"FOR THE MOTHERLAND, COMRADES! SWEEP THEM ASIDE! UURAH!"

What had the unicorn just said? Had he just used a patriotic phrase from an non-Ponish language? Was this evidence of Chris' infiltration into the world? I know he used World at War in one of his comics (despite having never played it based on what he wrote), but I doubt he payed enough attention in history class to know about the Second World War, seeing as one of his history essays on the topic was a confusing mixture of events from both World Wars. Then again, he doesn't know that Communists were amongst Hitler's first victims, so make of that what you will.

Behind me, the tanks were suddenly beginning to fire. Explosions roared and flattened buildings nearby, and the infantry took this as their cue to move up. Finding cover wherever they could, the soldiers hid and made their positions in places of relative safety from the enemy return fire. Tracer bullets streaked through the air and shells flew back at our forces, with explosions starting to rip up the landscape in front of us.

Shells continued to explode on the ground, with massive blasts ripping the ground into fresh craters and flattening out much of the terrain. Barbed wire was hurled into the air and knocked down again, only in a worse mess than before.

"Push forward!" shouted a voice, and a whistle was sounded. Soldiers charged out of the defensive position and moved forward. I'll admit I wasn't looking much, because I was hiding in a foxhole to avoid being seen by the enemy. It was of paramount importance that I stayed hidden, as I couldn't afford for my journey to be stopped by a marauding bullet coming my way. So I simply kept my head down and tried to avoid getting involved.

I barely moved my eyes to suddenly see Izzy dropping into the same foxhole as me, stopping next to me and briefly looking about for some clue as to what was happening. "Let's stay here for a bit!" she said.

I didn't reply. I simply tried to keep my head down as long as I could, as I was determined to survive. My teeth were jammed so closely together it was as if they were glued in position, and I had my hooves on my helmet, which still weighed a lot.

At least they'd remembered to cut ear holes for pony ears, or else that would be awkward.

At least this wall protected us from the worst of the shelling, so I simply stayed in position whilst Izzy hopped over to some periscopes. How had some military grade periscopes ended up here? I can't recall seeing a soldier installing them. This was all very odd and confusing, and was probably leading up to something.

Izzy studied them for a few moments, and then pulled her eyes back from them, her face with a serious look of concern which I didn't usually see on her expression.

Well, things could be going better," she said. "Then again, no plan survives contact with the enemy."

This didn't sound good. I hopped up and quickly tapped her on the shoulder, politely trying to indicate to her to step to one side. It was then she got the memo. "Oh, sure, you can look."

I trotted over and stuck my eyes behind the eyepieces, and what I saw shocked me. The ground was completely torn apart, and the landscape was reduced to a crater ridden mess. Soldiers were stuck and pinned down behind barricades as machine gun and mortar fire continued to streak their way. It was like something out of a nightmare, only the worst type of nightmare.

The type from which you can't wake up.

I removed my eyes from the piece and looked back. "It's just like Paschendale out there!" I said. "When did this place devolve into a World War One battlefield?"

Unfortunately, Izzy missed then point I was trying to make. "Well, explosives do make a mess of flat soil, and once it has been torn up-"

"Not what I meant!" I said, as I moved back and tried to cover my ears as best I could. "I never asked for this!"

And, indeed, I hadn't. When I'd accepted that message all that time ago, I hadn't seriously thought it would devolve into a conflict like this. I had assumed things would play out just like in the move. Oh, how wrong I was that cold afternoon all those days ago.

Suddenly, I heard a voice behind us, and I noticed one of the tanks had moved up. The commander was on his radio. "Negative, we cannot advance. Target building is out of range. The enemy position has our advance pinned. Repeat, large enemy structure has an anti tank gun emplaced. We cannot advance any closer until it is dealt with."

I then heard a voice over the radio. "You'd better hurry up! My soldiers are fucking dying out here!"

"Understood. Dispatching demolitions team now." The commander then looked over to me and Izzy. "You two! Instead of sitting there and watching, get that tower blown. We cannot advance against that position and it's tearing our troops to pieces."

Why us? I sat there, trying to process what was happening, and simply sat in shock whilst Izzy did the talking. "But how?"

"Use the explosives from the ammo dump. Get a move on."

This was enough to shake me out of my state, and I groaned as I followed Izzy. "Oh, fuck my life..."

"Sunny, I don't think that's the right sort of thing to be thinking of right now."

"Fuck was being used as an exclamation, not a verb."

As I quickly sensed we didn't have much of a choice in this matter, we went along with the orders for this insane plan anyway. We went over to the supply box and grabbed the mentioned explosives, before setting off onto the battlefield.

We tried to keep low as the bullets and shells whistled and crashed around us. How much ammunition did these guys have? Surely they'd start to run out at some point?

We dashed into cover and stopped near a group of soldiers. They had stopped before trying to push onwards, so I tried to gauge what they were up to.

You took your sweet time," said one, who looked annoyed.

"We had to get the juice first!" Izzy said, showing him the explosives. "Command said we need to blow up a building, so we will. Any idea which one has the anti tank gun in it?"

A loud boom from a nearby structure answered that question for her, as a shell flew out of it and exploded against something.

"Well, there's your answer!" the soldier replied. "Hope you don't blow yourselves up with these charges! Be careful!"

Being in the midst of the fire and noise of the battlefield was a disturbing experience. I tried to hide it, but I now knew exactly what it had been like for my ancestor who fought in World War One. And died, as it were, died in the service of his country for a war that achieved absolutely nothing.

Izzy speaking suddenly shook me out of my state. "Sunny, we have to do this. Please, for their sake."

I didn't reply, still struggling to process what I was witnessing.

"If nothing else, be brave for me, OK?"

That I could do. "OK then," I mumbled as we turned out attention to the tower.

Izzy had us wait until a lull in the fighting, and then we pushed onwards towards the tower. We moved along and hid beneath enemy fire as best we could, before realising we were moving forward through the gaps in their fire.

Good thing, because my ass was carrying most of the explosives.

We stopped next to the tower, and began to place the explosives in locations that would bring it down. Our soldiers were counting on us doing this correctly, and we would do our duty to this group of ponies.

Once they were planted, we began to pull back to detonate the explosives. Izzy had turned the dial to sixty seconds, which should in theory have given us plenty of time to escape. These explosives used a clockwork timer rather than a plunger, as that eliminated the need to lay wires during the heat of battle.

But as we ran as hard as we could, my back legs suddenly exploded in pain, and I collapsed to the floor.

"SUNNY!" Izzy yelled, as she turned back to me and tried to pull me up.

"I think I've been hit!" I said. Faust, that was something else.

Izzy went round to look. "You look fine to me! It was probably just sho-"

Just then, the explosives went off, and we had to run again. The noise and confusion of a collapsing building engulfed us, until it was no longer possible to see a thing.

And we were separated.

Author's Note

The name of this chapter is taken from the German word for 'crazy' or 'insane'.

Chris Chan did incorporate elements from Call of Duty: World at War into his comic, but it quickly becomes apparent that he has never played the game. I do a more detailed analysis of that here: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/981177/analysing-sonichu-issue-11

Chris also has a rather confused relationship with WW2. The history essay I allude to includes incidents such as the withdrawal from Shandong (with Chris somehow failing to notice the sentence he quotes begins with 'at the end of WW1'), and describing WW2 as 'guns, insults, and yuck.' He also shows a complete lack of awareness of the Eastern Front, where WW2 was arguably won, and in one video also shows he doesn't understand the difference between Nazism and Communism. In short, do not ask this man to teach a history class.

Inspiration for this offensive operation was largely taken from the Assault on Berlin in 1945, with the destruction of the tower based on a level from Medal of Honor: Vanguard. Safe to say, explosives runners had a dangerous job.

What fate shall befall Sunny? Find out next time!