The Melding of Two Worlds Pt. 2: Home and the Battlefieldby LucklessChaptersChapter 1: Marching and HomeChapter 2: Meet the Family and Feeding the HungryChapter 3: Feet on the GroundChapter 4: Battle for CanterlotChapter 5: AftermathChapter 1: Marching and HomeZlat Whoever said, "War is hell", is an asshole. War is far worse. It's more of a nightmare boiled in hell, spiced with misery, and with a side of, "You are absolutely boned". When we got the order to march, it rained. For days. The ground became a slurry of mud which tugged at our boots, threatening to rip them off our feet. Within hours, we were all thoroughly coated in mud, soaked to the bone, and our feet were tortured with the mud that seeped through the tops of our boots (no matter how tightly we bound them) and the rain pooled up, and sloshed about as we took each step. Now, clothes never felt wonderful against my fur. Now that both were wet, it was like being already being frozenly soaked with the wet, rough side of a sponge being grated against me. Already, my tail was matted, and the mud had woven itself to the appendage itself. It had become so heavy that it provided a constant strain on the base of my tail. It was going to take forever to get it back to it's former glory. Sleep was hard to come by when your unprotected from the rain, except for the small tarp that those that still had theirs could cover themselves with. I still had mine, but I still froze from the cold and the sogginess, so sleep was short, fitfull, and unhelpful. My only respite was my head, which was mercifully covered my my helmet. Well, most of my head was covered. The brim of my helmet dripped water onto the end of my muzzle, but compared to the rest of my miseries, I shouldn't really complain. That didn't stop everyone else though. I'd been dropped into Wolfgang's old unit. Something about unit reorganization. Rainbow Dash, or RD as we all came to call her, complained nonstop about the weather. She claimed that she could, "Clear those clouds in 10 seconds flat!" I learned that pegasi could manipulate the weather and clouds, but in 10 seconds? I found that kinda hard to believe. Besides, even if she could, we were given only short breaks from marching (which was really just a trudge to be honest) for eating or to sleep. Rarity was even worse. Every syllable was laced with a grating whine, every step was exceedingly slow unless prodded or poked forwards, and rarely did she ever NOT complain for a minute or two. I swear, half of us (including me) gave her looks that seemed to express the utmost desire to duct tape her mouth shut. Bouncer, Applejack, and Wild Ace could be heard grumbling to themselves every now and then, but that was it. The real sight and sound to witness, was Mac. He lugged around his machine gun, looked twice as bad as the rest of us, and he didn't say a thing. Hell, he didn't even look annoyed! Just that neutral, thinking to himself look that he always wore. I think you can guess who I stood next to. His silence seemed to strengthen my resolve, and if I needed to vent, or voiced my worries about my brother, he listened politely, and kept quiet. The Changelings marched right behind us, and seemed very fascinated with the humans and anthros within our army. Occasionally a brave one would approach us and try to mingle, however as irritated as we were, they didn't get very many answers. We made sure to tell them to ask another time when we had time to calm down and for conditions to improve. But there were a few repeating visitors, and no amount of ambient unfriendliness seemed to deter them. Despite everything, we marched on as steadily as possible. Wolfgang I wheeled myself down the sidewalk, growling through my teeth in pain. My arm still wasn't fully healed, and using it wasn't the brightest thing I could do, but even though the VA (Veterans Affairs) had drastically improved since our predecessors, they still couldn't house and care for me when I showed I was stubborn in working towards recovery. They patched me up best they could, got a pony doctor to accelerate the healing process, and send me on my way to my old apartment with the promise to continue paying me, and even give me a prosthetic leg once I regained my strength. Not to mention a recovery program. Mr. Voladaski, bless his soul, had reserved my apartment for my return, on one condition which I readily agreed to as long as I could set some ground rules. The condition was that he had to also allow refugees from Equestria to take residence (via government orders and payments), and my rules were- 1# Don't sell anything that was in the apartment when you got there 2# Replace anything you break 3# Don't protest when the original owners come back 4# Maintain cleanliness I figured they were reasonable rules, and so did Mr. Voladaski. I finally came to my old apartment complex, just as dilapidated-looking now as when I left. Familiarity spread a grin on my face as I fought with the stairs, opting to go up backwards to get the large wheels up, wrestled with the door to open it, and entered. The smell of Mr. Voladaski's sweet cigars overwhelmed my nose, and a small wisp of smoke coming from around the corner announced his presence. "OI! Voladaski! Get out 'ere man!" I yelled. Something crashed, and out came the massive Russian in his dour clothing, and scarred over face from his days as a city gangster. By no means was he a handsome man. Honestly, he looked flat out terrifying, and when he smiled, and you didn't know him, you couldn't tell if it was endearing, or even more terrifying. I had suggested once to him to wear something more friendly, and stop smoking to get rid of the smell of cigar that seemed to make his presence even more intimidating. To this, he laughed, and told me, " I won't be a pretty man, like you. I win people over with personality. You get good friends that way." His logic seemed sound to me. After all, only worthwhile people would give a man like him a chance to see his good side. Or, they could only be trying to get protection from the massive man, but he rooted them out soon enough, unless they were tenants. Then he would tolerate and protect them as long as they paid him, and didn't bring the police. If they did either one of these, out they went. His true friends never attracted police, and he protected them like family. I personally witnessed him ward off nearly an army's worth of gangsters that a friend of his had attracted to the complex. He looked at me with curiosity, no doubt my scars and distorted voice made me unrecognizable to him, "I know you?" he asked in his heavy accent. I grinned, my scars moved uncomfortably, still stiff from being so strained from when I'd abused them when I screamed my head off on the battlefield and in surgery until they'd finally pumped in enough painkillers and sedative to stock a drug store into me, "Course ya do! Room 12, Wolfgang Piatek! Don' tell me yer gettin' old an' went off an' fergottin' me." I joked. Poor Volad looked like he wanted to greet me with his bear hug, but either thought he'd break me, or wanted to make sure I was who I said I was, "Good Mr. Piatek was more whole, so forgive me if I not believe. Prove you are Mr. Piatek, and I welcome you with open arms. If you don't, I throw you to curb." His threat was sincere, and I smiled to hear his loyalty. With my good arm, I pulled my dogtags from under my shirt, over my head, and held them up to him. They were in terrible condition. They were bent in, scratched several times, and the rubber that wrapped around the tags to keep them quiet had been cut, allowing the rubber to flap if shook hard enough. Then there was the fact that they smelled like old blood and burning mustard. Volad gingerly took the tags, and held them up to his face, and looked hard. A sad smile crossed his face, and he handed the tags back to me, "Welcome back Wolf. I wish circumstance were better." I smiled wider, "I take what I can get." A laugh barked from his throat, "With you, that does not surprise me. If one phrase describe you, that it." We grasped hands, the familiar strength in his hand made me feel better, but the weakness of my own brought me down further. But I kept my happy face. This was a good day, and self pity had no home in me. "You in newspaper. 'Five month siege of Ponyville ends as the Hero of Equestria breaches Hell.' Had picture of you, thought you were safe." "Safe? What does that mean?" We gave a laugh to the dark joke, "No, had a run in with gas, an' got shot to hell 'n back. They even gave me a stab fer good measure, but you know me-" and we said together, "I'm a stubborn bastard." And we laughed again. "I'm a stubborn bastard" was something that we both described ourselves as, and I'd say it was accurate. Volad looked behind me, "Where is brother?" I sighed, my smile shrinking a little, "Still out there. He and the rest of the battalion are going with the Changeling army to free Equestria's capital. Oh, what was it called?" "Canterlot. Pony cities seem to be puns of our cities." No doubt 'our' spoke for the world we knew before the merger. Volad looked me over again, staring harder, "How long have you been traveling?" It was hard to hear with his deep voice and accent, but years of knowing the man allowed me to recognize his concern over my state. And what a poor state I was in. My eyes were horribly bloodshot from the days of sleeplessness, black bags hanged under my eyes, eyes that sunk into my skull as my body desperately tried to repair itself, and my worn, damaged and dirty clothes clung to my thin frame. My diet may have gotten better, but most of the nutrients was being used on repairs, not growth. "A long time, my friend. A long time." I let out the rest of my breath with that last word, suddenly feeling all the overwhelming weight of my travels and recovery crashing down on me. Boy I felt tired. I know that Volad saw it, he always does, "I think it time for you to go to room. Let's go," and with a smile, "I fix elevator just in time it seem." I chuckled a bit. The day I started renting my apartment, I had discovered that the only elevator in the whole place didn't work, and Volad had been trying to fix it for the last few years. "Yeah, and it only took you 20 years to do it too. Finally hire a mechanic?" I ask jokingly. He smiles, and pried open the iron grate that served as the barrier between the elevator and lobby, "After you." I roll myself in, and Volad pressed a button on the dash. The elevator shuddered, and started to rise. First floor, second floor, MY floor. My heart was beating harder as we turned to face the door at the end of the hallway. My door. I rolled myself up to the door with years of memories flooding me. All those days showing up after a long day feeling like crap, the few I stumbled up to it, and all the monotonous things like fixing the door frame, repainting it, or even just coming back with groceries. I tentatively rested my hand on the new handle. I guess there really is some new roommates in here. So before I opened the door, I asked, "So how many, er... ponies live here now?" "Five. Mother is pegasus, her name is Lucky Singer. Got herself a job singing in restaurant down the street. The father is Steam Hammer. He is Earth pony, and working at Department of Wartime Technologies, so he only here on weekends like today. Children are of all type. Oldest is Earth pony boy named Wrought Iron. Very good with machines, that one. Helped fix elevator. The middle child is pegasus named Warm Wind. She's a kind little soul. Youngest is unicorn orphan, Metal Strings. He still a baby, but in control of magic." Wait, 'but in control of magic'? "Uhh, what do you mean by that?" I really, REALLY, didn't like the implications of that. "Unicorns not control magic too well until certain age. He old enough that it not issue. I don't know if parents here, but children certainly are. What you waiting for? Let's go in." He reached over my shoulder and twisted the handle down, and pressed the door inwards. Walking around me, he called out, "Wrought! Come here my boy." I rolled in behind him, shaking my head with a smile. Volad certainly had quite a way with introductions. Around the corner came a brown earth pony with messy black hair and piercing, cold blue eyes. He was smaller than Big Mac in his pony form, but built exactly the same. He came with a smile, which quickly took on a look of curiosity once his eyes fell on me. "Hello Mr. Voladinski. Who's this?" He was trying to look at Volad, and not at me, quickly flicking his eyes back to him when he realized his gaze had drifted back to me. Well, time to put on a happy face. Wrought Iron I couldn't stop myself from looking at this new human that was with Mr. Voladinski. He was in a wheelchair, missing a leg, wrapped in a torn winter combat uniform of the New York Militia. Greyish long overcoat over the standard green fatigues. However, he didn't wear a helmet or hat, like I'd seen most Militiamen wear, and I wish he had been. A hat might have hidden some of the ugly disfigurement that he suffered from. I may have only been here for a few months, but I had come to know that a humans' face shouldn't look like that unless they got really messed up. At least his hair was still growing. I figured he wouldn't like it if I stared at him, so I tried my best to look at Mr. Voladinski only. "S'alright kid. Ya don' need to puh- I mean, spare my feelin's. Look if yuh want, it don' bother me." The man spoke. It was deep, gravely, almost distorted. I looked over to him, and saw a soft, reassuring smile. Or at least, as close as his face could manage. "Sorry, I just don't really know how to go about this. My name's Wrought Iron." I reached out a hood to shake his hand. He rolled himself up to me, and grasped my hoof, "Wolfgang Piatek. Nice tuh meet ya." Now that I wasn't worrying over offending him, I began wondering over why he was here, "Excuse me for asking, but what brings you here?" "Wrought, remember I say that previous tenant not kicked out and come back some day?" I nod. I remembered feeling worried that we might get kicked out when they came back, and Mr. Voladinski saying it again made that same worry come back. "Well, Wolf here is tenant. He will be living here again." And my heart dropped into my stomach. "Introduce him to family please? I need to go, so have fun boys!" And with that, Mr. Voladinski left, closing the door. "Wrought, I know what yer thinkin'. No, yer family ain't gettin' kicked out. Yer just gettin' a new roommate." Mr. Piatek's words comforted me, and I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding in. "Thanks, you have no idea how much better that makes me feel. Come on, I'll introduce you to my family, but my parents are out right now working and getting food." "Yeah, heard yer dad was working in the tech department. He's gonna be savin' lives man, I promise you that." I puffed my chest out with pride, I smiled happily with such a good opinion of my dad. Most people here thought poorly of anybody who was working for the war effort, but not actually fighting. "Thanks, you wouldn't believe how much flak I get because of his job." I halted realizing what I just said. No one but me knew about this. "Somethin' wrong Wrought?" he asked confused. My mind ground to an immediate halt. I hadn't meant to say that, and I wasn't confident enough that I'd be able to deflect the question, "Whatever you do, don't tell anybody about this! My folks are already stressed as it is. They don't need anything else to worry about." I pleaded. Mr. Piatek used his fingers to motion out zipping his lips, "Yer secret's safe with me. But if you need any help, I'm more than willing to go an' crack some skulls fer ya. I may be a cripple now, but I'm a far sight better fighter than those bastards are." I snickered at his surefiredness and willingness to protect a random stranger. What am I worrying about? This is gonna work out fine! Steam Hammer The day had been going as well as I could've hoped for. Getting to and back from the store wasn't so bad, or slow. It was getting the groceries themselves that was the hard part. Being a pony, the list was mostly limited to vegetable items like soup and raw ingredients. I found myself quite irked that the produce in Chestia was far less appetizing than Equestria food, and was more expensive too. I'd been explained that the grand majority of the population ate meat from animals that were one step short of being brain dead compared to Equestrian animals, and the cows weren't any different. Therefore, farming wasn't as much of a focus point as I'd like. The food grown in vats inside the city were far from palitable, but extremely cheap to the point it was nearly a steal. But this was the weekend, and we'd been surviving on it for a good long while, minus the leftovers Lucky brought back from work, so I figured it would be a good time to treat the family. However, it being the weekend also meant that most of the city's inhabitants were also buying their weekly supplies, so it was cramped and slow in the store. I met many humans and anthros throw me a mix of reactions and looks from fascination to anger. No doubt, ponies were a rarity everywhere in Chestia, and many found that an Equestrian not fighting in the war to be disloyal to the country, and downright cowardly not to fight. I tried to ignore them best I could as I loaded my cart up with food. The journey back was fairly peaceful despite the bustle of the big city, and the load I'd place in my saddle bags didn't dampen my mood. However, my mind still tracked back to my work. I found the idea of a large hulking mass of metal moving around on the battlefield incredibly fascinating. Men would be protected from enemy fire, and attack at the same time, wreaking havoc against enemy troops while boosting moral. I'd had the immense pleasure of examining an ancient wreck of one of these historical wonders, and had made as many notes as I possibly could about the science of the armor in deflecting incoming fire from cannons, to its' own armament. The one problem I came across that I shared with my team was how to get the engine and crankshaft to connect to the wheels of the tank itself. However, the wheels and axles we designed, no matter how much of a load we could coax them to hold, were never strong enough to bear the weight of the tank, and we couldn't find a good way to get the front wheels to guide the tank in a turn. And don't get me started about how we were trying to get the engine to not overheat and explode for the first few months. Apparently, cars and trucks had coolant in them to help maintain the temperature, and it had never crossed our minds because of all the other problems we faced. My pondering over solutions provided enough of a distraction that I found myself at the apartment complex quickly. I let myself in, climbed the stairs, and entered my apartment. That's when I saw a human sitting in the recliner with a wheelchair folded up against it. Not only was there a human in the chair, but my children were gathered around him, asking a storm of questions. I cleared my throat, getting everyone's attention, "Um, who are you, and what are you doing in my apartment with my kids?" I asked with rising concern. I don't think anyone, pony or other, would question my protectiveness of my children. Especially with the growing problems my son was getting at school. The human's face, I noticed, was gruesomely disfigured. It was terribly mangled by scar tissue across most of his face, but his hair seemed largely untouched and growing from what must have been a very close haircut. Maybe a complete shave. "Oh, Wrought, this yer dad?" His voice sounded like gravel, and held an accent I didn't recognize. Though it was gruff indeed. "Yes sir!" My eldest son answered with a sense of wonderment in his voice. The human smiled, though his face twitched in some areas, "Then allow me tuh apologize fer not givin' you a heads 'bout my comin', Mr. Hammer. I was the last tenant of this apartment," with what seemed to be great difficulty, he reached over to his wheelchair, and unfolded it, "an' I've been placed on extended leave cuz of my injuries. Give me a moment." I tensed up a bit as he pushed himself up off the recliner, and... hopped into the wheelchair. Now I got a good look at him, I realized the need for the chair. He was missing an entire leg, and his sleeve was rolled up to his shoulder, letting a heavy bandage around his upper arm be seen. For a human, he was incredibly thin and lithe. Not much could be hidden from the worn fatigues he wore. Realization hit me like a train, He's a soldier! He must be coming back for his apartment! I started worrying about being kicked out, and where'd we go. But I wasn't given much time, for he began talking again once he settled. "Since the doctors can't tell if I'll be strong 'nough tuh go into a fight with a prosthetic yet, I need tuh heal up. So they figured it would be best fer me to come back Stateside to get my moral back an' heal up peacefully. So for the foreseeable future, I'll be sharing the apartment with you an' yer family." With that, he cast a warm...ish... to my kids. At least, as warm as his face could make. "My name's Wolfgang Piatek, sir. But you can call my Wolf. Pleasure to meet you." Instantly, I felt relieved, and I let out a sigh of reprieve. He rolled himself up to me, and extended a hand. Even sitting down, he managed to be nearly at eye level with me. He must be really be tall when he stands. With my fear abated, I shook his hand enthusiastically, "Name's Steel Hammer. Call me Steel. It's a pleasure to meet you Wolf." Wolfgang eyed my saddlebags, "Groceries?" I nodded. He gestured to the kitchen with his head, "Come on, I'll help you put stuff away. It'll help me know my way around the kitchen if I get hungry and want to make something." I could barely utter out a surprised thanks. Even so heavily battered looking, he was eager and willing to help. As we put things away, I asked him some questions. "If you don't mind my asking, what happened to you?" Wolfgang didn't look at me, since he fixed on putting things away, but I could still see the side of his face. He looked largely neutral about the question, "Heard about the siege of Ponyville?" "Yes, I have. Next to Canterlot, I heard that was one of the bloodiest battles. Were you stationed there?" "Yep. Got pretty banged up on the assault, but I managed to do more than my part. Leg had to be amputated cuz it was too mangled to be saved. Took some bullets in a lot of places, but after I was stabilized, a unicorn doc fixed me up real quick. Still pretty tender in most places, an' everything will take a good while to fully heal, but things 'r goin' well considerin'." "How long were you there?" "A good seven 'r eight months. Five of them we were under siege, but those first three were pretty nice. Wasn't too hard work, an' we managed to relax in th' town awhile. Ponies there are good people, albeit curious." I considered asking him if anybody he knew died, but I held my tongue. It seemed a rude thing to ask, and I didn't want to bring up bad memories. "So how long you been working at the DWT?" His asked, clearly trying to continue the conversation. "Since Appleloosa was evacuated." "Good town?" "Pretty good. We had a tough time with the Buffalo who lived there. Apparently, we settled on their land without knowing, and we were both too thick headed to talk. Good thing Princess Twilight came in with her friends to settle things. After that, it was mostly smooth sailing." "Whatcha do fer work?" "I worked on the trains that ran through, and designed models for mechanical stuff. But compared to the technology here, most seem primitive." "Aah! Don't beat yerself up. I'll bet my leg that what you were doin' would be revolutionary before the merge. Better work than what I had." I beamed at his high praise, but "what I had"? "What did you do?" He sighed, sounding weary, "I was part of the militia. Patrolled the city an' go into gunfights with violent criminals. Got pretty beat up all 'round in those days." We fell into relative silence as we finished putting things away. Not much could be said after that. Author's Note Sorry about the wait. I was a bit lazy (okay, pretty lazy) and managed to break my arm. No reason not to write though. Sorry to those of you who've been waiting for this. Chapter 2: Meet the Family and Feeding the HungryChapter 2: Meet the Family and Feeding the Hungry Zlat The weather finally cleared up after the 7th day, and with that, our moods drastically improved. Unlike how it would be back home, the mud quickly turned back to hard packed dirt, and the water drained away from the fields. Our march quickened, and we managed to finally let the curious changelings ask their questions, though most of them were directed at me about what I was, where I was from and what it was like. It was then that they were extremely surprised to learn what blindness was, and that I had been so. Of course, being the only one in the unit who didn't know what a changeling was, I had my own questions. If I were to bet, I was even more surprised to learn that they fed on both emotions that could last them for several days between feedings, and regular food which would only last them most of the day until they got hungry again. It was then that a very small changeling asked me, "You wouldn't happen to be willing to give me some would you? I haven't had any emotion in a long time, and it would be a lot better than the gruel we've been eating." I didn't really know how to react to this, "Uhh, how would you eat my... uh, emotion? Will anything bad happen to me?" He smiled sheepishly, "It's through a little magic. Aside from feeling a little uncomfortable and a little tired, you'll be fine. I won't be taking that much, honest!" Rainbow Dash's voice piped up behind me, "Don't let him! You can't trust a changeling!" The Changeling flinched, genuinely looking hurt, "That ain't true, you can trust me!" It didn't take my super-hearing to feel the hurt in his voice, as distorted as it was. AJ grunted, "Rainbow, you should know better! 'Sides, he's tellin' the truth." The unnatural glow of the changelings' eyes went to Applejack, and he smiled gratefully. I almost could've swore I heard a "thank you". I chose to trust AJ's judgement and the Changeling, so I gave him a friendly smile, "Kay, go ahead little man." The changelings' face lit up with a bright fanged smile, and his... ears?... raised. He looked kinda cute actually. His horn lit up with a green energy. He wasn't lying when he said it felt uncomfortable. It felt like a small fire was lit in my head, and I generally felt nauseous. But once his horn died down, the feeling vanished, a weak headache remaining. When I looked back at the changeling, he was a little bigger, and smiling widely. "Thank you so much! I won't have to eat for another week thanks to you!" My heart surged with the joy of making him so happy, and I wanted his happiness to continue. I smiled back at him, and pat his shoulder, "Sure thing. If you want, you can feed again once you're hungry again. By the, what's your name?" "Arid! Yours?" "Zlat, nice to meet you Arid." We shake hands, and Arid left back to his unit, waving happily. I watched him go, still feeling pretty good. AJ slapped me roughly on the shoulder, "That was mighty nice a' you Zlat!" "Yeah, kinda reminds me of my brother, and how he looked after me for all those years. If he thought it helped me, he did." I sighed reminiscing in the memories, "Damn, I miss him." "Well, hopefully this war will end soon, and you can go see him again." Bouncer said as comforting as he could manage, which wasn't too well with his rough voice. But it was the thought that counted. I muttered a thanks back to him, but I still missed him. I hoped my letter was going to reach him soon, and that he was writing me back. Unfortunately, mail was going to be slow, seeing as how we were constantly moving. So I'd just have to wait. Wolfgang I found myself on the recliner once again, sipping on some water from the tap while I asked them about the rest of their stay here in Chestia. Steel bemoaned his struggles over his projects, unable to make any headway with the designs. The kids thoroughly enjoyed tv, but they could never agree on what to watch, and many of the truly good ones, their parents forbid them to watch. "Too barbaric", "Far more mature for your age", "You're not watching it because we said so" were common responses to their pleas to alleviate their boredom with the shows. I found myself in the unique position to be looked up to with hopeful eyes, seeing as how to them, I was an adult, and therefore had some potential sway with the parents decision. Damn, they want me to take a shot at convincin' their parents. Just to play with them, I made a show of thinking it over, raising my eyes to the furthest they could go, and tilting my head. On one hand, they could learn a good deal about our culture and mature a little on their own. Plus, it might good for Steel and Lucky's ear drums. On the other, it really wasn't my place to decide how they wanted to raise their children as long as they were trying to raise them as best they could. "Well, I can certainly understand why yer parents want ya to not watch a lot of shows. My culture an' social values are a farsight from yer own. I still think that you'd enjoy them an' learn a good deal if someone were to explain things out an' guide you along why things 'r portrayed, but if yer parents think it's a bad idea to expose you to them, then that's 'ow it'll be. It's ther decision." I could see Steel's approval towards how I worded my opinion, and grateful towards my respect towards his decision. It was probably going to have a good effect on our relationship. However, I was going to give the kids something to hope for with a sly smile, "But maybe someday when yer older, you can watch 'em. Who knows." The kids didn't really look too happy about the lack of support, but they still had some of that hope in their eyes. Hopefully, they'd be able to stay from being bored to death. Lucky Singer The shift FINALLY ended. Working as both entertainment, and as a waitress, I had been given one of the shapeshifting necklaces that had been getting pumped out on-mass for the past few months to help me with the work. Apparently, not only was I attractive as a pony, but also as a human if the constant wolf whistles and all the men hitting on me was anything to go by. I tried to ignore it most of the time, but I found my cheerful demeanor falter towards the ends of the shifts. I mean, they tipped generously, but today had been extremely taxing. It being the weekend, it had been extremely busy, so it there had been more advances than normal. Thankfully, no one had gotten "handsy" with my this time. I went to the back of the restaurant, punched the time card, and took off the necklace, hanging it up on the hook next to the time machine. I sighed wearily as I collected my saddle bags that the cooks had filled with leftovers and a spare newspaper, and left out the back. Everything about me ached as I trudged down the block to the apartment building. Absentmindedly, I wished none of this had ever happened. I wished that Equestria had stayed as it had been, and that me and my family could have lived its' happy life in Apploosa. But wishing couldn't do anything. All I could do was enjoy being with my family as much as possible, harden myself against my burdens, and watch the war unfold through the newspapers. I hauled myself up the stairs, forced a smile on my face, and opened the door... to hear a voice I didn't recognize. "Well if ya 'ave a problem with the weight, why dontcha add more support wheel sprockets? You could spread out the weight, an' you don' even need tuh run crankshafts to 'em as long as they're attached to da tank. Only downside is that ther's more parts an' you need tracks to keep the sprockets on something solid." The voice sounded damaged, worn, and to my keen ears, weary. Whoever it was, was very tired and in need of a long sleep. Then I heard my husband, "Interesting! Any idea of how to get the crankshaft to work right?" "I ain't exactly a mechanic. I'd think you'd just use 'em on the rear an' front sprockets to apply the torque right." "Wonderful! Now our only issue is how to get the turret to turn. Right now we're looking at hand cranking, but hopefully we can figure out how to apply some hydraulics instead." Before they could go down that rabbit hole, I jumped in, "Honey, who's that?" My husband turned towards me with that spark in his eye that he got whenever he tinkered with machines, "This is Wolfgang Piatek! He lived here before the war, and he's come back to live with us for the foreseeable future." The human slowly stood up and out of the recliner that Steel normally relaxed in, and settled himself into a wheelchair I hadn't noticed. I easily noticed the reason he needed the chair. He was missing everything from around the knee down, his pant leg folded up and pinned just below the joint. Once settled, he looked at me with tired, but friendly eyes, "Afternoon ma'am. I take it yer Lucky Singer?" I nodded, and he smiled a little more, though forcibly so, "Pleased to meet you." He reached out with a hand, which I'd long since became accustomed to greeting bipedal people. I shook it friendly enough. Despite how worn and tired he looked, his grip was strong. "Likewise. Any news I might not have heard from the front?" He shrugged, "Probably not. I mean, we defeated the Fed army stationed at Ponyville, an' now the Militia is headin' off towards Canterlot with the Changelin' army. I only know their marching cuz of the paper, but I don' know how far they've gone." Now was as good a time as any to pull out the paper, which had the daily progress reports on the war, so I dug it out and offered it to him. His eyes immediately focused on the paper, and hastily thanked me as he grabbed it out of my hoof. He flipped through a few pages, looking for the war section. In a distant tone, he began what I assumed was summarizing, "Allied troops have made it halfway to Canterlot, and all other enemy divisions have been shoved out of western, and central Equestria. They've made some real good progress. What's this? We've started the invasion already?" Invasion? "What? Where?" "The Federation. That island nation off the mainland. We've landed in the north, Scotland. The Feds 're so alarmed, that they're pullin' most of their troops out of Equestria to defend the island. Except for their Canterlot contingent. I'll bet you 50 bucks they're still hoping to win the war by taking the capitol." "That won't work! They'll just make Stalliongrad a temporary stand in until we could've retaken Canterlot." Wrought put in. Hmm, never figured Wrought would be so astute in strategy. Heck, even I didn't think of that. Maybe he's been reading the papers without me knowing. Wolfgang clicked his tongue, "Exactly. This is jus' a desperate gambit to try an' hold out. Alright, let's see what else. Yadda yadda yadda, and... Hm! The Japanese have joined the war on our side on the condition they git favourable trade deals an' can take some land from the some of the aggressors. Ooooh, crap. China's in on it too. They want... Griffonstone, Dragon Lands, Prance, and Germania. The Pacific territories. Thaaaaat's jus' great." Wolfgang was scowling now. What was so bad about China? I asked him. "They're the most densely populated country on the planet, an' they ain' afraid to throw troops at ther problems. Even with Japan comin' in on our side, we're gonna need to take the Federation of Trade quickly an' rapidly switch over our troops to defend allied territory. Even then, we might not be strong enough to survive their onslaught. The Pacific countries are mobilizin' as fast as they can with the new equipment an' weapons, but I'm afraid that they still not be enough. The Griffons are gettin' the most troops ready, practically every bird there that can hold a gun is gettin' ready. The dragons are bein' the most impressive with their troop weaponry. They're carryin' cannons around with them. Problem is, there's not a lot of them, an' I don' know if they're bulletproof like one dragon I know." "You know a DRAGON?! Who?" Warm Wind cried in disbelief. It wasn't misplaced. Dragons rarely resided in Equestria, and the were apt to cause trouble wherever they went. To know a dragon, and refer to them without any malice or curse to their kind hardly ever passed in conversation. "Spike, he's thee... uh... I don' know what 'is role is, but he lives with Princess Twilight. Can't tell if their siblings, mother an' son, or what. But from what 'e's told me, he's a baby. Could've fooled me, seemed more like young teenager." "I met a dragon traveling with his daughter once. I asked him why he let his daughter get into all sorts of physical danger, and he said that the younger and smaller a dragon is, the stronger their scales are. The way their biology works, is that once they have enough physical mass, they can absorb more hits, so the scale strength eases up to suck up less nutrients in maintaining them. The babies having strong scales is more of a survival tactic if I'm to understand it." Well, that's smart. "Anything else falling in our favor?" Wrought asked, hoping for a miracle. Wolfgang grinned wolfishly, which I found extremely unsettling on a human, no less a human with a mangled face, "We've got yer dad designin' a tank an' wonder weapons!" "What'll more weapons do? We've got plenty." Warm asked. "Tactical advantages. Tanks, fer example, will scare the crap outta any infantrymen, an' they rarely have the arms to disable 'r destroy 'em. From what I've heard, we've been tryin' to make handler safe flamethrowers, which scare infantry even more an' can clear trenches like no tomorrow. Submarines were used a lot before the world tore itself apart, an' 'as been a lost wonder for forever now. Those could hide from enemy ships an' could attack from underwater, dealin' loads of damage an' run before the enemy can do anythin'. Lightweight armor could protect soldiers from incoming fire, an' keep the casualties down. The rest is up to the imagination of the engineers an' scientists." "No, I mean, wouldn't it be better if we just talked out our problems? Maybe we made the angry or something." Warm clarified. Wolfgang shook his head, "Sometimes people can't be reasoned with. The Europeans declared war simply outta greed an' want of more land. I wouldn' be surprised if they wanted the land jus' so they could get closer to Chestia fer a later invasion. In recent years, they've gotten more an' more hostile towards us, so it isn' that far fetched." All this talk of war was beginning to unnerve me, so I changed subjects, "Well, it's getting late. Why don't we have dinner? I brought some leftovers from the diner!" "Whatcha bring?" Wrought asked, trying to hide his disdain of cold diner food. "Vegi-burgers." Chapter 3: Feet on the GroundChapter 3: Feet on the Ground Zlat I saw a lot more of Arid from that day on. Despite RD's animosity towards him, he found great joy from being with us, and we couldn't help but adopting him into the unit. It was somewhere on the third day that he'd started his visitations, though, that I learned one of the Changelings' inherent abilities. Shapeshifting. It was right after Rainbow Dash making another snide remark about Changelings that I asked, "What's your fucking problem with Changelings?" "They can turn into anypony they see! That's why! When they invaded Canterlot, I had fight Changelings that looked just like me and my friends!" To me, that actually sounded pretty cool, and I caught Arid off guard when I asked him if he could copy me. When he did, I felt like I was looking into a mirror. He wore different gear, but he looked exactly like I did. If I rose my arm, he mirrored me. At this point, I found this ridiculously awesome, and wanted to play with his copying skills. So I mimicked a Russian kick dance, and Arid kept up with me until he finally couldn't support himself anymore, and fell down. He shifted back, and I helped him to his feet with a smile. In fact, most of the group, including RD, started laughing at this. After that day, even RD started warming up to the little guy a little more. Now, we were listening to the Lt. He wanted us to go out to one of the rural farms, and scout out the area to see if any Feds were nearby. We probably weren't, but it pays to be careful. We kept off the road, stalking about and scrutinizing the grass and dirt for any disturbances that might betray a hidden mine. All seemed normal, except for the farmland itself. The fields were covered with dead and burned crops. "That doesn't bode well." Bouncer surmised our thoughts. I tightened my grip on my rifle, anxiety beginning to unnerve me. We continued on our way, muscles tense, and heads constantly turning about, hoping to not find anything. Eventually, we could see a small tower in the distance in the general area of where the farmhouse was supposed to be. On the map we'd been shown, no such structure had existed. Our chances of our patrol being a simple check seemed to drastically diminish. I put more distance between myself and the road into the tall grass to hide from a potential spotter. Everyone noticed, and mimicked my action. When we got closer, we found the whole farm overrun with soldiers. There had to be at least two dozen soldiers milling about. They were bored, and didn't have their gear on except for their rifles. The tower we'd seen early did indeed have a spotter on it, but he was asleep. "Bouncer, RD, flank them on the right side behind that cart. Rarity, get to a vantage point to pick them off. AJ, Arid, and Spike, flank them on the stone wall on the left. Mac, Ace, you're with me." It was at this point that we realized that we hadn't designated a unit commander, but everyone still complied readily at the orders given. My team rushed in behind a pile of plank wood that had become waterlogged and was in it's beginning stages of rot. The previous owners must've been preparing to build something, maybe a new barn? The Fed soldiers were still unaware of our presence, and we opened fire. I quickly killed a pair of soldiers engaged in a conversation. The enemy spotter fell off of his tower, likely having been killed by Rarity, and the machines guns began their angry roar as they swept the open space. Most of the soldiers were killed, but a few managed to duck into the house, and one hid behind a stone well after dropping his rifle in a panic. I'd chosen our cover and spacing well, for when the enemy chose to return fire from the house, they only pinned Rainbow Dash and Bouncer. The rest of us returned fire, our bullets easily ripping through the walls like they were made of paper. The whole firefight only lasted a minute, and already, the enemy was crying out with white flags in surrender. The man behind the well was the first to slowly rise out of cover with his hands above his head. Rushing forwards, everyone with automatic rifles surged forwards, and forced the five survivors to the ground. Thankfully, AJ and Mac knew better than to approach the soldiers and provide them with the opportunity to get their hands on such deadly weapons, instead sweeping their barrels back and forth to instill terror into the prisoners. We stripped them of their ammunition, their bayonets, grenades, and the odd assortment of makeshift weapons that were likely made in the field in their spare time. We stored the ammunition in our packs, the grenades on our bandoliers, and forced the prisoners to a march. The soldiers looked incredibly anxious, casting worried glances at us. Especially towards the Equestrians, who were giving them unveiled glares of hate. One of them stuttered out in very broken English, "Please, no harm us!" "You'll be fine. Just don't do anything funny, and we're all good." I answered. It's an odd thought right now, but I wonder how Wolfgang's doing right now? Meanwhile, in New York City: Wolfgang Hospitals never really sat well with me. Doctors poked and prodded you, stuck you with needles with any number of drugs that you never knew what they'd do. Doctors had that strange personality to them. They try to act nice, but it seems fake and forced. It makes me wonder if they were hiding some sort of vile intentions. The nurses were always way too cheery and eager to offer comfort, even though they regularly dealt with disgusting stuff on a daily basis. Then there's the fact that so many sick people came to the hospitals with an untold number of diseases, so if you go to one wrong place, or touched the wrong wall, you'd get sick, and have to go back and pay even more money to be fixed for something that was really the hospitals' fault. So where was I now? A military hospital. The patients here were all wounded soldiers who were on the path towards some semblance of recovery. Those who were lucky, only had wounds that could easily be sewed back together and heal itself with time. If they were really lucky, the war would end before their recovery ended. The really unlucky were maimed horrifically. Forget a lost leg, some of these guys had lost their arms, eyes, jaws, extreme trauma to the chest, or had lost so much of their lower body, that it reached to the lowest parts of their torso up to just below their belly button. Those who lost an arm might be able to get a semi-functional prosthetic arm, or even one of those fancy nerve arms if they were lucky. Those who lost an eye or eyes would be disabled, but at least be kept from the front lines and discharged. For the jawless, a metal frame can be attached to the remaining muscles and tendons so they can eat. But for those who were torn apart, they'd be forever disabled with no chance at hope. Fate had damned them to need constant care around the clock, demeaning them to a hopeless sap who couldn't care for themselves. Me? Oh, I was getting a prosthetic leg. My leg had healed enough to where the military doctors decided that I should be given a solid fake leg. If I was strong enough and had enough dexterity with it, I might be deployed again. I initially felt privileged that I was receiving a decent leg, until they told me they couldn't spare any anesthesia or painkillers for me. Those were being saved for wounded who were a lot worse off than me. I fully understood, but I really didn't want to be drilled awake and fully aware. I was also, not allowed to go home alone. Steel and Lucky had to work, so they had volunteered Wrought to the job. He hadn't complained, but even without looking at him, I could tell he would much rather stay at home screw around with some of the engines he was tinkering with. On the way over, I'd promised him I'd do some looking and find him some new tools or some machines to disassemble. His smile was worth the difficult promise. "Don't you worry about a thing Sergeant, this'll be over before you know it!" Doctor Heisman cheerfully claimed. "Bullshit. You know it, an' I know it. This'll feel like forever." The doctor didn't even skip a beat. The doctor laid me down on the table, and strapped my limbs down to keep me from flailing. Please let this be shorter then it'll actually be. I silently begged. Then, he a thick cloth in my mouth to keep my from shattering my teeth or biting my tongue off. The whirring of a small handheld electric drill burned into my eardrums, and I bit down hard in terror. The pain started abruptly, and I screamed through my gag. My body trembled with the vibrations coming from the drill, and my remaining limbs strained against the restraints with strength I hadn't thought I'd had. But the leather straps held. Without crucial leverage, I couldn't move. I was trapped to the damn bed, and getting a hole slowly drilled into the remaining bone of my leg. I screamed through the gag I was biting on, crying tears of pain. Then, the bolt was shoved into my new hole. A fresh spasm racked my body, but the torment didn't stop. Even through all the pain, the fresh pinpricks of nerve diodes being attached to my nerves. If my mind had been present, I would've known that these were so I could control the foot, allowing me to run better. The base of the leg was pressed against my bloody stump, and the magnetic sleeve sucked tightly against my leg to the metal bolt that was driven up my bone, and the limb itself was screwed on the exposed bolt. *Twitch*Twitch* My new foot twitched, my nervous system unsure of what to do about this strange new, alien appendage. The electric signals were fresh, and my brain wasn't tuned to the specific wavelengths. It was going to take a long while for me to get used to it. Wrought Wolf had gone in looking nervous, but otherwise fine. But when he came out, he looked terrible. The vessels in his eyes had burst, giving the visual effect of crying blood, but that was nothing compared to his haunted, worn stare. He was caked in sweat, what little hair he had clung to his skull tightly and his skin gleamed like it was a wet stone. He wasn't really sitting in the chair, more like he'd been dumped into it, and the doctors had tried to make him as comfortable as possible. His leg was the exemption, as it was propped up by a small extension protruding from the seat. He... wasn't there. His mind was gone with the wind. At least, I thought that until he looked up at me, and a weary smile crossed his face, "Got my fuckin' leg back." His gravely voice was worn, but the fire behind his words reassured me. He wasn't traumatized! He's just tired. Should've known better, this is Wolf we're talking about here! Author's Note A bit short for my liking, but I think it's decent enough. What do you think? Chapter 4: Battle for CanterlotZlat My unit all received commendations for our swift victory at the farm, and the prisoners we took against greater numbers. There had been an officer among their ranks, and he was thoroughly interrogated, mostly over where the owners were. I silently prayed that they were ok, and just among the refugees who had fled West. I didn't want to think about any alternatives. But my squadmates had other ideas. "What do you think happened to them?" our resident bullet sponge Spike asked. "I wouldn't know Spikey, but let us hope that they are safe." Rarity soothingly told him. To me, that was odd. It nearly sounded like she was babying him. "Yeah, but what if they were captured?" Suggested Ace. Damn it, why'd you have to say that? I'd read about the Second World War, and what had happened to the prisoners of war the Germans took, and the victims of the Holocaust. Images of ponies in POW camps and extermination camps started to sprout in my mind. Horribly starved and/or wounded ponies, terrified and mentally exhausted behind barbed wire fences and constantly guarded by soldiers who hated them and looked for any reason to shoot them. "That's plain ridiculous Ace!" Mac's voice boomed, even though he hadn't spoken loudly. AJ followed up with her own admonishments, "Yeah, all yer doin' is making us nervous! We need tuh stay calm and focused on the task at hoof so we can win the war. Riling ourselves up will only hurt us in the long run." "Damn right." Bouncer agreed. But I was already jittery, and their words weren't helping as much as they were intended to be. I need something to calm me down. An idea popped into my head. Often times, when Wolf was really stressed and either didn't have any alcohol in the house, or couldn't drink, he'd smoke a cigarette, and he'd calm right down. I'd shared one or two, but I couldn't make a habit of it since I could never tell when there was too much ash on the cig. I remembered how relaxed it made me, how good it felt. Every other ration we got from Chestia held one pack of cigarettes, and I'd never done anything with them except try to save them to scrounge with the addicts for more food, water, or in the rare case a beer or shot of hard alcohol. I dug out one of said packs, and briefly read the name "Lucky Strike", before digging out a match, lighting it and then the cigarette. I breathed in the smoke a bit too quick, and coughed. I tried again, a bit slower, and the nicotine started working its' magic. My head swam in a euphoria, and I calmed down. For the next 10 minutes, I slowly smoked, enjoying the nicotine and the effects. When it came to the filter, I stomped it out on the ground, and looked back to the squad, who were all looking at me bemusedly. "What?" RD pointed at the stomped waste, "What was that?" I shrugged, "A cigarette. I needed to calm down after I started thinking of some rather... unsavory possibilities." They looked at me quietly, like they expected something more, "No, I'm not telling you what they are. Those thoughts are staying as dead as a doornail, and you aren't convincing me otherwise." My squad looked at me with frustration, probably because I wouldn't indulge their curiosity. But I didn't care, they were better off not knowing. Suddenly, Arids' eyes widened, and he quickly saluted to what must have been an officer right behind me. I stood quickly, spinning around into a salute. Standing there was the Lt., with a expression almost as stoic as Mac. "Saddle up. We're getting close to Canterlot, and they're in trouble. Messenger relayed that the Feds have managed to get a foothold into the commercial district of the city, and the Equestrian Army stationed there are slowly being beaten back. We're going to have to pick up the pace if we're going to keep the city. MOVE OUT!" "YES SIR!" We choused. We quickly shouldered our packs and weapons, put on our helmets, and started marching out at a brisk pace as the rest of the column got their orders. By dusk, we could see the city not 15 miles away. By the next day, we'd reach the city walls, and come into contact with the first of the enemy forces. It was hard for us to get to sleep besides Spike and RD. They were asleep as soon as they hit the ground. Our anxiousness over tomorrow kept us up well into the night until exhaustion finally caught up with us. The next day We woke an hour before dawn to the sounds of trucks pulling up to the front of the column. The implication was clear. Troops were going to be sent ahead to engage the enemy and hold them in place long enough for the rest of the army to show up to relieve or reinforce us. While the trucks were getting into position, a pony came by pulling a resupply cart full of ammunition and replacement weapons. I eyed a bazooka, and realized that my unit didn't have a fire team specialized with one. That had been Wolf's responsibility before he got wounded. "Hey, Arid, grab that bazooka and some missile bags." He gave me a confused look while he was putting away some 5.56 magazines, "The what?" I pointed at the bazooka, "The green tube. We need a demolitions fire team. You're going to be armed with that given we run into a situation where we need it." "Like when?" "Infantry occupying a house, a fortified positions, trucks, field guns, anything our guns or grenades can't handle." I turned to Spike, "Spike, your strong, so you're gonna be carrying his ammo and reloading him. Consider yourself as part of the demo team." "Ok." He answered simply. Huh, figured he'd want to argue that. Not going to complain about that. I showed Arid how to aim, fire, and load the bazooka, even though Spike was going to be doing that for him anyhow. It paid to be proficient in your weapons, or so Wolf told me. I moved on to tell Bouncer and Ace to wrap belts of ammo around their torso's so they could provide for the machine guns when their stores ran out, and had them pack another belt each into their packs. They complained about the weight, but they still obeyed. That's all I needed. When I was finished giving orders to them, I turned around to find a very expectant Rainbow Dash, "Whatcha got for me?" Uhh... I didn't really think through my words, but they came out before I could reason through anything, "You're with Rarity. We'll be getting into closer combat than at Ponyville, so she won't have as much space as last time. We need our sniper, so you're going watch he back and keep her out of trouble." "Pardon me?" "Gotcha!" After rearming ourselves, we were ordered into the trucks that were already starting to be crowded like a sardine can. After the truck was loaded to maximum capacity (and with a few Changelings riding on the cab roof), we took off. We each went through our process of getting ready for the fight, making sure our bolts worked smoothly, clicking the safeties off and on, tapping our feet, looking fondly at each other with sad smiles, and praying for our safety. I did some of these, and smoked another cigarette to help me calm my nerves. I made the mistake of blowing the smoke out my nose, and paid the price with an intense burning sensation in my nose. Ok, note to self: don't blow it out your nose. When I finished, I tossed it out the back of the truck, and waited as the euphoria swam in my head. It had ended just before the assistant driver yelled out, "One mile!" We all chambered a round, and made sure our safeties were off. This was it. A charge into a hail of bullets to rain down death and destruction to the Feds. We tensed as we waited for the truck to stop. The truck stopped sharply, and we all jumped out. Those furthest from the back hopped over the side and took off for a forest of tents. The sound of war was coming from the city, but we could still hear voices coming from the camp. The soldiers we came across were obviously surprised by the sudden arrival of new troops, and were quickly disposed of in grizzly fashions. Halfway through, we came to a radio tent, where inside, several officers were hovering over a radio operator who was screaming loudly at a radio in French. A long spray from my rifle wiped them all out, and they fell over one another. The camp was finally cleared just as the remnants realized that they were under attack, but too late to provide a counter attack. We ran to one of the many holes in the walls, and started running through the streets, mainly ones that were heavily damaged. The city didn't look as good as it had been when I'd first visited with Wolf. Many of the buildings had massive sections reduced to rubble, and the ones that were mostly intact were riddled with bullet holes. The streets were littered with debris, spent rounds, and what once had been firing positions (which were filled with even more spent rounds, blood and on a rare occasion a body). We moved through the streets hugging the walls on either side of the road, sweeping our guns over open doors, windows, alleys, and down the street where the gunfire was coming from. We stopped at the corner of the street. I shimmied to the edge of the building that looked like a toy store. Looking to the other side of the street, there was no one there. I popped my head around my corner, and the street was flooded with corpses and activity of Federation troops. "MAC!" I pointed at a stone wall in the street, "Get over to that wall and lay down suppressing fire! Ace, back him up." "Going!" They answered, running out to the stone wall while I opened fire to cover them. They dove behind the wall just as the enemy turned on us to realize they were getting shot at from the rear. The wall I was pressed on got peppered with bullets, and I ducked back away. Looking back at my squad, everyone was on my side of the street, stacking up to run around the corner into battle. The thunder of Mac's gun roared to life with the small pops from Ace's M16. "Get out there and find some cover!" I yelled, sprinting out into the street. I ran about 40 feet before being targeted, forcing me behind an overturned truck. Rounds pinged off the steel hull, and I silently relished the protection. I looked back into the street, looking for where my squad had holed up in. AJ and Bouncer were in a deep crater, Rarity and RD were in the crumbling remains of a store, while Arid and Spike were hiding behind an abandoned fortification post made of sandbags atop a pile of rubble. AJ was already opening up on the enemy, who were finding their own cover. Bouncer was popping off rapid shots, Rarity was using the iron sights on her rifle, RD was laying down fire on a position that had tried to shoot at Mac and Ace, while Arid and Spike were keeping low under a barrage of bullets. I looked out of cover, and took a shot on a Fed who was hiding behind a barrel, but was giving me an angle to shoot him from. He slumped forwards into the street dead. I leaned a little further out, and fired rapidly at several positions pinning down Arid and Spike, giving them enough breathing room to pop off some shots of their own. Slowly but surely, we took down the Feds closest positions to us, as were the Equestrian forces on the other side of them from their fortifications. Said fortifications, now that I looked at it, resembled a sort of castle make of sandbags that walled off the whole street. They fired down from above, easily wiping out the flanked units. I yelled at Arid and Spike to move forwards to another stone wall 10 feet ahead of where their position was, while telling everyone else to give them cover fire. Slowly, I moved my men closer to the remaining enemy troops. The enemy fell quickly, losing their numbers against flanking forces. The last man stood up abruptly with a grenade in hand. He was about to throw it at the fortifications when he took a shot to the chest, and fell to the ground. Moments later, the grenade went off, sending a mangled body into the street. There was a pause where there was no sound from our street aside from the tinkling of settling of brass casings. It lasted several seconds as the shock from the sudden absence of combat ran its' course. Finally, a voice came from the battlements, "Chestians?" I called out, "Only me, the rest are Equestians and a Changeling!" "Get in!" We left our cover to accept their offer. They lowered latters over the edge of the sandbags, and we climbed over. It was slow, as we held a weapon in one hand, and used our other to balance. On the other side, we met what must have been the Night Guard. They were in their human forms, and I use that term loosely. Their skin was either black as night (and had a very inhuman look to it) or a steely, leathery grey skin. Their eyes were slitted (which wasn't that different from an anthroperson or altered human) which seemed to dimly glow in the color of their eyes. Then, tightly folded against their backs, were a set of leathery bat wings, and the fangs that poked out of their mouths. A bigger surprise for me, however, was the fact that they were still wearing armor, which was generally a very bad idea for a modern fighter, who relied on mobility rather than the pointless attempt at soaking up hits. They weren't wearing plate armor, but given the combat environment, it was still pointless. The armor was layered so as to allow them to shift with the body better, and it curved elegantly for the deep blue and purple metal. The helmet was highly reminiscent of the guard pony helmet, as the main body wrapped around most of the skull, and had more layered plates to "protect" the neck. But these soldiers, they were ragged. Pieces of their armor was missing, or heavily damaged, but always coated in thick layers of dust and filth of the city. It was a stark difference compared to us. We were muddy, thin, wearing worn combat fatigues with only a tempered steel helmet for armor. There was also the fact that there was me, an anthro-fox, Arid, a Changeling, and what I would call normal Equestrians who had a wider variety to their color pallet. But I wasn't allowed much time to muse over our physical comparisons, as the soldier in front of me gestured over to what I assumed was an officer if his blue plume was to indicate authority (which I was quite sure of). We disembarked the battlements, and the officer greeted us, "Welcome to Canterlot, sorry it's in such poor conditions. I'm Petty Officer Zordac. What brings you here?" "I'm Private Zlat, acting squad commander. We're here to help purge the invaders. The rest of the army was dispatched to other areas of the city to clean up or to secure the rest of the outskirts." "Who's here?" "Mostly Changelings, good deal of them. I didn't get a number, but there's an insane amount of them. Only about 750 Chestian Militia are here out of the original 900, and then about 50 some Ponyville volunteers. My brother trained a fair bunch of them, and quite well too." The Petty officer made a look of disappointment "You aren't too green are you?" I puffed my chest out in indignation, "The Militia have as much combat experience as they've been in the force, and we've all been through the Ponyville siege. We're more than fit." He snorted, "We'll see about that." Rainbow Dash, for whatever bravado reason she had, stuck in her two-sense, "I was about to say the same thing about you." I pinched my nose, and sighed. Damn it Dash. Before Zordac could form a response, I interjected, "Forgetting that, what's the situation? Do you know where the enemy are focusing their efforts?" He bit his tongue before he answered, "They're mostly on the main road heading towards the castle, but they're still trying to flank through streets like this one. Can't guarantee that you'll have a easy time getting around. You planning on heading that way?" I nodded, "Our orders are to eliminate the enemy. Taking out any part of the main force would end this thing faster." Zordac gave a nod of approval and respect, "Then go with the blessing of the Moon and Sun. We can't go with you though, our own orders are to defend this street." I bowed my head with and extended my hand, which he grasped, "Godspeed friend." We released our grip. He gave me some directions, and I called out the order to move out. We walked off single file, not pointing our guns at the building, but still eying the openings. Following Zordac's direction, the noise of combat grew into a devastating roar. We could hear exactly where the fighting was. An idea popped into my mind, and I acted on it. I ordered everyone into the most intact building in the immediate area, and climbed the stairs to the second floor. The place looked to have once been a music store with ruined instruments. Entering the rooms swiftly, we knocked out the windows, and looked out. It was once a small park, but it was now it's own little hellhole. Craters were scattered around, the ground having been upturned into an ugly mottle of dull brown dirt. There were hundreds of bodies, both Fed and guards, scattered about the field. The walls of the castle itself had machine gun nests, a few empty, and scattered pockets of snipers. The once grand perimeter wall had been collapsed in multiple areas, which Equestrian soldiers were using as cover. There were other sandbag barriers scattered about, also manned by friendlies, and in another massive sandbag castle that was inside, and flooding outside of the perimeter wall. Consealed Equestrians fired from small slits into the enemy flood of soldiers. I yelled my order, "Open fire!" Our guns added to the roar of battle, firing on unsuspecting enemy soldiers. To the right, where the enemy soldiers were coming from, an armored truck was rolling its' way down the battlefield. "Arid! Blow that truck up!" Complying, he shouldered his rifle, and aimed his bazooka at the truck carefully. The weapon screamed when it fired, and the rocket sped across the air, blowing up the drivers' side wheel off. "Again!" Spike reloaded the bazooka, and Arid fired again. Now that it wasn't moving, the rocket nailed the truck where the engine housing and cabin met as the door opened. It exploded in a massive plume of fire and smoke, the shockwave killing and throwing off the few soldiers stupid enough to be close to it. Seeing the smoke trails from the rockets, the enemy soldiers acknowledged our presence by trying to divide their attention between advancing on the castle fortifications and us. A bullet struck the outside wall, and I naturally flinched. I ducked down as more bullets began peppering my cover. I pulled a Fed grenade off my bandolier. It was shaped like a baseball with a tumor on top of it, so it was easy to throw. I pulled the pin out, and chucked it over the wall. It blew up shortly after. I popped up, fired a few more shots at a reloading rifleman, and ducked down again. A shrill whistle blew, and a good deal of the gunfire ended. I peered over the lip of the window, and saw blue backs running away from us. It's... over? It was over at least for now. The enemy had abandoned the street, leaving us with an eerie silence as even the snipers stopped firing. "Did we win?" Spike asked. I sighed, and sat down heavily on the ground, leaning against the wall, "For now. It ain't over, but we've got some breathing room." I eyed the room we were in. It was large, considering the nature of the store, but Mac and AJ were still in the other room. I shouldn't have sat down. I need to check up on them. I groaned, stood up, and shambled over to the next room. AJ, Rarity, RD, and Bouncer were laying against the walls, looking exhausted. I almost missed it when I first looked them over, but I saw that Mac's helmet wasn't on his head. "Hey Mac, where's your helmet?" He pointed over to the corner. There laid the helmet he'd been wearing since he joined, but with a massive, lengthy dent across the top. I looked back to Mac, and noticed the thin amount of blood starting to drip down his forehead. Ugh, I wish Fluttershy was a part of this unit, she was pretty good at patching people up. "Hey Rarity, you good at first aid?" "That I am." I nod over to Mac, "Check up on Mac, see what you can do." As Rarity went over to care for Mac, I addressed the group, "When you're rested up, tear down some of the wall. I want our machine guns to be able to swing around as much as possible." I was about to leave the room when Bouncer stopped me, "You sure we should do this? We're going to be damaging somepony's home." "This is war, nothing gets left untouched. The best thing we can do is end this quickly so we lose as few people as possible, and begin the rebuilding process. One wall among hundreds of others won't mean anything." A thought entered my mind. We were going to need to contact the defenders, and let them know about us and the favourable position. It's gonna be me, isn't it. "AJ, I'm going over to the defenders and let them know we're here and see if they want us to shift somewhere else. You're in charge until I get back. Do an ammo count, see if and what you need, then tell me when I get back." "Got it." I told the other group what I was doing, and went downstairs to find the door that led to the "park". I still peeked down the road from the doorway, and sprinted madly across the battlefield towards the defences. I jumped over a small "wall" of sandbags, and ducked down into safety. On either side of me were two surprised, golden armoured soldiers. "Hey, how ya doing?" I didn't give them the chance to answer by bolting out of cover once again to the main fortification. I slipped through a crack between the sandbags and a gate pillar, and searched for an official looking soldier. Someone tapped my shoulder, and I turned to see a guard with a blue plume. They were frowning at me, though I couldn't figure why, "Hello, I'm Private Zlat, I've got a squad in the buildings over there. Is there anywhere's you need us at?" Despite the guards' sour look, I smiled at him, hoping to diffuse the hostility. I saw a flash of movement to his side, and I saw a pistol barrel pointed at me, "We need you in our prison camp. Lay down your arms." I cocked my head. Surely, he had to be joking, "Why do you need us at the prison camps? Wouldn't we be better used at the front lines somewhere? And why would we abandon our weapons?" My answer was a swift pistol whip to the side of my head, knocking off my helmet and sending me facefirst to the floor. I moaned, "Ooof, motherfucker." I rolled over, clutching my now wet with blood head. An armored boot planted itself on my chest and pressed down, restricting my lungs. I looked up with bleary vision to see the barrel of a gun pointed between my eyes, "Say good-bye you Federation bastard!" I shut my eyes in terror, just as something collided with the guard above me, throwing them off, "Staunch! What the buck are you doing?!" A voice boomed. "What are you doing sir! That's a Fed!" Came his retort. I opened my eyes to see a black guard whose plume was a pure white, and he looked to be on the verge of an aneurism, "You... IDIOT! He's not a Fed! He's a Chestian! Didn't you see the Chestian flag on his shoulder? Or hear him speaking Equestrian? I swear, if you weren't so good at your job you'd have landed yourself in a bloody asylum!" The apparent officer turned his attention towards me, and offered me a hand, "Sorry about that. Staunch is a good guy on most days, just really... dense." I grabbed his hand, and he hefted me to my feet. Bitterly, "Let's hope he's the only one. Anyways, I've got my squad up in one the buildings facing the street. You want us anywhere's?" He shook his head, "No, you're in a really good place to be. We've been wanting to get a squad in one of them for a while, but with all these attacks, we haven't been able to act on it. Anything you need?" "Nothing I can think of right now. I've got my men doing an ammo check, though I'd have to guess we might need something for our machine guns. We've relied on them heavily since we entered the city." A spark flashed across the officers eyes, "Speaking of which, what's the news?" Though it was hard to see, a quick sniff informed me of how hopeful he was of good news. "We've wiped out what I think was their command base, and much of our army has been sent on search and destroy missions. We aim to purge the enemy forces in the city by weeks end." Unable to control his emotions, the officer broke into a smile, "Wonderful! I look forwards to the downtime once this is over." "God knows we all need it. I've been fighting since Ponyville got surrounded, and just got off a long march. Not doing anything will be heaven." We bid our farewells, and I departed for my squads' position. I ran across the field littered with dead bodies, and entered the building ridden with bullet holes. Inside, I found my squad consolidated to a single room. "How's the ammo count AJ?" "We're good on grenades, but we're runnin' a little low on everythin' cept fer Rares. We've redistributed our M16 ammo, but we've still only got about 3 full mags each. Mac and I are runnin' on our last couple belts too." "How 'bout you? Didya meet with them?" Asked Spike. "Yeah. They want us right here so we can pin them from a higher position." Truthfully, I wasn't happy about that. Setting up here was meant to be temporary, so we could get somewheres more fortified once the fighting died down. Apparently, our luck wasn't good enough for that, and we'd have to make do with sub-par cover that was in all honesty more concealment than cover. I had no doubt that bullets could easily punch their way through the wooden walls. RD seemed to have the same thoughts, "In here?! This place is a deathtrap! The only reason we didn't get turn into Swiss cheese, is because we surprised them! No way are they gonna forget about us being here! And before long, we're going to run out of stuff to chuck at them. I mean, I've got a pretty good throwing arm, but I doubt that bricks will do much against their rifles!" I absently wondered over how she knew what Swiss cheese was, given that she didn't know what or where Switzerland was, but that was irrelevant, "I know, it's less than ideal, but we are getting more ammunition. We just need to let them know how much we need. Besides, we've thoroughly beaten the enemy. They've got little to no command structure, constantly faltering numbers, and they've been fighting for longer than we have. They're on their last legs, so they've got to be giving up soon. We just need to keep it up until then. Dash, Arid, you're coming with me. We need to pick up some supplies." We ran back out to the Equestrian fortifications, and met with the officer from before, who'd been waiting for me. When he heard what we needed, he wondered aloud, "What have you been fighting? A dragon?" None of us mentioned that we actually had a dragon in the unit, since we didn't want to delay getting our supplies any longer. He led us all the way to the palace where the ammo dump had apparently been placed. Inside, we asked the distributing sergeant for our ammunition types and how much we needed, and waited for his return. When he did, we simply stared at what he offered. There was only 8 mags of M16 ammunition, and a single belt of ammunition for each machine gun. That was only enough for each squad member to get two extra mags, and each machine gun one extra belt. We looked back up to the sergeant, who hadn't moved and wore a tired, almost annoyed expression on his face. Rainbow Dash growled, "That's it? Bub, I don't think you know how bad our situation is. This isn't enough to get us through the next firefight! We'll run out halfway through! How can we manage with just this?" He shrugged with a noncommittal, "Improvise, cuz that's all yer getting." We all glared daggers into his face, and I could feel all of our veins beating on our heads, threatening to burst out of the skin and spray him with our blood. Before I could react, RD slugged the sergeant in the face hard enough to knock him onto the floor, screamed, "FUCK YOU!" At the top of her lungs, grabbed two mags, and stalked out of the palace, presumably to where the rest of the squad was holing up. I grabbed three of the mags, stuffed them in my pocket, and grabbed a belt of ammunition. Before I left, I sent a luggie of spit sailing into his very surprised face, gave my own, "Fuck off and go to hell," and stormed off after RD. I don't know what Arid did, but he joined me before I left the fortifications. When I entered the room where everyone resided, they all looked pissed, even Spike and Mac, who collectively either had no emotion, or extreme control over their anger. I tossed Bouncer a mag, as did Arid, and we sat down. We remained in angry silence over our situation, even when we started eating our MRE's. The day bled on in that silence until night came, and I took the first shift. The night was apparently too scared to offer up anything to disturb my anger as I waited for when I could drop my shift. When my shift ended, I woke up Bouncer, and promptly collapsed into a corner exhausted. *BOOM* I woke up screaming as the entire building shook from an explosion much too close for comfort. Standing up, I rushed to the window sill, and peered out. A crack from a rifle, and my helmet flew off of my head. I dropped down behind the wall, and clutched my head which was now dully aching. My squadmates were now crying out in surprise and terror over the sudden attack. Looked beside me, I saw Bouncer, who was grimacing in pain, slouched against the wall I'd been sleeping on. Fuck. I crawled over to him, and got him onto his back. I told him he'd be fine as I dumped sulfa onto his wound, and applied a large bandage over the wound. For now, without a medic, that'd have to do. I raised my gun over the wall, and fired a short burst, and lowered it again, "How many of them are there!??!" I yelled. "HUNDREDS OF THEM THEY'RE FLOODING THE STREET!" Screamed Rarity. "FUCK!" I blindly fired again. Over all the noise, I could barely make out the frantic firing from the Equestrian side. We entered a frenzy where we shot for what felt like hours, watching as our ammunition bled away. What went even quicker were our grenades. After only a few minutes, we'd tossed them all out into the streets, and we knew we'd killed and wounded several. We could hear them. Then, bootfalls stopped our hearts cold. Someone was in the building. "MAC! AJ! KEEP UP THE FIRE! Everyone else, fight off the intruders!" I exited out my room, and took cover at the corner that oversaw the staircase. I could hear the enemy running inside, coming ever so closer. I popped around the corner, my guns raised. There they were, blue uniforms and all. I pulled the trigger spraying them with bullets. Some of them collapsed, but the others that I'd missed returned fire with bayoneted rifles. I ducked, and stumbled away from the wall to my room, and took cover behind the doorway. Now I could hear the thumping footfalls of them going up the stairs. I fired around the corner again, and heard a body fall to the floor. I stayed behind the wall, and waited a little bit longer, and turned fully out of cover to spray at the next soldier who was only a few feet in front of me. My gun clicked, empty. The enemy soldier pulled his trigger, only for it to not do anything. A small yellow shine showed that his rifle was jammed. He looked down, saw it, and screamed as he lunged forwards. I took a few steps backwards, dropping my rifle. He shoved his bayonet forwards, and I barely caught hold of the blade. I lost my balance, and fell backwards onto my back. The man kept pressing down on my with a snarl, and I snarled back. He'd left his feet wide, and directly over my legs. Perfect target. My boot went straight into his groin, and the blood in his face immediately drained from his face as it scrunched up in pain. He made a noise uncannily similar to how Harry from the Home Alone movie sounded when he got shot in the balls with a BB gun. His knees buckled, and fell backwards himself, letting go of his rifle in the process to nurse his agonizing pain. I scrambled to my feet, cleared the jam in his rifle, and shot him in the head. I looked out into the hallway to see that many other soldiers had made their way onto the second floor, and that the others had quickly, and effectively eliminated the threat. With that out of the way, I returned to the wall, and fired the crap gun until it ran out of bullets. When it did, I chucked it out the window, and went back to my original gun, just to learn I was on my last magazine. I peeked out the window, and saw that there was still no end to the onslaught of enemy soldiers. I prayed for a miracle, and fired off the last of my bullets. Apparently, Arid was out too, since a smokey tailed rocket fired out of the next window and into a group of enemy soldiers, sending them high into the air from the explosion. I found myself in the same situation as I exhausted the remainder of my bullets. I hid behind the wall, and eyed Bouncer, who was still conscious, and moaning quietly in pain. I crawled over to him, and grabbed the extra 4 remaining magazines off of him, and returned to the window to continue firing down on the Fed soldiers. It wasn't too soon that I again, ran out of ammo. I dropped my rifle beside me, an sat down in resignation. This was it. If any of them tried to get into the building again, I , and likely everyone else, was finished. All I had left was my KA-BAR knife. Fuck it, it's better than nothing. I brandished the blade, and waited by the entryway to the door. For the longest time while the battle raged, no sound came from the downstairs. But of course, that wasn't to last. Soldiers charged into the building, and a quick peek confirmed that the Feds were trying to take the building again. I grit my teeth as I waited for the first soldier to come close enough to grab, and when I did, I lashed out faster than the eye could see. I rammed my blade underneath the breast bone, shoved the dead soldier aside, and lunged at the throat of the next with a war cry. I slashed his throat, and jammed my knife through his ribs, shoved him backwards, and lept at the next man who'd caught his falling companion. I tackled him with every fiber of my being, and once he was on the ground, I buried my knife into his wide eye socket. Another soldier came up the stairs, one I already knew I wasn't going to be able to kill, when a gunshot came from behind me, and the new threat fell flat on his face. I turned around, and saw Spike disappearing behind the wall again. I made a note to thank him in the future, and set about with remedying my ammo problem by liberating the dead of their weapons and ammo. The new gun left much to be desired. It had no sights, and jammed every 4 shots on full-auto. But it was better than having nothing. Finally, just as I ran out of ammunition again, the battlefield quieted down. Looking over the edge, all I saw were bodies. Bodies and bodies and bodies covered every inch of ground and formed piles all the way up to 15 feet away from the first sandbag emplacement outside of the Equestrian fortifications. I dropped the crappy gun from my trembling hands which had gone numb from the constant gunfire. It was over. It was finally, over. Chapter 5: AftermathZlat The fight had been exhausting, and we had all experienced close calls. Mac and I had our helmets shot off, though I wasn't bleeding like Mac I did have a headache. Rainbow had some bullet holes in her uniform, a round had bounced off Applejacks' helmet leaving a small dent, Spike had harmlessly absorbed a few rounds, Rarity had a near miss from a bullet that had passed mere inches away from her face, Ace's rifle had been shot out his hands, and a bullet had gone through Arid's backpack. Then of course there was Bouncer. We rushed him as soon as we could to the field hospital, and as far as we knew, he was going to be fine, but he wouldn't be returning to combat ever again. When the rest of the army showed up the next day, we were relieved to learn that the rest of the city had been swept clean with little resistance, and only a few casualties. When I found our Lieutenant, he was very displeased with the Equestrians, and further agitated with our reactions to him. "If you ever pull off a stunt like that again, I'll see you in the stockade." And he stormed off. Now, we waited. It was honestly depressing sitting around in Canterlot. I still remembered when I'd first come to the city for the award ceremony. Back then, the city had been so beautiful, but now everything was in ruin. Not even the castle had been spared from the ravages. The legendary stained glass that had stood for centuries had been blown out, and several towers and walls had collapsed from shelling and bombings. Some areas looked scorched, a sign that there had been many fires that resided from inside. The local guards had spread rumors that the princesses had decided that they would wait until the war was over to begin repairs to the castle, as most of the treasury would go to repairs to the city. It all got worse when the Canterlot citizens came back from hiding. Their faces... I had mixed feelings about. I felt bad for them, because their homes were wrecked, and the despair I saw and felt hurt me inside, but then I also felt a bit of disdain for them. I'd watched my friends allies get wounded or die and come close to death. The dead would never come back, the wounded would likely be crippled for the rest of their life, and many more would be scarred for life. They just had to rebuild. When they looked at us, there were dozens of different emotions spread about them. Some looked upon us with sorrow for our suffering, others looked horrified, some looked too numbed to the area around them to make an expression, and some (although rare) looked at us with anger or hate. One of them had stomped over to us when we were talking with the Canterlot guard to yell at us for not providing adequate protection to the city. Even though they didn't know what it meant, most of us still flipped them off and told them to start doing something productive instead of placing blame on those who had sacrificed themselves for her, and everyone else's, wellbeing. The worst by far, was when we were traveling inside of the castle to get to the mess hall. "You lousy guards! First you let those awful humans get into Equestria, then you let them into Canterlot! They could've hurt me! ME! If that wasn't enough, you needed more humans to get them out of here! Humans! Of all creatures. You're lucky that auntie Celestia is so gracious and forgiving. If I was King, I would have you all dishonorably discharged in a heartbeat, then banished!" I looked back and forth. There weren't any guards here. Just New York Militia, "You do realize that we're Chestian Militia, right? Besides, you pompous ass, I don't see you in the military. If you don't bother helping with the war effort, then you're in no position to criticize your countries troops. Oh, who am I kidding, you'd more likely shoot yourself then be an actual help." Rarity giggled behind me while the arrogant white pony in front of me blustered, "Do you know who I am?!" "Yeah, a douchebag." He gasped, "I am prince Blueblood! I'll have you court martialed for that!" "Wrong army dipshit, you can't touch me unless I hit you." And with that I spat at his hooves, and walked right on by with my unit, leaving him fuming and making angry sounds. Everypony was laughing their hearts out, especially Rarity and Rainbow, "Oh Celestia Zlat! You absolutely owned him!" Rainbow laughed. Rarity composed herself (slightly) before adding in, "I must agree, that, ahem, snob was certainly put in his place. He needed it." I nudged her in the shoulder with a smile, "You really need to learn to swear." She snorted, "A lady doesn't curse, no matter how much she desires to." My smile only widened, "There are no ladies or gentlemen in the military. That's for civilians, and last I checked, you're carrying a rifle." She smiles back, "That doesn't mean I can't try." I shrugged, surrendering victory of the argument. We arrived in the mess hall in time to see one of the oddest things I'd ever seen. A soldier, one of the Equestrians, stepped up the serving counter, where a server was dishing out food. "Second hash doc?" "Yes please." Some white creamy substance plopped on his tray. "Potata's?" "Fine." The "doc" offered up a sarcastic smile as the cook dropped what was presumably potatoes to *sploch* onto the tray. "Cream corn?" "Thank you." he strained to sound polite. Some "corn" his the plate with a thud. "And for the entree today-" he paused dramatically. "Here it comes." His buddy next in line told him, "Steady." "We have liver or fish." Even I cringed at that. Military fish, and heaven forbid, liver, tasted awful. "I didn't hear you say that, cause it isn't possible. It's inpony to serve the same food day after day. The Genhooven Convention prohibits the killing of our taste buds." His buddy tried to save the cook, and calm down the quickly angering doc, "Easy-" The doc continued, "I simply cannot eat the same food every day. Fish, liver, day after day! I've eaten a river of liver and an ocean of fish! I've eaten so much fish I'm ready to grow gills!" The cook was staring dumbly back at the doc, "I've eaten so much liver I can only make love if I'm smothered in bacon and onions!" He steps back to address the other soldiers in the mess hall who'd stopped what they were doing to watch and listen to the angry doctor. "Are we gonna stand for this! We gonna let them do this to us!??! No I say, no! We're not going to eat this dreg anymore!" And with that he tossed his tray over the heads of some soldiers at a table, and splash onto the wall. "WE WANT SOMETHING ELSE!" He slapped a table, "We want something else!" He kept slapping the table, and as the soldiers started going along with it, slapping their tables, he kept up his chant of wanting something else. He stood on top of an empty bench seat, yelling something unknowable into, "-the world at our eyes! We have nothing to lose but our cookies! We want something else!" Out of nowhere, I noticed a pole, and only because the doctor started bashing his tray against it. One of the smaller soldiers, I noticed, was bobbing his head up and down while shoveling the poor excuse for food into his mouth, while the doctor got off of his impromptu stage, and did a weird little dance, and the guy beside the soldier was doing a weird gesture with his arms. Wait, is he...? Yes, he's wearing woman's clothing. He's trying to get a section 8! I laughed a little inside. The doctor proceeded to give a weird, high pitched cry as he jumped onto the pole, and started climbing. The cook was now banging the food bin lids against their containers while we got our food. Finally, before we left, the doctor grabbed a cloth napkin, and ripped it apart with his teeth. Ponies. Wolfgang I couldn't for the life of me move myself in my wheelchair, and I hated letting Wrought wheel me back to the apartment. But aside from that little sentence from when I first left, I barely had the energy to do more than make a displeased face, which I didn't want to make either. The ride back was a blur. I was just too tired to really care about what happened around me. My eyes lost focus, and nothing would have made sense either. I know Wrought was saying things to me in a kind voice, but I couldn't make sense of it. All I could think about was sleep, and I found myself occasionally drifting off only for my head to bob down and to jolt awake. All of a sudden, I was home, and being lowered into my recliner. I sighed heavily as I entered the familiar warmth and comfort that was my chair, and a pleased smile enwrapped my face. Home, I love you. Next day Ugh, my leg hurt awfully. Each beat of my heart sent waves of pain wracking through my leg, and moving it felt like I was ripping the new prosthetic out of my bone. I reached into my pocket, took out a bottle of painkillers the doctor had given me, and swallowed a couple pills. I moaned to myself as I waited for the pain to fall away. It was a few minutes of suffering, but it finally died into a dull throb. I groaned a little as I pulled myself out of my recliner, and eased myself into my wheelchair. My stomach growled, and I made my way over to the kitchen. I rummaged through the cupboards in search of coffee and something to eat. The coffee was still there, and surprisingly still good enough to use, but there was little in the way of good food. Any food that I liked had spoiled long ago, and the only thing that my Equestrian roommates had stocked were vegetables and broth. I settled for some stale wheat cereal and bread to eat while I waited for the coffee to brew. Apparently, they didn't like milk, so I had to settle for water with the cereal, which in turn, made it kinda bland borderline distasteful. But if I'd learned anything from my stint at Ponyville, it was to never complain about the food you're given. Especially if you're hungry. The bread, which if my tongue wasn't lying was Italian bread, was a little better, and cleaned out the water cereal taste. Having finished, I poured myself some coffee as Steel came out of what used to be the guest room, yawning. Damn, I could practically look down his throat he was yawning so widely. As soon as he finished his yawn, he sniffed the air. "What's that smell?" He asked. "Coffee. Want some?" I monotoned. "What's in it?" He was getting curious, looking at my coffee cup interested. "Ground coffee beans and some sugar. No creamer though, wasn't any in the fridge." "Uuh, sure. Why not?" I wheeled around the kitchen to get another cup and poured him some coffee with some sugar. I handed it over to him, and he grabbed it with a hoof. I'm never going to get used to how they use their hooves to grab things. He tentatively took a sip, and his eyes lit up, "Hmm, not bad. Could be a little sweeter, but it is very good. I'll be sure to ask Lucky to get more." I didn't comment in favor to drink more coffee. Ok, what do I need to do today? Well, I should probably see about going back to school. It's not like I'm able bodied to go back into active service, and I do need to finish school. "Hey Steel, I'mma goin' to head over to the school, see 'bout getting back in." He looked at me with a raised eyebrow, "Why would you need to be going to school? I thought you were a soldier?" I nodded, "I am, but I 'ad to leave for the war 'fore I could finish. See, the militia 're kinda like a better equipped police force, but we don' write tickets. We still 'ave jobs an' go tuh school, but we 'ave to be on guard all the time." He gave me a real weird look, "You humans are strange indeed." "No objection there. But I got a question fer you. Why don' ya 'ave milk? How do you cook?" "Well, it's not really polite to drink somepony's... eh, milk. We make just fine without it." It was my turn to look at him weirdly, with a good deal of added confusion, "The 'ell 're you talkin' about? I'm talkin' 'bout cow milk." "I know, that's what I'm talking about as well. They don't really mind on occasion, but they're still a bit uncomfortable with it." I stared at him a little longer until I realized that he was talking about Equestrian cows. I pinched my nose, "Steel, you do realize that cows anywhere's else on this world aren't intelligent, right? They don' care one way 'r another so long as they're warm, full, 'nd comfortable. Yer cows are leagues smarter than ours. It's okay to drink milk 'ere." "You're bluffing. All animals are somewhat intelligent!" "How could you not know that Equestria is the exception, not the standard? Steel, I want you tuh understand this. Equestrian animals are the only ones that 'ave some semblance of intellect. Everywhere else, they're slightly smarter than a rock. That's the reason why most people eat meat. Otherwise, it would be wrong of us to eat 'em. The only time that it's wrong to drink milk is when it comes from an anthro cow. Regular old run o' duh mill cows 're fine." I could see the gears turning in his head, "That is... confusing and strange." I shrugged, "You'll get used to it in time." and drank the last of my coffee, "Alright, I'm headin' out. See ya later, good luck on yer project." "Thanks." I wheeled myself out the door, called the elevator, and left the building. I rolled my way down the near empty sidewalk. It was strange, seeing the streets so empty. Even in the darkest, rainiest of nights, people would still be walking down the streets. Must be that everyone's already working or fighting in the war. I made my way through the empty streets until I reached the school. I struggled with the door, trying to get it open wide enough to enter and not get stuck. Inside, the school was just how I remembered it. Musty and old. I rolled down the empty halls, the only sound being my breathing and distant footfalls. I found the district attorney's office, and knocked. The door opened up to reveal the same 80 year, thin old Marcus Wild, who's been working here for nearly 30 years, "Yes? How can I help you?" I stretched out my hand to him, "Wolfgang Piatek, Mr. Wild. I was a student 'ere when I got called to serve. I was lookin' to get back in." "Ooh, I remember you! You were the one in the combat trench coat. What happened to you young man? I don't remember you being in a wheelchair." I rolled up my pant leg to expose my new prosthetic, "Got my leg shot off. I've got a while until I can walk again." "I'm sorry to hear that. It's a shame, really. Sending out the young to fight the wars that the politicians start." I shrug, "Thanks for the sympathies, but I would gladly die fer the people over ther an' my comrades. I may be a cripple now, but I'm still gonna do all I can to help." He gives me a warm smile, "Ah, the fire of youth. It's commendable, you're loyalty and spirit, but ultimately foolish." "Ain't foolish if it's fer a good cause. Now, about enrolling." "Ooh, yes. You young folks are always in such a hurry. If you're that anxious, we can get to it." I wheeled into the office, filled out some paperwork, and was told to show up the next day. Well, back into the gauntlet of fire I guess. I thought as I wheeled myself home. Tomorrow was going to be fun. Author's Note Can anyone say where that scene from the mess hall is from? Here's a hint, it's from a comedy show about a war in the 50's
Chapter 1: Marching and HomeZlat Whoever said, "War is hell", is an asshole. War is far worse. It's more of a nightmare boiled in hell, spiced with misery, and with a side of, "You are absolutely boned". When we got the order to march, it rained. For days. The ground became a slurry of mud which tugged at our boots, threatening to rip them off our feet. Within hours, we were all thoroughly coated in mud, soaked to the bone, and our feet were tortured with the mud that seeped through the tops of our boots (no matter how tightly we bound them) and the rain pooled up, and sloshed about as we took each step. Now, clothes never felt wonderful against my fur. Now that both were wet, it was like being already being frozenly soaked with the wet, rough side of a sponge being grated against me. Already, my tail was matted, and the mud had woven itself to the appendage itself. It had become so heavy that it provided a constant strain on the base of my tail. It was going to take forever to get it back to it's former glory. Sleep was hard to come by when your unprotected from the rain, except for the small tarp that those that still had theirs could cover themselves with. I still had mine, but I still froze from the cold and the sogginess, so sleep was short, fitfull, and unhelpful. My only respite was my head, which was mercifully covered my my helmet. Well, most of my head was covered. The brim of my helmet dripped water onto the end of my muzzle, but compared to the rest of my miseries, I shouldn't really complain. That didn't stop everyone else though. I'd been dropped into Wolfgang's old unit. Something about unit reorganization. Rainbow Dash, or RD as we all came to call her, complained nonstop about the weather. She claimed that she could, "Clear those clouds in 10 seconds flat!" I learned that pegasi could manipulate the weather and clouds, but in 10 seconds? I found that kinda hard to believe. Besides, even if she could, we were given only short breaks from marching (which was really just a trudge to be honest) for eating or to sleep. Rarity was even worse. Every syllable was laced with a grating whine, every step was exceedingly slow unless prodded or poked forwards, and rarely did she ever NOT complain for a minute or two. I swear, half of us (including me) gave her looks that seemed to express the utmost desire to duct tape her mouth shut. Bouncer, Applejack, and Wild Ace could be heard grumbling to themselves every now and then, but that was it. The real sight and sound to witness, was Mac. He lugged around his machine gun, looked twice as bad as the rest of us, and he didn't say a thing. Hell, he didn't even look annoyed! Just that neutral, thinking to himself look that he always wore. I think you can guess who I stood next to. His silence seemed to strengthen my resolve, and if I needed to vent, or voiced my worries about my brother, he listened politely, and kept quiet. The Changelings marched right behind us, and seemed very fascinated with the humans and anthros within our army. Occasionally a brave one would approach us and try to mingle, however as irritated as we were, they didn't get very many answers. We made sure to tell them to ask another time when we had time to calm down and for conditions to improve. But there were a few repeating visitors, and no amount of ambient unfriendliness seemed to deter them. Despite everything, we marched on as steadily as possible. Wolfgang I wheeled myself down the sidewalk, growling through my teeth in pain. My arm still wasn't fully healed, and using it wasn't the brightest thing I could do, but even though the VA (Veterans Affairs) had drastically improved since our predecessors, they still couldn't house and care for me when I showed I was stubborn in working towards recovery. They patched me up best they could, got a pony doctor to accelerate the healing process, and send me on my way to my old apartment with the promise to continue paying me, and even give me a prosthetic leg once I regained my strength. Not to mention a recovery program. Mr. Voladaski, bless his soul, had reserved my apartment for my return, on one condition which I readily agreed to as long as I could set some ground rules. The condition was that he had to also allow refugees from Equestria to take residence (via government orders and payments), and my rules were- 1# Don't sell anything that was in the apartment when you got there 2# Replace anything you break 3# Don't protest when the original owners come back 4# Maintain cleanliness I figured they were reasonable rules, and so did Mr. Voladaski. I finally came to my old apartment complex, just as dilapidated-looking now as when I left. Familiarity spread a grin on my face as I fought with the stairs, opting to go up backwards to get the large wheels up, wrestled with the door to open it, and entered. The smell of Mr. Voladaski's sweet cigars overwhelmed my nose, and a small wisp of smoke coming from around the corner announced his presence. "OI! Voladaski! Get out 'ere man!" I yelled. Something crashed, and out came the massive Russian in his dour clothing, and scarred over face from his days as a city gangster. By no means was he a handsome man. Honestly, he looked flat out terrifying, and when he smiled, and you didn't know him, you couldn't tell if it was endearing, or even more terrifying. I had suggested once to him to wear something more friendly, and stop smoking to get rid of the smell of cigar that seemed to make his presence even more intimidating. To this, he laughed, and told me, " I won't be a pretty man, like you. I win people over with personality. You get good friends that way." His logic seemed sound to me. After all, only worthwhile people would give a man like him a chance to see his good side. Or, they could only be trying to get protection from the massive man, but he rooted them out soon enough, unless they were tenants. Then he would tolerate and protect them as long as they paid him, and didn't bring the police. If they did either one of these, out they went. His true friends never attracted police, and he protected them like family. I personally witnessed him ward off nearly an army's worth of gangsters that a friend of his had attracted to the complex. He looked at me with curiosity, no doubt my scars and distorted voice made me unrecognizable to him, "I know you?" he asked in his heavy accent. I grinned, my scars moved uncomfortably, still stiff from being so strained from when I'd abused them when I screamed my head off on the battlefield and in surgery until they'd finally pumped in enough painkillers and sedative to stock a drug store into me, "Course ya do! Room 12, Wolfgang Piatek! Don' tell me yer gettin' old an' went off an' fergottin' me." I joked. Poor Volad looked like he wanted to greet me with his bear hug, but either thought he'd break me, or wanted to make sure I was who I said I was, "Good Mr. Piatek was more whole, so forgive me if I not believe. Prove you are Mr. Piatek, and I welcome you with open arms. If you don't, I throw you to curb." His threat was sincere, and I smiled to hear his loyalty. With my good arm, I pulled my dogtags from under my shirt, over my head, and held them up to him. They were in terrible condition. They were bent in, scratched several times, and the rubber that wrapped around the tags to keep them quiet had been cut, allowing the rubber to flap if shook hard enough. Then there was the fact that they smelled like old blood and burning mustard. Volad gingerly took the tags, and held them up to his face, and looked hard. A sad smile crossed his face, and he handed the tags back to me, "Welcome back Wolf. I wish circumstance were better." I smiled wider, "I take what I can get." A laugh barked from his throat, "With you, that does not surprise me. If one phrase describe you, that it." We grasped hands, the familiar strength in his hand made me feel better, but the weakness of my own brought me down further. But I kept my happy face. This was a good day, and self pity had no home in me. "You in newspaper. 'Five month siege of Ponyville ends as the Hero of Equestria breaches Hell.' Had picture of you, thought you were safe." "Safe? What does that mean?" We gave a laugh to the dark joke, "No, had a run in with gas, an' got shot to hell 'n back. They even gave me a stab fer good measure, but you know me-" and we said together, "I'm a stubborn bastard." And we laughed again. "I'm a stubborn bastard" was something that we both described ourselves as, and I'd say it was accurate. Volad looked behind me, "Where is brother?" I sighed, my smile shrinking a little, "Still out there. He and the rest of the battalion are going with the Changeling army to free Equestria's capital. Oh, what was it called?" "Canterlot. Pony cities seem to be puns of our cities." No doubt 'our' spoke for the world we knew before the merger. Volad looked me over again, staring harder, "How long have you been traveling?" It was hard to hear with his deep voice and accent, but years of knowing the man allowed me to recognize his concern over my state. And what a poor state I was in. My eyes were horribly bloodshot from the days of sleeplessness, black bags hanged under my eyes, eyes that sunk into my skull as my body desperately tried to repair itself, and my worn, damaged and dirty clothes clung to my thin frame. My diet may have gotten better, but most of the nutrients was being used on repairs, not growth. "A long time, my friend. A long time." I let out the rest of my breath with that last word, suddenly feeling all the overwhelming weight of my travels and recovery crashing down on me. Boy I felt tired. I know that Volad saw it, he always does, "I think it time for you to go to room. Let's go," and with a smile, "I fix elevator just in time it seem." I chuckled a bit. The day I started renting my apartment, I had discovered that the only elevator in the whole place didn't work, and Volad had been trying to fix it for the last few years. "Yeah, and it only took you 20 years to do it too. Finally hire a mechanic?" I ask jokingly. He smiles, and pried open the iron grate that served as the barrier between the elevator and lobby, "After you." I roll myself in, and Volad pressed a button on the dash. The elevator shuddered, and started to rise. First floor, second floor, MY floor. My heart was beating harder as we turned to face the door at the end of the hallway. My door. I rolled myself up to the door with years of memories flooding me. All those days showing up after a long day feeling like crap, the few I stumbled up to it, and all the monotonous things like fixing the door frame, repainting it, or even just coming back with groceries. I tentatively rested my hand on the new handle. I guess there really is some new roommates in here. So before I opened the door, I asked, "So how many, er... ponies live here now?" "Five. Mother is pegasus, her name is Lucky Singer. Got herself a job singing in restaurant down the street. The father is Steam Hammer. He is Earth pony, and working at Department of Wartime Technologies, so he only here on weekends like today. Children are of all type. Oldest is Earth pony boy named Wrought Iron. Very good with machines, that one. Helped fix elevator. The middle child is pegasus named Warm Wind. She's a kind little soul. Youngest is unicorn orphan, Metal Strings. He still a baby, but in control of magic." Wait, 'but in control of magic'? "Uhh, what do you mean by that?" I really, REALLY, didn't like the implications of that. "Unicorns not control magic too well until certain age. He old enough that it not issue. I don't know if parents here, but children certainly are. What you waiting for? Let's go in." He reached over my shoulder and twisted the handle down, and pressed the door inwards. Walking around me, he called out, "Wrought! Come here my boy." I rolled in behind him, shaking my head with a smile. Volad certainly had quite a way with introductions. Around the corner came a brown earth pony with messy black hair and piercing, cold blue eyes. He was smaller than Big Mac in his pony form, but built exactly the same. He came with a smile, which quickly took on a look of curiosity once his eyes fell on me. "Hello Mr. Voladinski. Who's this?" He was trying to look at Volad, and not at me, quickly flicking his eyes back to him when he realized his gaze had drifted back to me. Well, time to put on a happy face. Wrought Iron I couldn't stop myself from looking at this new human that was with Mr. Voladinski. He was in a wheelchair, missing a leg, wrapped in a torn winter combat uniform of the New York Militia. Greyish long overcoat over the standard green fatigues. However, he didn't wear a helmet or hat, like I'd seen most Militiamen wear, and I wish he had been. A hat might have hidden some of the ugly disfigurement that he suffered from. I may have only been here for a few months, but I had come to know that a humans' face shouldn't look like that unless they got really messed up. At least his hair was still growing. I figured he wouldn't like it if I stared at him, so I tried my best to look at Mr. Voladinski only. "S'alright kid. Ya don' need to puh- I mean, spare my feelin's. Look if yuh want, it don' bother me." The man spoke. It was deep, gravely, almost distorted. I looked over to him, and saw a soft, reassuring smile. Or at least, as close as his face could manage. "Sorry, I just don't really know how to go about this. My name's Wrought Iron." I reached out a hood to shake his hand. He rolled himself up to me, and grasped my hoof, "Wolfgang Piatek. Nice tuh meet ya." Now that I wasn't worrying over offending him, I began wondering over why he was here, "Excuse me for asking, but what brings you here?" "Wrought, remember I say that previous tenant not kicked out and come back some day?" I nod. I remembered feeling worried that we might get kicked out when they came back, and Mr. Voladinski saying it again made that same worry come back. "Well, Wolf here is tenant. He will be living here again." And my heart dropped into my stomach. "Introduce him to family please? I need to go, so have fun boys!" And with that, Mr. Voladinski left, closing the door. "Wrought, I know what yer thinkin'. No, yer family ain't gettin' kicked out. Yer just gettin' a new roommate." Mr. Piatek's words comforted me, and I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding in. "Thanks, you have no idea how much better that makes me feel. Come on, I'll introduce you to my family, but my parents are out right now working and getting food." "Yeah, heard yer dad was working in the tech department. He's gonna be savin' lives man, I promise you that." I puffed my chest out with pride, I smiled happily with such a good opinion of my dad. Most people here thought poorly of anybody who was working for the war effort, but not actually fighting. "Thanks, you wouldn't believe how much flak I get because of his job." I halted realizing what I just said. No one but me knew about this. "Somethin' wrong Wrought?" he asked confused. My mind ground to an immediate halt. I hadn't meant to say that, and I wasn't confident enough that I'd be able to deflect the question, "Whatever you do, don't tell anybody about this! My folks are already stressed as it is. They don't need anything else to worry about." I pleaded. Mr. Piatek used his fingers to motion out zipping his lips, "Yer secret's safe with me. But if you need any help, I'm more than willing to go an' crack some skulls fer ya. I may be a cripple now, but I'm a far sight better fighter than those bastards are." I snickered at his surefiredness and willingness to protect a random stranger. What am I worrying about? This is gonna work out fine! Steam Hammer The day had been going as well as I could've hoped for. Getting to and back from the store wasn't so bad, or slow. It was getting the groceries themselves that was the hard part. Being a pony, the list was mostly limited to vegetable items like soup and raw ingredients. I found myself quite irked that the produce in Chestia was far less appetizing than Equestria food, and was more expensive too. I'd been explained that the grand majority of the population ate meat from animals that were one step short of being brain dead compared to Equestrian animals, and the cows weren't any different. Therefore, farming wasn't as much of a focus point as I'd like. The food grown in vats inside the city were far from palitable, but extremely cheap to the point it was nearly a steal. But this was the weekend, and we'd been surviving on it for a good long while, minus the leftovers Lucky brought back from work, so I figured it would be a good time to treat the family. However, it being the weekend also meant that most of the city's inhabitants were also buying their weekly supplies, so it was cramped and slow in the store. I met many humans and anthros throw me a mix of reactions and looks from fascination to anger. No doubt, ponies were a rarity everywhere in Chestia, and many found that an Equestrian not fighting in the war to be disloyal to the country, and downright cowardly not to fight. I tried to ignore them best I could as I loaded my cart up with food. The journey back was fairly peaceful despite the bustle of the big city, and the load I'd place in my saddle bags didn't dampen my mood. However, my mind still tracked back to my work. I found the idea of a large hulking mass of metal moving around on the battlefield incredibly fascinating. Men would be protected from enemy fire, and attack at the same time, wreaking havoc against enemy troops while boosting moral. I'd had the immense pleasure of examining an ancient wreck of one of these historical wonders, and had made as many notes as I possibly could about the science of the armor in deflecting incoming fire from cannons, to its' own armament. The one problem I came across that I shared with my team was how to get the engine and crankshaft to connect to the wheels of the tank itself. However, the wheels and axles we designed, no matter how much of a load we could coax them to hold, were never strong enough to bear the weight of the tank, and we couldn't find a good way to get the front wheels to guide the tank in a turn. And don't get me started about how we were trying to get the engine to not overheat and explode for the first few months. Apparently, cars and trucks had coolant in them to help maintain the temperature, and it had never crossed our minds because of all the other problems we faced. My pondering over solutions provided enough of a distraction that I found myself at the apartment complex quickly. I let myself in, climbed the stairs, and entered my apartment. That's when I saw a human sitting in the recliner with a wheelchair folded up against it. Not only was there a human in the chair, but my children were gathered around him, asking a storm of questions. I cleared my throat, getting everyone's attention, "Um, who are you, and what are you doing in my apartment with my kids?" I asked with rising concern. I don't think anyone, pony or other, would question my protectiveness of my children. Especially with the growing problems my son was getting at school. The human's face, I noticed, was gruesomely disfigured. It was terribly mangled by scar tissue across most of his face, but his hair seemed largely untouched and growing from what must have been a very close haircut. Maybe a complete shave. "Oh, Wrought, this yer dad?" His voice sounded like gravel, and held an accent I didn't recognize. Though it was gruff indeed. "Yes sir!" My eldest son answered with a sense of wonderment in his voice. The human smiled, though his face twitched in some areas, "Then allow me tuh apologize fer not givin' you a heads 'bout my comin', Mr. Hammer. I was the last tenant of this apartment," with what seemed to be great difficulty, he reached over to his wheelchair, and unfolded it, "an' I've been placed on extended leave cuz of my injuries. Give me a moment." I tensed up a bit as he pushed himself up off the recliner, and... hopped into the wheelchair. Now I got a good look at him, I realized the need for the chair. He was missing an entire leg, and his sleeve was rolled up to his shoulder, letting a heavy bandage around his upper arm be seen. For a human, he was incredibly thin and lithe. Not much could be hidden from the worn fatigues he wore. Realization hit me like a train, He's a soldier! He must be coming back for his apartment! I started worrying about being kicked out, and where'd we go. But I wasn't given much time, for he began talking again once he settled. "Since the doctors can't tell if I'll be strong 'nough tuh go into a fight with a prosthetic yet, I need tuh heal up. So they figured it would be best fer me to come back Stateside to get my moral back an' heal up peacefully. So for the foreseeable future, I'll be sharing the apartment with you an' yer family." With that, he cast a warm...ish... to my kids. At least, as warm as his face could make. "My name's Wolfgang Piatek, sir. But you can call my Wolf. Pleasure to meet you." Instantly, I felt relieved, and I let out a sigh of reprieve. He rolled himself up to me, and extended a hand. Even sitting down, he managed to be nearly at eye level with me. He must be really be tall when he stands. With my fear abated, I shook his hand enthusiastically, "Name's Steel Hammer. Call me Steel. It's a pleasure to meet you Wolf." Wolfgang eyed my saddlebags, "Groceries?" I nodded. He gestured to the kitchen with his head, "Come on, I'll help you put stuff away. It'll help me know my way around the kitchen if I get hungry and want to make something." I could barely utter out a surprised thanks. Even so heavily battered looking, he was eager and willing to help. As we put things away, I asked him some questions. "If you don't mind my asking, what happened to you?" Wolfgang didn't look at me, since he fixed on putting things away, but I could still see the side of his face. He looked largely neutral about the question, "Heard about the siege of Ponyville?" "Yes, I have. Next to Canterlot, I heard that was one of the bloodiest battles. Were you stationed there?" "Yep. Got pretty banged up on the assault, but I managed to do more than my part. Leg had to be amputated cuz it was too mangled to be saved. Took some bullets in a lot of places, but after I was stabilized, a unicorn doc fixed me up real quick. Still pretty tender in most places, an' everything will take a good while to fully heal, but things 'r goin' well considerin'." "How long were you there?" "A good seven 'r eight months. Five of them we were under siege, but those first three were pretty nice. Wasn't too hard work, an' we managed to relax in th' town awhile. Ponies there are good people, albeit curious." I considered asking him if anybody he knew died, but I held my tongue. It seemed a rude thing to ask, and I didn't want to bring up bad memories. "So how long you been working at the DWT?" His asked, clearly trying to continue the conversation. "Since Appleloosa was evacuated." "Good town?" "Pretty good. We had a tough time with the Buffalo who lived there. Apparently, we settled on their land without knowing, and we were both too thick headed to talk. Good thing Princess Twilight came in with her friends to settle things. After that, it was mostly smooth sailing." "Whatcha do fer work?" "I worked on the trains that ran through, and designed models for mechanical stuff. But compared to the technology here, most seem primitive." "Aah! Don't beat yerself up. I'll bet my leg that what you were doin' would be revolutionary before the merge. Better work than what I had." I beamed at his high praise, but "what I had"? "What did you do?" He sighed, sounding weary, "I was part of the militia. Patrolled the city an' go into gunfights with violent criminals. Got pretty beat up all 'round in those days." We fell into relative silence as we finished putting things away. Not much could be said after that. Author's Note Sorry about the wait. I was a bit lazy (okay, pretty lazy) and managed to break my arm. No reason not to write though. Sorry to those of you who've been waiting for this.
Chapter 2: Meet the Family and Feeding the HungryChapter 2: Meet the Family and Feeding the Hungry Zlat The weather finally cleared up after the 7th day, and with that, our moods drastically improved. Unlike how it would be back home, the mud quickly turned back to hard packed dirt, and the water drained away from the fields. Our march quickened, and we managed to finally let the curious changelings ask their questions, though most of them were directed at me about what I was, where I was from and what it was like. It was then that they were extremely surprised to learn what blindness was, and that I had been so. Of course, being the only one in the unit who didn't know what a changeling was, I had my own questions. If I were to bet, I was even more surprised to learn that they fed on both emotions that could last them for several days between feedings, and regular food which would only last them most of the day until they got hungry again. It was then that a very small changeling asked me, "You wouldn't happen to be willing to give me some would you? I haven't had any emotion in a long time, and it would be a lot better than the gruel we've been eating." I didn't really know how to react to this, "Uhh, how would you eat my... uh, emotion? Will anything bad happen to me?" He smiled sheepishly, "It's through a little magic. Aside from feeling a little uncomfortable and a little tired, you'll be fine. I won't be taking that much, honest!" Rainbow Dash's voice piped up behind me, "Don't let him! You can't trust a changeling!" The Changeling flinched, genuinely looking hurt, "That ain't true, you can trust me!" It didn't take my super-hearing to feel the hurt in his voice, as distorted as it was. AJ grunted, "Rainbow, you should know better! 'Sides, he's tellin' the truth." The unnatural glow of the changelings' eyes went to Applejack, and he smiled gratefully. I almost could've swore I heard a "thank you". I chose to trust AJ's judgement and the Changeling, so I gave him a friendly smile, "Kay, go ahead little man." The changelings' face lit up with a bright fanged smile, and his... ears?... raised. He looked kinda cute actually. His horn lit up with a green energy. He wasn't lying when he said it felt uncomfortable. It felt like a small fire was lit in my head, and I generally felt nauseous. But once his horn died down, the feeling vanished, a weak headache remaining. When I looked back at the changeling, he was a little bigger, and smiling widely. "Thank you so much! I won't have to eat for another week thanks to you!" My heart surged with the joy of making him so happy, and I wanted his happiness to continue. I smiled back at him, and pat his shoulder, "Sure thing. If you want, you can feed again once you're hungry again. By the, what's your name?" "Arid! Yours?" "Zlat, nice to meet you Arid." We shake hands, and Arid left back to his unit, waving happily. I watched him go, still feeling pretty good. AJ slapped me roughly on the shoulder, "That was mighty nice a' you Zlat!" "Yeah, kinda reminds me of my brother, and how he looked after me for all those years. If he thought it helped me, he did." I sighed reminiscing in the memories, "Damn, I miss him." "Well, hopefully this war will end soon, and you can go see him again." Bouncer said as comforting as he could manage, which wasn't too well with his rough voice. But it was the thought that counted. I muttered a thanks back to him, but I still missed him. I hoped my letter was going to reach him soon, and that he was writing me back. Unfortunately, mail was going to be slow, seeing as how we were constantly moving. So I'd just have to wait. Wolfgang I found myself on the recliner once again, sipping on some water from the tap while I asked them about the rest of their stay here in Chestia. Steel bemoaned his struggles over his projects, unable to make any headway with the designs. The kids thoroughly enjoyed tv, but they could never agree on what to watch, and many of the truly good ones, their parents forbid them to watch. "Too barbaric", "Far more mature for your age", "You're not watching it because we said so" were common responses to their pleas to alleviate their boredom with the shows. I found myself in the unique position to be looked up to with hopeful eyes, seeing as how to them, I was an adult, and therefore had some potential sway with the parents decision. Damn, they want me to take a shot at convincin' their parents. Just to play with them, I made a show of thinking it over, raising my eyes to the furthest they could go, and tilting my head. On one hand, they could learn a good deal about our culture and mature a little on their own. Plus, it might good for Steel and Lucky's ear drums. On the other, it really wasn't my place to decide how they wanted to raise their children as long as they were trying to raise them as best they could. "Well, I can certainly understand why yer parents want ya to not watch a lot of shows. My culture an' social values are a farsight from yer own. I still think that you'd enjoy them an' learn a good deal if someone were to explain things out an' guide you along why things 'r portrayed, but if yer parents think it's a bad idea to expose you to them, then that's 'ow it'll be. It's ther decision." I could see Steel's approval towards how I worded my opinion, and grateful towards my respect towards his decision. It was probably going to have a good effect on our relationship. However, I was going to give the kids something to hope for with a sly smile, "But maybe someday when yer older, you can watch 'em. Who knows." The kids didn't really look too happy about the lack of support, but they still had some of that hope in their eyes. Hopefully, they'd be able to stay from being bored to death. Lucky Singer The shift FINALLY ended. Working as both entertainment, and as a waitress, I had been given one of the shapeshifting necklaces that had been getting pumped out on-mass for the past few months to help me with the work. Apparently, not only was I attractive as a pony, but also as a human if the constant wolf whistles and all the men hitting on me was anything to go by. I tried to ignore it most of the time, but I found my cheerful demeanor falter towards the ends of the shifts. I mean, they tipped generously, but today had been extremely taxing. It being the weekend, it had been extremely busy, so it there had been more advances than normal. Thankfully, no one had gotten "handsy" with my this time. I went to the back of the restaurant, punched the time card, and took off the necklace, hanging it up on the hook next to the time machine. I sighed wearily as I collected my saddle bags that the cooks had filled with leftovers and a spare newspaper, and left out the back. Everything about me ached as I trudged down the block to the apartment building. Absentmindedly, I wished none of this had ever happened. I wished that Equestria had stayed as it had been, and that me and my family could have lived its' happy life in Apploosa. But wishing couldn't do anything. All I could do was enjoy being with my family as much as possible, harden myself against my burdens, and watch the war unfold through the newspapers. I hauled myself up the stairs, forced a smile on my face, and opened the door... to hear a voice I didn't recognize. "Well if ya 'ave a problem with the weight, why dontcha add more support wheel sprockets? You could spread out the weight, an' you don' even need tuh run crankshafts to 'em as long as they're attached to da tank. Only downside is that ther's more parts an' you need tracks to keep the sprockets on something solid." The voice sounded damaged, worn, and to my keen ears, weary. Whoever it was, was very tired and in need of a long sleep. Then I heard my husband, "Interesting! Any idea of how to get the crankshaft to work right?" "I ain't exactly a mechanic. I'd think you'd just use 'em on the rear an' front sprockets to apply the torque right." "Wonderful! Now our only issue is how to get the turret to turn. Right now we're looking at hand cranking, but hopefully we can figure out how to apply some hydraulics instead." Before they could go down that rabbit hole, I jumped in, "Honey, who's that?" My husband turned towards me with that spark in his eye that he got whenever he tinkered with machines, "This is Wolfgang Piatek! He lived here before the war, and he's come back to live with us for the foreseeable future." The human slowly stood up and out of the recliner that Steel normally relaxed in, and settled himself into a wheelchair I hadn't noticed. I easily noticed the reason he needed the chair. He was missing everything from around the knee down, his pant leg folded up and pinned just below the joint. Once settled, he looked at me with tired, but friendly eyes, "Afternoon ma'am. I take it yer Lucky Singer?" I nodded, and he smiled a little more, though forcibly so, "Pleased to meet you." He reached out with a hand, which I'd long since became accustomed to greeting bipedal people. I shook it friendly enough. Despite how worn and tired he looked, his grip was strong. "Likewise. Any news I might not have heard from the front?" He shrugged, "Probably not. I mean, we defeated the Fed army stationed at Ponyville, an' now the Militia is headin' off towards Canterlot with the Changelin' army. I only know their marching cuz of the paper, but I don' know how far they've gone." Now was as good a time as any to pull out the paper, which had the daily progress reports on the war, so I dug it out and offered it to him. His eyes immediately focused on the paper, and hastily thanked me as he grabbed it out of my hoof. He flipped through a few pages, looking for the war section. In a distant tone, he began what I assumed was summarizing, "Allied troops have made it halfway to Canterlot, and all other enemy divisions have been shoved out of western, and central Equestria. They've made some real good progress. What's this? We've started the invasion already?" Invasion? "What? Where?" "The Federation. That island nation off the mainland. We've landed in the north, Scotland. The Feds 're so alarmed, that they're pullin' most of their troops out of Equestria to defend the island. Except for their Canterlot contingent. I'll bet you 50 bucks they're still hoping to win the war by taking the capitol." "That won't work! They'll just make Stalliongrad a temporary stand in until we could've retaken Canterlot." Wrought put in. Hmm, never figured Wrought would be so astute in strategy. Heck, even I didn't think of that. Maybe he's been reading the papers without me knowing. Wolfgang clicked his tongue, "Exactly. This is jus' a desperate gambit to try an' hold out. Alright, let's see what else. Yadda yadda yadda, and... Hm! The Japanese have joined the war on our side on the condition they git favourable trade deals an' can take some land from the some of the aggressors. Ooooh, crap. China's in on it too. They want... Griffonstone, Dragon Lands, Prance, and Germania. The Pacific territories. Thaaaaat's jus' great." Wolfgang was scowling now. What was so bad about China? I asked him. "They're the most densely populated country on the planet, an' they ain' afraid to throw troops at ther problems. Even with Japan comin' in on our side, we're gonna need to take the Federation of Trade quickly an' rapidly switch over our troops to defend allied territory. Even then, we might not be strong enough to survive their onslaught. The Pacific countries are mobilizin' as fast as they can with the new equipment an' weapons, but I'm afraid that they still not be enough. The Griffons are gettin' the most troops ready, practically every bird there that can hold a gun is gettin' ready. The dragons are bein' the most impressive with their troop weaponry. They're carryin' cannons around with them. Problem is, there's not a lot of them, an' I don' know if they're bulletproof like one dragon I know." "You know a DRAGON?! Who?" Warm Wind cried in disbelief. It wasn't misplaced. Dragons rarely resided in Equestria, and the were apt to cause trouble wherever they went. To know a dragon, and refer to them without any malice or curse to their kind hardly ever passed in conversation. "Spike, he's thee... uh... I don' know what 'is role is, but he lives with Princess Twilight. Can't tell if their siblings, mother an' son, or what. But from what 'e's told me, he's a baby. Could've fooled me, seemed more like young teenager." "I met a dragon traveling with his daughter once. I asked him why he let his daughter get into all sorts of physical danger, and he said that the younger and smaller a dragon is, the stronger their scales are. The way their biology works, is that once they have enough physical mass, they can absorb more hits, so the scale strength eases up to suck up less nutrients in maintaining them. The babies having strong scales is more of a survival tactic if I'm to understand it." Well, that's smart. "Anything else falling in our favor?" Wrought asked, hoping for a miracle. Wolfgang grinned wolfishly, which I found extremely unsettling on a human, no less a human with a mangled face, "We've got yer dad designin' a tank an' wonder weapons!" "What'll more weapons do? We've got plenty." Warm asked. "Tactical advantages. Tanks, fer example, will scare the crap outta any infantrymen, an' they rarely have the arms to disable 'r destroy 'em. From what I've heard, we've been tryin' to make handler safe flamethrowers, which scare infantry even more an' can clear trenches like no tomorrow. Submarines were used a lot before the world tore itself apart, an' 'as been a lost wonder for forever now. Those could hide from enemy ships an' could attack from underwater, dealin' loads of damage an' run before the enemy can do anythin'. Lightweight armor could protect soldiers from incoming fire, an' keep the casualties down. The rest is up to the imagination of the engineers an' scientists." "No, I mean, wouldn't it be better if we just talked out our problems? Maybe we made the angry or something." Warm clarified. Wolfgang shook his head, "Sometimes people can't be reasoned with. The Europeans declared war simply outta greed an' want of more land. I wouldn' be surprised if they wanted the land jus' so they could get closer to Chestia fer a later invasion. In recent years, they've gotten more an' more hostile towards us, so it isn' that far fetched." All this talk of war was beginning to unnerve me, so I changed subjects, "Well, it's getting late. Why don't we have dinner? I brought some leftovers from the diner!" "Whatcha bring?" Wrought asked, trying to hide his disdain of cold diner food. "Vegi-burgers."
Chapter 3: Feet on the GroundChapter 3: Feet on the Ground Zlat I saw a lot more of Arid from that day on. Despite RD's animosity towards him, he found great joy from being with us, and we couldn't help but adopting him into the unit. It was somewhere on the third day that he'd started his visitations, though, that I learned one of the Changelings' inherent abilities. Shapeshifting. It was right after Rainbow Dash making another snide remark about Changelings that I asked, "What's your fucking problem with Changelings?" "They can turn into anypony they see! That's why! When they invaded Canterlot, I had fight Changelings that looked just like me and my friends!" To me, that actually sounded pretty cool, and I caught Arid off guard when I asked him if he could copy me. When he did, I felt like I was looking into a mirror. He wore different gear, but he looked exactly like I did. If I rose my arm, he mirrored me. At this point, I found this ridiculously awesome, and wanted to play with his copying skills. So I mimicked a Russian kick dance, and Arid kept up with me until he finally couldn't support himself anymore, and fell down. He shifted back, and I helped him to his feet with a smile. In fact, most of the group, including RD, started laughing at this. After that day, even RD started warming up to the little guy a little more. Now, we were listening to the Lt. He wanted us to go out to one of the rural farms, and scout out the area to see if any Feds were nearby. We probably weren't, but it pays to be careful. We kept off the road, stalking about and scrutinizing the grass and dirt for any disturbances that might betray a hidden mine. All seemed normal, except for the farmland itself. The fields were covered with dead and burned crops. "That doesn't bode well." Bouncer surmised our thoughts. I tightened my grip on my rifle, anxiety beginning to unnerve me. We continued on our way, muscles tense, and heads constantly turning about, hoping to not find anything. Eventually, we could see a small tower in the distance in the general area of where the farmhouse was supposed to be. On the map we'd been shown, no such structure had existed. Our chances of our patrol being a simple check seemed to drastically diminish. I put more distance between myself and the road into the tall grass to hide from a potential spotter. Everyone noticed, and mimicked my action. When we got closer, we found the whole farm overrun with soldiers. There had to be at least two dozen soldiers milling about. They were bored, and didn't have their gear on except for their rifles. The tower we'd seen early did indeed have a spotter on it, but he was asleep. "Bouncer, RD, flank them on the right side behind that cart. Rarity, get to a vantage point to pick them off. AJ, Arid, and Spike, flank them on the stone wall on the left. Mac, Ace, you're with me." It was at this point that we realized that we hadn't designated a unit commander, but everyone still complied readily at the orders given. My team rushed in behind a pile of plank wood that had become waterlogged and was in it's beginning stages of rot. The previous owners must've been preparing to build something, maybe a new barn? The Fed soldiers were still unaware of our presence, and we opened fire. I quickly killed a pair of soldiers engaged in a conversation. The enemy spotter fell off of his tower, likely having been killed by Rarity, and the machines guns began their angry roar as they swept the open space. Most of the soldiers were killed, but a few managed to duck into the house, and one hid behind a stone well after dropping his rifle in a panic. I'd chosen our cover and spacing well, for when the enemy chose to return fire from the house, they only pinned Rainbow Dash and Bouncer. The rest of us returned fire, our bullets easily ripping through the walls like they were made of paper. The whole firefight only lasted a minute, and already, the enemy was crying out with white flags in surrender. The man behind the well was the first to slowly rise out of cover with his hands above his head. Rushing forwards, everyone with automatic rifles surged forwards, and forced the five survivors to the ground. Thankfully, AJ and Mac knew better than to approach the soldiers and provide them with the opportunity to get their hands on such deadly weapons, instead sweeping their barrels back and forth to instill terror into the prisoners. We stripped them of their ammunition, their bayonets, grenades, and the odd assortment of makeshift weapons that were likely made in the field in their spare time. We stored the ammunition in our packs, the grenades on our bandoliers, and forced the prisoners to a march. The soldiers looked incredibly anxious, casting worried glances at us. Especially towards the Equestrians, who were giving them unveiled glares of hate. One of them stuttered out in very broken English, "Please, no harm us!" "You'll be fine. Just don't do anything funny, and we're all good." I answered. It's an odd thought right now, but I wonder how Wolfgang's doing right now? Meanwhile, in New York City: Wolfgang Hospitals never really sat well with me. Doctors poked and prodded you, stuck you with needles with any number of drugs that you never knew what they'd do. Doctors had that strange personality to them. They try to act nice, but it seems fake and forced. It makes me wonder if they were hiding some sort of vile intentions. The nurses were always way too cheery and eager to offer comfort, even though they regularly dealt with disgusting stuff on a daily basis. Then there's the fact that so many sick people came to the hospitals with an untold number of diseases, so if you go to one wrong place, or touched the wrong wall, you'd get sick, and have to go back and pay even more money to be fixed for something that was really the hospitals' fault. So where was I now? A military hospital. The patients here were all wounded soldiers who were on the path towards some semblance of recovery. Those who were lucky, only had wounds that could easily be sewed back together and heal itself with time. If they were really lucky, the war would end before their recovery ended. The really unlucky were maimed horrifically. Forget a lost leg, some of these guys had lost their arms, eyes, jaws, extreme trauma to the chest, or had lost so much of their lower body, that it reached to the lowest parts of their torso up to just below their belly button. Those who lost an arm might be able to get a semi-functional prosthetic arm, or even one of those fancy nerve arms if they were lucky. Those who lost an eye or eyes would be disabled, but at least be kept from the front lines and discharged. For the jawless, a metal frame can be attached to the remaining muscles and tendons so they can eat. But for those who were torn apart, they'd be forever disabled with no chance at hope. Fate had damned them to need constant care around the clock, demeaning them to a hopeless sap who couldn't care for themselves. Me? Oh, I was getting a prosthetic leg. My leg had healed enough to where the military doctors decided that I should be given a solid fake leg. If I was strong enough and had enough dexterity with it, I might be deployed again. I initially felt privileged that I was receiving a decent leg, until they told me they couldn't spare any anesthesia or painkillers for me. Those were being saved for wounded who were a lot worse off than me. I fully understood, but I really didn't want to be drilled awake and fully aware. I was also, not allowed to go home alone. Steel and Lucky had to work, so they had volunteered Wrought to the job. He hadn't complained, but even without looking at him, I could tell he would much rather stay at home screw around with some of the engines he was tinkering with. On the way over, I'd promised him I'd do some looking and find him some new tools or some machines to disassemble. His smile was worth the difficult promise. "Don't you worry about a thing Sergeant, this'll be over before you know it!" Doctor Heisman cheerfully claimed. "Bullshit. You know it, an' I know it. This'll feel like forever." The doctor didn't even skip a beat. The doctor laid me down on the table, and strapped my limbs down to keep me from flailing. Please let this be shorter then it'll actually be. I silently begged. Then, he a thick cloth in my mouth to keep my from shattering my teeth or biting my tongue off. The whirring of a small handheld electric drill burned into my eardrums, and I bit down hard in terror. The pain started abruptly, and I screamed through my gag. My body trembled with the vibrations coming from the drill, and my remaining limbs strained against the restraints with strength I hadn't thought I'd had. But the leather straps held. Without crucial leverage, I couldn't move. I was trapped to the damn bed, and getting a hole slowly drilled into the remaining bone of my leg. I screamed through the gag I was biting on, crying tears of pain. Then, the bolt was shoved into my new hole. A fresh spasm racked my body, but the torment didn't stop. Even through all the pain, the fresh pinpricks of nerve diodes being attached to my nerves. If my mind had been present, I would've known that these were so I could control the foot, allowing me to run better. The base of the leg was pressed against my bloody stump, and the magnetic sleeve sucked tightly against my leg to the metal bolt that was driven up my bone, and the limb itself was screwed on the exposed bolt. *Twitch*Twitch* My new foot twitched, my nervous system unsure of what to do about this strange new, alien appendage. The electric signals were fresh, and my brain wasn't tuned to the specific wavelengths. It was going to take a long while for me to get used to it. Wrought Wolf had gone in looking nervous, but otherwise fine. But when he came out, he looked terrible. The vessels in his eyes had burst, giving the visual effect of crying blood, but that was nothing compared to his haunted, worn stare. He was caked in sweat, what little hair he had clung to his skull tightly and his skin gleamed like it was a wet stone. He wasn't really sitting in the chair, more like he'd been dumped into it, and the doctors had tried to make him as comfortable as possible. His leg was the exemption, as it was propped up by a small extension protruding from the seat. He... wasn't there. His mind was gone with the wind. At least, I thought that until he looked up at me, and a weary smile crossed his face, "Got my fuckin' leg back." His gravely voice was worn, but the fire behind his words reassured me. He wasn't traumatized! He's just tired. Should've known better, this is Wolf we're talking about here! Author's Note A bit short for my liking, but I think it's decent enough. What do you think?
Chapter 4: Battle for CanterlotZlat My unit all received commendations for our swift victory at the farm, and the prisoners we took against greater numbers. There had been an officer among their ranks, and he was thoroughly interrogated, mostly over where the owners were. I silently prayed that they were ok, and just among the refugees who had fled West. I didn't want to think about any alternatives. But my squadmates had other ideas. "What do you think happened to them?" our resident bullet sponge Spike asked. "I wouldn't know Spikey, but let us hope that they are safe." Rarity soothingly told him. To me, that was odd. It nearly sounded like she was babying him. "Yeah, but what if they were captured?" Suggested Ace. Damn it, why'd you have to say that? I'd read about the Second World War, and what had happened to the prisoners of war the Germans took, and the victims of the Holocaust. Images of ponies in POW camps and extermination camps started to sprout in my mind. Horribly starved and/or wounded ponies, terrified and mentally exhausted behind barbed wire fences and constantly guarded by soldiers who hated them and looked for any reason to shoot them. "That's plain ridiculous Ace!" Mac's voice boomed, even though he hadn't spoken loudly. AJ followed up with her own admonishments, "Yeah, all yer doin' is making us nervous! We need tuh stay calm and focused on the task at hoof so we can win the war. Riling ourselves up will only hurt us in the long run." "Damn right." Bouncer agreed. But I was already jittery, and their words weren't helping as much as they were intended to be. I need something to calm me down. An idea popped into my head. Often times, when Wolf was really stressed and either didn't have any alcohol in the house, or couldn't drink, he'd smoke a cigarette, and he'd calm right down. I'd shared one or two, but I couldn't make a habit of it since I could never tell when there was too much ash on the cig. I remembered how relaxed it made me, how good it felt. Every other ration we got from Chestia held one pack of cigarettes, and I'd never done anything with them except try to save them to scrounge with the addicts for more food, water, or in the rare case a beer or shot of hard alcohol. I dug out one of said packs, and briefly read the name "Lucky Strike", before digging out a match, lighting it and then the cigarette. I breathed in the smoke a bit too quick, and coughed. I tried again, a bit slower, and the nicotine started working its' magic. My head swam in a euphoria, and I calmed down. For the next 10 minutes, I slowly smoked, enjoying the nicotine and the effects. When it came to the filter, I stomped it out on the ground, and looked back to the squad, who were all looking at me bemusedly. "What?" RD pointed at the stomped waste, "What was that?" I shrugged, "A cigarette. I needed to calm down after I started thinking of some rather... unsavory possibilities." They looked at me quietly, like they expected something more, "No, I'm not telling you what they are. Those thoughts are staying as dead as a doornail, and you aren't convincing me otherwise." My squad looked at me with frustration, probably because I wouldn't indulge their curiosity. But I didn't care, they were better off not knowing. Suddenly, Arids' eyes widened, and he quickly saluted to what must have been an officer right behind me. I stood quickly, spinning around into a salute. Standing there was the Lt., with a expression almost as stoic as Mac. "Saddle up. We're getting close to Canterlot, and they're in trouble. Messenger relayed that the Feds have managed to get a foothold into the commercial district of the city, and the Equestrian Army stationed there are slowly being beaten back. We're going to have to pick up the pace if we're going to keep the city. MOVE OUT!" "YES SIR!" We choused. We quickly shouldered our packs and weapons, put on our helmets, and started marching out at a brisk pace as the rest of the column got their orders. By dusk, we could see the city not 15 miles away. By the next day, we'd reach the city walls, and come into contact with the first of the enemy forces. It was hard for us to get to sleep besides Spike and RD. They were asleep as soon as they hit the ground. Our anxiousness over tomorrow kept us up well into the night until exhaustion finally caught up with us. The next day We woke an hour before dawn to the sounds of trucks pulling up to the front of the column. The implication was clear. Troops were going to be sent ahead to engage the enemy and hold them in place long enough for the rest of the army to show up to relieve or reinforce us. While the trucks were getting into position, a pony came by pulling a resupply cart full of ammunition and replacement weapons. I eyed a bazooka, and realized that my unit didn't have a fire team specialized with one. That had been Wolf's responsibility before he got wounded. "Hey, Arid, grab that bazooka and some missile bags." He gave me a confused look while he was putting away some 5.56 magazines, "The what?" I pointed at the bazooka, "The green tube. We need a demolitions fire team. You're going to be armed with that given we run into a situation where we need it." "Like when?" "Infantry occupying a house, a fortified positions, trucks, field guns, anything our guns or grenades can't handle." I turned to Spike, "Spike, your strong, so you're gonna be carrying his ammo and reloading him. Consider yourself as part of the demo team." "Ok." He answered simply. Huh, figured he'd want to argue that. Not going to complain about that. I showed Arid how to aim, fire, and load the bazooka, even though Spike was going to be doing that for him anyhow. It paid to be proficient in your weapons, or so Wolf told me. I moved on to tell Bouncer and Ace to wrap belts of ammo around their torso's so they could provide for the machine guns when their stores ran out, and had them pack another belt each into their packs. They complained about the weight, but they still obeyed. That's all I needed. When I was finished giving orders to them, I turned around to find a very expectant Rainbow Dash, "Whatcha got for me?" Uhh... I didn't really think through my words, but they came out before I could reason through anything, "You're with Rarity. We'll be getting into closer combat than at Ponyville, so she won't have as much space as last time. We need our sniper, so you're going watch he back and keep her out of trouble." "Pardon me?" "Gotcha!" After rearming ourselves, we were ordered into the trucks that were already starting to be crowded like a sardine can. After the truck was loaded to maximum capacity (and with a few Changelings riding on the cab roof), we took off. We each went through our process of getting ready for the fight, making sure our bolts worked smoothly, clicking the safeties off and on, tapping our feet, looking fondly at each other with sad smiles, and praying for our safety. I did some of these, and smoked another cigarette to help me calm my nerves. I made the mistake of blowing the smoke out my nose, and paid the price with an intense burning sensation in my nose. Ok, note to self: don't blow it out your nose. When I finished, I tossed it out the back of the truck, and waited as the euphoria swam in my head. It had ended just before the assistant driver yelled out, "One mile!" We all chambered a round, and made sure our safeties were off. This was it. A charge into a hail of bullets to rain down death and destruction to the Feds. We tensed as we waited for the truck to stop. The truck stopped sharply, and we all jumped out. Those furthest from the back hopped over the side and took off for a forest of tents. The sound of war was coming from the city, but we could still hear voices coming from the camp. The soldiers we came across were obviously surprised by the sudden arrival of new troops, and were quickly disposed of in grizzly fashions. Halfway through, we came to a radio tent, where inside, several officers were hovering over a radio operator who was screaming loudly at a radio in French. A long spray from my rifle wiped them all out, and they fell over one another. The camp was finally cleared just as the remnants realized that they were under attack, but too late to provide a counter attack. We ran to one of the many holes in the walls, and started running through the streets, mainly ones that were heavily damaged. The city didn't look as good as it had been when I'd first visited with Wolf. Many of the buildings had massive sections reduced to rubble, and the ones that were mostly intact were riddled with bullet holes. The streets were littered with debris, spent rounds, and what once had been firing positions (which were filled with even more spent rounds, blood and on a rare occasion a body). We moved through the streets hugging the walls on either side of the road, sweeping our guns over open doors, windows, alleys, and down the street where the gunfire was coming from. We stopped at the corner of the street. I shimmied to the edge of the building that looked like a toy store. Looking to the other side of the street, there was no one there. I popped my head around my corner, and the street was flooded with corpses and activity of Federation troops. "MAC!" I pointed at a stone wall in the street, "Get over to that wall and lay down suppressing fire! Ace, back him up." "Going!" They answered, running out to the stone wall while I opened fire to cover them. They dove behind the wall just as the enemy turned on us to realize they were getting shot at from the rear. The wall I was pressed on got peppered with bullets, and I ducked back away. Looking back at my squad, everyone was on my side of the street, stacking up to run around the corner into battle. The thunder of Mac's gun roared to life with the small pops from Ace's M16. "Get out there and find some cover!" I yelled, sprinting out into the street. I ran about 40 feet before being targeted, forcing me behind an overturned truck. Rounds pinged off the steel hull, and I silently relished the protection. I looked back into the street, looking for where my squad had holed up in. AJ and Bouncer were in a deep crater, Rarity and RD were in the crumbling remains of a store, while Arid and Spike were hiding behind an abandoned fortification post made of sandbags atop a pile of rubble. AJ was already opening up on the enemy, who were finding their own cover. Bouncer was popping off rapid shots, Rarity was using the iron sights on her rifle, RD was laying down fire on a position that had tried to shoot at Mac and Ace, while Arid and Spike were keeping low under a barrage of bullets. I looked out of cover, and took a shot on a Fed who was hiding behind a barrel, but was giving me an angle to shoot him from. He slumped forwards into the street dead. I leaned a little further out, and fired rapidly at several positions pinning down Arid and Spike, giving them enough breathing room to pop off some shots of their own. Slowly but surely, we took down the Feds closest positions to us, as were the Equestrian forces on the other side of them from their fortifications. Said fortifications, now that I looked at it, resembled a sort of castle make of sandbags that walled off the whole street. They fired down from above, easily wiping out the flanked units. I yelled at Arid and Spike to move forwards to another stone wall 10 feet ahead of where their position was, while telling everyone else to give them cover fire. Slowly, I moved my men closer to the remaining enemy troops. The enemy fell quickly, losing their numbers against flanking forces. The last man stood up abruptly with a grenade in hand. He was about to throw it at the fortifications when he took a shot to the chest, and fell to the ground. Moments later, the grenade went off, sending a mangled body into the street. There was a pause where there was no sound from our street aside from the tinkling of settling of brass casings. It lasted several seconds as the shock from the sudden absence of combat ran its' course. Finally, a voice came from the battlements, "Chestians?" I called out, "Only me, the rest are Equestians and a Changeling!" "Get in!" We left our cover to accept their offer. They lowered latters over the edge of the sandbags, and we climbed over. It was slow, as we held a weapon in one hand, and used our other to balance. On the other side, we met what must have been the Night Guard. They were in their human forms, and I use that term loosely. Their skin was either black as night (and had a very inhuman look to it) or a steely, leathery grey skin. Their eyes were slitted (which wasn't that different from an anthroperson or altered human) which seemed to dimly glow in the color of their eyes. Then, tightly folded against their backs, were a set of leathery bat wings, and the fangs that poked out of their mouths. A bigger surprise for me, however, was the fact that they were still wearing armor, which was generally a very bad idea for a modern fighter, who relied on mobility rather than the pointless attempt at soaking up hits. They weren't wearing plate armor, but given the combat environment, it was still pointless. The armor was layered so as to allow them to shift with the body better, and it curved elegantly for the deep blue and purple metal. The helmet was highly reminiscent of the guard pony helmet, as the main body wrapped around most of the skull, and had more layered plates to "protect" the neck. But these soldiers, they were ragged. Pieces of their armor was missing, or heavily damaged, but always coated in thick layers of dust and filth of the city. It was a stark difference compared to us. We were muddy, thin, wearing worn combat fatigues with only a tempered steel helmet for armor. There was also the fact that there was me, an anthro-fox, Arid, a Changeling, and what I would call normal Equestrians who had a wider variety to their color pallet. But I wasn't allowed much time to muse over our physical comparisons, as the soldier in front of me gestured over to what I assumed was an officer if his blue plume was to indicate authority (which I was quite sure of). We disembarked the battlements, and the officer greeted us, "Welcome to Canterlot, sorry it's in such poor conditions. I'm Petty Officer Zordac. What brings you here?" "I'm Private Zlat, acting squad commander. We're here to help purge the invaders. The rest of the army was dispatched to other areas of the city to clean up or to secure the rest of the outskirts." "Who's here?" "Mostly Changelings, good deal of them. I didn't get a number, but there's an insane amount of them. Only about 750 Chestian Militia are here out of the original 900, and then about 50 some Ponyville volunteers. My brother trained a fair bunch of them, and quite well too." The Petty officer made a look of disappointment "You aren't too green are you?" I puffed my chest out in indignation, "The Militia have as much combat experience as they've been in the force, and we've all been through the Ponyville siege. We're more than fit." He snorted, "We'll see about that." Rainbow Dash, for whatever bravado reason she had, stuck in her two-sense, "I was about to say the same thing about you." I pinched my nose, and sighed. Damn it Dash. Before Zordac could form a response, I interjected, "Forgetting that, what's the situation? Do you know where the enemy are focusing their efforts?" He bit his tongue before he answered, "They're mostly on the main road heading towards the castle, but they're still trying to flank through streets like this one. Can't guarantee that you'll have a easy time getting around. You planning on heading that way?" I nodded, "Our orders are to eliminate the enemy. Taking out any part of the main force would end this thing faster." Zordac gave a nod of approval and respect, "Then go with the blessing of the Moon and Sun. We can't go with you though, our own orders are to defend this street." I bowed my head with and extended my hand, which he grasped, "Godspeed friend." We released our grip. He gave me some directions, and I called out the order to move out. We walked off single file, not pointing our guns at the building, but still eying the openings. Following Zordac's direction, the noise of combat grew into a devastating roar. We could hear exactly where the fighting was. An idea popped into my mind, and I acted on it. I ordered everyone into the most intact building in the immediate area, and climbed the stairs to the second floor. The place looked to have once been a music store with ruined instruments. Entering the rooms swiftly, we knocked out the windows, and looked out. It was once a small park, but it was now it's own little hellhole. Craters were scattered around, the ground having been upturned into an ugly mottle of dull brown dirt. There were hundreds of bodies, both Fed and guards, scattered about the field. The walls of the castle itself had machine gun nests, a few empty, and scattered pockets of snipers. The once grand perimeter wall had been collapsed in multiple areas, which Equestrian soldiers were using as cover. There were other sandbag barriers scattered about, also manned by friendlies, and in another massive sandbag castle that was inside, and flooding outside of the perimeter wall. Consealed Equestrians fired from small slits into the enemy flood of soldiers. I yelled my order, "Open fire!" Our guns added to the roar of battle, firing on unsuspecting enemy soldiers. To the right, where the enemy soldiers were coming from, an armored truck was rolling its' way down the battlefield. "Arid! Blow that truck up!" Complying, he shouldered his rifle, and aimed his bazooka at the truck carefully. The weapon screamed when it fired, and the rocket sped across the air, blowing up the drivers' side wheel off. "Again!" Spike reloaded the bazooka, and Arid fired again. Now that it wasn't moving, the rocket nailed the truck where the engine housing and cabin met as the door opened. It exploded in a massive plume of fire and smoke, the shockwave killing and throwing off the few soldiers stupid enough to be close to it. Seeing the smoke trails from the rockets, the enemy soldiers acknowledged our presence by trying to divide their attention between advancing on the castle fortifications and us. A bullet struck the outside wall, and I naturally flinched. I ducked down as more bullets began peppering my cover. I pulled a Fed grenade off my bandolier. It was shaped like a baseball with a tumor on top of it, so it was easy to throw. I pulled the pin out, and chucked it over the wall. It blew up shortly after. I popped up, fired a few more shots at a reloading rifleman, and ducked down again. A shrill whistle blew, and a good deal of the gunfire ended. I peered over the lip of the window, and saw blue backs running away from us. It's... over? It was over at least for now. The enemy had abandoned the street, leaving us with an eerie silence as even the snipers stopped firing. "Did we win?" Spike asked. I sighed, and sat down heavily on the ground, leaning against the wall, "For now. It ain't over, but we've got some breathing room." I eyed the room we were in. It was large, considering the nature of the store, but Mac and AJ were still in the other room. I shouldn't have sat down. I need to check up on them. I groaned, stood up, and shambled over to the next room. AJ, Rarity, RD, and Bouncer were laying against the walls, looking exhausted. I almost missed it when I first looked them over, but I saw that Mac's helmet wasn't on his head. "Hey Mac, where's your helmet?" He pointed over to the corner. There laid the helmet he'd been wearing since he joined, but with a massive, lengthy dent across the top. I looked back to Mac, and noticed the thin amount of blood starting to drip down his forehead. Ugh, I wish Fluttershy was a part of this unit, she was pretty good at patching people up. "Hey Rarity, you good at first aid?" "That I am." I nod over to Mac, "Check up on Mac, see what you can do." As Rarity went over to care for Mac, I addressed the group, "When you're rested up, tear down some of the wall. I want our machine guns to be able to swing around as much as possible." I was about to leave the room when Bouncer stopped me, "You sure we should do this? We're going to be damaging somepony's home." "This is war, nothing gets left untouched. The best thing we can do is end this quickly so we lose as few people as possible, and begin the rebuilding process. One wall among hundreds of others won't mean anything." A thought entered my mind. We were going to need to contact the defenders, and let them know about us and the favourable position. It's gonna be me, isn't it. "AJ, I'm going over to the defenders and let them know we're here and see if they want us to shift somewhere else. You're in charge until I get back. Do an ammo count, see if and what you need, then tell me when I get back." "Got it." I told the other group what I was doing, and went downstairs to find the door that led to the "park". I still peeked down the road from the doorway, and sprinted madly across the battlefield towards the defences. I jumped over a small "wall" of sandbags, and ducked down into safety. On either side of me were two surprised, golden armoured soldiers. "Hey, how ya doing?" I didn't give them the chance to answer by bolting out of cover once again to the main fortification. I slipped through a crack between the sandbags and a gate pillar, and searched for an official looking soldier. Someone tapped my shoulder, and I turned to see a guard with a blue plume. They were frowning at me, though I couldn't figure why, "Hello, I'm Private Zlat, I've got a squad in the buildings over there. Is there anywhere's you need us at?" Despite the guards' sour look, I smiled at him, hoping to diffuse the hostility. I saw a flash of movement to his side, and I saw a pistol barrel pointed at me, "We need you in our prison camp. Lay down your arms." I cocked my head. Surely, he had to be joking, "Why do you need us at the prison camps? Wouldn't we be better used at the front lines somewhere? And why would we abandon our weapons?" My answer was a swift pistol whip to the side of my head, knocking off my helmet and sending me facefirst to the floor. I moaned, "Ooof, motherfucker." I rolled over, clutching my now wet with blood head. An armored boot planted itself on my chest and pressed down, restricting my lungs. I looked up with bleary vision to see the barrel of a gun pointed between my eyes, "Say good-bye you Federation bastard!" I shut my eyes in terror, just as something collided with the guard above me, throwing them off, "Staunch! What the buck are you doing?!" A voice boomed. "What are you doing sir! That's a Fed!" Came his retort. I opened my eyes to see a black guard whose plume was a pure white, and he looked to be on the verge of an aneurism, "You... IDIOT! He's not a Fed! He's a Chestian! Didn't you see the Chestian flag on his shoulder? Or hear him speaking Equestrian? I swear, if you weren't so good at your job you'd have landed yourself in a bloody asylum!" The apparent officer turned his attention towards me, and offered me a hand, "Sorry about that. Staunch is a good guy on most days, just really... dense." I grabbed his hand, and he hefted me to my feet. Bitterly, "Let's hope he's the only one. Anyways, I've got my squad up in one the buildings facing the street. You want us anywhere's?" He shook his head, "No, you're in a really good place to be. We've been wanting to get a squad in one of them for a while, but with all these attacks, we haven't been able to act on it. Anything you need?" "Nothing I can think of right now. I've got my men doing an ammo check, though I'd have to guess we might need something for our machine guns. We've relied on them heavily since we entered the city." A spark flashed across the officers eyes, "Speaking of which, what's the news?" Though it was hard to see, a quick sniff informed me of how hopeful he was of good news. "We've wiped out what I think was their command base, and much of our army has been sent on search and destroy missions. We aim to purge the enemy forces in the city by weeks end." Unable to control his emotions, the officer broke into a smile, "Wonderful! I look forwards to the downtime once this is over." "God knows we all need it. I've been fighting since Ponyville got surrounded, and just got off a long march. Not doing anything will be heaven." We bid our farewells, and I departed for my squads' position. I ran across the field littered with dead bodies, and entered the building ridden with bullet holes. Inside, I found my squad consolidated to a single room. "How's the ammo count AJ?" "We're good on grenades, but we're runnin' a little low on everythin' cept fer Rares. We've redistributed our M16 ammo, but we've still only got about 3 full mags each. Mac and I are runnin' on our last couple belts too." "How 'bout you? Didya meet with them?" Asked Spike. "Yeah. They want us right here so we can pin them from a higher position." Truthfully, I wasn't happy about that. Setting up here was meant to be temporary, so we could get somewheres more fortified once the fighting died down. Apparently, our luck wasn't good enough for that, and we'd have to make do with sub-par cover that was in all honesty more concealment than cover. I had no doubt that bullets could easily punch their way through the wooden walls. RD seemed to have the same thoughts, "In here?! This place is a deathtrap! The only reason we didn't get turn into Swiss cheese, is because we surprised them! No way are they gonna forget about us being here! And before long, we're going to run out of stuff to chuck at them. I mean, I've got a pretty good throwing arm, but I doubt that bricks will do much against their rifles!" I absently wondered over how she knew what Swiss cheese was, given that she didn't know what or where Switzerland was, but that was irrelevant, "I know, it's less than ideal, but we are getting more ammunition. We just need to let them know how much we need. Besides, we've thoroughly beaten the enemy. They've got little to no command structure, constantly faltering numbers, and they've been fighting for longer than we have. They're on their last legs, so they've got to be giving up soon. We just need to keep it up until then. Dash, Arid, you're coming with me. We need to pick up some supplies." We ran back out to the Equestrian fortifications, and met with the officer from before, who'd been waiting for me. When he heard what we needed, he wondered aloud, "What have you been fighting? A dragon?" None of us mentioned that we actually had a dragon in the unit, since we didn't want to delay getting our supplies any longer. He led us all the way to the palace where the ammo dump had apparently been placed. Inside, we asked the distributing sergeant for our ammunition types and how much we needed, and waited for his return. When he did, we simply stared at what he offered. There was only 8 mags of M16 ammunition, and a single belt of ammunition for each machine gun. That was only enough for each squad member to get two extra mags, and each machine gun one extra belt. We looked back up to the sergeant, who hadn't moved and wore a tired, almost annoyed expression on his face. Rainbow Dash growled, "That's it? Bub, I don't think you know how bad our situation is. This isn't enough to get us through the next firefight! We'll run out halfway through! How can we manage with just this?" He shrugged with a noncommittal, "Improvise, cuz that's all yer getting." We all glared daggers into his face, and I could feel all of our veins beating on our heads, threatening to burst out of the skin and spray him with our blood. Before I could react, RD slugged the sergeant in the face hard enough to knock him onto the floor, screamed, "FUCK YOU!" At the top of her lungs, grabbed two mags, and stalked out of the palace, presumably to where the rest of the squad was holing up. I grabbed three of the mags, stuffed them in my pocket, and grabbed a belt of ammunition. Before I left, I sent a luggie of spit sailing into his very surprised face, gave my own, "Fuck off and go to hell," and stormed off after RD. I don't know what Arid did, but he joined me before I left the fortifications. When I entered the room where everyone resided, they all looked pissed, even Spike and Mac, who collectively either had no emotion, or extreme control over their anger. I tossed Bouncer a mag, as did Arid, and we sat down. We remained in angry silence over our situation, even when we started eating our MRE's. The day bled on in that silence until night came, and I took the first shift. The night was apparently too scared to offer up anything to disturb my anger as I waited for when I could drop my shift. When my shift ended, I woke up Bouncer, and promptly collapsed into a corner exhausted. *BOOM* I woke up screaming as the entire building shook from an explosion much too close for comfort. Standing up, I rushed to the window sill, and peered out. A crack from a rifle, and my helmet flew off of my head. I dropped down behind the wall, and clutched my head which was now dully aching. My squadmates were now crying out in surprise and terror over the sudden attack. Looked beside me, I saw Bouncer, who was grimacing in pain, slouched against the wall I'd been sleeping on. Fuck. I crawled over to him, and got him onto his back. I told him he'd be fine as I dumped sulfa onto his wound, and applied a large bandage over the wound. For now, without a medic, that'd have to do. I raised my gun over the wall, and fired a short burst, and lowered it again, "How many of them are there!??!" I yelled. "HUNDREDS OF THEM THEY'RE FLOODING THE STREET!" Screamed Rarity. "FUCK!" I blindly fired again. Over all the noise, I could barely make out the frantic firing from the Equestrian side. We entered a frenzy where we shot for what felt like hours, watching as our ammunition bled away. What went even quicker were our grenades. After only a few minutes, we'd tossed them all out into the streets, and we knew we'd killed and wounded several. We could hear them. Then, bootfalls stopped our hearts cold. Someone was in the building. "MAC! AJ! KEEP UP THE FIRE! Everyone else, fight off the intruders!" I exited out my room, and took cover at the corner that oversaw the staircase. I could hear the enemy running inside, coming ever so closer. I popped around the corner, my guns raised. There they were, blue uniforms and all. I pulled the trigger spraying them with bullets. Some of them collapsed, but the others that I'd missed returned fire with bayoneted rifles. I ducked, and stumbled away from the wall to my room, and took cover behind the doorway. Now I could hear the thumping footfalls of them going up the stairs. I fired around the corner again, and heard a body fall to the floor. I stayed behind the wall, and waited a little bit longer, and turned fully out of cover to spray at the next soldier who was only a few feet in front of me. My gun clicked, empty. The enemy soldier pulled his trigger, only for it to not do anything. A small yellow shine showed that his rifle was jammed. He looked down, saw it, and screamed as he lunged forwards. I took a few steps backwards, dropping my rifle. He shoved his bayonet forwards, and I barely caught hold of the blade. I lost my balance, and fell backwards onto my back. The man kept pressing down on my with a snarl, and I snarled back. He'd left his feet wide, and directly over my legs. Perfect target. My boot went straight into his groin, and the blood in his face immediately drained from his face as it scrunched up in pain. He made a noise uncannily similar to how Harry from the Home Alone movie sounded when he got shot in the balls with a BB gun. His knees buckled, and fell backwards himself, letting go of his rifle in the process to nurse his agonizing pain. I scrambled to my feet, cleared the jam in his rifle, and shot him in the head. I looked out into the hallway to see that many other soldiers had made their way onto the second floor, and that the others had quickly, and effectively eliminated the threat. With that out of the way, I returned to the wall, and fired the crap gun until it ran out of bullets. When it did, I chucked it out the window, and went back to my original gun, just to learn I was on my last magazine. I peeked out the window, and saw that there was still no end to the onslaught of enemy soldiers. I prayed for a miracle, and fired off the last of my bullets. Apparently, Arid was out too, since a smokey tailed rocket fired out of the next window and into a group of enemy soldiers, sending them high into the air from the explosion. I found myself in the same situation as I exhausted the remainder of my bullets. I hid behind the wall, and eyed Bouncer, who was still conscious, and moaning quietly in pain. I crawled over to him, and grabbed the extra 4 remaining magazines off of him, and returned to the window to continue firing down on the Fed soldiers. It wasn't too soon that I again, ran out of ammo. I dropped my rifle beside me, an sat down in resignation. This was it. If any of them tried to get into the building again, I , and likely everyone else, was finished. All I had left was my KA-BAR knife. Fuck it, it's better than nothing. I brandished the blade, and waited by the entryway to the door. For the longest time while the battle raged, no sound came from the downstairs. But of course, that wasn't to last. Soldiers charged into the building, and a quick peek confirmed that the Feds were trying to take the building again. I grit my teeth as I waited for the first soldier to come close enough to grab, and when I did, I lashed out faster than the eye could see. I rammed my blade underneath the breast bone, shoved the dead soldier aside, and lunged at the throat of the next with a war cry. I slashed his throat, and jammed my knife through his ribs, shoved him backwards, and lept at the next man who'd caught his falling companion. I tackled him with every fiber of my being, and once he was on the ground, I buried my knife into his wide eye socket. Another soldier came up the stairs, one I already knew I wasn't going to be able to kill, when a gunshot came from behind me, and the new threat fell flat on his face. I turned around, and saw Spike disappearing behind the wall again. I made a note to thank him in the future, and set about with remedying my ammo problem by liberating the dead of their weapons and ammo. The new gun left much to be desired. It had no sights, and jammed every 4 shots on full-auto. But it was better than having nothing. Finally, just as I ran out of ammunition again, the battlefield quieted down. Looking over the edge, all I saw were bodies. Bodies and bodies and bodies covered every inch of ground and formed piles all the way up to 15 feet away from the first sandbag emplacement outside of the Equestrian fortifications. I dropped the crappy gun from my trembling hands which had gone numb from the constant gunfire. It was over. It was finally, over.
Chapter 5: AftermathZlat The fight had been exhausting, and we had all experienced close calls. Mac and I had our helmets shot off, though I wasn't bleeding like Mac I did have a headache. Rainbow had some bullet holes in her uniform, a round had bounced off Applejacks' helmet leaving a small dent, Spike had harmlessly absorbed a few rounds, Rarity had a near miss from a bullet that had passed mere inches away from her face, Ace's rifle had been shot out his hands, and a bullet had gone through Arid's backpack. Then of course there was Bouncer. We rushed him as soon as we could to the field hospital, and as far as we knew, he was going to be fine, but he wouldn't be returning to combat ever again. When the rest of the army showed up the next day, we were relieved to learn that the rest of the city had been swept clean with little resistance, and only a few casualties. When I found our Lieutenant, he was very displeased with the Equestrians, and further agitated with our reactions to him. "If you ever pull off a stunt like that again, I'll see you in the stockade." And he stormed off. Now, we waited. It was honestly depressing sitting around in Canterlot. I still remembered when I'd first come to the city for the award ceremony. Back then, the city had been so beautiful, but now everything was in ruin. Not even the castle had been spared from the ravages. The legendary stained glass that had stood for centuries had been blown out, and several towers and walls had collapsed from shelling and bombings. Some areas looked scorched, a sign that there had been many fires that resided from inside. The local guards had spread rumors that the princesses had decided that they would wait until the war was over to begin repairs to the castle, as most of the treasury would go to repairs to the city. It all got worse when the Canterlot citizens came back from hiding. Their faces... I had mixed feelings about. I felt bad for them, because their homes were wrecked, and the despair I saw and felt hurt me inside, but then I also felt a bit of disdain for them. I'd watched my friends allies get wounded or die and come close to death. The dead would never come back, the wounded would likely be crippled for the rest of their life, and many more would be scarred for life. They just had to rebuild. When they looked at us, there were dozens of different emotions spread about them. Some looked upon us with sorrow for our suffering, others looked horrified, some looked too numbed to the area around them to make an expression, and some (although rare) looked at us with anger or hate. One of them had stomped over to us when we were talking with the Canterlot guard to yell at us for not providing adequate protection to the city. Even though they didn't know what it meant, most of us still flipped them off and told them to start doing something productive instead of placing blame on those who had sacrificed themselves for her, and everyone else's, wellbeing. The worst by far, was when we were traveling inside of the castle to get to the mess hall. "You lousy guards! First you let those awful humans get into Equestria, then you let them into Canterlot! They could've hurt me! ME! If that wasn't enough, you needed more humans to get them out of here! Humans! Of all creatures. You're lucky that auntie Celestia is so gracious and forgiving. If I was King, I would have you all dishonorably discharged in a heartbeat, then banished!" I looked back and forth. There weren't any guards here. Just New York Militia, "You do realize that we're Chestian Militia, right? Besides, you pompous ass, I don't see you in the military. If you don't bother helping with the war effort, then you're in no position to criticize your countries troops. Oh, who am I kidding, you'd more likely shoot yourself then be an actual help." Rarity giggled behind me while the arrogant white pony in front of me blustered, "Do you know who I am?!" "Yeah, a douchebag." He gasped, "I am prince Blueblood! I'll have you court martialed for that!" "Wrong army dipshit, you can't touch me unless I hit you." And with that I spat at his hooves, and walked right on by with my unit, leaving him fuming and making angry sounds. Everypony was laughing their hearts out, especially Rarity and Rainbow, "Oh Celestia Zlat! You absolutely owned him!" Rainbow laughed. Rarity composed herself (slightly) before adding in, "I must agree, that, ahem, snob was certainly put in his place. He needed it." I nudged her in the shoulder with a smile, "You really need to learn to swear." She snorted, "A lady doesn't curse, no matter how much she desires to." My smile only widened, "There are no ladies or gentlemen in the military. That's for civilians, and last I checked, you're carrying a rifle." She smiles back, "That doesn't mean I can't try." I shrugged, surrendering victory of the argument. We arrived in the mess hall in time to see one of the oddest things I'd ever seen. A soldier, one of the Equestrians, stepped up the serving counter, where a server was dishing out food. "Second hash doc?" "Yes please." Some white creamy substance plopped on his tray. "Potata's?" "Fine." The "doc" offered up a sarcastic smile as the cook dropped what was presumably potatoes to *sploch* onto the tray. "Cream corn?" "Thank you." he strained to sound polite. Some "corn" his the plate with a thud. "And for the entree today-" he paused dramatically. "Here it comes." His buddy next in line told him, "Steady." "We have liver or fish." Even I cringed at that. Military fish, and heaven forbid, liver, tasted awful. "I didn't hear you say that, cause it isn't possible. It's inpony to serve the same food day after day. The Genhooven Convention prohibits the killing of our taste buds." His buddy tried to save the cook, and calm down the quickly angering doc, "Easy-" The doc continued, "I simply cannot eat the same food every day. Fish, liver, day after day! I've eaten a river of liver and an ocean of fish! I've eaten so much fish I'm ready to grow gills!" The cook was staring dumbly back at the doc, "I've eaten so much liver I can only make love if I'm smothered in bacon and onions!" He steps back to address the other soldiers in the mess hall who'd stopped what they were doing to watch and listen to the angry doctor. "Are we gonna stand for this! We gonna let them do this to us!??! No I say, no! We're not going to eat this dreg anymore!" And with that he tossed his tray over the heads of some soldiers at a table, and splash onto the wall. "WE WANT SOMETHING ELSE!" He slapped a table, "We want something else!" He kept slapping the table, and as the soldiers started going along with it, slapping their tables, he kept up his chant of wanting something else. He stood on top of an empty bench seat, yelling something unknowable into, "-the world at our eyes! We have nothing to lose but our cookies! We want something else!" Out of nowhere, I noticed a pole, and only because the doctor started bashing his tray against it. One of the smaller soldiers, I noticed, was bobbing his head up and down while shoveling the poor excuse for food into his mouth, while the doctor got off of his impromptu stage, and did a weird little dance, and the guy beside the soldier was doing a weird gesture with his arms. Wait, is he...? Yes, he's wearing woman's clothing. He's trying to get a section 8! I laughed a little inside. The doctor proceeded to give a weird, high pitched cry as he jumped onto the pole, and started climbing. The cook was now banging the food bin lids against their containers while we got our food. Finally, before we left, the doctor grabbed a cloth napkin, and ripped it apart with his teeth. Ponies. Wolfgang I couldn't for the life of me move myself in my wheelchair, and I hated letting Wrought wheel me back to the apartment. But aside from that little sentence from when I first left, I barely had the energy to do more than make a displeased face, which I didn't want to make either. The ride back was a blur. I was just too tired to really care about what happened around me. My eyes lost focus, and nothing would have made sense either. I know Wrought was saying things to me in a kind voice, but I couldn't make sense of it. All I could think about was sleep, and I found myself occasionally drifting off only for my head to bob down and to jolt awake. All of a sudden, I was home, and being lowered into my recliner. I sighed heavily as I entered the familiar warmth and comfort that was my chair, and a pleased smile enwrapped my face. Home, I love you. Next day Ugh, my leg hurt awfully. Each beat of my heart sent waves of pain wracking through my leg, and moving it felt like I was ripping the new prosthetic out of my bone. I reached into my pocket, took out a bottle of painkillers the doctor had given me, and swallowed a couple pills. I moaned to myself as I waited for the pain to fall away. It was a few minutes of suffering, but it finally died into a dull throb. I groaned a little as I pulled myself out of my recliner, and eased myself into my wheelchair. My stomach growled, and I made my way over to the kitchen. I rummaged through the cupboards in search of coffee and something to eat. The coffee was still there, and surprisingly still good enough to use, but there was little in the way of good food. Any food that I liked had spoiled long ago, and the only thing that my Equestrian roommates had stocked were vegetables and broth. I settled for some stale wheat cereal and bread to eat while I waited for the coffee to brew. Apparently, they didn't like milk, so I had to settle for water with the cereal, which in turn, made it kinda bland borderline distasteful. But if I'd learned anything from my stint at Ponyville, it was to never complain about the food you're given. Especially if you're hungry. The bread, which if my tongue wasn't lying was Italian bread, was a little better, and cleaned out the water cereal taste. Having finished, I poured myself some coffee as Steel came out of what used to be the guest room, yawning. Damn, I could practically look down his throat he was yawning so widely. As soon as he finished his yawn, he sniffed the air. "What's that smell?" He asked. "Coffee. Want some?" I monotoned. "What's in it?" He was getting curious, looking at my coffee cup interested. "Ground coffee beans and some sugar. No creamer though, wasn't any in the fridge." "Uuh, sure. Why not?" I wheeled around the kitchen to get another cup and poured him some coffee with some sugar. I handed it over to him, and he grabbed it with a hoof. I'm never going to get used to how they use their hooves to grab things. He tentatively took a sip, and his eyes lit up, "Hmm, not bad. Could be a little sweeter, but it is very good. I'll be sure to ask Lucky to get more." I didn't comment in favor to drink more coffee. Ok, what do I need to do today? Well, I should probably see about going back to school. It's not like I'm able bodied to go back into active service, and I do need to finish school. "Hey Steel, I'mma goin' to head over to the school, see 'bout getting back in." He looked at me with a raised eyebrow, "Why would you need to be going to school? I thought you were a soldier?" I nodded, "I am, but I 'ad to leave for the war 'fore I could finish. See, the militia 're kinda like a better equipped police force, but we don' write tickets. We still 'ave jobs an' go tuh school, but we 'ave to be on guard all the time." He gave me a real weird look, "You humans are strange indeed." "No objection there. But I got a question fer you. Why don' ya 'ave milk? How do you cook?" "Well, it's not really polite to drink somepony's... eh, milk. We make just fine without it." It was my turn to look at him weirdly, with a good deal of added confusion, "The 'ell 're you talkin' about? I'm talkin' 'bout cow milk." "I know, that's what I'm talking about as well. They don't really mind on occasion, but they're still a bit uncomfortable with it." I stared at him a little longer until I realized that he was talking about Equestrian cows. I pinched my nose, "Steel, you do realize that cows anywhere's else on this world aren't intelligent, right? They don' care one way 'r another so long as they're warm, full, 'nd comfortable. Yer cows are leagues smarter than ours. It's okay to drink milk 'ere." "You're bluffing. All animals are somewhat intelligent!" "How could you not know that Equestria is the exception, not the standard? Steel, I want you tuh understand this. Equestrian animals are the only ones that 'ave some semblance of intellect. Everywhere else, they're slightly smarter than a rock. That's the reason why most people eat meat. Otherwise, it would be wrong of us to eat 'em. The only time that it's wrong to drink milk is when it comes from an anthro cow. Regular old run o' duh mill cows 're fine." I could see the gears turning in his head, "That is... confusing and strange." I shrugged, "You'll get used to it in time." and drank the last of my coffee, "Alright, I'm headin' out. See ya later, good luck on yer project." "Thanks." I wheeled myself out the door, called the elevator, and left the building. I rolled my way down the near empty sidewalk. It was strange, seeing the streets so empty. Even in the darkest, rainiest of nights, people would still be walking down the streets. Must be that everyone's already working or fighting in the war. I made my way through the empty streets until I reached the school. I struggled with the door, trying to get it open wide enough to enter and not get stuck. Inside, the school was just how I remembered it. Musty and old. I rolled down the empty halls, the only sound being my breathing and distant footfalls. I found the district attorney's office, and knocked. The door opened up to reveal the same 80 year, thin old Marcus Wild, who's been working here for nearly 30 years, "Yes? How can I help you?" I stretched out my hand to him, "Wolfgang Piatek, Mr. Wild. I was a student 'ere when I got called to serve. I was lookin' to get back in." "Ooh, I remember you! You were the one in the combat trench coat. What happened to you young man? I don't remember you being in a wheelchair." I rolled up my pant leg to expose my new prosthetic, "Got my leg shot off. I've got a while until I can walk again." "I'm sorry to hear that. It's a shame, really. Sending out the young to fight the wars that the politicians start." I shrug, "Thanks for the sympathies, but I would gladly die fer the people over ther an' my comrades. I may be a cripple now, but I'm still gonna do all I can to help." He gives me a warm smile, "Ah, the fire of youth. It's commendable, you're loyalty and spirit, but ultimately foolish." "Ain't foolish if it's fer a good cause. Now, about enrolling." "Ooh, yes. You young folks are always in such a hurry. If you're that anxious, we can get to it." I wheeled into the office, filled out some paperwork, and was told to show up the next day. Well, back into the gauntlet of fire I guess. I thought as I wheeled myself home. Tomorrow was going to be fun. Author's Note Can anyone say where that scene from the mess hall is from? Here's a hint, it's from a comedy show about a war in the 50's
