The smoke was continuing to spread from the collapsed building, and I could barely see a thing from the collapse. I could, however, hear the roar of engines as the tanks began to move forward. Those things sure were noisy.

As they rolled forward, their heavy guns continued firing, and machine gun fire was laid down into buildings. Presumably that was to get the enemy to keep their heads down. I moved to one side to let them go past. It was not a place I was enjoying being to say the least.

I dived into cover as two of the war machines drove past, their cannons firing in unison and continuing to bombard the city. I looked forward once again and noticed part of the enemy defense line appeared to be breaking. The increased firepower was certainly badly damaging buildings and rendering the enemy unable to move up.

A unicorn soldier looked over. "Fortune smiles upon us this day! Today, we lay waste to the Pegasus capital! FORWARD!"

They broke from their trench position and charged ahead in the line, their weapons flashing as they moved up in the sunlight. More tanks poured through the gap created by our explosion, churning up even more mud,

Me? I just chose to wait in position for all the madness to finally be over. I was now experiencing war first hoof, and simply wanted the nightmare to be over.

I held back further as suddenly there were more explosions. And then suddenly a loud voice began to play from some sort of loud speaker fitted to one of the tanks.

"Citizens of Zephyr Heights! A ring of steel surrounds your rotten city! We will crush all who dare to resist the will of the Unicorn army! Abandon your posts! Abandon your homes! Abandon all hope! GLORY TO THE UNION!"

Yikes on Trikes. I think somepony got too carried away. I think Sunny would agree with me on that one, and-

Wait a second. That reminded me. Where was Sunny?

In all the smoke, I had barely seen Sunny at all! She hadn't been near me when the building collapsed, or when the assault began anew on pegasus lines! I had to find her, quickly!

I charged forward and tried to find my way forward, only to find my path blocked by fallen rubble. Well, this is annoying. I had to lowly clamber over it to avoid falling off, and then dropped down to the other side to slowly push my way through the rubble and ruins that lay about the city. I was now moving much faster as I picked my way through buildings that once had housed businesses and ponies, livelihoods and happy conversation. All of it flattened by the nightmare of war.

But I knew I had to find Sunny. If she was in here, she could be injured and in need of help. Somepony had been shooting at her, so she could possibly be hurt, but all that mattered now was that I find her.

I continued to frantically pick my way through the rubble, and tried to locate her, but to no luck. There was no trace of Sunny at all in that lot.

I continued to dig through the rubble even as the noise and chaos of battle continued to erupt all around me, and I simply worked like a mare possessed. I was not giving up on my friend. After all, she hadn't given up on me, and we'd done so well so far! OK, maybe accidentally starting a coup wasn't a good time, but we were at least working on fixing that mistake.

I kept on pulling rubble aside, bricks and rebar being tossed aside like toys. It was hard work in all this gear, but I had to keep it on in order to avoid being shot or turned to unicorn pastrami, which would hurt. A lot. And that I did not want at all!

I kept on working, frantically, trying to find my friend. She had to be in the rubble here somewhere, which was an awful fate! No, Izzy, don't think like that! She was gonna be fine and dandy, right?

Right?

It was after several minutes of pulling my way through rubble, puffing and panting as I did so, that I finally found something connected to Sunny.

I found the dirty, dust covered bag she carried around with her. I pulled it out of the rubble, the bright colours clashing horribly with the dirt, dust, and grime of war. I looked inside it to check things were OK, and luckily the crystals were OK. If we'd lost those all would be for naught, or at least so I thought at the time.

I then came to a horrifying realisation. One that I couldn't get away from no matter how hard I tried.

Sunny was still down there, probably crushed under all that rubble. And it was too heavy for me to move. If we'd had magic I could have lifted most of it free, but I didn't at the time!

I then had an idea. I knew in the film putting the crystals together before then hadn't had any effect, but they'd only had two of them. Perhaps it would work if I had three?

I grabbed the bag again and opened it, before pulling the crystals out and putting them before me.

"Here goes nothing," I said, and pushed them together.

Nothing happened.

Was it all for nothing then? I stared in disbelief?

"No," I whispered. "Please! I need your help! My friend needs my help! I just need a little bit of magic to get her out of there!"

No response.

I pushed them together over and over again, tears beginning to well in my eyes. "Please! Why won't anything happen?"

They should be working by now! We had all three crystals, right?

I know now why they didn't work, but at the time I was in a state of despair and grief, and couldn't focus properly on rational thought. And I was desperate.

"WHY WON'T YOU FUCKING WORK?!" I screamed at them, never expecting a reply, knowing I would now never be able to save her. That pile of rubble was now her final resting place.

I pushed them aside and broke down sobbing. War had taken my best friend from me. I would never again see her face, or hear her gently remind me to perhaps not be so wacky. I would never hear her voice again, nor have a chance to share stories with one who only ever showed me kindness.

Was this my fate? To spend the rest of time alone without my best friend?

I gathered the crystals up and put them away, before running for fellow lines. I had a rifle, as before, so snuck into the lines and readied it. They'd shown me down at the camp how to set the weapon up, so it was a case of following training.

I aimed in the general direction of enemy lines, and began firing.

"Watch you don't burn through all your ammo!" a soldier shouted.

I looked back at him. "They took Sunny from me," I growled. "This is revenge, pure and simple."

The soldier looked stunned, as if he had never seen this side from me before.

It occurs to me now I was cycling through the stages of grief extremely quickly, having already gone through denial and already being on anger. I continued to fire on the enemy, when suddenly one of the tank groups blew a hole in their lines.

It was a rather sudden change in tempo as the tanks began to rattle forward again. They continued firing on the enemy lines.

My radio suddenly picked up confused enemy radio conversations.

"The unicorns are breaking through!"

"They're going to fry our brains!"

"Where is our air support?"

"We're getting no help out here! Faust has abandoned us!"

"RETREAT!"

Suddenly, the lines before us started to buckle and break. One by one, soldiers abandoned their posts and began to leave the field in droves. I could only assume these guys were conscripts who had no real role or stake in the ideology of the war, only they were falling back into the city and trying to escape our advance.

One of the pegasi smiled on our side. "We've broken through their lines! Fortune smiles upon us this day, for we are breaking through their lines! Onwards, to the palace!"

The soldiers flooded into the city streets, moving ahead of the rest of the main formation, and the tanks followed behind them to provide fire support.

I looked about, glancing back at the place Sunny had fallen, and solemnly nodded. "Your sacrifice won't be in vain, Sunny," I said. "I will avenge you."

Once that was said and done, we began to push forward into Zephyr Heights. We would retake this city and remove Gulfstream from power, and with him the nightmare of his rule.

Author's Note

War. War can easily change one's perspective on life when you think about it.