//------------------------------//
// A Party and a Dragon 
// Story: Gray's Gone 
// by ArmOfSorrow 
//------------------------------//

I dragged myself out of sleep, wondering where exactly I was. There was something wrapped around me… oh, just my blanket. 
‘Man, my cot is uncomfortable,’ I thought. ‘I’ll have to stop by the supply officer and ask for a new cot, because this rock hard shit has to go. I wonder what’s for breakfast?’ The mess hall’s food wasn’t too great, but after a particularly strenuous mission, a hot meal that wasn’t cooked in a bag was always nice. Then, at 1300 hours, it was my flight home! I got to see my brother and sister again after a nine hour flight from Kiev, Ukraine to New York City.
Excited, I jumped around and rushed to get my boots on, and looked around. ‘Forest? What the fuck… Oh. That’s right, I’m in Equestria.’
Disappointment. As nice as the residents here were, I was supposed to be going home today, and it depressed me to know that there was a good possibility I would never see my family again. ‘I wonder what the letter home would say?’ I thought to myself. MIA, most likely. Then, a folded American flag to my little brother, a stone-faced apology from whichever unlucky bastard had to tell my family and maybe a funeral if the Corps assumed we were dead.
I pushed aside those thoughts and started to lace up my boots, contemplating if I was hungry enough to eat. A quick growl from my stomach answered for me, and I busied myself with preparing another MRE. After this, I had one MRE left. 
I reached into my bag, and pulled out one of my two remaining MREs, glancing at the name before scowling. ‘Eugh. Vegetarian lasagna? I knew I made a mistake by not checking what I had been issued.’ Wanting to save my other MRE (which was probably the last meat I would eat for quite a while), I decided to prepare the… vegetarian meal anyway. After I had built another fire, that is. It seemed to be approaching winter here, because there was a very cool breeze and the trees were starting to fade into oranges and reds.
Twenty minutes later, I was sitting by a nice fire and opening up my MRE, now fully cooked. As I began to dig in, I heard the same voice from last night speaking above me.
“Hey, what’s up Gray?” 
Looking up, I saw Rainbow Dash sitting on the same branch as last night, looking at me curiously as I ate out of my small cardboard box.
“Nothing much, having breakfast.” I said, taking another slightly revolting bite.
“Oh, cool. What… uh… is it?”
I laughed, nearly spitting out my food, because I could perfectly understand her confusion. These things really didn’t look good to eat out of either. “It’s an MRE, my military gives these to soldiers before they go into combat or on a mission. It’s basically just food in a box, heated up by a chemical reaction. It also comes with Skittles!” I gave her a childish, open-mouthed smile and brandished my package of candy proudly.
“Oh. What’re skittles?” Now that she knew why I was eating from a box, she was curious to know what human food was, apparently.
I looked at her sharply, then changed my face to mock horror as I decided to mess with her. “You’ve… never… had… Skittles?
“No I haven’t,” She said. It was obvious she was a bit bewildered at my reaction. Now, she really looked like she wanted to try it.
“I’d gladly give you some… but I’m afraid human food might be dangerous for you. Your body might not be able to handle the amazingness.” Just to be mean, I tossed my now-finished lasagna to the side and tore open the Skittles package, pouring a bit directly into my mouth.
She laughed, shook her head, and said “Funny, but I doubt any human food could match the taste of Pinkie Pie’s cupcakes. Oh!” 
I looked at her quizzically, slowly chewing my Skittles.
“Speaking of Pinkie Pie, Twilight needs your help at the library. She asked me to come and get you.” Rainbow Dash smiled, and began to stand up on her branch. “Now, I’ve gotta get back, there’s some stuff I need to finish setting up.”
As rainbow Dash flew off, I wondered ‘What does Pinkie Pie have to do with helping Twilight? Oh well,’ I thought, not putting any more thought into it. ‘As long as I’m here, I might as well help out around. Hmm… I should probably get a job and buy or rent an apartment. I’d rather not sleep on the ground for the rest of my life.’
I stood up and strapped my M9 to my leg, deciding that regardless of the docile nature of the natives, it’d be a good idea to carry around some protection. Carrying the Barrett or the SCAR would probably scare some people, so instead, I took my M9, my boot knife, and my standard ka-bar combat knife.
As I got to Twilight’s library, I saw through the window that there was someone there, some green pony that I hadn’t met. Sighing, I walked over and knocked on the door. 
“Come in,” called Twilight, and I pushed on the doorknob to walk into the house, where it was dark. 
“Uh, Twilight?” I said, wondering why she had closed the curtains.
Suddenly, the curtains were thrown open and an entire crowd of ponies yelled “SURPRISE!”
Shocked into combat mode, I immediately yanked my ka-bar out of its sheath and nearly sliced off a red pony’s ear. He looked at me angrily, shook his head and began to walk away. I heard him say “Nope,” and rushed to apologize, but Pinkie Pie jumped in front of me and began talking at a million miles an hour.
“Sowhaddayathinkoftheparty? Ihopeyoulikeitbecauseit’syourwelcomingparty. Whydidyoupulloutaknifewhenweallsaidsurprise?” She looked super excited, and I didn’t have the heart to ask her to be quiet.
“Oooohhh,” She started, “you must want to cut the cake, huh?”
“Sure Pinkie,” I said, thankful that she didn’t notice me try and slice up her friend.
“I made a super special extra big cake for you, since you’re the first human in Equestria!” She beamed as two unknown ponies dragged a cake out from behind a curtain. This cake was easily bigger than I was, and wide enough to fit several ponies inside. 
I laughed nervously and moved forward to begin to cut the cake, when the entire top two layers of the cake exploded in confetti, and out came Rainbow Dash and Applejack.
The exploding cake reminded me of that mine that got Matt, and out of reflex, I dove backward and scrambled for my sidearm. Managing to get my finger caught in the trigger guard, I tripped over myself and accidently squeezed the trigger.
The M9 went off right before I hit the ground, the bullet out gouging a small chunk of flesh out of my upper leg before comically ricocheting off of the stove and popping a balloon.
As I ground my teeth and covered the wound, all of the ponies had frozen. Twilight and Rarity rushed out of the kitchen at the noise, and seeing my on the floor, bleeding, and trying not to scream, they panicked. Rarity screamed (probably at the sight of me baring my teeth, trying not to scream like a bitch), and the crowd of ponies all began to run about and try to leave the room. 
All I could really think of at the moment was “Jesus fucking Christ, this hurts like hell.” I had always wondered what it was like to be shot.
Once the crowd had forced itself out of the library, I stood up, keeping my weight off my injured leg and leaving my hand clamped over the wound. 
Twilight began to shout “Mason! What the hay happened? What was that? Why are you bleeding?” and before answering her, I had to take several breaths to make sure I wasn’t going to blow my lid.
“My gun went off. I accidently left the safety off when I was alarmed yesterday, and when you guys surprised me, I tried to reach for it and blew a hole in my leg.
Rainbow Dash began to giggle, but a look from Applejack shut her up.
“What in Celestia’s name is a gun?” asked Rarity, who was holding a handkerchief over her mouth magically.
“It’s a human device. It fires small, metal chunks called bullets hard enough to penetrate a body and rip apart flesh. Like an arrow, but smaller and much, much more powerful.”  I grunted and decided to take a closer look at my wound. Lifting away my hand, I saw that it was only about an inch long and not very deep at all.  Guess that means no purple heart for me.
“Why the hay are ya carryin’ one around, anyhow?” Asked Applejack, who was looking at me angrily.
“Look, I’m a soldier. That’s what I do, it’s standard for me to have one of these. Actually, it’s expected for me to carry several. That brown thing you saw me pointing at you in the clearing? That was just a bigger gun, with much bigger bullets. The big black metal stick that you guys carried back for me? That’s a REALLY big gun, and it fires bullets big enough to tear a human in half.”
The ponies really looked shocked at that. I… probably should have not been so blunt. But I was angry, and still very full of anxiety from the panic of shooting myself in the fucking leg.
“Speaking of which,” I continued, “why the hell are you guys trying to SURPRISE ME? When did that come off as a good idea? Don’t you think that a creature that’s trained to kill would react BADLY to that sort of thing? Hell, the entire human race would react badly! We’re a species that’s practically bred for war!” While it really wasn’t true, I was starting to ramble just to find an excuse for my brain not to feel so stupid. How could I have forgotten a safety?
Pinkie Pie really took that last part to heart. Her hair immediately deflated to perfectly straight and her color faded. She began to whimper and say “I just wanted to welcome you to Ponyville…”
“I know, and thank you, but surprising me wasn’t the way to do it. I’m really sorry that I freaked out, Pinkie Pie.” Deciding to risk it, I even knelt down and gave her a hug. (Suppressing a groan all the way down, as my leg was hurting like hell) “How about we have our own party instead? Since you guys are my friends, I think you’re the only ponies I really need to know. Let me go back to my camp and bandage this cut up, and I’ll come back, and we can have our own party?”
Pinkie’s hair reflated back to its normal, poofy demeanor, her color returned, and her tears vanished. “Okay!” She said, bouncing away and beginning to fix the streamers and balloons that had been torn down as everyone stampeded out.
Turning to look at the rest of the ponies, I gave a small smile and said “I’m sorry guys, will you forgive me for this?”
Rainbow Dash immediately said “Yeah, don’t worry about it. The good thing is, nobody innocent got hurt, AND it was hysterical. The look on your face was priceless!”
After Rainbow Dash, the rest of the ponies took turns nodding and making small statements about it being an accident. Twilight formally asked me to stop carrying around my M9, which I obliged to, and I walked back to my campsite, followed by none-other than Rainbow Dash herself. Aside from our initial encounter, she had easily became my favorite of my new friends. 
Arriving at my campsite, I quickly bandaged my wound and stuck a piece of medical tape over the hole in my pants. As Rainbow Dash was telling me something about a “sonic rainboom”, we both heard a loud roar coming from Ponyville. Rainbow Dash shot straight up to look above the trees, and when she came back down, she had a look of terror in her eyes.
“A dragon is attacking Ponyville!” She frantically said to me. “We gotta go do something!”
I looked at her for a second, thinking about what I could possibly do to help. Then it clicked. I ran over to my Barrett, and pressed the magazine release switch. Looking at the bullets, I confirmed what I had been thinking. My Barrett was still loaded with the standard long range antipersonnel cartridge, which was a normal, copper colored bullet.
I turned to Rainbow Dash and asked “How thick is a dragon’s hide?”
“Well… Twilight’s spells can’t hurt one, and the royal guards’ arrows won’t penetrate it either, so I would guess it’s pretty thick. Why?”
I ignored her question and turned to dig through my supply pack. I assumed that “pretty thick” meant about an inch of hide and scales, which would mean I would need… that magazine. See, when the mission started, I was issued five magazines initially. The first three were magazines of standard, long range anti-personnel rounds (for obvious reasons), along with one magazine of Raufoss Mk211 rounds (armor-piercing, incendiary rounds that I would have used to hit a target behind a brick wall or to halt a car by shooting its engine). The last magazine I had taken special care to paint two stripes on the side, one grey and one yellow. The reason behind this was because it was loaded with FN Herstel APEI-169 rounds, which were armor piercing, explosive, long range bullets, designed to penetrate light armor like BMPs and external engines on helicopters. It had only been given to us for an emergency situation (as in, this magazine was for extreme, life threatening, absolutely no indecision, emergency last resort situations). 
Deciding that a dragon’s hide classified as light armor (it was probably thicker than the steel plates on a BMP, after all), I threw my original magazine back into my bag and slid in the Herstel magazine. While I really didn’t want to kill the dragon, I had to take the precaution that I would be able to stop it.
Sprinting back to town, I saw the dragon was perched on top of a building, taking swipes at the panicked ponies running below, and occasionally letting loose a stream of fire into the air or at another building. It was a dark blue, so dark it was almost black, with flesh on its wings and glowing orange eyes. Boy, I could imagine how ferocious spike would look in about a hundred years. 
Before I got to the dragon, I stopped and asked Rainbow Dash “Can dragons talk?”
She looked at me, stunned, and said yes, even though they weren’t very friendly. She must have remembered what my Barrett was, because as I was turning around, she said “Don’t kill it!”
I ran up to the dragon, stopping about fifty yards away, waving my arms and shouting to get its attention. It turned it’s long, snakelike neck and pointed its head at me, its eyes unmoving from my face. I slowly walked up, my Barrett resting on my shoulder, and said in my best kiss ass voice “Noble dragon, please stop razing this village and leave in peace.”
It stared at me for another long moment, before laughing, in a very deep, very throaty voice. After it’s small laughing fit, it said “Why? I am the mightiest being in Equestria, and I do as I please. I felt a need for entertainment, so I came to this village.
“That doesn’t give you the right to attack these helpless ponies. Now, I ask again, please leave, so that I don’t have to hurt or kill you.”
All he did was smirk (I assumed it was a he, as the voice had a distinct baritone to it), and let loose a very loud, very powerful roar right in my face. He reached out and plucked a pony off the ground with his claws, whom I recognized to be Fluttershy. She had been frozen with fear, and had been standing just underneath the dragon the entire time. “You’re a fool, creature. You have no horn for magic, no wings for flying, and not even the same hooves as a pony here. You are nothing.”
I frantically took my Barrett off my shoulder and aimed it at the dragon, zeroing the scope in on where I assumed his heart was. “Put. Her. Down,” I said, my voice beginning to waver. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rainbow Dash flying around overhead, trying to swoop down and take Fluttershy from the dragon’s claws.
The dragon narrowed his eyes at me, and growled. “No,” he said simply, and began to pull Fluttershy towards his mouth. 
Taking a deep breath, I thought a quick apology to any ponies watching, and pulled the trigger. The recoil was immense, as always, pushing me back a step and threatening to dislodge my shoulder. The effect on the dragon was so much worse, though.
The .50 caliber APEI punched fist sized hole in the dragon’s chest. Dropping Fluttershy, he looked at me and began to gloat, saying “Hah. I barely even felt tha-” before the round’s explosive charge detonated. Since it was an explosive intended for machines, the hole it blasted was about the size of a basketball, spraying the contents of the dragon’s chest cavity into the air.
Thankfully, Fluttershy was already running by the time the explosive detonated, and didn’t stop running even when the dragon fell over and crushed frame of the next building over.
Rainbow Dash immediately took off after Fluttershy, leaving me to stand there wondering what I had done. For some reason, killing the dragon felt different. It made me feel… evil. Horrible, even though the dragon was clearly intent on eating Fluttershy. I flicked the safety on, tossed the Barrett away, and sat on the ground. Shooting terrorists never felt this bad. Sure, there was the natural guilt from ending a human’s life, but those people were truly evil, intent on simply causing pain to others. This dragon… even though it was gloating and acting, well… mean, it also seemed to be doing what a dragon does. I killed it for following its nature.
I decided that I should probably just go back to camp. Maybe sleep off this feeling, because I know I did right.
I picked up my Barrett by the barrel, and began walking away. As I did so, Twilight teleported in front of me, yelling something I couldn’t understand with a look of absolute terror on her face. I felt shell-shocked, and simply walked right past her, the Barrett’s butt dragging in the dirt. After a few minutes of following me and continuously yelling, she gave up, and galloped back to help the villagers. 
A few yards later, I was then confronted by Applejack, who didn’t even bother to yell, just asked me what exactly had happened and if anyone was hurt. I proceeded to tell her in as little detail as possible, and walked away from her, cutting off any response she might have given.
When I arrived at my camp, my senses had returned, but had been replaced with exhaustion. I carefully unloaded my rifle and leaned it up against a tree, stuffing the magazine in my pack after. Sitting down on my blanket, I slowly put in my headphones and listened to my siblings’ message once more. Then twice, then three times, trying to get the image of the dragon’s death out of my head. 
Someone was tapping on my shoulder, and I turned to ask them to leave, but giving up when I saw the determined look on their face. It was Rainbow Dash, once again. She really had a knack for bad timing.
“I checked on Fluttershy, and she was alright. Scared, but fine. Rarity was hiding in her bedroom, can’t say I blame her though. Twilight went to check on Pinkie Pie and Applejack, so I came to see how you were doing,” she gave me a small smile as she spoke, but it did nothing to alleviate my emotions.
Slowly, I began to talk. “You know Rainbow… I hate this job. It’s so hard… to kill people, even though they deserve it. It’s like… every time I pull that trigger, someone dies, and I know it’s because of me. I’ve really done some horrible things, all because some officer in a crisp black uniform told me to.”
Before I knew it, I had tears sliding down my face, and I was letting everything out. Explaining all my qualms about being a soldier, my problems with dealing with it, and even my problems with my parents, before they were gone. That was something I had only ever spoken about with Renee, my sister with the same family.
It was evident that Rainbow was uncomfortable, but I didn’t care. Even only knowing her for two days, she was the closest pony friend I had. She had stopped shuffling when I started talking about my family, and had even given me a hug when I finished, saying that she understood. As I was hugging her, it clicked in my head why I was so much worse off after seeing the dragon die.
During all of my other missions, all of the people I had killed and assassinated, I had never actually watched as they died. I always closed my eyes the second I pulled the trigger, Matt confirming the kill for me.
Afterward, Rainbow Dash and I just sat there, talking. It was dark already, so I resolved to build us a fire. She didn’t seem in any rush to go anywhere, and just sat with me, talking about her stunts and accomplishments to distract me. 
I heard an unearthly groan, and looked around in surprise before realizing it was Rainbow Dash’s stomach. I laughed and said “Would you like me to get my MRE? I don’t mind giving you the vegetarian half.”
“Sure,” she said. “I didn’t get to have any lunch, since we were at Twilight’s for the party. By the way, you shooting yourself in the leg was hilarious!”
“Hardee har har, don’t remind me.” I said, reading the label and ripping open the package. It was some southwest beef with a side of black beans, some Gatorade drink mix, a large cracker, and some raspberry jam to go on the cracker. I wasn’t particularly hungry, so the beef was more than enough for me.
I handed everything but the beef to Rainbow Dash, and watching as she sniffed the package before looking at me quizzically.
“It’s a plastic wrapper. Tear it open, the food is in the inside.” I rolled my eyes and smiled, slowly beginning to feel better as I hung out with Rainbow.
“Hey, this tastes awesome,” said Rainbow Dash, after struggling to tear open the package of raspberry jam. “You human soldiers eat pretty good. I’d give my left hoof to eat like this all the time. I usually just have a daisy sandwich or something, and it’s not very awesome of Equestria’s fastest flier to eat daisies.”
“Very true. But, when you’re in the military, these meals get very tasteless very quickly. They only have like, twenty different meal choices, so after five years of MREs, I would have eaten…” I quickly did the math in my head, averaging about twenty MREs a month, for nine months a year. “Over nine-hundred MREs. That means I’ve eaten every meal on the menu eighty times.”
“Holy Celestia, that’s a lot.” She said, amazed.
“It sure is,” I said. I was no longer focused on the conversation, even starting to fall asleep, when Applejack ran into the clearing, surprising both Rainbow Dash and I.
“Mason, Twi sent me to come get ya, and to tell ya to go to the hospital as soon as you can.”  
“Why?” I asked, beginning to panic at the thought of something going wrong.
“Yer friend has woken up.”