The Legend of Delta

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.