The years after the fall

Another nightmare. It must have been before the last one, because the white pony was head of me. We were in a village, on the northern border of Equestria. Dex had his rifle aimed at the door to one of the huts, looking down the sights. "Hey Snow" he whispered out of the corner of his mouth "I saw a changeling run in there"

"How can you be sure?" I replied, "was he IAF?"

"No" he said, "What changeling would go in his actual form while in a battle zone?"

I looked around.

The other soldiers looked at me for orders.

"Move into the house" I ordered, and several ponies nodded their approval. They moved to to door. "Breaching in 3....2.....1.. Go!" The lead pony said, and pressed a button on his uniform, which sent a flash bang out of a compartment, and into the room. The lead pony rushed in the door, weapon raised. Then fell to small arms fire from inside. Apparently the flash bang had failed, because even more fire erupted from the room. "Goddamnit we got a man down!" The next pony behind the leader yelled. The lead pony was somehow still alive. "Go..." He whispered. "I have some C4 in the bag, throw it in. I'll detonate it"

I had to admire his bravery. Even though he knew he was injured, he still wanted to assist his comrades. We did what he asked and took off running down the hill. The explosion was humungous, and I looked over at Dex. "One hell of a day right?"

"Yeah man" Dex looked shocked over the recent death of his squad mate, "They train you to fight, not how to cope with death."

The blast had leveled the building, and several other nearby structures as well. I wonder how many ponies were hiding in them, trying to stay alive. I pushed the thought away though. No time to dwell on the things of the past. We moved to clear the next village.

Again, I awoke with a cold sweat, and I nervously looked around. Nopony had noticed though, and it looked as if everypony was just getting up. I looked over atDasher, who groggily rose to his feet. "You awake?" I asked, knowing the answer. "No" he replied, looking at me sleepily. "Well the war games are today so I hope you are"

I turned to Kicker, who was already suited up. "What exactly ARE the war games?" I wondered.

"The war games are basically a way to test out the cadets, we treat it like a real battle only with non-lethal bullets and no explosives" Kicker seemed informed on the subject. "The battles typically last a couple hours, so use the bathroom before you go, because you don't want to have to go out on the field, the toilets there are just holes in the ground"

"Ok I will keep that in mind"

I turned to looked at the door of the dorm. Standing in it was Jet, looking a particular way that do not wish to describe. Nor could I. He looked wasted I guess.......

"Hey, well if it isn't my bro Tup." He said. "You would never guess what happened to me last night."

"Jet, I don't want to hear about your sex life" I replied, feeling the gaze of the other two ponies in the room fall upon me. "Ahg lighten up" Jet said in a slurred voice, " There's no reason to get angry, Strawberry seemed to like it"

Ok THAT was enough.

"Jet" I replied with a smile "We are all getting REAL sick of your shit"

Fortunately even in his drunken state he took the joke in the right way and didn't misinterpret it. "Sick of my shit ay?" He said, "Well we'll see about that in the war games. If you can even get a kill that is."

I felt Kicker and Dasher's eyes fall upon me to see how I would take this challenge. "Kill? What do you mean only one? Hell, you'll be lucky to even have a shot at a kill after I'm done with them." Kicker looked timid as always, but Dasher cracked a smile. "Arrogance isn't a smart thing to have around here" he said, "But you will learn that soon enough."

"We better get going" Kicker looked at the clock, "wouldn't want to keep the sergeant waiting for us"

We all nodded and headed out for the war games, Kicker and Dasher leading. The hallways were very small, and I assumed that we were maybe 20 feet down from the surface. If the air above leaked into one of the oxygen pipes below, it would mean bad news for all the ponies in this sector. The hallways were narrow and only 2 ponies side by side could fit through the hallway easily. If a breach happened, all the air would be sucked out into the surface, instantly killing everypony in a 5 foot radius of the breach. Anypony else within 15 feet would have their lungs collapse before the breach would be sealed by the sealant inside the walls. The walls were made of steel, and had big thick cables trailing the corners. We finally made it to the war games when suddenly there was an announcement over the sector's loudspeaker. "Attention" a monotone mare's calm voice called out, "We have a security breach in area 521 in sector 10. Request all armed personnel to be rerouted to dock 522 for further orders."

"Do you think we should go?" I asked Jet.

"What do you guys think? After all, you have been here the longest" Jet looked nervously over at Dasher and Kicker, who looked like they had been through something similar before.

"We need to get to the armory, NOW" Dasher looked scared. That wasn't a good sign. "Why?" I asked, wondering what was so bad it could scare Dasher. "The changelings have found another way in"

"Shit!" I replied, and followed them as they fled to the armory. We saw ponies rush in all directions, down each corridor. The way the underground was set up was that there were many corridors, much like a maze, and in between the corridors was always a large room or dorm. As we fled down the corridor, we saw two ponies dart out from a corridor to our left, only to be struck by gunfire from the right. Kicker, who was in the lead, stopped in his tracks, picked up one of the machine guns, turned around, and ran to the left. He didn't get far. Gunfire from the right again ripped through his armor and he fell to the ground, looking very much dead. I thought I saw his body twitch, and he disappeared from view. "Cmon!" Dasher said, "We don't have time to morn, we need to leave NOW". We heard something heavy moving in the corridor to the right, and we ran back the way we came. "Where the hell should we go?" Jet yelled. By now there was a very loud alarm going off, and the water pipes on the walls were cracked and were shooting water everywhere. "We need to go to the evac site" Dasher yelled as we ran, "The Controler should tell us soon, but for now, we run in the direction and hope for the best"

The Controler's monotone voice rang out over the alarms, "Attention military staff! Breach status, unconfined. We are shutting down power and cutting off the sector now" Well great I though as the lights flickered out and the water stopped flowing from the pipes. As we ran on, the voice continued, "Casualties unknown. Evac site, Disci Bay."

"That's really close!" Dasher shouted over the alarms, "It's about five meters to our left". We rushed into the room, and I could see why they called it 'Disco Bay'. It was the coolest spot ever. The room had anything from fog machines to lasers. It was the ULTIMATE party place. Vinyl and Pinkie would have loved it here. As I gazed around the room, I noticed about 5 dozen ponies there, the DI from earlier was there. So was Sugar and Strawberry. I could tell even without glancing sideways at Jet that he was releasing a quick breath of relief, that Strawberry was safe. He didn't care that she was his senior officer. "What now?" I asked Dasher.

"Well, for one thing, we need to report our causalities. Then, we wait for evac to come."

As we walked over to Sugar, I looked up at the ceiling. It was made like something could land, like the room used to be a hidden airfield or something.   "Who did we lose Dasher?" Sugar looked wary, "Please don't say Kicker."

"I'm sorry ma'am" Dasher replied, not meeting Sugar's gaze, "There was nothing we could do."

"There's no time to dwell on that." Sugar replied, "Because if we don't get this gate open we are all dead." I assumed she meant the closed 'gate' up on the ceiling. As more ponies tricked in, so did the stories of the casualties. Everypony was checked to make sure they weren't a changeling, and then somepony opened the gate. Bright sunlight came down from it, as well as dust. The ground above is seemed to be a jungle, but had a lot of dust on the ground. As the gate was being lowered, I noticed it was more of a platform, which we would stand on to get off. Well, it was my first time on the surface, might as well find out what it was like. Sure beats getting torn to pieces by gunfire. I could tell that Jet was anxious to get up, but Dasher and Sugar were a little wary, almost scared. I was almost anout ready to ask them what was wrong, when Strawberry trotted up to us. "Glad to see you made it" she said sweetly, "And I'm sorry about what happened to Kicker." She appeared saddened, and looked at the ground, placing one hoof in front of the other. "Don't be" Dasher replied, "There was nothing anypony could do."

Strawberry turned to me and Jet. "Have you two been to the surface?" She asked in her sexy female military voice, "It's pretty rough. Hell, I lost troops up there while we were still in the district."

"Um....."Me and Jet just looked at her. "And you are just telling us this now... Why?"

"I thought you could use the knowledge to your advantage" was her reply, using the same tone of voice. Damn, she was good. Jet had good taste, too bad she liked him instead of me..... Goddamnit Tup, there's no time for that kind of thinking. By this time, the platform had reached the ground, and the doors to the Disco Bay were sealed. As we were boarding, Strawberry gave Jet a quick kiss on the cheek and said, "I'll catch you later, I need to find my DI buddies."

I looked behind me and saw Dirk looking at us with a scowl on his face, but he didn't say anything. "Bro I think you got competition."

"Really?" He asked, "Who?"

"The DI" I replied, "Dirk."

"Hahahah oh that asshole? Nah man, he's cool. He can be a dickwad though" Jet contemplated that for a minute. "He doesn't even like Strawberry, he hates her. Maybe an ex or something?"

"Maybe" I replied, then we fell silent as we finally started our ascent from the Disco Bay. Sugar and Dasher had been somewhere else, we had lost them in the crowd. We were blinded by the sudden sunlight that appeared on the horizon. Wow the sun was brighter then what it looked from in the Disco Bay. This was going to be one long-ass day.