Gunfire erupted everywhere on both sides as the sky was quickly filled with flocks of pegasi.

For the Lost Battalion, they were certainly safer on the ground as they were able to stay behind actual safe cover while the Flying Circus's attempts to fire accurately were heavily hindered by the fact that they were trying to fire while flying, a very difficult task as they were shooting while moving in all three dimensions. For the time being, the members of the Lost Battalion that were capable of flying and or dogfight, were kept on the ground out of fear that they would be casualties of friendly fire. With the concealment of the clouds, this enormous airborne threat had managed to get within a few thousand meters of the Lost Battalion's position, meaning they only had less than twenty seconds before these pegasi would be on top of them. As expected, every automatic weapon the Lost Battalion had their disposal were currently firing at their cyclic rate of fire with no break in sight, trying to capitalize on what little time before the real fight would began.

With the help of the two miniguns, a tremendous chunk of the attacking pegasi were wiped out before they closed the distance. However, with only two of the devastating weapons available, only two directions could be focused on and with the pegasi attacking in all directions, it wasn't long before the pegasi had landed and were attacking specific pieces of the Lost Battalion's defenses. Once on the ground, the Lost Battalion's soldiers could see what kind of threat they were facing. A good majority of the Flying Circus's aerial forces were armed with the same crude light machine guns that some of Eric's machine gun teams were armed with. Accompanying each of these light machine gunners were a pair of pegasi that were armed with shotguns, appearing to be the machine gunner's assistant gunners. As for the rest of the pegasi that weren't machine gunners of accompanying machine gunners, they were primarily armed with standard shortened bolt action rifles, but, they were using a pistol or a revolver in lieu of their rifles in such close quarters combat.

Fortunately for the Lost Battalion and unfortunately for the Flying Circus, the Lost Battalion's defenses and fortifications were much, much more spread out than what the Flying Circus had been expecting/prepared for. Eric and Prince Blueblood had settled the furthest troops in a very wide, large setup, with machine gunners structured with interlocking fields of fire who's positions were covered with secondary inner defenses/fortifications laid out to cover the outer defenders and even more additional defenders setup closest to the center of the defenses to further defend everyone else. Being as spread out as the Lost Battalion was, the Flying Circus, even with their numbers advantage, had found themselves with too few soldiers to mount up an effective attack after making landfall due to disastrous losses in their attempt to penetrate the Lost Battalion's defenses and had broken themselves up too much in an attempt to do as much damage as they had planned for. What few groups of attacking pegasi that did stay grouped up to make an attempt at a inflicting damage, found themselves at the focus of the minigun's firepower, cutting them down like grass. If this hadn't been a war game with protective spells and magic, blood, body parts, and dead bodies would have been raining down from the skies.

Not long after the assault had started, were the Flying Circus trying to retreat. With the jig up, they couldn't use the same idea they used to get in close, to get away. The entire time they tried to flee, the skies were filled with lead until they finally left the effective range of the Lost Battalion's machine guns. Soon enough, the gunfire died down until there was finally enough silence to think. With that threat over, Eric left the comfort of the minigun he had been wielding and quickly made his way towards a specific grouping of soldiers.

During that entire escapade, Tran's aerial troops had been poised to jump into the air if needed but had been held back to provide cover on the ground. Now that the Flying Circus was in retreat, Eric ordered Tran's aerial fighters to take flight. Their new mission was short and simple, to harass the Flying Circus as they retreated back to their home base. Their goal wasn't to inflict casualties but to delay the enemies' return to their base. Once Tran's aerial escorts/dogfighters took flight, Eric ran to the outskirts of their defenses to a pre-determined hidden away defensive position. The position was empty, its occupants having fled long ago, entirely by design/plan. Its original occupants were the eight teams of five pegasi led by Pharynx and Spitfire, their mission being to sabotage as much of the Flying Circus's defenses and to scout out their fortifications, hence, why Tran's dogfighters were given the mission to delay the return of the bulk of Flying Circus's forces. If Spitfire and Pharynx were to inflict enough damage to actually affect their enemy, they would need time. Of course, those dogfighters weren't supposed to throw away their lives. They just had to be annoying enough to force the retreating Flying Circus to slow down. If the Lost Battalion's dogfighters encountered too much resistance, they were supposed to back away to preserve their fighting ability.

With his primary tasks and checks done, Eric slowly made his way back to the center of his battalion's defenses. There, Tran, Wilson, Prince Blueblood, and Rarity were gathered up at the site of where the miniguns were emplaced. While walking his way back, Eric could see the safety coaches/supervisors that were overseeing this war game, no longer invisible and escorting the formerly-paralyzed, currently-unparalyzed "casualties" out of the war game, out of these woods now that they were no longer "in play". Once Eric was back to the minigun he formerly manned, Wilson, who was smoking a cigarette like the chain smoking soldier he was, offered out a cigarette to the sergeant. Eric graciously accepted the cancer stick and stuck it in his mouth and pressed the end of it to one of the barrel's of the minigun. Still being dangerously hot, the minigun's barrels easily lit Eric's cigarette and he was puffing away in an attempt take the edge off of the adrenaline his body had been flooded with due to the battle.

Eric looked at Blueblood who was puffing away on his own nicotine. However, instead of a cigarette, Blueblood was using a pipe, one that was made of ivory and exquisitely engraved and scrimshawed. "I like the pipe," Eric complemented, eyeing said implement.

Blueblood took the pipe, out of his mouth, manually with his right hoof. "Thank you," Blueblood responded. The prince pointed at Rarity with the pipe. "Credit goes to the mademoiselle."

Rarity blushed and waved with a hoof. "I thought it would look more refined than something as crass as a cigarette," Rarity replied.

Eric puffed away at his cigarette with a smirk. "Anyways, what are we looking at?" he asked.

Blueblood stuck the pipe back in his mouth and dug through his coat pocket to pull out a notebook. He flipped through the pages of the notebook and looked back to Eric. "Our defensive fortifications, as rushed as we made them, were effective enough for this first onslaught. We only lost 43 soldiers," Blueblood explained.

Eric took a deep inhale of his cigarette as he thought. The Lost Battalion had a little under 1500 troops, meaning they had only lost 3% of their troops. "And them?" Eric asked.

Blueblood smirked with schadenfreude. "More than 500," Blueblood responded.

Eric raised his eyebrows and he whistled in amazement. "Well that's embarrassing," Eric commented. Sure they had lost an irreplaceable number of troops, it was a good tradeoff for the damage that the Flying Circus had taken. Eric still knew they were outnumbered due to Thunder Hammer's blatant cheating but they were performing quite admirably so far. Soon enough, they could hear gunfire. It wasn't close enough for them to worry about, it sounded like the gunfire was many kilometers away. Eric glanced at Tran, guessing that Tran's dogfighters must have finally caught up to the retreating forces of the Flying Circus.

Looking back to Blueblood, Eric tossed his cigarette to the ground. "Have a third of the soldiers continue building and fortifying our defenses. Rotate them out every two hours in work schedules. Go around and gather up soldiers to start performing combat patrols. We're still on the defense for now," Eric ordered.

Blueblood nodded and tucked away his notebook. He looked back to Rarity and held out a foreleg. "Shall we?" Blueblood asked. Rarity took Blueblood's foreleg with her own and nodded, the two of them trotting off.

Tran, looking at Wilson, rolled up his sleeves. "I think it's time," Tran commented. Wilson sighed and took off his aid bag. He dug through his medical equipment for a few seconds before pulling out a sealed glass ampule and a needle.

As Wilson prepped a needle full of morphine, Eric eyed Tran with worry. "Still haven't found a cause?" Eric asked.

Tran shook his head. "No, it still feels like I'm a living man occupying a corpse," Tran replied. Once Wilson administered the painkiller, Tran showed no change in his emotional appearance but Eric and Wilson could see Tran's muscles relax. "We've already had the soldiers strip the ammo off of the dead, both ours and theirs. Let's start relinking ammo for the miniguns and distributing what is left over," Tran suggested.

Eric looked to the still smoking miniguns that they had previously used. "How much ammo did we use up?" Eric asked.

Tran grunted and tossed the tray he had dug out earlier. Eric took a quick look at it, it was a device to relink ammo for belt fed weapons, for their miniguns or for the machine guns that the yaks from Eric's machine gun teams were armed with. "We got less than a quarter left but we might be able to refill our reserves with the ammo we scavenged," Tran replied.

Eric thought back to him wildly firing the minigun into the skies, mere minutes ago. They had started off with 10,000 rounds per gun so to relink enough ammunition for them to fully resupply the miniguns would take ages. Sighing, Eric walked over to the minigun he previously manned and started going through the discarded ammunition links and brass, separating the two piles. "Alright, let's get to work," Eric said.

Elsewhere

Air Vice-Marshal Thunder Hammer angrily threw an empty glass bottle at a fellow officer, a major. The mare wasn't able to dodge the attack and her face was cut by glass, her shrieking from pain. "Out!" Thunder Hammer screamed.

The mare that Thunder Hammer assaulted scrambled to run away, exiting the tent that she and Thunder Hammer were occupying. This tent had been setup for Thunder Hammer to use as a command post and housed her cot and belongings, also acting as the air marshal's personal sleeping tent. Hyperventilating with rage, Thunder Hammer walked over to a trunk and pulled out a crystal decanter and glass, pouring herself a drink.

As the air marshal sat down and drank to calm herself down, a pair of pegasus mares suddenly appeared in the tent. These two mares had appeared out of thin air. Thunder Hammer was about to break into a fit of rage until she recognized who her two new guests were. Thunder Hummer lowered her glass and glared at the two mares. "Is our deal still on?" Thunder Hammer asked.

Both mares were wearing the standard REA officer's dress uniforms with the rank insignias of a major, but accessorizing the uniforms were a heavily engraved golden gorget around their neck and matching bracelets on all four legs. These were the magical accessories that the war game's safety overseers/supervisors wore that would turn them invisible and out of sight, a highly advanced and expensive piece of magical technology that required constant magical recharging. This specific magical equipment was also instrumental in keeping them safe from being affected or hurt by any of the magical bullets. Both of the mare majors, like most officers, wore a holstered sidearm on their dress uniforms. However, unlike most other officers in the REA, the sidearms they carried were pistols equipped with silencers. "We retrieved the payment at the dead drop. The contract is sealed and will be carried," one of the mare majors replied. "If somehow interrogated-"

"Which we won't be," the other mare major quickly added in, interrupting her colleague.

"We're going after the bounty the griffons setup," the first mare major finished.

"With even our memories of you as the buyer soon to be replaced, if somepony tries to pry into our mind," added in the other mare.

Thunder Hammer finished the remains of the drink that was in her glass and shot both mare majors an evil grin. "Good, no loose ends," Thunder Hammer eerily responded.

The two mare majors nodded and both of them simultaneously pulled out a large diamond, throwing it to the ground. Despite being a diamond, the gems shattered upon hitting the ground and a burst of magical energy and light exploded from the destroyed gems. This magical energy enveloped the two mares and they turned invisible once again. A few seconds later, the only exit flap of the tent opened, as if moving on their own but Thunder Hammer knew it was the two invisible mare majors exiting the tent. Still grinning evilly, Thunder Hammer refilled her glass with the crystal decanter.

Before she could take a drink from her glass, explosions thundered through the defenses of Air Vice-Marshal Thunder Hammer's Flying Circus's defenses. Thunder Hammer left eye twitched as she heard her soldiers panicking about.

-X-X-X-

Spitfire, Pharynx, and the teams of pegasi and changelings they commanded touched back down at the Lost Battalion. All of them were heavily laden with full saddlebags, with some even carrying crates crudely strapped to their backs, and they were now working hard to offload that carried gear. Eric ran out to meet up with the returning pegasi, eyeing all of the stuff they were dumping onto the ground. "How'd it go?" Eric asked.

Spitfire smirked and held out a hoof to Eric. Eric took Spitfire's hoof and the two powerfully shook hands/hooves. "They stood no chance!" Spitfire boasted, breaking the hand/hoof shake. Spitfire took off her own saddlebag and dumped it out, revealing many belts of ammunition "We blew up some of their ammo storages and stole some of their ammo for us to use! Thanks for distracting their retreat, by the way."

Eric looked over to Pharynx who was emptying out his own saddlebags. "A very fruitful sabotage mission," Pharynx added in. Pharynx revealed several pieces of metal that Eric could recognize as machine gun components. "While they were distracted from our vandalism, my changelings were able to disable many of their machine guns by stealing critical components."

Eric smiled and picked up one of the machine gun components that Pharynx had dumped out. He recognized it as the bolt to an REA heavy machine gun, one of the rifle caliber belt fed, water cooled machine guns. Sticking it in his pocket, Eric looked at the other soldiers, changeling and pegasi alike, who had also littered the ground with lots of machine gun ammunition and weapon components. "Good, I'll distribute the ammo where its needed and and go ahead and break into rations. I'm sure you'll need to recover the lost calories," Eric said. Eric dug through his own gear and pulled out a chocolate bar, one of the hyper dense REA rations, holding it out for Spitfire.

Spitfire, face still adorned with a cocky attitude, took the bar and starting eating it with gusto. "Don't suppose you know where Soarin is?" she asked while chewing.

Eric chuckled and pointed off in a seemingly random direction. "He's organizing combat air patrols with Dash and Gilda. Go ahead, just try not to get caught by Tran or the princess again," Eric goaded.

Spitfire, adopting a light blush, gave Eric a light shove as Pharynx noticed a slight amount of love and lust radiating off of the former Wonderbolt. "It's not like that!" Spitfire shot back.

Eric gave her a joking smirk and rolled his eyes. "Sure it isn't," Eric responded. Spitfire harrumphed and flew off, leaving Eric with Pharynx and the rest of the sabotage team. "I'm assuming you and your parasites, need to replenish your 'love' energy?"

Despite the obvious usage of said negative moniker, neither Pharynx or the other nearby changelings were offended. Pharynx nodded in response but didn't verbally reply. Instead, he looked to the rest of the sabotage team that was composed of changelings and pegasi. Despite the differing races and former animosity towards each other from months past, the pegasi and changelings were helping each other offload the rest of the supplies they had stolen off of each other's backs. "I think it's covered."

Eric looked at the soldiers and smiled, knowing they were getting along. The past few months were good for the soldiers to build up the loyalty between each other. "Alright," Eric started out. "Have them join back in once they're replenished."

-X-X-X-

Wisely enough, the Flying Circus made no other attempts to attack the Lost Battalion and eventually, the day gave way to night. With Princess Luna amidst their presence, some of the soldiers enjoyed the performance she gave when raising the moon. Once finished, she trotted away to meet up with Tran who was currently in the company of Pharynx, Eric, and Rainbow Dash. "Pray tell, what is the occasion?" the princess asked.

The moon was half full so there was some clarity to eyesight when up close but still had the difficulty of near total darkness, unless you were the princess of the night who had perfect vision in darkness. "We're planning a night raid," Eric replied.

The princess flared out her wings and stamped her hooves in celebration. This was her element, her specialty! "A night raid? Huzzah! I love night raids!" the princess merrily announced.

"You're not going," Tran responded. Upon hearing those three words, her heart shattered into a million pieces, especially considering who the response came from. "Don't take it personally, I'm not saying you're bad at sneaking but modern military sabotage and harassment is something you're not familiar with," Tran explained in a rather poor attempt at consoling the mare, which it hadn't. "And your mastery of the night is better used to prevent any intrusions of our own."

Even then, Princess Luna was still heart broken upon hearing the pre-made decision. The high and mighty princess was, even if anyone could barely see, pouting and had her ears flat against her skull. She finally noticed Pharynx and Rainbow Dash amongst the group and questions welled up in her mind. "But if not me, who then?"

Eric coughed to get her attention. "We were getting to that."

Tran looked to Pharynx who had stayed silent and indifferent so far. "Find me our two best infiltrators and make sure they have watches," Tran ordered.

Pharynx nodded in response, already thinking of a few names. Working with changelings, he knew many infiltrators that excelled in stealth and infiltration. "When do you need them?" Pharynx asked.

"As soon as you find them," Tran replied. Pharynx immediately bolted off into the night, in a seemingly random direction. Tran looked back to the Eric. "He'll take a few minutes, I'll be at the minis," Tran said before walking off. Tran directed his attention at the dejected princess who was watching Pharynx walk away with jealously. He patted her on the back a few times in an attempt to comfort her.

Princess Luna turned to face Tran, with a sullen look on her face. "Nay my friend, I understand its for the greater good," the princess responded. She emitted a long exhale and then chuckled. "Its just, ever since my return, I have the desire to involve myself in everything I can, for the fear of missing out in any possible experience that could provide even the smallest modicum of amusement."

Tran gave her a small smile, which surprised her, assuring the princess. "I'll be sure to make it up to you."

-X-X-X-

Mere minutes later, a pair of changelings met up with Tran who was standing next to one of the minigun's equipment crates. He was no longer wearing his combat body armor and was now adorned with a large bushy suit that made him look like a walking mound of the same fallen Autumn leaves that blanketed the surrounding area, leaving only his eyes partially exposed. The two changelings could see that, strangely enough, he did not have his usual sniper rifle and a pistol instead of his usual sniper rifle and signature hand cannon. Hanging down on the human's side was one of the griffon Model 18 submachine guns that he often used, one that was just as camouflaged as the rest of him. The two changelings trotted over to the walking leaf mound and stood at attention, waiting for an order.

Tran recognized the two changelings as members from one of his scout teams. Both of them were armed with the standard lever action and revolvers and both of them were currently undisguised, meaning they were in their changeling forms. "Gentleman," Tran greeted. "Our mission will be to cause disarray in the enemy ranks so that they spend more time on alert instead of resting. This will be a infiltration mission, one that calls for stealth. We will first fly out there, the two of you taking turns carrying me and once we're within eight kilometers of their position, we will make the rest of the journey on foot. If you have any questions, ask them now."

The two changelings stayed silent for a few seconds, no questions popping up in their minds. Due to their prior changeling infiltration experience, they understood the basic aspects of the mission, even understanding why they would stop flying five kilometers way. They couldn't chance being discovered by the enemy's flying units.

Tran drew his pistol and ejected the magazine, checking that it was loaded. In doing so, the two changelings were able to see that the pistol had an attached silencer. For this mission, Tran had swapped sidearms with Eric, trading his .500 S&W magnum for Eric's silenced Walther PPQ, as his usual signature hand cannon was not exactly stealthy. Once Tran holstered his pistol, he looked back to the two changelings. "Change into forms y'all think is best for the mission. Then we can leave," Tran suggested.

Both changelings nodded before green fire encompassed their forms. After a split second, the green fire disappeared, revealing that the changelings still retained their changeling bodies but their insect wings had been swapped out for feathered bird-style wings and their eyes were no longer the same solid light blue orbs that changelings had, replaced with a massive black pupil surrounded by yellow sclera. The two changelings noticed that Tran was eyeing their new features with some curiosity so one of them cleared his throat to speak. "Owl wings, completely silent when flying compared to pegasus wings and owl eyes, for better perception in this darkness," one of them explained.

Tran nodded in approval and unslung his submachine gun. "Alright, if we're ready, let's go," Tran announced. The two changelings shared a look with the pair before looking back to Tran and nodding, one of them stepping forward. Tran walked over to that changeling and carefully climbed onto his back. Tran's weight wasn't too much for a changeling to carry, a pegasus could easily carry their body weight and more while flying and changelings were similar, being able to carry only slightly less when utilizing their natural bug wings.

The changelings took to the skies once Tran was fully settled. They knew the location of where Thunder Hammer and the Flying Circus had setup their base. It was thirty kilometers away and according to their scout's findings, they had only partially setup defenses. Preliminary reports had told the Lost Battalion that the Flying Circus's defenses/position was barely setup. It was revealed that they had nowhere near the same level of built up fortifications as the Lost Battalion's base. Prince Blueblood, Rarity, and Spitfire had speculated that due to the fact that the Flying Circus was entirely composed of pegasi, their ability to build fortifications was severely hampered. With no Earth ponies, the Flying Circus was heavily unable to do the simplest of military tasks, such as digging fighting positions.

The scouts had also reported that the Flying Circus was still performing basic defense tasks, such as defensive patrols. According to distant observations, the Flying Circus patrolled their base from the sky, with significantly more aerial patrols than what the Lost Battalion did. However, the same observations had revealed that the Flying Circus were not patrolling their base on the ground, which Tran was hoping to take advantage of, once he arrived their. Spitfire speculated that the Flying Circus did not want to degrade themselves with patrolling the ground like the "ground pounders". While the Flying Circus wasn't patrolling on the ground, they were still seen having setup machine guns on the ground, of which, Spitfire and her saboteurs were able to disable a small fraction of earlier in the day.

In addition to what the Flying Circus had setup on the ground, the scouts, Spitfire, and the saboteurs that accompanied her had reported that the Flying Circus had emplaced a myriad of machine guns in clouds above their base, more than what they had on the ground. According to the scouts' reports, the Flying Circus had setup more machine guns in the clouds above their base than what they had emplaced on the ground. Eric had speculated that placing the machine guns on the clouds would give them a larger field of fire than placing them on the ground. However, Eric also voiced his disapproval of doing such a thing as being in the clouds, those emplaced machine guns would have no cover and would be very easy to shoot at, to take out. The only thing protecting their machine guns in the skies was concealment, which the scouts had reported that their enemy were attempting to conceal with cloud cover. It was possible that there were more machine guns in the clouds than what the scouts witnessed but they could only speculate. Soarin joked that the pegasi manning the machine guns emplaced on the ground compared to manning the machine guns setup in the clouds was a job for the lowest dredges of their personnel, with how elitist the Flying Circus was with their belief in aerial supremacy.

Being thirty kilometers away, it wouldn't take the two changelings and Tran very long before they'd dismount to continue the rest of their journey on foot/hoof. Now, if it was Rainbow Dash, she would have traversed the entire journey in less than a minute but since we're talking about normal changelings who were laden down with a massive human, each kilometer took a minute to fly, with them switching off on ferrying Tran every kilometer. As they travelled, Tran focused on watching every direction to make sure they weren't followed/noticed, making sure their clandestine mission stayed that way, as he had nothing to do while the changelings were focused on flying.

The trio dismounted to continue their journey a quarter hour later, ready to finish the final leg of their journey on foot/hoof. Tran held up his wrist to look at his watch, being barely able to see it. "Synchronize watches," Tran said. The two changelings each held up their forelegs where they wore a watch. All three of them synced their time pieces to the same hour, minute, and second. "10 o' clock on the dot. I want you two to make some noise at the closest end of their base. I don't care what you do as long as it catches their attention," Tran explained. After Tran had finished explaining that to them, he reached forward at the changelings and took one of their bayonets. Before they could ask, he sank it into a nearby tree. "Once you do, leave and return back to here. This'll be our relay point. If I'm not back by midnight, return to base."

The two changelings gawked, surprised at their mission briefing. One of the changelings raised a hoof and Tran directed his attention to him. "Sir, are we to leave you to trot back by yourself?" the changeling asked. While carrying Tran on their backs was a tedious and somewhat physically demanding task, they did not want to leave him behind in the bad case scenario that was discussed.

Tran nodded. "Yes," Tran answered. "While I have taught you men that we will never leave a soldier behind and I am proud of your discipline in adhering to my teachings, in the worse case scenario event of if I lose to these showboats, do not turn yourselves into casualties on my behalf."

The changelings paused for a second before saluting Tran. "Yes sir," both of them answered. As the two changelings prepared to separate from their beloved leader, the last changeling to have been ferrying Tran, saluted. "Good luck sir."

Tran eyed the saluting changeling. "Stay safe," Tran responded back, before he unslung his submachine gun and walked off, leaving the two changelings to themselves.

-X-X-X-

In the darkness of the night, it wasn't long before the two changelings had travelled without Tran enough that neither parties knew each other's position's anymore. Even though the two changelings had lost sight of their leader, one of them would occasionally glance to the previous direction they had formerly been able to see him at, from force of habit. The other changeling eyed his compatriot, taking note of the obvious anxiety he could see, even without having to feel it with their emotavore's natural skills. "He'll be fine. He's shown he's unstoppable," the other changeling said, in an attempt to quell his comrade's apprehension.

His ally changeling sighed. "Yeah, I know. It still just feels weird we're in this situation, fighting with the Equestrians out in the open like this now," he said, gesturing to his undisguised changeling form. "I never thought the ponies would ever trust us enough."

The other changeling chuckled. "While they're not all friendly, it looks like they're trying enough to be our friends," he said.

Before either of them could say anything else or continue on in their journey, two sharp cracks simultaneously rang throughout the air. It wasn't as loud as your standard deafening gunshot but it was nowhere close to being dead silent. One of the changelings immediately dropped like a sack of bricks with a hole in the back of his helmet and subsequently, his head, while the other changeling froze in a stand still. He opened his mouth to speak but only blood poured from his open maw... And the hole in his neck. The remaining changeling finally realized what was happening and clutched his bleeding neck with his hooves in a fruitless attempt to save himself. Unfortunately, he collapsed and slowly bled to death, not knowing what happened.

-X-X-X-

As Tran walked by himself towards his target, he gave his best effort in trying to stay as quiet as possible. Unfortunately for him, it was well into fall and leaves settled the ground no matter where he stepped, meaning every foot step elicited the loud crunches of leaves being crushed, every time his foot met the ground. As he walked, he also made sure to keep an eye and ear out for any sign of trouble, being ever-so-vigilant so he wouldn't be caught and captured/"killed" in this war game.

Tran stopped mid step as he thought he heard something. What he thought he heard was the beating of feathered wings but once he froze, it seemed to disappear. Faster than anyone could blink, he turned around with his pistol drawn, aimed at a seemingly random spot behind him. When he had stopped mid-step, he hadn't set his foot down but he still heard the tell-tale sound of leaves crunching as if they were being stepped on. Worse yet, it had happened the instant the sound of wings flapping had stopped.

Taking careful aim, he readied his borrowed pistol to fire a shot, only to be surprised. "You got me!" a familiar female voice called out. The voice he heard sounded familiar, having heard it before but only having heard it once before. In the dead of night, with only the light reflected off of the half present moon, he watched as a pegasus seemingly appear from air. The pegasus in question was dressed in a very decorated and clean officer's uniform, one belonging to that of a general from the Royal Equestrian Air Force. She was also ordained in the same magical training equipment that the surprising officials of the war games wore, the gear that enabled them to become invisible so they wouldn't be a distraction in the war games.

Tran had his pistol pointed right at her, having correctly guessed where she was. He quickly holstered his sidearm and took a deep breathe, trying to calm his nerves. "You must be my peanut gallery," Tran commented.

The mare chuckled and trotted over to Tran. "Yepperoni, I'm here to make sure you don't try out any funny business!" she explained. She immediately realized what she said and switched from her real happy smile to a nervous smile. "Not that you'd cheat or anything, it's just official business."

Tran patted her on the head. "Nah, I understand. You're doing your assigned job," Tran said. The head pats eventually evolved into head scritches and Surprise Party relaxed, leaning further into Tran's ministrations and purring, almost like a cat.

"My cousin speaks highly of you and there's a lot of rumors bout what you and your friends can do," Surprise explained. "So there's ponies assigned to each of you, watching your performance to see if any of it is true. Course, when we heard bout what you had planned, I wanted front row seats to what you would personally do!"

Tran shrugged. "I just do my job. Whether or not its exciting is up to the watcher," Tran replied. Tran turned back around so he was facing the direction he was previously, when he had been traveling towards his intended destination. "Well, I gotta keep going, otherwise, I'm gonna be off schedule. And please, don't get in the way or get hurt while supervising me."

Surprise party nodded with vigor. "Got it, I won't keep you waiting!" she exclaimed. She fished through one of her uniform's pockets for a few seconds before pulling out a fist-sized gem. She threw it to the ground, where it shattered, exploding in a ball of light and magic. Shortly afterwards, she slowly started to become invisible again.

*CRACK*
*CRACK*

Surprise Party had been standing when she had fully become invisible and she was revealed to any prying eyes as she became visible again, though this time, she was lying on the ground, collapsing where she had been standing. At the same time, Tran felt a heavy impact on his back and pain blossomed in the same area. Collapsing to the ground in a heap, he mustered all of his willpower to get back up but his leg's stayed unresponsive, not wanting to move.

From instinct, he unslung his submachine, getting it ready to fire, only to realize it was worthless. Whatever had him had punched a hole clean through his submachine gun, rending it into worthless scrap metal. Realizing the depth of his situation, he drew his pistol and started crawling away, using his ever dwindling supply of energy and lifeforce to move. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be and he eventually stopped moving.

Wings could be heard flapping as a pair of hooves touched down next to a quickly dying Surprise Party and motionless human. Surprise Party had no idea what was going on, other than the fact that she was getting weaker and weaker. "Oh damn, its Air Commodore Surprise Party," a random mare's voice called out. Surprise Party had no idea who was speaking but all she knew was that whoever was speaking, was close. Surprise Party was heaving, starting to feel blood pool up in her lungs. "And I think she's still alive."

"W-Who's there?" Surprise Party weakly called out.

"Doesn't matter, no witnesses. Just put one in her head so we can find him and finish up," another mare's voice called out in the darkness of the night.

Surprise Party heard the sound of a bolt action rifle being worked and she immediately realized what was happening. She cried out in pain with the beginning of tears rolling from her eyes as she realized her life was about to end. However, before either of the two assailants could do anything, bullets flew through the air, towards the direction of where both voices came from. The gunshots weren't loud like normal gunshots, sounding like a silenced small caliber pistol being fired. The two assailants cried out in pain, their forms became visible and both of them falling to the ground.

Surprise Party turned her head towards where the source of the silenced gunshots, seeing Tran, perched on his side with silenced pistol in hand. The silencer's muzzle was smoking, another indication of who had just saved both of their lives. Legs still not responding, Tran slowly crawled over towards Surprise Party's bleeding prone form and the two dead bodies of their assailants. Tran coughed, blood coming from his mouth. "Who the hell are they?" Tran asked..

Surprise weakly chuckled, her strength continuing to drain away. She looked over to the dead bodies of their assailants. "I-I don't know," Surprise answered.

Tran ignored the two fresh corpses and crawled closer to Surprise Party, looking over her body. She had been shot through her right flank, going diagonally through her body and exiting out her shoulder. From the shear amount of blood coming through her body, she didn't have much time left. "It hurts," Surprise Party weakly cried out. "I can feel everything hurting. Oh Celestia, I shouldn't feel my organs hurting."

Tran dug through his equipment and pulled out a morphine syringe, injecting it into Surprise Party's body. She initially cried out in pain but slowly started to relax as the drug took over. Checking himself over, he found that the bullet had hit the center of his upper back and pierced his armor, going through his spine and exiting out the front of his torso below his heart, stopping at the front armor. He knew he didn't have long either, knowing the two of them were close to getting their ticket's punched. "We'll make it through this, Surprise. Your cousin's planning a party for you," Tran said, trying to comfort her.

Surprise weakly chuckled again but she knew the truth. She wasn't gonna bounce back from this. "Yeah, her parties are the best!" she said with what little remained of her strength. Her face blossomed in discomfort as things were starting to feel worse. Tran sighed and dug through his gear, pulling out more morphine. He injected the second dose into her body and she relaxed once again. "Thank you for protecting Pinkie." She closed her eyes and then exhaled, no longer breathing.

Tran leaned against Surprise's corpse and threw the used morphine syringe away, glad that he had at least made it painless for her. Unfortunately for Tran, he didn't have any morphine left and he wasn't sure if he was gonna make it this time. He was in the middle of nowhere, with no way to contact anyone and worse yet, alone. Over time, it was getting harder to breathe and his heart was slowing down, pumping more pain than blood throughout his veins. He wanted to relax but he knew how bad it was. Alone, without his friends and family, he breathed his last.

Author's Note

Still alive bitches! like usual, like/fav/leave a comment pls, I enjoy reading them. Go ahead and point out mistakes if I made any. Other than that, I hope y'all enjoy this latest chapter!