Red Alert: 16 Years Ago

Lost and Found

****

Two new comrades claim they are lost

And they have yet to feel war’s cost.

Though the dirty and wild path may be askew

They find new comrades and restore friendship anew.

****

“Would you like some more tea?” Midnight asked with me politely.

His question snapped me out of my excitement for the moment as I nodded my head.

Even though I wasn’t much of a tea drinker, that last cup really hit the spot. He magically grasped both cups as he got up and trotted towards what I had assumed was the kitchen. As Midnight and the teacups disappeared from my sight, I decided to take in the scene around me for a moment.

My mother always thought that I was a strange pony for doing this. It was a ritual I did whenever I needed to calm down. Mainly because it always worked. I never figured out exactly why though.

Maybe, it’s just because I appreciate good scenery and respect natural beauty when I see it.

As I took in my surroundings, I recognized that the clock that was hung high on the wall behind Mr. Sparkle’s seat had been ticking the whole time. That was strange; usually my observant self is able to pick up on things like that right away. I swung my head across the bright yellow paint on the walls and noticed about a dozen family pictures nailed to it, all of them together.

The first one showed Mr. Sparkle as a younger stallion, nuzzling an attractive white unicorn mare with purple stars for her cutie mark. It was night and they were outside and were dressed like they were going the Gala or something. Behind them was a taxi carriage. A first date maybe?

The second one showed them smiling and the mare from the last picture holding a baby purple unicorn foal in her hooves with Mr. Sparkle giving a young, white unicorn colt a noogie. I managed to stifle a chuckle when I saw that image. After my eyes were done scanning through the various family photos, I turned to my right.

There was the wall that held the brown wooden door that I had come through earlier.

There was also one window on each side of the door. Through them, I could see the multi-colored rays of the evening sun entering through the glass in beams of light. They were giving off various hues of purple, yellow, orange and even green. Beyond the glass, I could see Canterlot preparing for the night. Shops were closing and the giggles of foals were interrupted by their parents beckoning them to dinner.

The mood was surrounding me in an ethereal environment.

Peace.

That’s what I was feeling.

All of this inherent peace washed over my being as I soaked in the bliss that followed.

I have to admit, the princesses did a magnificent job keeping Equestria as beautiful as possible.

And that included waging a secret war to protect it…

Midnight had reentered the room, his hooves clopping onto the floor below. He had two teacups balancing on his horn, one ontop of the other, as he trotted towards me. At first I was astounded at this strange talent of his…only to realize that he was using his magic to hold them in place.

“One day, I’ll figure out how to do it without my magic,” he chuckled as he continued to focus on the cups.

He levitated one over to me with his blue magic and I caught it in my hooves and quickly took a sip, reveling in the deliciousness that was just as good as the first cup.

“You know, Twilight used to love that little trick as a foal. Then she got smart,” he deadpanned as he continued to chuckle.

“Damn books,” he joked as he sat down in his chair levitating the teacup into his hooves and took a sip.

“This is a nice home you’ve got here,” I pointed out, failing to think of anything else to say.

“Yeah, it is. Quiet and peaceful. Nothing coming to hurt us or strike us down. Nopony crossing our borders with a high-tech army coming to obliterate our way of life. Pure bliss. A simple yet satisfying life without the burdens of pain, war, and death on our hooves,” he rambled almost jokingly as he paused to take a drink.

The clock behind him rang out seven times. Evening already huh?

“This was the life that we fought for,” he finished, throwing his hooves up in an almost shrugging gesture and then looked from left to right with a wide grin on his face.

I had to stop myself right there…

To contemplate exactly what he was talking about.

You know, there’s a common misconception of soldiers and the military in general, especially among the younger crowd.

Many think that soldiers are emotion-less robots that have no fear of dying, or that they don’t care about anything else besides war, killing and winning battles. They are often portrayed as over-patriotic powerhouses plowing through enemies without remorse.

Without compassion, even for the enemy soldier they had just killed…

This was wrong.

There is something more to these ponies that I as a journalist, may never discover.

But I can sure as hell try.

“I suppose I should continue eh?” he said softly.

I simply nodded as I took another sip of my tea.

****

“Are sure this is the right road?” the blue unicorn asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I got it,” replied the pilot while holding a compass in his hooves.

Midnight was trotting down a dirt road that led further inland as Skyflare hovered over him, flapping his wings slowly. The booming of naval artillery pounding away, gunfire, and helicopter engines were audible behind them. All of those sounds were becoming more distant as they continued on. After a few more miles, all they could hear was the birds chirping in the trees above and the whistling of the cool breeze being blown in from the ocean.

“I’m just not sure if this is the way to my battalion. When I think about it, I’m not sure if this is the way to any of our battalions,” Midnight stated with doubt.

“Look, I know what I’m doing. And besides, we landed two entire divisions today. We’re bound to run into somepony,” Skyflare answered as he shrugged.

“Wait! Did you just admit that you don’t know where we’re going!?”

Sparkle’s eyes went wide and transformed into a glare aimed at his companion.

“Ehehehe…the compass might have gotten busted when I ejected out of my chopper,” Dash chuckled sheepishly.

He showed Midnight the compass he was holding and sure enough, there was a large crack right down the middle with the needle twirling around aimlessly.

“WHAT!?”

“I know this sounds bad but-”

Bullets whizzed by their heads as gunfire erupted from down the road. Skyflare swooped in and tackled Midnight to the ground before a torrent of incoming fire ripped both of them to pieces. Bullets kicked up dust on the road as shouts came from foreign mouths.

Skyflare grabbed Midnight’s saddlebag in his teeth and started to pull Midnight with him as he tried to crawl off the road.

“Ka mun! Wah gawt ta git owf tha rude!” Skyflare growled with brown saddlebag in his teeth.

Midnight was being dragged on his back as he tried to return fire with his Mare-16. He squeezed off a couple of poorly aimed potshots before he slid into the bushes behind Skyflare.

“Well, it sounds like another machine gun nest. Now what?” Midnight asked.

Dash peeked over the hedge and tried to spot the nest but had to retract his head on account of incoming fire. He sighed as he plopped down on his haunches next to Midnight. The nest continued to spray bullets across the road, keeping the two pinned down.

Skyflare looked over the left side of the bush and saw a grassy clearing. Flanking the road on both sides were trees and bushes, so if they were to move through the clearing, they may have some cover. Lastly, he saw a large rock at the end of the left side that some of the foreign shouting was originating from.

“We could try flanking them. Let’s move along this clearing and stay low under the bushes. You with me?” Skyflare asked as he turned to Midnight.

Midnight nodded as he rolled over to Dash’s side. The pegasus led the way and began moving swiftly through the clearing alongside the road. If weren’t for the trees and vegetation, they would have been seen immediately. As they reached the end of the clearing, another wall of trees confronted them. Behind this wall of trees were the rock and the possible position of the enemy.

Midnight looked at Dash and the pegasus just nodded with whipping out his pistol from his holster. He slid his hoof into the pistol grip and rested it over the red fire button.

“Here we go…” Midnight said with a lack of confidence.

They both brought their weapons to bear as they charged through the trees. The two companions may be outnumbered but they had the element of surprise on their side.

Or so they thought…

When they broke out into the clearing where the rock rested, they were met by twelve Belkan ponies. The entire group of enemy soldiers already had their weapons drawn and trained right on the two Equestrians, as if they had been expected them. Eight of them had Alicorn Killer-47 rifles with the other four were manning the machinegun nest that was indeed sitting ontop of the rock. The Belkans started yelling at Midnight and Skyflare in a language that they didn’t understand.

“You thought we no see you! You very stupid,” the pony that appeared to be the squad leader said.

The white pegasus cocked his pistol and pointed at Skyflare’s head.

“Drop your weapons now soldier,” he said as he turned to look at Midnight in a cold and unforgiving tone.

The squad leader turned his attention back to Dash.

“…And you too pilot.”

At this command, Skyflare literally dropped his pistol and rested his forehooves ontop of his head as the sidearm hit the ground with a thud. Midnight gently leaned over and placed his rifle in the grass. As he unclipped the sword, the Belkan squad leader gawked at it with profound interest.

“You…you stole Belkan katana! You kill officer! Bastard!”

The Belkan pegasus swiped the sword out of Midnight’s hooves and glared at the blade with malice. He turned to eye Midnight coldly. He walked over to Midnight and jammed the barrel of his pistol under Midnight’s chin while moving his face closer to his.

“You pay for this now pig,” the white pegasus whispered cruelly in Sparkle’s face.

The Belkan continued to apply pressure by forcefully pushing the barrel onto Midnight’s chin. His hoof began to squeeze the trigger button. Midnight tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He began tear up as his stomach tied itself into a knot. The unicorn was on the verge of sobbing as he thought about his wife. He thought about his son and his newborn filly.

“Oh Celestia! This is it! I-”

Click!

Then he heard laughter.

****

“So this really was sixteen years ago huh? I can’t believe I was right,” I gasped with wonder as I took a rather large swig of my tea.

“So how did you two get out of there? Did they take you prisoner after all?” I finished, setting the teacup down in my lap.

The warmth from the teacup on my body was soothing to say the least. I adjusted myself in the couch and laid back a bit on my haunches, letting my back rest on the sofa’s erected pillows.

“No. What happened next was the last thing I ever would have expected,” Midnight stated adamantly as he shook his head at me.

****

Instead of a quick and untimely death, all he heard was the mocking laughter of the Belkan soldiers. He opened his eyes and saw the squad leader back off of him, displaying the pistol clearly in front of him with pointing the barrel vertically in the air. The squad leader grinned condescendingly with pointing his hoof at a lever on the side of the pistol.

…The safety was still on.

As Midnight realized this he turned to Skyflare and noticed that he was also still alive. Skyflare, like him, had tears running down his cheeks with a frantic and shocked gaze in his eyes.

He turned to face the squad leader once more.

They were all laughing at them.

Some of them pointed their hooves at the two unfortunate Equestrians as they mocked them and began shouting insults and slurs in the Belkan language. They poked fun at their enemy, the two young stallions both were nearly reduced to a slobbering mess of tears and saliva that dripped out of their mouths.

“They…they’re toying with us. It’s a mind game. I-I heard about this in training...”

Midnight continued to think as the squad leader reholstered his pistol and contemptuously swiped his own Alicorn Killer off the ground and yanked the bolt back and let it go, causing a loud snapping noise as it chambered a round.

“An enemy will do this to prisoners for just about any reason. Whether it’s for pure amusement, boredom, or just a sadistic drive to see their captives suffer mentally and psychologically, this usually means that-”

The squad leader was aiming from the hip as pointed the barrel of his assault rifle at Midnight’s center of mass.

“Kill them both,” he ordered.

“-A captor may not be very merciful…” Midnight deadpanned.

Small arms fire filled his ears, coupled with the pounding of a heavy machinegun.

Midnight couldn’t believe what he just saw.

The Belkans didn’t stand a chance.

Bullets ripped into the bodies of the enemy squad with such speed that the unicorn’s eyes almost missed it. Some of the Belkans yelped and dropped to the ground as their bodies were riddled with bullets. The survivors tried to turn around and engage whatever was shooting at them from the rear. The machinegun crew tried to pivot their weapon completely around but they weren’t quick enough for the second volley.

Midnight and Dash both hit the deck and a second barrage of bullets soared over their heads. The rounds that didn’t punched into the flesh of the Belkan survivors, including the squad leader. After a few seconds, the gunfire subsided with the sound of a few shell casing clinking onto the ground.

Midnight picked his head up and straightened his helmet with a hoof. Their former captors were now nothing more than a bloodied heap of bodies, with more holes in them than a changeling. A couple of severely wounded survivors groaned lethargically as life slipped away from them.

Instantly, three more ponies entered the clearing from the rear of the Belkans’ position. Instead of the solid green of Belka, the cyan of Karalia, or the desert tan of Equestria, these three troopers were sporting a light gray and white cameo pattern. When they entered, they swiftly pumped a few rounds into each of the Belkan survivors.

They began talking to each other but Midnight noticed that it sounded different this time.

The accent was very different and…it was also a different language.

“Yukes,” Skyflare whispered in Midnight’s ear as he crawled closer to his unicorn friend.

“What’s that?” Corporal Sparkle responded.

“These ponies are Yukes. One of our missions was to rescue these guys,” Skyflare spoke out loud, no longer fearing the foreigners.

“Heh. Ironic that they ended up saving our flanks then huh?” Midnight chuckled grimly as the Yuktobanian soldiers took notice of them.

“Speaking of which, didn’t you get your can saved twice today?” Skyflare asked him smugly with a smirk on his face.

“Oh, shut up. You were in just as bad a position as me,” Midnight shot back with a grin.

The mood between the two had certainly elevated, thanks to the arrival of the foreign allied troops now standing over them. One of the Yuktobanians was offering a hoof to Midnight who was still prone. The Yuke had a friendly smile on his face as the blue unicorn took his hoof.

Another Yuktobanian pony grabbed Skyflare and lifted him up into a standing position.

The Yuke that helped Midnight up smiled a sad smile at the Equestrian across from him.

The three ponies conversed with each other in their native language for the next few seconds, before stopping and gazing at the two Equestrians.

One of them was shouldering a light machinegun while one of the other two had a stolen Belkan Alicorn Killer, and the last had a submachine gun. The one with the submachine gun appeared to be their leader and spoke first.

“I am the only one of us that speaks Osean,” the Yuke said with a heavy accent, referring to the language of the continent where the Equestrians and their Karalian allies hailed from.

The speaker looked at the two young stallions with a beaming smile.

“You are from there yes? You have come to help us reclaim our country? Is this true?” the slightly older Yuke earthpony asked them with anticipation and hope in his eyes.

“Yes. We will do everything we can to get you your nation back,” Midnight reassured with a tone of sincerity.

Even though he never thought on the subject before, he felt as if he meant it when he said those words.

He actually believed it.

This leader Yuke pony had a yellow coat, a red mane and was fairly skinny. The Yuke on the left of Skyflare was a burly and large earthpony stallion with a gray coat with a blue and black mane and was carrying his light machinegun from the hip. The large pony nodded at Midnight in affirmation.

The last one on the right of Midnight was the only mare in the group. She had a dark green coat with a light gray mane that streaked straight down over her neck and eyes. The unicorn was brandishing the stolen AK in her hooves as she seductively winked at Skyflare.

The pegasus groaned in disappointment as he eyed what he couldn’t have.

“Please comrades, gather your weapons and we will take you to our campsite. It is the least we can do for our foreign brothers in arms,” the yellow pony offered.

“Thank you. I appreciate this,” Midnight responded with a smile as he and Skyflare began retrieving their weapons.

“I hate being married,” Skyflare mumbled under his breath as he returned the Yuktobanian mare’s wink with his own.

“You wanted your wife to hear that right?” Midnight joked, not even knowing that his companion even had a wife.

Actually, he really didn’t know much about his partner at all.

“So he does have sarcasm,” Skyflare shot back playfully as he rolled his eyes at Midnight.

“Not bad eh?” the unicorn asked as he sheathed his katana.

“Don’t get cocky now. I’m the master of comic dialogue…” Dash confirmed as he playfully tapped Midnight on the snout with a hoof.

The unicorn raised an eyebrow as he half-glared at the pilot.

“Not you,” he finished with a smug smile as they began to follow the Yuke soldiers to their camp.

Celestia’s sun was already beginning to set in Yuktobania’s sky.

****

It was dark by the time they had reached the camp.

Luna’s moon was nonexistent among the white twinkling of the stars above, embedded into the black sky. A gentle breeze blew through the small camp that bordered the forest to the north. All five allies sat in the plains hovering their hooves over a fire.

The stocky Yuke earthpony had already started the fire and began preparing dinner, which looked like scallop potatoes and green beans which were being boiled in a pot filled with bubbling water. A type of soup was boiling in a smaller, second pot. Midnight’s snout couldn’t decipher the smell. The machine gunner dipped in a wooden spoon and took a sip, grunting in approval as he walked off to get more firewood.

Skyflare was sitting on a log further away from the fire, flirting with the unicorn mare. He was making motions with his hooves and she was sitting on her flanks facing him, AK still in her hooves. Midnight heard her and Sky’s laughter in the background. He passively wondered how they understood each other through the language barrier.

But he had more important things on his mind.

The yellow pony eyed Midnight as he took a sip of water from a metal cup.

“I know that look…you’ve killed. Seen death for the first time. I see it in your eyes,” he told Midnight.

The unicorn was just giving the fire a thousand-yard stare.

With a shaky voice Midnight replied.

“I thought nothing of it then. Of all of the death and destruction on the beach. Mangled bodies of ponies.Their screams and cries. The look of that mare’s eyes when I shot her in the trench. The awful smell of gunpowder and flesh. Everything.”

The Yuke lowered his view to the fire as he nodded in understanding.

“I overlooked all of it. I don’t know if it was my adrenaline…my desire to live or what.”

Midnight chuckled as he thought about this, his eyes still glued to the fire.

“It’s funny that now that I’m calm, I can reflect on these now,” he pointed out as he rubbed his hooves together over the fire, attempting to bring them warmth.

“Don’t keep everything bottled up. Let it all out now or push it away long enough to let it out later. In the meantime, you can’t let it get to you. Once you are able to push out all of your experiences and refuse to dwell on them, then you can function like a true soldier,” the Yuke told him.

“A wise pony once told me: the best way to stay alive in battle… is to fight like you’re already dead. That is a tool that helps me, maybe it can help you huh?” the Yuke smirked as he patted Midnight on the shoulder.

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you.”

“Why?” Midnight asked, his vision breaking from the fire and straight in the yellow earthpony’s eyes.

“Because you didn’t abandon us…” the Yuke pony smiled with tears of joy threatening to fall from his eyes.

A look of confusion appeared on Midnight’s face.

“What do you mean?”

“Why else? You actually came to help us! Many of us thought that Equestria and Karalia would just sit back and watch Yuktobania burn at the hooves of those Belkans dogs. But now we will bleed and die together, this makes us brothers,” he said, bringing his face closer over the fire while shaking a hoof to the sky.

“When you put it that way, I’m not so sure I like this,” he joked, the Yuke joining him in laughter.

After a moment of awkward silence, Midnight spoke again.

“Well…at least you’re not alone anymore.”

“Aye,” the yellow pony said as he leaned back to down the rest of his cup.

“Dicer Stagger,” the Yuke said holding a hoof out to Midnight.

“Come again?”

“Dicer is my rank, Stagger is my name.” the Yuke explained.

“Dicer? I’ve never heard of that.”

“It’s equal to an Equui sergeant I think,” Stagger shrugged.

“Equui?” Midnight asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Equestrian.” Stagger explained once more.

“Cute.”

The Yuktobanian laughed at the short response. After he finished, he brought up the final subject for the night.

“We are actually part of a larger platoon you see. We were just scouting out here before we found you. Our platoon is a few miles north of here, planning an assault to retake a small town along the northeast end of the Bastok. We are going to link up with them tomorrow morning, when the attack is taking place you see-”

“You want us to join you…is that right?” Midnight replied as he folded his forelegs, catching on to what Stagger was saying.

“We are going to need every gun we can get and soon. We are outnumbered three to one and we have gotten word that the Belkan company garrisoned there is going to execute the civilians at noon tomorrow,” Stagger appealed, becoming visibly uneasy all of a sudden.

“WHAT?! But why!?” Midnight cried out in shock.

“We don’t know. The town is called Versay. Please, my little sister is there,” Stagger pleaded, holding his hooves together and shaking them in front of Midnight.

Midnight rubbed his nose and looked over at Skyflare, who was reciting cheesy one-liners that the mare probably couldn’t understand while pantomiming them. The unicorn mare was giggling at Dash’s ridiculousness with a hoof over her mouth.

“I’ll talk to Sky tomorrow. But as it stands, we’ll help.”

“Thank you.”

****

Midnight smiled at the memory as the clock struck nine.

“So…it was the Yuktobanians that saved you,” I pointed out matter-of-factly.

“Yeah they did. It’s safe to say that I have a huge respect for the Yuktobanian ponies now. You’d be lucky to meet them. Very friendly and loyal,” the veteran stated.

Midnight turned around and gazed up at the clock behind him.

“It’s getting pretty late, and you can go home and get some rest if you’d like. We can start again tomorrow.”

I smiled as I shook my head.

“That’s sounds fine. Tomorrow it is then.”

As he got up and showed me to the door, he stopped me by pacing a hoof on my shoulder.

“Hey kid…”

“Yes sir?”

“Thanks…opening me up like this…it feels good,” he told me as I smiled again and nodded.

I opened the door and stepped out into the stars, returning to my apartment with thoughts of that story floating around my head.

****

Afterthought

Filler chapter, sorry it took so long.