August 3, 2025
Location: Ponyville, Equestria
Time: Unknown
As Sergeant Iron Shod walked through the now, quiet streets of Ponyville he couldn’t help but feel exhausted as he and his other comrades were patrolling the local buildings that once inhabited ponies and different creatures alike.
A week ago this town was as busy as ever, with grown ponies going about their business and foals running amuck in the town, now the town was as quiet as a graveyard, with the exception of glass crunching underneath Iron Shod’s boot every now and then as he walked onward.
A week ago the nation of Equestria was in blissful peace and then out of nowhere the United States launched a surprise attack against Equestria in the early hours of the morning on August 1, 2025.
They deployed Army Airborne units on the mainland and launched an amphibious assault along the southern shores of Equestria, with the US Marines at the forefront of the attack. Equestria had long known how the US had disliked them and their actions against the Griffon people but no one saw this coming at all.
After two long and gruelling days of fighting, the Battle of Ponyville seemed to be over with the Equestrians barely managing to thwart the US forces back to their battleships and aircraft. The only reason why they ended up winning was because the US came ill equipped for the initial assault, but Iron Shod knew that there would be another assault within the coming days and he knew that it would be rough.
As he continued to walk through the damaged streets of Ponyville, he stopped and looked up to the overcast sky above him. As he was deep in thought, he was suddenly brought back down to the warzone that he found himself in by the sound of boots running towards him.
Iron Shod turned around to see that Corporal Breeze was running up to him, rifle in hand and wearing the new and improved Royal Combat Uniform as well.
Only instead of this uniform looking neat and tidy, it was covered in soot and some of the fabric had rips upon it as well.
“Sergeant, we found a hostile soldier that’s still alive.”
Breeze looked over his shoulder briefly before turning back to Iron Shod,
“We recommend you interrogate the man, sir.”
Iron Shod sighed heavily and scratched at his chin before adjusting his cap and nodding to Breeze, signalling for him to bring him to the enemy soldier in question. As Iron Shod followed Breeze down the main street of Ponyville he looked at the townsquare and found some bodies of US Marines laying about in a sickly way.
Some of the bodies were missing limbs and some of the bodies' digital camo uniforms were so soaked with blood that the camouflage was barely recognizable.
Iron Shod averted his gaze from the ghastly sight and continued to follow Breeze, as they continued to walk down the street Breeze stopped at the doorway of Sugarcube Corner and said,
“I’ll stand guard out here Sarge, the man in there can barely move anyhow.”
With that being said Iron Shod nodded at Breeze and proceeded to step inside of the former establishment. Iron Shod took in a deep breath of air, hoping to alleviate some stress but upon taking that breath he only smelled the sickly odor of copper and decay. Iron Shod cleared his throat to prevent the bile from coming up his throat and looked around the room before him.
What once was a beautiful pastry shop, now looked like a tornado ran through the place. As he looked over at the display case he saw that it was completely shattered and the wall behind it had bullet holes and blood smeared across its surface as well.
His eyes scanned the room more thoroughly and he found a man wearing the Marine uniform, sitting on the ground in front of the display area, with a good sized puddle of blood on the floor beneath him.
Iron Shod cautiously made his way over to the man and knelt down in front of him. Without saying any words the Marine tilted his head up and raised his right hand in order to give Iron Shod a handshake.
Just by doing this action the Marine looked as though he was exerting a lot of energy. Iron Shod raised an eyebrow at this action and slowly took the Marines hand and shook it,
“Staff Sergeant Kyle Dunn.”
said the man. Iron Shod took a breath in and said with a tired tone,
“Sergeant Iron Shod, nice to meet you Kyle.”
Kyle chuckled slightly at this but coughed up some blood in the process,
“Ah, shit. Join the Marines, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”
Kyle said with a bloody grin, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and then looked back up at Iron Shod; his smile fading.
“We sure gave you guys a run for your money, huh?”
Kyle said to Iron Shod, this only made him agitated,
“You killed innocent people with this assault that you and your nation pulled.”
Iron Shod said through gritted teeth. Kyle frowned slightly and said,
“I was only following orders, but the main goal of the US Armed Forces is to minimize collateral damage and we did just that.”
Iron Shod only seemed to get angrier at Kyle’s comment,
“Your comrades killed twenty Equestrian citizens and over two thousand combatants, you son of a bitch!”
This only made Kyle laugh weakly at Iron Shod,
“Don’t act so high and mighty, what your nation has done to the Griffon people doesn’t even compare to what mine has done to yours.”
Kyle coughed slightly and breathed in raggedly,
“Besides, almost all of the civilian casualties you mention, were from coastal artillery strikes.”
Iron Shod frowned slightly because he knew that Kyle was right,
“Didn’t know we ended up killing two thousand combatants though. You guys only took out about three hundred of us.”
Iron Shod’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates at this comment,
“That can’t be possible, we were fighting for two days!”
Kyle then adjusted his bleeding body so that he was more comfortable and said,
“You guys might wanna rethink your strategy and how you go about training your soldiers in the future.”
Kyle coughed again, which made more blood come up.
“Fuck, I don’t know how much time I got left in me.”
He smiled weakly as blood trickled down his chin,
“Only twenty one years old and I’m already kickin’ the bucket.”
Kyle looked back up at Iron Shod and said,
“Tell me about yourself, Sergeant.”
Iron Shod seemed shocked by this but answered the Marine’s question.
“I’m twenty four years old, grew up in Canterlot and I joined the Guard when I was nineteen.”
Kyle reached up to Iron Shod and patted him on the shoulder,
“Look at you old man.”
This made Iron Shod scoff, which only brought on a hearty laugh from Kyle. While Kyle was laughing his heart out, he went into another coughing fit and tried to control himself.
“Last time I saw home was six months ago.”
Kyle said with a look of melancholy,
“Didn’t even get to say goodbye to Mom, or Dad for that matter.”
Iron Shod looked down at the soldier before him and said tears began to roll down his cheeks,
“Now I’ll never get to see them again.”
Iron shod put his hand on Kyle’s shoulder and said,
“It’ll be alright kid, don’t worry.”
Kyle attempted to wipe the tears from his eyes with his glove, but only managed to smear blood across his face in the process.
Kyle then reached down and put his hand in his pocket and fished out a small picture from within, he smiled weakly at it and turned it around towards Iron Shod so that he could see.
“That’s me and my family in the summer of 2020 at Yellowstone.”
Upon closer observation of the photo, Iron Shod saw two humans; a male and a female standing next to a much younger looking Kyle and another boy as well.
“Who’s the other boy in the photo?”
Iron Shod said,
“That there is my older brother, he’s in the US Army Rangers. Name’s Joel Dunn, you might see him in the following days.”
Kyle said with pride in his voice. He then held the photo close to his chest and began humming a small gentle tune to himself.
“What are you humming?”
Iron Shod didn’t get a response from the man, he then looked down at Kyle again and shook him slightly,
“Kyle?”
He shook the man again but received no response. Kyle’s arm fell limply to the floor, which caused Iron Shod to look away with a pained expression.
Iron Shod layed Kyled down on the marble flooring of Sugar Cube Corner and proceeded to lay a table cloth on top of Kyle’s body.
“It’s been a pleasure, Kyle.”
With that being said, Iron Shod headed to the exit and saw Breeze standing there with a bewildered expression upon his muzzle.
“Why’d you do that, sir?”
Iron Shod moved past Breeze and continued down the road of Ponyville to continue his patrols.
“Hmm, that was odd.”
Breeze said to himself, before looking at the covered corpse of his enemy and shutting the door to the former establishment; leaving the room in a deafening silence.
