Our choppers soared over the city of Zephyr Heights. A city at war, and a city on fire based on all the smoke that was coming off the buildings.

"Looks like somepony brought a bonfire," said one soldier, as we flew over the ruins of buildings and structures. The city sure had taken a battering during the time we had been flying over it, and truth be told I felt a little guilt about this situation. Not sure why. I could only assume it was because I hadn't been there as part of the initial assault. Instead, I had been held back, and this meant that I couldn't have played a role in the offensive. But this did little to make me feel any better, and instead in many ways only contributed to the sense of guilt that plagued my being.

As we flew over, I focused on the city below, and tried to focus on my mission. We had been sent in to support an assault which hadn't worked, and as such they needed a hot extraction to get them to safety. Even though I knew Pipp, Hitch, and Misty were no slouches when it came to self defense based on what they had said, and what had previously happened, I knew they would have little chance of holding out for long against well trained and well equipped soldiers on the ground.

So I had to get in there and help, and luckily the unit I was moving in with was doing just that. The city continued to whirr past in a blur, and I kept my eyes focused on the ground as well to try and offset the motion sickness I might feel if I looked anywhere else. My mind had to keep its focus or else we'd be in quite the mess.

I held on as we started to slow down, and sure enough more of the city loomed into view. Apart from the explosions and fires of war sounding down below, there was a distinct lack of anti aircraft fire from the ground or anywhere. No fighters in the air. Had we achieved total air superiority? I know Zipp took out the airbase, which would help to explain the lack of enemy air power, but my mind wondered where in the world the enemy anti aircraft power might have been.

Either they'd run off, surrendered, or simply been destroyed. We must have pushed into the area pretty quickly if those sectors were already taken.

As we flew over a plaza, I saw Pipp being broadcast on a screen, but there was no sound. That helped to explain an awful lot, such as how the enemy didn't seem to be anywhere. Had they simply switched sides because of the speech? If so, that was incredibly handy, and we could use further tactics like that to our advantage.

The choppers then thundered over the building from the briefing. The ZBS Building certainly was quite imposing, but I could see bright flashes of light from inside combined with the odd explosion, which was making for some interesting light effects. No doubt the assault forces had reached wherever Misty was. Well, if they laid one hoof on her-

"Fastropes in position!" shouted a soldier.

"Get ready!" the pilot called. "We'll be dropping you boys in in 60 seconds!"

"60 seconds, copy!" shouted another soldier. "We'll be dropping in first!!"

"Seems a bit slow!" shouted another, as we held on.

I leaped forward and grabbed onto the rope, before I started sliding down it. My hooves locked into position on either side of it, before I reached the window level. I swung forward and smashed through the window and rolled inside. I secured my gear, and looked forward. Other soldiers had rolled through the windows with me, and we began to move forward, others arriving behind us as we moved forward.

Our advance continued, and we soon found the main body of the enemy. Well, truth be told it wasn't hugely hard to find your enemy when they were shooting in a direction away from you. Or at you, for that matter.

I looked over and signaled to the others. "We need to move fast."

"That we do," said a soldier, who raised his hoof. We were soon ready for our duty, and looked forward to await the signal. Moments seemed to turn very long as we waited for the order to make our move.

And then, at long last, he gave it.

"FLASH AND CLEAR!"

With that order, the soldiers primed stun grenades, and then tossed them forwards. Each rolled through the air like a gymnast doing a series of stunts, and when they had finished flying through the air they touched down on the ground.

Everything seemed to run in slow motion, as the soldiers inside the building seemed to realize what was going on. But they didn't have enough time to react to what was going on before they suddenly reacted.

Each grenade suddenly went off, stunning those who hadn't covered their eyes.

"GO! GO! GO!"

In that moment, we charged forward and opened fire, clearing the way with out firepower. The enemy were caught off-guard by our attack, and few responded, instead being felled by the firepower of our assembled guns.

I took out quite a few bad guys that day, and I must say I was proud to do my duty. If anything, I proved to myself something very important. That I was prepared to do whatever was neccesary to keep other ponies safe from the acts of those who would threaten us.

Once the carnage was over, we stepped inside the room and found the survivors inside. It was a mess. Desks were riddled with bullet holes, and equipment had holes in it and was barely functional. But those inside that we had to rescue appeared to be fine. Hitch was seemingly tending to Pipp, and it wasn't long before I spotted Misty emerging from underneath a desk and looking around in surprise when she saw me.

"Sprout?" she asked.

I smiled. "Hey Misty," I said. "The cavalry's arrived. Guess we arrived in the nick of time, huh?"

She dashed over to my position and threw her front hooves around my neck with joy. "You came back for me," she said quietly, as she stayed in position and hugged me close. "Thanks for saving us."

I smiled in return, just glad to have her in my forelegs again, and to feel her warm embrace. "No problem," I said, with a smile. "I can be a cool, awesome hero when I wanna be."

Just then, Hitch looked over, and he looked very annoyed. "Oh, apart from the fact we did all the work," he said. "You just swept in at the end and took all the credit. Bloody Yanks..."

Oh yeah, I forgot Hitch was British originally. Well, you'd be speaking German now if it weren't for us!

But after that, we were taken by the choppers to the palace. It turned out quite a lot had happened whilst I'd been away, and sure enough they wanted to keep me up to date on what had been happening with the battle whilst I'd been down at base camp.

Sure enough, we touched down on the helipad at the palace, which looked a little more worn than in the movie. I'd never been here before, but Misty and Hitch seemed to react to the place as if they were greeting an old friend. And Pipp was simply happy to be home. I mean, she did live here, alongside her folks.

We trotted out along the back of the building, and were let into the structure by a back door, opened by a member of staff who seemed all too happy to see the royal family again.

We trotted down one corridor filled with bad paintings of one soldier, who seemed to have skipped the cult of personality bit and gone straight to portraying himself as an outright deity. Quite full of himself, he seemed.

Pipp sighed. "What a mess they've made of the place. Mom's gonna have to put all her favorite paintings back up!"

Hitch shrugged his shoulders as he trotted alongside her. "I'm no art critic," he said, "but none of these paintings are what I would call good, Pipp."

And I was inclined to agree. Agitprop is never fun on the eye.

Sure enough we made our way into the throne room, and to my delight everypony was safe. They all had their gear and were very much alive. We could rest easy knowing we had pulled through the fires of war and emerged safe and victorious.

But my eyes were suddenly drawn to a set of TV screens mounted from brackets above the room. I couldn't recall these from the movie, so the Gulfstream guy must have installed them.

But they suddenly changed to another image- one showing a figure I would not have expected to see in these parts.

Author's Note

And that about wraps things up for Phase Five of Rebirth of Magic. :)

Next month... naturally... we'll begin Phase Six of Rebirth of Magic in earnest with of course... you guessed it... Izzy Moonbow. :3 X3