In an instant, the world around me exploded into fire and noise.

The tanks behind me began their bombardment, the heavy guns firing off shells into enemy fortifications. Explosions rained down upon enemy lines, who only just realised they were under attack.

Explosions continued to rain down as the tanks fired over and over again, acting somewhat as artillery normally would.

"Push forward!" a voice shouted. A whistle blast, and several soldiers pushed across the ground- mostly pegasi, as the unicorns were advancing on another front.

The enemy lines suddenly responded as well, weapons fire cutting our way. Voices shouted in the distance, but they were too indistinct for me to figure out what they were saying. It probably wasn't anything very nice, though.

I didn't fancy getting shot based on the number of bullets and shells in the air, so I dropped down into a foxhole and tried to hide. Sunny was in there with me, clutching onto her helmet. In the uniforms we looked rather odd, and the helmets were pretty heavy, as Sunny had said.

"Let's stay here for a bit!" I said.

Sunny didn't reply.

"Sunny?"

Sunny looked over at me, her teeth clenched and her eyes wide and wild. She looked absolutely terrified, as if somepony was going to shoot her at any moment.

I didn't blame her, though. If we ended up in a state of danger, then we'd have to face the consequences. I noticed a soldier had left a periscope behind, so I popped behind it to see what was going on. I assumed from all the explosions that the offensive was still ongoing as the booms of the tanks guns was still ringing in my ears, but for obvious reasons I couldn't see the attack itself as I was behind a wall and in relative safety.

So I looked at the display from the periscope, and what I saw was like something out of an old war movie.

Machine gun fire and explosions from the heavy ground guns emplaced in buildings was chewing up the landscape in front of us, transforming it into a network of craters and bullet holes. Rounds were continuing to fly back and forth, with enemy fire seemingly slowing the advance.

The soldiers had slowed down, and were seemingly unable to push forwards against all the fire.

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

I looked out of one eye, and noticed Sunny standing beside me. "Oh, sure, you can look."

Sunny took one look, and then pulled her eyes back in shock. "It's just like Paschendale out there!" she said. "When did this place devolve into a World War One battlefield?"

"Well, explosives do make a mess of flat soil, and once it has been torn up-"

"Not what I meant!" Sunny replied, and pulled back from the display, plugging her ears as best she could from the booming of the tanks. "I never asked for this!"

There were more explosions from the front and considerably more seemed to be going on. I looked again, and saw the offensive had stalled. Suddenly, I looked behind me, and saw a tank commander 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."

"You'd better hurry up! My soldiers are fucking dying out here!"

"Understood. Dispatching demolitions team now." The commander looked over at us. "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."

"But how?" I asked.

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

Sunny groaned. "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."

Anyway, we both made our way along the front of the lines to the ammunition dump, where these alleged explosives awaited us. Above our trench the tanks continued to fire relentlessly, their explosions continuing to rattle our eardrums and shatter the enemy lines with firepower.

Eventually, we clambered out of the trench and grabbed some explosive charges. These looked to have mechanical timers, so getting them set would be very easy- no messing with computers here!

The quartermaster looked at us. "Good luck," she said. "Get our army back on the move."

We charged out of the position and dashed into no pony's land as the battle raged all around us. It was like running through the heart of a war movie, only the bullets and shells were entirely real.

I looked ahead, trying to keep my physical silhouette as low as possible. That way the enemy wouldn't spot my appearance at all. Sunny was moving behind me, carrying half the charges we had on her back. Good thing a bullet wouldn't set them off, or else we'd be in a serious mess.

We arrived at the front lines, where a soldier glanced at us. "You took your sweet time," he said.

"We had to get the juice first!" I said, showing 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 explosion, and the ground shifted as something fired from a nearby tower. The rest of the unit was laying down suppressive fire to hold the enemy off from the front lines. The noise was something else, let me tell you!

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

"I'm always careful!" I replied, before looking back to Sunny, who hadn't said a word for a while. She was still white as a sheet.

So I decided to give hr a little pep talk. "Sunny, we have to do this. Please, for their sake."

No reply.

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

That seemed to stir her. "OK then." She turned to the tower.

We positioned ourselves and watched the tower. The tower also had a pair of machine guns covering the ground, which would make moving up incredibly difficult.

We positioned ourselves before the tower in a crater hole, and once they had stopped firing, we primed ourselves.

"On my mark," I said.

A moment's pause.

"MARK!"

We both lumbered out of the crater and dashed across the damaged terrain to the tower, which continued to fire upon the ground in all directions. Luckily, it seemed we had found a gap in the enemy fire to exploit, as else we'd have been cut to ribbons!

We kept on going, dodging heavy fire and eventually arriving at the base of the tower with our explosives. We had to plant them in such a way that it brought the weapons down without damaging the battlefield, or else an advance would be borderline impossible for the rest of our troops. This we could not allow at all. So it was to be that we would place them very carefully to maximize destruction.

I looked at Sunny. "Ready to place?"

Sunny nodded. "Yeah. Let's do this."

We began to slowly work our way around the tower, planting explosives as we went along the base to try and get a clean blast, or as close as we could get to a clean blast in the circumstances.

It took several minutes, but before long I think we had the required stuff in place to ensure that the tower would collapse properly. I nodded to Sunny, and we began to back up. I moved round to the starting explosive, and turned the dial to sixty seconds. That should be enough to escape, right?

"Let's get out of here!" I shouted, and we began to move off. The fire behind us was still ongoing, but we needed to keep running as fast as we could. Otherwise, we'd struggle to maintain a war footing properly, and that was vital for our escape.

Suddenly, there was a scream, and I looked back. Sunny had partly collapsed, and I dashed back to her. "SUNNY!"

"I think I've been hit!" Sunny replied, stuck in position.

I checked her hind legs. "You look fine to me! It was probably just sho-"

Suddenly, there were several loud explosions from the tower, as our explosives detonated in sequence. The core base of the tower was now gone, and it began to wobble. And then it began to fall- towards us!

I pulled Sunny up and we both ran for the safety of our lines as quickly as we could. The lines were beginning to move as bricks and rubble slammed into the floor, which surprised us, let me tell you.

In the dust and smoke, I suddenly lost track of things. And in the confusion, Sunny was suddenly no longer there.

Author's Note

Halfway there now for this week's leg of Izzy Moonbow. ^^