The Legend of Delta

Chapters

Chapter 1: Rude Awakenings
Chapter 2: Unexpected Help
Chapter 3: From Zero to Hero
Chapter 4: Ace of the Skies

Chapter 1: Rude Awakenings

Some ponies have an easy life… some have memories of when they were foals just entering the world, in a safe hospital ward, in the comfort of his / her mother’s arms. In my world all I can remember is waking up, on a cold floor, unknown location, previous memories except essentials erased, alone, with others out to kill me. This is my story as I lived it, my war for my life, and my legacy of how I became whom I am today. My name is Delta…

LEGEND OF DELTA: A Hero’s Ascent

*Thump, thump* *thump, thump*

My head was aching like someone had bucked me dead on in the face, my eyes opened to a hazy picture of what was the world around me. All I could see was a hallway of white marble and stone walls tinted red by the lights on the roof. I looked around and could only see a hallway to my left and right, I was alone. With a grunt, I pushed myself off the ground and onto all four hooves; I took one last look left and right.

“Which way?” Was the first thing I asked myself. I choose out of a pure guess; to go right. As I started to come up to a corner along the hallway I started to hear a lot of hoof steps behind me, I instinctively turned around and then saw 3 ponies turn the corner of the opposite end of the hallway, all fully uniformed in military gear, all armed with AK 47s. They hadn’t noticed me yet so I started to back away in my fear that they were not here to help me, but my back hoof hit a piece of rubble, causing a distinct clacking sound, all 3 turned to face me.

“THERE HE IS, GET HIM!!!” One of the three of ponies yelled out as the raised his weapon and opened fire on me, soon followed by his comrades. In shock I fell back as the barrage of bullets landed all around me. I scrambled round the corner of the hallway and immediately got to my hooves with my side on the wall. I dared myself to peek round the corner again, as my eye loomed past the corner, they fired at me again, causing some loose material to get in my eyes as I jerked back to avoid the bullets. I rubbed my closed irritated eyes and got the debris out of my eyes.

“Don’t just stand there! Move up! Get him!” I heard one say as I got my bearings and began to run down the hallway, I saw a wooden door to the left of the hall and I burst through it as I heard my pursuers turn the corner and fire another volley of 7.62mm pain at me. I locked the door and shoved a couple tables in front of the door. In my panic, I turned to only see 3 walls, but no doors.

“Oh come on, there has to be a way out!” I thought desperately as I scanned the office room I was trapped in for means of escape. Then in the flurry of panic, I saw a metal grate on the wall, an air shaft, big enough for me to fit with ease, but I remembered I was a Pegasus, so I flew up and pulled back on the grate. It gave way with ease, so I climbed in and placed the grate back before I continued through the shaft.

I soon heard the door break down and stopped to be quiet. My heart was beating like drums in my head, but I remained calm and quiet. I listened in on their conversation.

“Where the hell did he go!?”

“ Yeah, he burst in here and now he’s gone!”

“I don’t know, let’s search the other halls, the Boss wants Delta dead.”

As I heard them leave the room, the last words from them echoed in my mind. They definitely knew what my name was, but how was a big question, but not as much as why they were out to kill me. But I knew I didn’t have time to figure out either, so I continued my slow quiet crawl through the airshaft. After about 3 minutes of crawling I came to another grate below me, but before I went down, I heard trouble; more soldiers.

“Ok Corporal, I’m going to check on those 3 I sent after Delta, here take this radio. And just so you know, I’ll see about your promotion if I can be able to see my face in my .45 . So get polishing it, understood?” I heard one voice which was confirmed to be an officer by a “Yes sir!” by the Corporal. I heard the officer leave the room and the Corporal walk to another part of the room below me, I gently pulled the grate up as quietly as I could. Then I looked out slowly from above: the Corporal was looking directly in the other direction from my “peek hole” in this what appeared to be a supply room with a lot of crates. I had to make a decision: Drop down and grab some defensive equipment, or continue vulnerable but not risk getting caught.

I decided to risk it, they probably knew I was somewhere in this place around anyway. I hung onto the ledge of the airshaft by my two front hooves, then dropped down with a flutter of my wings. But I still caused a light thud as I landed.

“Huh?” The Corporal said as if he heard something, “Shit!” I thought as I immediately took visual cover behind one of many crates in this room. By now I was hidden and the Corporal was unknowingly looking in my general direction, no more than a few feet from me.

“… It must be that new medication I got, damn you grandma.” I let out a mental sigh of relief as I heard him sit back on a crate a few feet from me. As I looked of the cover of my hiding spot, I saw my reflection in a knife that was right in front of my face and standing up right on the wooden cover marked “MANE .CO” I looked at the reflection of my green face on the knife’s long blade. I then stood up taking the knife and sneaking very quietly up behind the Corporal who was humming to himself the music of Skillet’s single: “Hero”.

By now I was centimeters behind him, I then stood on my two hind legs with the knife in one front hoof and my other ready to cover his screams and I quickly grabbed him by the muzzle, shutting it, while thrusting my knife in his chest. In the rush, I pulled him back a little but he still had made a struggle with painful screams muffled by my hoof. His eyes looked at me as I looked at his, he was terrified but soon his face went blank as he stopped struggling. He was dead, I killed somepony! I stepped back in realization of what I just done, but I soon came to the conclusion that it was either him or me.

“Get used to it Delta, you may need to kill more to get out of here alive.” I said to myself as I then regained my focus and seen the radio on the crate he once rested on, an empty equipment belt next to it. I put the belt over my head and left wing, attached the radio and took the knife out of the Corporal’s chest, putting it in the sheath on the belt. I dragged the body behind a more covered area of the room and put a plastic sheeting over his body, luckily he didn’t bleed on the floor so there were no blood trails to expose the body. I was about to leave the room when my eye caught a glint of something in-between the crates I pushed a crate back and what was revealed reminded me of the dead Corporal’s last conversation.

“…just so you know, I’ll see about your promotion if I can be able to see my face in my .45…” The officer’s voice echoed in my head as I looked upon a Colt M1911 .45. The Corporal must have dropped it when I grabbed him. I picked up and inspected the side-arm. It was loaded with 7 rounds in the magazine, and one in the breach. When I took note of the mag’s size then re inserted into the weapon and searched around for more ammo. I found the officer’s bandolier with 4 more magazines so I inserted then into the pouches on my belt and then got up to the door.

I slowly pushed the door open and peeked inside the next room. I saw an open atrium with the odd crate around, but no sign of any soldiers. Then as I walked in, the radio repeated my pursuer’s notification. “All teams please advise, Delta is still in the facility, we will use the broadcast system to get him to stand down, but despite what I say on the load speaker, if you see Delta… shoot to kill.” A few “yes sir"'s and “understood sir”s were heard after that, I then walked into the center of the room as loudspeakers around the facility and in this case in this room, crackled into life…

“Attention Delta! We know you are still somewhere in this facility, put surrender now and turn yourself in, in return you will not be harmed. Hiding and attempts to escape will be seen as acts of aggression! Give yourself in Delta… we know you’re listening.”

“Pfft, no bloody way ‘mate’.” I remarked to the speech over the loudspeaker. As I was almost across the room, the door to my right burst open and more armed soldiers came rushing in, they didn’t even wait to give me a chance to surrender, not that I would anyway.

“There he is! Open fire!” One ordered as they all poured lead in my direction. I took cover behind a concrete barricade and when I heard one of them reload, I popped up briefly and fired 2 rounds. Both hit their mark, one down, a whole lot more to go. This cycle continued for the next five minutes, I spent to mags on the enemy and had 2 mags left. I took a peek round the side of the increasingly carved out barricade. I saw 2 Unicorns moving up with large metal shields, obviously thick enough to have my bullets bounce off. I had to take these 2 out before they got too close.

Then as I went fully behind cover again, I had spotted a yellow barrel marked ‘WARNING: COMPRESSED PROPANE GAS’ Propane under the right condition could explode easily, a barrel full of it with the gas itself was being compressed being shot was more than defiantly enough to cause such an explosion. I waited a tense 6 seconds of continuous gunfire chipping away my cover more and more with each round they fired. I then popped up out of cover again and fired 3 rounds at the barrel that was by now right beside the 2 Unicorns in quick succession which had ignited the gas and blown up the barrel, causing the barrel’s casing to become lethal shrapnel and bury most of itself inside the 2 Unicorns, killing both of them. I managed to get down again as the shrapnel hit just where my head was half a second earlier. The explosion left a constant ringing in my ears but I was still able to fight, and fight I did.

By now the stand-off had been going on for 6 minutes, I was down to my last 3 rounds. But the enemy had plenty of ammo and much more firepower, which was about to be demonstrated with the target of choice being me. I peeked round the corner and to my horror, saw a pony with a long wooden covered metal tube on his shoulder with what looked like a scarred green rugby ball on the end. But that was no ball, it was an RPG! I saw him poke out of cover quickly and fire his deadly rocket. I took cover again as the deadly rocket streaked past my cover and into a wall behind me, destroying it completely leaving a gaping hole, that through my blurred vision from the shockwave’s concussion; revealed a waterfall and a shear mountain slope.

“Mountain cave base, impressive.” I remarked as the ringing of the explosion stopped and I steadied myself. The first rocket may have been a miss, but I guessed the pony would not want to miss twice. I waited for a few seconds looking round the corner, waiting for him to pop up. After a few more seconds he did so, which was a movement I matched and I fired my last 3 rounds into him, but I was still too late, as he dropped dead, the RPG fired and I saw the rocket speed towards my cover. Things went slow motion at that time. I saw the rocket impact my cover as I was only able to get 3 steps back. The explosions had destroyed my cover completely and the shockwave blew me out the gaping hole and down a shear drop that was the side of the mountain.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!” I screamed in terror as I fell down and due to my disorientation I was not able to get flying. As my spinning fall stopped it’s rotations, I saw that I was heading for a large pool of water, but I didn’t have time for a deep breath.

I impacted the water and sunk very deep before I had stopped sinking and was able to get my bearings. By now I was very low on air, my lungs were burning for air but as I swum back up my instincts took over and I made a very bad mistake, I tried to breath. This caused the water to choke me a bit. I was starting to have blurred vision with dots appearing all over my vision. I began to fell lightheaded as the lack of air starved my lungs and brain. I was so close to the surface when my strength had just suddenly given out and I began to sink again, more water starting to fill my lungs.

“Come on Delta! You can make it! You’ve just got out of hell, don’t die here!!” I screamed mentally to myself, but I felt a sudden burst of strength and I began to swim back up. I broke the surface gasping for air, tired and barely able to keep afloat. Luckily there was a piece of wooden debris floating just o my left, I swum over to it and with a grunt pulled myself onboard and out the water. I coughed for a bit with some pants for air, but my tiredness soon took over. My head fell down on the debris and I closed my eyes. Immediately falling asleep as the current took me along it’s path.

Chapter 2: Unexpected Help

*3 Hours later…*

By now I was starting to slip in and out of consciousness, all I saw was the rushing water as the chunk of debris carried me along the river. All I caught small glimpses of were the blurred and moving river banks and the dense evening forest sunset that drew a faint silhouette of the forest canopy. I soon heard my ‘raft’ drift onto one of the banks. I saw a few more glimpses of the forest from there but not much other than the fading sunset and the trees covering what would be a perfect starry sky. But it was soon later I saw from the corner of my eye that something moved, I tried to look up but only got my head up so far before I was struggling to even keep awake, but I was able to stay awake long enough to make out what looked like a pony, but it was striped and the moon’s light reflecting off what looked like a thicker part of it’s neck, before I passed out again I heard a feminine voice sounding riddle: “Dear heavens I must say, are you ok?” That was when everything had gone black again.

When I started to come to again, I had expected to see the mere forest floor and a dark, cold night. But what I was met with was quite the opposite. My eyes opened to see a starry sky from behind what looked like a glass window, a shield from the cold air that provided the forest night’s chilling atmosphere, a safe guard to admire the beauty of the night sky. But quite frankly I thought I wasn’t in the situation to be star gazing, I looked to my left to see what looked like a basic home’s but had been made over by a chemist, there was jarred chemicals, bugs, and herbs, complete with a work bench with a dim candle lit to provide light for what I think was cataloging the productions here or a journal for the owner, maybe even mixing the various possibilities of chemical combos. By now I thought that I had enough observation and tried to sit up, however the immense pain in my lower muscles had caused me to think otherwise, I gave a grunt of pain as I stayed there half sat up, but I felt a pair of hooves hold my shoulders, I would have jumped but I heard what I recognized to be the same voice I heard at the river, still riddles though.

“Easy there young’in, you’re not in shape to be runnin’. Please, lay down and rest, it is for your best.” The feminine voice spoke, considering that his was the friendliest thing I’ve heard compared to death taunts and gunfire, decided that I may as well play nice and do as told. I laid back down just as soon as I felt a headache creep into my head; I clutched my face with a hoof rubbed my eyes to clear it’s blurry imperfection that clouded my vision.

“Where am I?” I merely asked as I regained my thoughts over what had happened in the day’s previous events.

“Evertree forest, I found you by the steam by my house yes? Oh! Where are my manners? My name is Zecora, what is yers?” I opened my eyes to see a Zebra beside the couch I was on, she had golden neck, hoof and ear rings, plus from her accent I could tell she came from Africa.

“Delta, I’m Delta.” I looked over to where my pain was being felt, I saw that my lower half was wrapped up under a blanket.

“Delta, I don’t know what caused your internal bleeding, but here drink this, it will cure it and your paining.” She held out a bowl of a green substance, probably a medicine to cure he bleeding and hopefully kill the pain, I took it carefully and drank the contents, as soon as I had down with it all, I ended up starting to gag, that medicine did NOT taste good. This feeling soon passed, but I knew next time to be careful. Luckily the medicine did not take long to take effect and soon I felt the pain in my insides fade and the wounds seal up it must have neutralized the remaining water in my lungs as well since breathing became easier. With a ‘thank you’ I passed the bowl back to Zecora and with a simple nod, she left to go and clean it. Why was this Zebra being so nice to me? I mean, I’m someone she could have easily left alone. Yet she took me in and provided help. But before I knew it I felt my eyelids start to droop and soon I was back in the realm of dreams.

*Inside Delta's Dream*

“Hiya honey.” I said as I walked over to her as she walked to me and before we walked into each other, we stood on or back hooves and held on to each other with our front hooves, I held her hips and she wrapped hooves around my neck.

“Howdy handsome.” She said as she looked into my eyes with her alluring green ones, we stayed like this for some time not separating our stare of love, but we soon started to lean in to each other our eyes closing slowly, but just before our lips meet each other’s she whispered 3 words that I never get tired of hearing from her: “I love you.” I returned the words; “I love you too.” and soon our lips met-

I awoke with a jolt. “Wow, what a weird dream” I thought to myself as I groaned, got off of the couch and picked up my sidearm only; since I couldn’t find my knife and secured it onto my weapon belt. I walked out the main door soon after I double checked that I was ready to go, but as I was about to take off into an uncertain future, I heard Zecora call me back inside; “Delta? Leaving already? You just got here; Wounded and unsteady. Well here take this; it will help you get to where you wish.” She gave me a bag of different fruits and energy foods, even a map. I realized she even polished my knife when I saw my reflection in it from the bottom of the bag.

“Miss Zecora, I can’t thank you enough for what you have done for me.” She simply smiled and nodded.

“Oh and one more tip? I will help you in your trip.”

“Shoot, what is it?”

“Dreams can be visions unless they are blank; you don’t know until you discover the mare behind the black.”

I gave a light chuckle at her tip but none the less thanked her for it, strapped the supplies bag and took one final look of Zecoras home. “One day, I will return here,” I thought as I turned and took off into the air. I pulled out my map and headed for a group of clouds marked on my map as “Cloudsdale”.

Chapter 3: From Zero to Hero

“5 hours of flying later”

“Ok, Cloudsdale should be just up ahead” I looked down to my map after surveying the ground below me for the end of the Evertree forest’s tree-line. I banked left to avoid colliding with a cloud wall and as I had gone around it the sight was something that left me awestruck. It wasn’t just a town; it was practically a city in the skies!

“Whoa… now I’ve seen everything.” Was the only thing I could say as I approached Cloudsdale. But I noticed something wasn’t right. There wasn’t any ponies flying round and the sounds of distinct ‘popping’ was enough to raise my concerns, which were confirmed as I approached the city. The streets where popped marked with craters, the walls were holed with bullet holes and the streets were littered with the bodies of the dead and dying, the once water filled puddles were now tinted with their blood. Suddenly I felt a hoof grab my leg from behind. I quickly upholstered my side-arm and aimed it at the hoof’s owner, it was an old-ish stallion that was bleeding, badly.

“Oh god, hang in there mate, you’re going to be ok.” I said to him as I rolled him over and pressed my hooves down on the bullet wound, trying to stop the bleeding. But as I did so I could faintly see his lips moving, mouthing soundless words. “Say again sir?” I asked as I put my ear closer to his head, I could barely make out what he said: “Please… s-save my Daughter.”

“What’s her name? Where can I find her?”

“F-far end of the street on t-the left, h-her name is Rainbow. The soldiers are after her… p-please hurry…” After that I had noticed he wasn’t breathing, he was gone. I noticed that he had a locket around his neck that was open with two pictures inside, one had a picture of a cyan filly with a rainbow mane and the other had a picture of the Father, the filly and her mother in a group photo. I looked up to see a mare not far from the now deceased Stallion, it was his wife. But from what I saw she was covered in blood, she had been shot at least 5 times. I looked back to the dead stallion and took his locket while muttering a remark to his previous request “I will keep your daughter safe, I promise.” I then closed his eyes and stood up. “This genocide ends now.” As I turned around to walk away I took one last glance at the father and mother before looking back to my direction through the streets that were painted red with the innocent blood of the ponies who occupied them.

After some time of walking through the streets, the only thing I heard was the sounds of gunfire, explosions and screaming but soon I started to hear rumbling as I felt the ground suddenly start to shake. “The hell?” I looked round the corner of a street to see a metal beast rumbling towards me, they had a freaking tank! “There is no way my luck can be that bad.” I remarked to myself as I prayed the tank wouldn’t see me, but these hopes were dashed as if on cue, it’s turret turned face me and I heard the distinct sound of a shell being loaded. “Aw. Hell! NO!!”

Anticipating the tank crew’s next move I ‘dolphin’ dived back along the way I came behind the cover of the building I was beside and as I did, the entire corner of the building seemed to just disintegrate as the 120mm HEAT (High Explosive Anti Tank) shell tore it apart. The explosion had left a very loud ringing in my ears as I had hit the ground only to have various pieces of granulated cloud brick and air wood debris land on and around me. I got back up with my vision blurred by the concussion from the shell’s explosion but I had bigger problems, I soon heard the tank start to move again, probably to check if I had lived and finish me off if I did. I dove through the window of the partially destroyed building, shattering the glass as I did. I stayed down behind the cover of a table and pile of rubble to avoid detection from the tank. After a few tense seconds the tank had passed my position and continued along down the road “Well, that was a tad too close…” I remarked to my luck as I got back up from my cover and dusted myself off, luckily the ringing from the tank firing at me had dissipated and damn that gun was loud.

Considering how well armed these soldiers were, I knew that the filly ‘rainbow’ wouldn’t have much time so I figured it was best I’d get moving again and so I did. As I continued down the war torn streets I had came across several equestrian guards, unfortunately, all were dead but that gave me an advantage; more equipment. I had found and in a way; ‘looted’ 4 dead guards. I managed to acquire a better knife sheath which I used to replace my old one, 5 M67 fragmentation grenades, a Colt M4A1 and even a AW .50cal sniper rifle, to make things even better, all of the weapons that I had, including my side-arm had quite a lot of ammo on the soldiers who once fought with them, I guess they were expecting a long fight and by the load-out on each soldier, except for the sniper, had a standardized load-out. Hell I’m surprised that they even all had their own wallets with them, that ment that they were expecting to live through it or had been taken by surprise while on patrol, in all I had acquired a total of 1560 bits. The ammo and grenades had fitted perfectly on my tool belt and each weapon had it’s own sling so carrying all this wasn’t that much of a problem, even my sack of bits had fit on my belt, I just hope this doesn’t count as stealing. But now that I was now physically ready for battle, I loaded my weapons, readied my assault rifle and pressed on into the war torn city, hell bent on saving as many ponies as I can.

“Ok, the house should be just ahead.” I said to myself as I turned to corner of a neighborhood and there it was a house that seemed to be untouched by the gunfire at the end of the street but considering how far the enemy had advanced through Cloudsdale, I knew it wouldn’t be for long. So I trotted up to the door of the house and tested the door handle, it was unlocked so I slowly opened it and entered the house. The house itself looked like it had been looted, furniture had been scattered, windows had been smashed, photo frames broken and their contents distorted by the broken glass that once shielded them.

Sometime into searching the house, I had come up to a door that had a sign saying ‘Dashies’ room’, “This must be her room.” I thought to myself as I slowly opened the door and entered the bedroom. “Hello? Anypony here?” I called into the room as I walked in, soon I stopped as I heard what sounded like a scared whimper, it came from under the bed so I looked under the bed and sure enough there she was, a lone filly, rainbow mane, cyan coat, scared stiff and face soaked in tears as she peered up at me. “P-please *sniff* d-don’t hurt me…” She squeaked to me amongst her terrified whimpers.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I’m here to help c’mon we need to go, now.” I told her to try and calm her down enough to get her to move, the soldiers would be on the house in a matter of minutes if not seconds.

“N-no! W-where’s my daddy? Did he send you?” She asked in worry, I was about to say what had happened to him when I realized that would just make things worse.

“Yes, he sent me, he wants you to be safe… and he sent me to get you out of here.” I replied.

“*sniff* H-how do I know you’re not lying?” She asked me. I have to admit, she’s got me there, I had no real proof but then I remembered the locket, I pulled it out of my tool bag and gave it to her. “O-our family locket? H-he had this when he left with mommy. S-sorry mister, I guess you did meet them, ok, let’s go. B-but *sniff* are they safe?” This question made gave me a dilemma, if I told her the truth, she’d be in a nervous wreck and wouldn’t be able to leave, but if I lied, she’d eventually find out and think that I killed them. Damn, I hate karma. I sighed as I knew I had to make a decision. I chose to lie.

“Yeah, but the one thing they want you to do is get somewhere safe, there are bad ponies coming, so right now we need to go, ok?” It pained me to lie to her, but I knew I had no choice, her parents were long dead, but I couldn’t let her have the same fate. I held out my hoof to help her out.

“Ok, *sniff* let’s get out of here.” She said as she wiped her tears and took my hoof to help her crawl out of the bed. Soon as we were leaving the house she had stopped to take one possibly last look at her home, I knew that she was in a bad position right now; leaving her home with a stranger that she could barely trust, so I gave her a minute to take one last look of her home and with a sigh she slowly closed the door to the house and rejoined me by my side. I asked her if she was ok, but she bluntly relied, I will be the sooner I meet up with my mom and dad. *Sigh* I wish that would be true.

After sometime of walking down the streets towards lines where the equestrian military was slowly pushing back the enemy I started to hear a rumbling noise again, the tank was back! “Uh mister? What’s that noise?” Rainbow asked me, obviously concerned and she had a big reason to be. I grabbed her hoof and quickly lead her to an alleyway. As we hid, she took a glance round the corner and saw the tank roll down the street about 50 meters from us and stop to turn and drive down the street we were in. In her panic she tumbled back and in a loud whisper said to me: “Mister! That… thing is coming towards us!” Realizing that the tank might find us, I lead her further down the alley and hid her behind a trash canister.

“Stay here and keep quiet. I can handle this. Oh, you might wanna cover your ears too.” I explained to her as I came up with the idea that if I could drop a grenade inside the tank, I could blow it up. She nodded at this and kept crouched down behind the trash canister while I walked back up to the corner of the street and waited for the tank to drive by after a few seconds of tense waiting the tank had drove down the street pas the alley me and Dash hid in, but when the tank did, I followed it. I unclipped a grenade from my belt as I gave a short flight to hop on the tank; I pulled the pin of my grenade and popped open the hatch to see the crew look up at me dumbstruck of what was happening.

“Hot potato, assholes!” I joked to the tank crew as I chucked the grenade down the hatch and slammed it shut, as I dove off the tank I heard the crew curse in panic as they tried to get out or throw the grenade back out it only took 3 seconds after I dove off the tank for the grenade to detonate, what I hadn’t counted on was that this tank had it’s ammo stored around the turret, so instead of just killing the crew of the tank, I blew the whole damn turret off! The turret was sent flying in the air as it separated from the tank but as I got up I realized it was coming back down at me!

“OH CRAP!!!” I cursed as I instinctively ducked down when I saw the turret fall towards me, anticipating my certain death I closed my eyes in fear. I soon heard the loud ‘clang’ of the turret impacting, a few tense seconds had passed but then I realized that I was still alive! I opened my eyes to see that I had been in the exact spot of where the turret hatch was on the turret, I then stood up, astonished of my luck that I wasn’t crushed. “Whoa… that was a close shave.” I stumbled out of the turret and regained my bearings. I came back over to Dash’s position. “Ok, the other soldier’s probably heard that, we’d better get moving.” She nodded at this and we continued our journey.

Sometime later, we had progressed through the majority of the city and towards Equestrian Quick Reaction Force’s lines I stopped at the corner of a house and peeked round to see some soldiers in E.Q.R.F uniforms, we made it. I was about to turn the corner but stopped myself and looked back at the city, I had got one civilian out and the terrorists were still putting up a fight, if I joined up with the E.Q.R.F, they’d dis-arm me but if I didn’t and turned back I might be able to do some more help. I realized what I had to do. “Dash? Listen, these ponies are going to help you ok? I need you to go with them.” I told Rainbow as I turned back to her.

“Wait, w-what about you? You’re not coming?” She asked in shock thinking that I was an everyday civilian here in Cloudsdale, looking to escape the chaos. But considering where I woke up the first time as in some kind of experimental base, there was a reason these soldiers wanted me dead, that could risk the lives of everypony around me. So I shook my head at her question but what she did next I have to admit surprised me a little. She wrapped her hooves around me in a tight hug and uttered; “Thank you, I won’t forget you.” To be honest I couldn’t help but smile and hug her back. But I knew that there was no time for heartfelt moments so I released her and turned back to face the corner of the building.

“HOLD YOUR FIRE!!! CIVILIAN COMING OUT!!!” I yelled to the E.Q.R.F soldiers, they heard acknowledged my call and responded; “Roger! We got you covered!” I tapped Rainbow’s shoulder as a sign for her to go, and she dashed round the corner and towards the soldiers. I was about to turn back but then things gone to hell.

“ENEMY TANK!! FALL BACK! FALL-!!!” This panicked call was just down the street to my left in the opposite direction of the E.Q.R.F soldiers we met up with, but the rest of the panicked call was muffled b the explosion of a tank round blowing the soldier across the street. “There were two tanks!? Oh now you’ve just GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!” I mentally yelled at myself as I saw the tank slowly turn the corner of the street. I had to stop this tank, if I didn’t everypony would die. Then an idea came into my head, it was a suicidal risk; but I had no choice. “Well, buck it, this will either save them or make me a red mist.” I remarked to myself as I drew my rifle and “cowpony” rolled into the center of the street; I fired 6 rounds to get the tank’s attention away from the E.Q.R.F and survivors, it worked; the tank’s main gun turned towards me as I aimed at the tank’s main gun barrel as heard the confused calls behind me saying what I was doing was suicide. Hell, I had to admit I kinda agreed with them, if I didn’t miss and get killed that way, the near molten copper from the tank’s shell would rip me to pieces. But I had already let down one little filly’s father, I was not about to let down anypony else!

“This colt’s outta his mind, EVERYPONY DOWN!” I heard an E.Q.R.F soldier yell as the tank finally got it’s main gun to aim at me since this version didn’t have a coax machine gun, time seemed to slow as I aimed down my M4A1’s Red Dot Sight, I saw the light of the tank’s interior disappear as the shell was loaded, I had to time this right, if I fired to late, I’d be killed, too early and the shell wouldn’t detonate, these shells were safe until fired or used as an I.E.D. Tense seconds had passed but sure enough, amongst the ominous silence despite the tank’s engine rumbling away I heard the tank commander yell one word: “FIRE!!!”

I squeezed the trigger and as time slowed even more I saw my bullet slowly protrude from my rifle, the AP 5.56mm N.A.T.O round’s copper layer glistened in the shine of the sunlight as it sped towards the tank, at the time when the bullet had covered half the distance between me and the tank, I saw the tell-tale fire ball of the tank firing it’s massive projectile towards me. What had actually happened in a ‘flash’ was feeling like hours to me. I saw the projectile’s get closer and closer until ‘clink-BOOOM!!’

The sheer blast of the shell had blown me off my hooves as the shell’s shockwave torn the top of the tank clean off and blown up the stored ammo inside it, destroying the tank. By then time had seemed to go back to normal as the fragments of the tank’s armor landed all over the street, leaving the tank to be nothing but a topless heap of metal that burned like a Romane candle. I soon got to my feet and took a first hoof glance at the result of the destruction that I had caused to the iron beast. Luckily the crew was killed in the blast so I wouldn’t hear their screams as they burned to death. By now the ponies behind cover had peeked out to see that the tank that would have ended their lives had been reduced to piles of burning scrap metal and in doing so they realized that I had saved their lives. A few seconds later as I stood before the bewildered crowd of survivors, an E.Q.R.F soldier had walked towards me, seemingly mind-blown as he glanced between the tank and me. “Nice shot.” He complimented as stood in front of me, soon I had heard a broadcast over his radio.

“All units please advise, the all of the hostiles seem to be retreating! I’ll say it again, he terrorists are retreating! We’ve won!!!” I heard the other soldiers and survivors then had started to cheer with the battle being over and them being the victors. Soon I had took my attention back to the cheering crowd as they rejoiced with a smile on my face, soon I saw the ominous flash of a camera and realized that this photo would probably appear in the papers, I had attracted too much attention as it was, so I turned away from the crowd and walked past the tank but soon the crowd had noticed of my leaving and the soldier that was once beside me had ran up to me and asked. “Hey, where are ya going? You just won the battle here for us, you saved our lives and you ain’t even going to let them thank you?”

I merely nodded at his question and replied. “If their lives are safe, then my work here is done.”

“Then can you at least tell us your name? So the press will know who to call a hero in the newspapers?” He asked as we reached a sheer drop off the city, I would fly off and find somewhere to stay from here but I figured that the tow should at least know who saved their lives.

“My name is Delta, but as for that whole hero thing? No-one asks to be a hero, just sometimes turns out that way…” And with that message I jumped off the ledge and free-falled a good distance before opening my wings and flying off to find a refuge, I flew underneath Cloudsdale and found a cloud-cave near one of it’s edges of the city. I flew into the cave and was surprised to see that it had looked like somepony had lived here a long time ago, I recognized the shapes of a workbench, table, kitchen, bedroom and there was even a hole in the floor that I cloud use to jump out of to fly whenever I need to. But I turned my back to the entrance of the cave to see a sight that left me in awe, the sunset had started to appear on the horizon as it pained the sky a significant tone of orange, it was the most beautiful sights I have ever seen so far.

But soon I started to feel the outcome of the day’s battle; my body had soon felt like I just galloped a marethon with a ton of weight on my back. I soon took all my equipment off and set my belt, weapons and ammo on the workbench and went onto the bed, it wasn’t exactly comfortable, but I didn’t really care, this was as close as to a real home as I would come. My eyelids soon felt heavy and I slowly drifted to sleep.

Chapter 4: Ace of the Skies

5 Years Later…

P.O.V. Princess Celestia

The doors made a distinct slam as the guards opened the door to the conference room, almost immediately I saw all the ponies in the room bow before me. I turned back to the guards and ordered; “Leave us, meeting in session.” And with a nod they closed the doors, the doors themselves were sound proof so I wouldn’t need to worry about eavesdropping ponies. I turned back the ponies at the conference table and took my seat as they did. “Gentleponies, what do you have to report?” I asked, the general then took out a remote for the holographic projector and a white screen at the back of the room lit up and showed a map. The general then spoke up; “Your highness, this is the latest satellite images of the French town of Saint. Mare-Eglise. The terrorist has made numerous counter-attacks on this village since it’s capture but now, they’re bringing out the big guns, their infantry amount has almost been increased from a few hundred to over 2,000 in the past 5 days they’ve regrouped before the attack and that’s not all, they’ve also increased their vehicular strength too, we’re talking about; Main Battle Tanks, Armored Personal Carriers, Long Range Artillery, even close air support from Jets and Attack Choppers, possibly even long range bombers with WMDs. Our garrison at the village barely has 750 pony infantry with anti-light armor weaponry, emplaced machine gun nests and mortars. They’ve been reporting to have taken casualties and are starting to lose ground.” I didn’t like where this talk was going but then it clicked, I distinctly remembered our ponies at the village being sent tank destroyers and M.B.Ts. “Hold on general, I thought our ponies had armored support?” I asked him with curiosity of where the tanks in the area had gone. He let out a sigh and soon replied; “They did, but Commander Sherman had got cocky and decided to launch a counter attack, he led all their armor right into a defensive line set up by the terrorist forces, all the armored units were lost and the Commander was killed.” Damn, I knew he was a bad choice all medals, no responsibility. With a sigh I asked who was in charge now that the Commander was killed, which he replied with; “Lt. Watersmoke ( O.C. by Diamonikon on Deviantart, NOT my O.C.), your highness, but latest reports and evidence we’ve brought forward today show’s that if we don’t do something, they will lose the village and their lives.” Realizing our dilemma, I felt as if we had no options so I could only hope that these advisors had some idea of what to do. “We CANNOT lose that village, they take that village they’ll be able to strike at civilian targets all over our territory and we know they will, but that is not the question, the question is; what do we do now?” They seemed to exchange glances at each other and with a few nods they looked at me to with concern on their faces then one spoke up and asked: “Maybe we could request, y’know… ‘him’?” Most ponies these days would find that a VERY broad question, but I knew exactly who he was talking about and I didn’t like the fact of who it was. “Seriously? This pony is mercenary, an armed redneck!” I declared in hatred of this pony. Ever since the world started to hear of Delta’s deeds stopping our military’s defeats, our ponies have lost faith in our military while he is praised as an unknown hero. “You’ve seen the papers, read the files.” The political informant said as he dropped a file on the table in front of me with his magic, causing a few reports to fall out of the file “This one pony has saved Equestria’s flank since the attack on Cloudsdale, we’ve never had a single military defeat every time we’ve called him in, hell, bomber wings we used to send out to never see again due to enemy air support have been calling of his services and they’ve been coming back without a scratch!” I had to admit, he had me there, because ever since Delta had arrived on the battlefield the tide of the war took a major step in our favor and realizing we had no other options, all I could really do was authorize this, a degrading reputation is better than a lost war… for now. So with I sigh I made my order loud and clear. “Send him in.”

SWITCH P.O.V.  Delta

“Green colt saves Cloudsdale!”, “Search for green colt hero unsuccessful”, “Assassination attempt foiled by Mystery colt”, “Equestrian bomber wing saved by unknown colt”, “’A flash of green and the fighters were down!’ ” “Capture Ponyville? Not on Delta’s watch!” “Who is Delta?” These were the headlines of the newspapers ever since my time in Cloudsdale, since then I’ve been fighting alongside the Equestrians when they’ve called for my help. I let out a sigh as I turned away from my wall of memories and looked out the open window to see the peaceful village of Ponyville, *sigh* if only my life could be normal like theirs. In their lives, they have families, lovers, foals and peace. All there is in mine is war and playing ‘hero’ which quite frankly seemed to be more of a burden than title. But I knew I was saving lives so I knew it was worth it. Soon I began to see an ominous glow on the horizon, was this yet another battle? That question was soon answered.

“This is emergency broadcast 9652; calling Delta, come in Delta. Do you read?” The radio announced in my home showing I was needed again, I ran over to the microphone and replied; “This is Delta, I’m on my way.” After this I dropped the microphone down again and gathered my weapons with ammo and began my flight to the battle.

After some time of flying, I tuned my radio to the frequency of the Equestrian forces to make sure they wouldn’t mistake me for enemy air support. “Equestrian Defense forces, this is Delta I’m inbound to your position from the north, over.” I spoke into the radio as the village of Saint Mare-Eglise came into view, soon I got a reply; “Delta, this is Lieutenant Watersmoke, be advised, enemy air support has been sighted heading right for you, looks like you’ve got a welcome party.” Damn! They must have picked me up on thermal radar coming in, with this warning I readied my M4A1 and confirmed the warning as I saw the faint silhouettes of 6 SU-35B Super Flankers flying towards me, guns blazing; I dodged their lines of tracers as they fired their 30mm cannons and when I got close enough I returned some fire from my rifle, splitting up the squadron as they avoided my fire.

I gave chase of 3 Super Flankers as they pulled off towards the war torn village, I came up behind one as he flew very low to the ground, trying to get me to pull away from this chase in the gauntlet of stone buildings he fired a missile at the roof-top of a building as I got closer towards him, causing the rubble to fall towards me, but I few even lower to avoid the oncoming collision and stayed on his six. I squeezed the trigger of my rifle as soon as I got a firing position; the Armor Piercing rounds of my rifle began to tear his plane apart until, with a bang, his fuel tank ignited, blowing the pane into pieces if I hadn’t banked left to follow his squadron mates, I would have crashed right into the now flaming fuselage of what used to be a plane. As I pulled away from the gauntlet of buildings I got on the six’s of the 2 remaining Flankers from the beginning of the chase and after a quick reload of my rifle, fired at the leader who got his missile hit by my bullets and was blown in half. His wingman pulled right to avoid the debris and I gave chase but this pilot had a little trick up his sleeve; after he let me get on his six, he performed a hammerhead to dump his speed, I had harmlessly flew by his near vertical jet as he came out of his hammerhead, now he was on my six! I banked left and right in an attempt to keep him from getting missile lock, but I knew that he would get one eventually if this continued so I quickly browsed my options and decided to perform a near impossible maneuver to follow in a dogfight; the Kulbit.

I flew straight so I could get him directly behind me and when he was, I made my move; I flexed my wings in a near vertical angle and gave them a very hard flap, this made me do a fast back flip and as time seemed to slow and I had began to face downwards, I saw the look of sheer terror on the pilot’s face as he realized my next move, I let loose a torrent of bullets from my rifle, killing the pilot as it pierced a long, dotted line along to the top of the plane. As I came out of the Kulbit, I realigned my wings and began to fly straight again, the remaining 3 jets would have been on my six at that point but since my speed had been reduced to nearly nothing, they overshot. I gave chase almost immediately and ended up seeing the pilotless and smoking jet start to bank to the right and crash into the lead jet of the remaining 3, the sheer force of the crash had destroyed both jets and turned them into a massive fireball and scrap metal. I banked right to follow another Flanker who had saw me coming, I followed him towards an industrial part of the town where he started to weave in-between several scattered industrial chimneys but despite the obstacles I stayed on him. Realizing I wasn’t going to be shaken off that easily, he fired a missile at a chimney which had been apparently been channeling explosive gasses, resulting in a massive fireball and I was flying right towards it. Luckily I had made it through the fireball without starting to burn myself and after a few more followed dodges and a quick reload, my bullets found their mark, and the 5th plane was sent spiraling down to Earth in a plume of fire.

Suddenly streaks of 30mm tracer rounds whizzed around me from behind, the final jet was shooting at me! I quickly barrel rolled to avoid his cannon fire and get on his six, as I pulled out of my roll, I was right behind him, so I let loose with a burst of rifle fire, his fuel tank had got hit and the whole airplane had seemed to explode right in front of me, the wings had been blown off as the stricken jet began to ‘fly’ sideways and roll violently, the major g-forces then pulled the nose from the cockpit forward clean off the rest of the plane.

“This is Delta, all hostile aircraft destroyed, coming to land now over.” I spoke into the radio as I began my approach to the allied lines; I quickly reloaded my rifle again with a fresh magazine as I got the reply from Lt. Watersmoke “Copy that Delta, nice work; I must say you certainly have some balls when it comes to dogfighting! You took out 6 of them by yourself and some of the stuff you did up there I have never thought were possible!” I couldn’t help but chuckle at the Lieutenants’ excitement as I came in to land. I flexed my wings at the last second as I flew very close to the ground towards the allied Forward Operating Base to come to a hover and soon landed light trot in front of a Unicorn who seemed to be a runner.

“Sir, Corporal Suppression, E.D.F, Lieutenant Watersmoke needs to see you ASAP, you best follow me!” He suggested while keeping his head down, even in the muddy trenches of war it was all too easy to get popped in the head by a sniper. “Lead the way Corporal.” Told him as he turned around and began to trot back through the trenches he came from but as I followed I had noticed as each pony had saw me, they all had faces of bewilderment, they seemed to be amazed to see me and considering what these ponies were going through, I guess it was a good thing, they looked like they needed some good news. After some time of trotting through trenches we had reached the main Command Post of the trenches. “Sir, the L.T is in there.” He pointed out as we stood in front of metal door of a bakery-turned-bunker I thanked the corporal and he ran off to head back to his post. I turned around to see the trench I had came from was lined with ponies watching me, as if they couldn’t believe I was here.

As I turned around to go inside the bunker I noticed that a machine gunner was lying down behind his gun, seemingly sobbing. I walked up to him and tapped his shoulder and asked what was wrong which he replied; “*sniff* W-we’ve lost this! *sniff* A-Apache, P-patch, t-they were all killed!” Jesus, this pony was in a wreck, I had to do something before he seriously de-moralized the rest of the ponies here and not intentionally of course but few things are de-moralizing as this. “What’s your name Soldier?” I asked the weeping pony to which he replied; “P-Private B-Belt-Feed sir?” As he looked up to me and immediately got a look of shock on his face of seeing who I was “O-oh my god, y-you’re- “I silenced his shocked realization with a wave of my hoof and asked; “Do you know why your friends died Belt?” He nervously choked back a few tears but shakes his head in a way of saying ‘no’. “They died to protect their families Belt, the same reason of why you are here fighting. There will always be death in war, no-pony can change that or to whom it happens to. Do you have a family back home Belt?” He nodded at this question. “Well, fight for them and for all those who have died in this war, you’re doing great. Because the fact you are fighting here is stopping the enemy’s armies getting to them. You are part of the shield that protects Equestria Belt, never forget that. Ok?” And with this he nodded and wiped his tears with a reply; “Yes sir, thank you sir.” With a smile I gave him a tap on the shoulder and walked back into the open trench to see that the ponies behind me earlier were still there watching me. They all seemed to have smiles on their faces seeing that I had helped one of their comrades out of his depression. And with that I turned back to the Bunker and entered it.