The next day saw the morning break, the bright sun and cloudless sky being a dramatic contrast to the rain from the previous night. We were soon processed out of our tents by the bugler, who seemed intent on ensuring we were rushing from one place to another like absolute lunatics on the field.

We marched from one spot to another, and eventually were sent into the big tent. It seemed we were all being briefed in person, as opposed to how the soldiers would probably get sealed orders in paper documents.

When we entered, it was as if we had gone several decades back in time. The room, which had been a dining room only a day earlier, was now a war room. Machines bleeped and beeped in the background, and soldiers manned equipment and were reading displays.

Maps were on the walls, and in front of our position was a very large map. This map was set out as a relief map, which was a nice sight. It seemed to have some sort of digital projection laid onto it though, which was always quite nice to see. I was happy to see craftmanship of this sort still existed, even this far into the future. I know the cutie map was basically a holo projection, but that's a technicality.

The Colonel and the Queen were looking over the map intently. "There's only one road in and out of the city that could handle our armour column," the Colonel said. "Given that most pegasi fly in or out of the city on planes. This rather limits the armour support that we can receive."

"What do you propose?" the Queen asked.

"I am aware that we must liberate the city, but it is my duty to minimize casualties as much as I can- I owe that to my men. As a result, and I am aware this is a risky strategy, but we must divide our forces into seven groups. That way we can hit our targets all at once with the enemy barely able to mobilize their troops against us."

Just then, the Colonel looked to us, and noticed we were in position. He then began to give us each missions in turn. Zipp was assigned to attack some sort of airbase- I mean, given I had seen helicopters in action it stood to reason they had an airbase to launch them from- and then Sunny and Izzy were sent away on a mission relating to the tanks.

Then it was the turn of the next three of us who stood there. "Misty, Hitch, and Your Royal Highness," Opwinden said.

"Just Pipp, please," Pipp said. "It'll speed things up dramatically when we get onto the briefing."

"Very well," the Colonel said. "Misty, Hitch, and Pipp, you have a rather different objective." He moved the map along a small distance, and zoomed it into the city. "Confirm visual on Whisky Target?"

"Confirm visual on Whisky Target, over."

Opwinden looked back to us. "This is Whisky Target, or as you may know it the ZBS Building. It's been taken over by Gulfstream and his troops, and he's using the network to play incessant propaganda. We must stop these broadcasts and play him at his own game."

He looked to us again. "You three will break into the building, take control of the broadcast equipment, and then read the following message over the network." He handed Pipp a piece of paper.

Pipp then photographed the piece of paper, so the message was on it. "Got it!"

The Colonel spoke again. "Remember to move quickly; hostile numbers could be high and OPSEC could be tight to nonexistent."

"In Ponish please," I asked.

"You might have to shoot your way out." Opwinden then indicated to a nearby wall. "The equipment in there will be critical to the completion of your mission. Best of luck."

I trotted over to the cabinet and opened it, before lifting a very familiar set of equipment out of a box. It was a pair of night vision goggles, a black bodysuit, a code reader, and an electronic lockpick.

It was my old stealth gear from that former mission! "How did you find this?" I asked.

"We stole it off you," Queen Haven said. "The least we could do was steal it back when we left the city behind."

The Colonel nodded as I quickly pulled the gear on. "That will probably be useful for navigating the building. Stealth operations, silencers on. Avoid direct contact if possible. Hitch, Pipp, your equipment is positioned there. Best of luck to all of you."

I nodded, and headed out of the door towards where the tanks were stabled. I presumed we'd be hitching a lift to where they would drop us off. Good luck to us, then, I guess.

Of the offensive groups, we were the second to break off from the main formation. Zipp went first, sneaking up the rockface and making sure to keep her movements swift as she cleared the landscape.

After we had rattled along a bit more with the wind blowing through our manes from the landscape and wind, we arrived at what I assumed was the hopping off point for our offensive.

"This is your stop!" shouted the tank commander. "Don't forget to tip the driver!"

Oh, so they had that here as well? That was quite nice. We hopped off the tank, and began to climb the rockface as the tanks resumed their run. I had noticed Izzy and Sunny were still onboard some tanks, as were (to my surprise) the Queen and Opwinden. Clearly they had their own assault to conduct on the way? It was certainly all hooves on deck for us today.

We then began to climb higher and higher, the ground beginning to peel away as we moved ever closer to the sun.

"This is one case where being able to fly would be super handy!" Pipp said.

"I think a chopper would be too noisy as an approach!" Hitch said. "This isn't Mogadishu!"

"What's Mogadishu?" Pipp asked.

"I'll explain later."

We continued to move across the terrain, the height starting to have an effect on my breathing, and before long the city was there below us. We could see the place sweeping out over the terrain, and one end seemed to have undergone a rather surprising transformation since I had last been there.

The western entrance to the city had become a fortress. The road was covered in concrete structures and heavy weapons, and we could see such an enormous assembly of stuff on the move. Soldiers seemed to be crewing the barricades and about to hold off something.

"He's turned the place into a fortress," Pipp said.

"Well, every fortress will crack," Hitch said, optimistically. "They said Fortress Europe could never be breached. And yet here we are, moving in to conduct our very own D Day. Or should that be Z Day?"

"That would confuse those of us who used to be British or American," Pipp said. "Zipp says it the British way. It's really weird!"

"Before we get needlessly bogged down on stuff that doesn't matter," I said, "let's keep moving and do a superb job of clearing out this tower."

Suddenly, explosions opened up from beyond the lines. It looked as though the tanks had opened fire and the offensive had begun.

"Well, that's our cue," Hitch said. "Let's go, and hopefully this'll be less awkward than last time."

Sure enough, we pushed along through familiar open ground, and down into the outer edge of the city. Our approach was oddly uncontested- it seemed Gulfstream had gambled on a road assault and left some of the inner city less than guarded. We slipped into the streets, and stopped behind a set of boxes as a pair of soldiers trotted past.

"Quiet, isn't it?" said one.

"Clearly the bombing of Staltenburg taught them a lesson, huh?" said the other, laughing.

Once they were out of the way, we snuck through the streets once more. The screens which had once blasted adverts were now running propaganda virtually nonstop. That was going to get annoying if that was all they ever showed. I had to admit it was also odd the screens having no sound.

Pipp had picked up on this as well. "About a week or two as his personal fiefdom and Gulfstream still hasn't figured out these screens have no speakers."

"How do ponies watch your broadcasts, then?" Hitch asked.

"They mostly just sync their phones to the screen, which provides the sound," Pipp said.

So, that was that. After pushing past a fountain, where some statues of Pipp and Zipp had been torn violently out of the ground and dumped on their sides, we dashed across some more terrain and soon found the target building.

It sat before us, a large monolith slab of a structure, streaking into the air. Hitch went over and pushed the door. "Well, there's a snag. Door's locked."

Author's Note

Another day... another chapter for Misty Brightdawn. =3