Chapters Darkness, that is all that is left of my world.
"A-Am I dead?" I quietly whisper to myself "Can't...fucking...move"
I start to slowly open my eyes, the light blinding me. I see that I'm in a forest, surrounded by trees
"What the hell... where am I? I thought I was killed in that car." I say, pain filling my body as I try to move my limbs.
"Rucker? Irish? Anyone? Can anyone hear me?" I yell into the woods as I try to stand up. I make it onto one leg fine, but I can't get my left leg on the ground. Slowly looking down to it, I remember that I had Rucker cut it off when it was trapped under the rubble.
"Damn"
I look around, remembering my training of what to do if your stranded in the wilderness. To my left, I spot my M16A3, in Mediocre condition. I also spot some M67 frag grenades, and about 15 feet in front of me is my rucksack that has all of my ammo in it, along with some other necessities. Checking my sides, I feel my M1911 in its holster.
"Phew, all of my equipment is with me, but what do I do about this leg?" I look to my left, and see a stick, just the right size for a makeshift leg.
"Well, a beggars not a chooser." I say, a tone of annoyance in my voice. I find another, shorter, stick to bite onto, and shove the stick into the nub that used to be a foot and an ankle.
"mmMMMMMPPHH!" I scream, the stick muffling my scream of pain."Well, that hurt"
With my newly found peg-leg, I start walking through the forest (after picking up my gear) I tread on for hours upon hours, slowly making my way around the forest.
"Alright" I say to nobody "How the hell did I get here" I know no one is going to answer , but I just say it anyway.
At sundown, the forest finally starts to get thinner with each hobble, but I'm exhausted.
"I hate having to sleep in trees overnight, there so hard, but being a soldier, you will quickly learn that you need to adjust to any situation, no matter how you feel about it."
I wake up the next morning, feeling very stiff from sleeping in that god forsaken tree. As I open my eyes, I see the strangest, creatures down below me, they look like normal wolfs, but are made of wood.
"What the hell? What are those things? Am I hallucinating?" I say, a small tone of fear in my voice. I fumble out my sidearm, that shoot one of them in the head, right in between the eyes, its face exploding into splinters, while the other ones bolt away in fear, both by the load noise, and by one of their hunting partners, or something, being killed.
"Well, were not in Kansas anymore." I say. "I never thought I would say that, but here I am, saying it to some god forsaken wooden wolf.
I trudge on for about 3 more hours before finally reaching the end of the woods, and seeing a medieval style village ahead of me. I go into a prone position, look down my rifles 4x scope to scout out the village.
"seems very...colorful." I whisper to myself "strange." I keep scouting out the town, seeing no civilians, or military presence, for that matter. I slowly start to get out of my prone position, my temporary wooden leg making it difficult. I creep closter to the village, crouched down in an attempt to stay somewhat stealthy.
I don't spot any civvies, probably scared them into hiding by the sound of my gunshot. I creep around alleyways for a while, looking for any sign of life. Nothing has seen me yet, but I haven't seen anything, either, which makes me uneasy.
"Where is everyone?" I say to myself, with a worried tone in my voice.
"MONSTER!" I hear a feminine voice scream. "MONSTER! GUARDS COME QUICKLY!"
"Shit, I think she means me, I look behind me and see... a horse? No, too small to be a horse, a pony maybe.
"Shit I say as I sprint off, and suddenly, all of the ponies are out of their houses in the streets and whatnot. they all start at me, mouths agape in astonishment, or fear, I can't tell which.
"There it is!" I hear someone shout, I look behind me and see two ponies in golden armor, chasing after me with spears poking out of their shoulder pads.
I start sprinting as fast as I can, with my stick leg slowing me down. I attempt to throw stones and pebbles at the guards, but i can't look behind me without slowing myself down to the point where i'm almost in tackling range for the guards.
"Stop right where you are, or we will have to use force!" I hear one of them yell. I can't tell which one, mainly because I can't look behind me without slowing down.
I keep running for about 5 more minuets, and notice that my makeshift leg was starting to fall out of my nub.
"Fucking shit!" I say as I can feel all of the painful turning of the stick in my leg.
I keep running for another 3 minuets, and the stick finally falls out of the nub, and my leg wound reopening, spewing blood everywhere. I fall over, and start to crawl away.
"We got 'em." I hear one of the guards say to the other. They walk, or trot, up to me and kick me over. They are the last things that I see before the world fades into blackness once more.
I woke up in a dark room, chained to the wall, and only wearing pants. no shirt, no tac vest, nothing but my standard combat pants.
"Hello? Can anyone hear me?" I shout into the pitch black darkness. "Hello? Am I fuckin dreaming or something?"
Nothing happened at all for a few hours, maybe days, i'm not sure. All I knew for sure was that I was imprisoned by someone, or something. There was nothing to do, to see, or to hear, for that matter. All it was was complete silence, driving me insane, being used to hearing gunshots all of the time.
"Well well well, looks like our guest has awoken" a gruff voice from the darkness said, to me I assume.
"Where the hell am I? Am I even still alive?"
"Oh yes, you are very much alive, and we intend to keep you that way."
"Why, your'e all just...ponies! you shouldn't be able to talk!"
"But we can, in our world for that matter."
He leaves the prison room, at least I think he does. Mainly because it becomes silent for a wile. It gives me time to think about my current situation.
"Alright, i'm in a prison, thats in a world ruled by ponies. Yep, just a normal fucking day for me. After all, i'm apparently a cold hearted killer in the eyes of all of my mother fucking family. Now in this world, I'm not even sure if my squad, the only family I have, are still alive." I yell into the darkness, with no response, as expected.
I stand there, chained to the wall, for some time before I get another visitor. This one has a sort of, motherly voice.
"Who in the fucking hell are you?" I ask it
"My name is Princess Celestia, and I am here to ask you some questions." she tells me, or at least I think its a she, judging that she called herself princess.
"Alright."
"What are you"
"I'm a Human."
"Alright, so, whats your profession?"
"Soldier." I tell her
The princess gets a shocked expression on her face, maybe even pure horror, but only for a second, though.
"Alright..." she says with a slight quiver in her voice. "Where are you from?"
"I'm from the United States of America, or the US for short. It is on planet earth."
"Alright, let me see if your telling me the truth."
"What do you me-" I get cut off as her horn starts glowing, and then touches my chest. I instantly shout out in pain as I'm enveloped in a bright white light. I then open my eyes, and see that I'm on a road, back on earth. I instantly recognize this road, as this is wear I lived as a child.
"What the hell?" I say as I see myself as a child walk through, crying like I usually did to my Hippie parents, Who would protest anything about violence. I was adopted, and I hated them, thats the main reason why I joined the Military.
We flash forwarded to my 19th birthday, the day that i decided to join the military.
Celestia, of course, skipped that memorable day. She skipped to the day, my last day on earth. We saw everything from where I entered the room with Rucker and saved Irish, to where I told Rucker to shoot out of the sinking cars window. It all passed by in a matter of seconds, but it felt like all of those years of life had actually passed.
I suddenly opened my eyes to see the princess with a horrified, and scared expression on her face, and looked even more terrified while looking at me, probably because of all of my past that she saw, she even saw me drown in that car, my right leg stuck in the seat.
"You...You...Monster..." I hear Celestia say to me, her voice all shaky.
We stare in silence for awhile before I finally break the silence.
"Can you let me go? these shackles are really digging into my wrists."
"Absolutely not! You are nothing but a killer."
My expression turns slightly saddened by this answer. As the princess walks away, I start trying to pull my arms out of the iron shakles that keep me in this prison.
"Fuck all of you bastards!" I scream down the hallway as the princess and some guards leave. I sit there in silence, still trying to break free of my bindings to the wall.
I hear someone shout from the cell next to me, or at least I think its next to me.
"Hey, you human?" I hear it say.
"Yea" I tell it back.
"Good. We need to get out of here, that princess went mad after her sister, Luna, ran off and created the New Lunar Republic. Or the NLR for short. The NLR pretty much accepts any species. They need all of the support that they can. I'm guessing that they will accept you, too."
"Alright, so the first thing we need to do is escape this prison, right?" I ask
"We need to escape this castle, not prison. We may also try to rescue some of the NLR prisoners, if we get enough time." He tells me.
"Alright, so how do we break out? this place has a lot of guards. They won't exactly give us a key to our cells and some cookies."
"I'll tell you the plan tomorrow morning." He tells me
"One more question for you." I say to him. "What species are you? you don't sound pony to me."
"Me, I'm a Human."
I wake up, once again, in this hellhole. I've been in here for a little over a week, and haven't eaten anything at all. I think that their trying to starve me to death. I also think that is what their doing to James, the only other known Human in this world. I really think I should explain what has happened over the past week.
After getting over the initial shock of meeting another human, I asked his name, He says his name is James Dublin. I told him that my name was Dunn Davidson. We exchanged quick greetings before a guard yelled at us to shut the hell up. we talked when we could, but he wasn't able to tell me the escape plan. So that pretty much sums up my first week in the land, supposedly called "Equestria."
"All of the guards are gone, you ready to discuss our little plan?" James asked me
"Yea, I'm ready. let's hear it." I say back
"Alright, the first thing we need to do is distract the guards. Make some noise, scream, I don't care. Once they come into the cells, kick their muzzles as hard as possible, or if its a unicorn, kick their horn. We will drag the bodies over with our feet, then proceed to find the key on them. Once that is done, we will, again, use our feet to grab the key, bring it up to our shackled hands, then unlock our left hands with our right, then our right with our left. Once freed, grab the spears off of the guards armor. Take the key, and free as many prisoners as possible."
"Got it. so, when do we start?"
"Now."
Directly after that one word, I start kicking the walls, shaking the shackles, and screaming, with James doing the same. Guards Immediately start rushing in to try to shut us the hell up.A unicorn guard runs into the room, spear at the ready, he gets right in my face and starts yelling at me to...
"Shut the FUCK up!"
The moment he says that I kick him right in the middle of the horn. It breaks off. He screams in pain, and falls to the ground, a look of complete agony on his face. I hear another scream from the cell next to me. James got his guard down as well. I kick the unconscious body over a few times, looking for the key. I finally find it on his right side. I proceed to use my feet to lift the key off of the body, use my feet to put it in my hands. I then unlock the shackles. With my hands free for the first time, I stretch my wrists and fingers, and hear a satisfying popping noise from the fingers. I rip the spear off of the guards armor and walk out of my cell, and so does James. I see him for the first time He has tannish skin, blonde hair, a face that looks like it hasn't been shaven in a long time. He has a fit physical form, so he was probably military.
He looks at me for a minuet before asking a question that I was expecting him to ask.
"What the hell happened to your leg?"
"Had to cut it off in my last operation, it was trapped under a few hundred pounds of stone rubble." I casually tell him. "Its a saddening story, I know, but I was killed after that, or at least I thought it was. How did you get here?"
"Well," He starts "I was in Afghanistan and my Humvee got taken out by a Taliban RPG. All of my squad died instantly, and me only a few seconds later. How did you go?"
"My left leg was cut off, me and my squad had to get into a civilian vehicle to escape a Russian Chopper, but it followed us. One of my SquadMates, Rucker, shot it down with an M320, but it crashed right in front of us. We swerved to the left, right into the Ocean. We sunk for a while, but on the way down, my right leg got stuck in the seat. I told Rucker to shoot out of the window. He did, but it killed me. The worst thing is not knowing if the rest of my squad is still alive out there."
'Wow, you went through a lot of shit."
"You bet."
"Let's get back to business"
We start franticly running around the prison, freeing everyone in our area. Most of them are NLR, but some of them are actual convicts, but we release them anyway. Some guards that heard the commotion came running down to us, but me, James, and a couple others silenced them. Forever. Once their blood was on the spears and floors, we urged some of the other prisoners to grab a spear. Once some more prisoners have a spear, we all charge up the stairs, taking out many guards, but also losing some prisoners in the process. We advance through more hallways, killing more guards, and losing more allies.
"Behind you!" I hear James yell to me. I quickly turn around just in time to dodge an incoming spear thrust toward the back of my chest. I sidestep the spear, and stab the guard through the throat, letting him choke to death on his own blood.
It takes us some time to find the armory, and luckily it has our gear in it. All of my suit, rucksack, M1911, M16A3, and some ammo. James also grabbed similar stuff, accept that he had an M4. Some of the other prisoners grab some swords, armor, and even some maces.
"How do they hold those weapons?" I ask James
"Well, I don't give a flying fuck. Its a world inhabited by sentient ponies, so I guess anything is possible." He replies back.
"Good explanation." I mumble under my breath.
We all rush through the castle, looking for an exit. After some time, we finally ring the frond exit, but its barred shut.
"Shit!" I yell
"Don't worry" James says. "I got this." He pulls out a piece of C4 out of his pack. "Last one I got left." James places it in the middle of the door, takes out the detonator, and blows the door. The guards outside look stunned, but quickly come to and start rushing us. I load my M16 and switch it to full auto, putting several bullets in many guards. They are losing their morale very fast, seeing that I have a brand new form of weapon to them.
We take all of the guards down, one by one and sprint to the castle gates, and I see this city for the first time. It is built on the side of a mountain, defying all laws of physics. I look around for possible escape routs, but I only find one. A roughly 500 foot drop down into the lake below.
"Theres only one way out." I start to say to the escapees, "We need to jump into the lake down there." I point to a lake below us. "Who's ready for some swimming?"
We've been walking, or should I say running, for 3 weeks now. Most of the rescued are still alive, but some have died from starvation, dehydration, and side affects of their torture. James and I are still watching each others backs, even though he got very sick yesterday, he insists that he can keep going. We were told by one of the former NLR to keep away from all towns, they are all against the NLR. The only ones we can even get within a 1 mile distance is the NLR's base, and that is only a fort with the NLR's banner on the front. But thats over 100 miles away from Canterlot. We've only gone about 25 miles.
"Come on guys! we can do this, we need to find princess Luna's fort, that will be the only safe place in Equestria." I tell everyone, er, everypony. "We need to get there, or risk getting caught by the Legion, and we all know what they will do to us."
Day 58
We are close to the fort now, less than one week left. We only have 75 left, out of the 195 that escaped with us. James has gotten a lot better. He doesn't need to have any support to walk anymore, so thats a good sign. We haven't seen any other ponies for a while, Legion or NLR.
Day 69
"Fuck! We've lost almost all of the rescued! We need to pull back! The fort has been FUCKING LOST! I repeat, We have lost the FUCKING FORT! We need to retreat into the Everfree! Run! Move your asses and run! FUCK! MY FUCKING LEG! MOTHERFUCKERS! We need to retreat into the forest, or the NLR is lost!"
Day 115
We've slowly been rebuilding the base back up in the Everfree forest. We lost about 90% of our forces when the Legion attacked the fort. Luckily, Luna escaped. We fear if she didn't, we would all be dead or slaves by now. We lost about 2000 NLR forces, and we only have about 100 troops left. James and I signed up the moment we got away. We told her we were both ex MIlitary, and that we were not afraid to kill, so we were admitted into an OTS (Officer Training School) Program. We've been advancing at a...steady rate, considering that we were both Enlisted. I was technically the CO for my squad, but it was only for a short period of time, since our last CO, Blackburn, retired less than 3 weeks before the fateful mission some weeks ago.
Day 120
We found some Legion patrols while building the new base, and took them out, as slowly as possible. I can still feel the esophagus (throat) in my hand as I ripped it out of ones neck, and the sound of him gurgling on his own blood. The NLR is also very brutal in their interrogation methods. I normally wouldn't stand this, but seeing how they were fighting for freedom, I couldn't argue.
Day 150
A local civilian found the fort today. Long story short, we found out there was a village roughly 5 miles out named "Ponyville" supposedly the same village I was captured in. We asked if he wanted to join the NLR, and he said yes, he always hated Celestia, he even plotted to assassinate her once, but he never did attempt to go through with his plan. We gave him a set of armor, a spear, and some other necessities. We haven't exactly had new recruits pouring in for the last few months. Truthfully, we have only had 7 new recruits since I joined.
Day 183
We sent a couple of recon squads to scout out Ponyville yesterday. They are still watching the village as of right now. Everyone is eager to see what the town holds, any treasures, or even a chance to take over a village for the cause. We will just have to wait and see what happens when we assess the situation.
Day 197
The scouts brought some good news and bad news from the town. The good news is that there is very little Legion presence in Ponyville. The bad news is the Elements of Harmony all live there. We suspect that Luna already knew that, she was just trying to see how accurate our scouts could be, like a test. We will attempt to take the town at a later date, but when we have a much larger force, at least 80 more ponies to assist as soldiers, and 3 or 4 to be officers.
Day 220
Its the 100 day anniversary for the new base. It was finally completed 3 days ago. Now there is a training section underground. We have had some more civilians find the base. We killed the ones that didn't join he cause, so they couldn't warn the guards of our position. These civilians, though, were killed quickly, we only brutally kill soldiers of the Legion.
Day 225
The elements have left Ponyville, we will have the attack force ready by tomorrow. The Elements won't return for a couple of days, they went to the Gala. In other news, we have gotten 10 new recruits in the past 5 days. They were all escaped convicts and such. Nothing much has really happened than those two facts.
Day 130
Were getting ready to attack Ponyville James and I will each be leading a small team of 7 in the attack. We were also given orders to kill any civilians that put up any resistance at all. Its not what i'm used to, I was USMC, and what we are gonna be doing is more of a job that Black Ops soldiers would be used to. More news, the Elements won't be returning for 4 weeks. Something happened in Canterlot. We don't know what yet. The only intel we have on that is that there was an explosion somewhere.
Day 137
The attack will happen tomorrow, at around noon. Everypony is very tense because we have gotten intel that around 70 more Legion soldiers have started guarding the town. Also, one of our scouts was captured and tortured yesterday. He escaped, but just barley. He told us that he told the false information during his torture, saying that our new base was hidden somewhere in Manehatten. Were guessing that they called the bluff, and sent more troops to all of the towns, cities, and villages. The troops are all prepared for the attack tomorrow.