The Raiders and The Princess

by FIRE FLASH 3

Chapter XIV: We Marched

Author's Note:

I'm terribly sorry for how long it has taken me to write this chapter.
With all my voyages and films that I'm doing, I have less and less time to write this story.

Either way, I wish you all some happy hollidays and a... Merry Christmas !

Chapter XIV:

“WHAT!?” The Doctor yelled loudly.

I was back within Twilight's mind again, the trip less than forgetful, talking to Twilight's friend about returning her back to her world. The Doctor had been less than helpful by pointing out the 'time' issues within my plan. However he had been even more shocked when I whispered into his ear what the brass had ordered me to do with her. He had told me that he needed more time.

Time!

Time was a luxury that none of us had. And right now, I needed him to figure out a way to get Twilight off the island within those 5 days.

“There's no way that Twilight could ever learn the Arithmis spell within these next six days! Especially since you'll be on the move most of the time!” The Doctor argued once more, I could only sigh in defeat.

“Doctor, though I would love to say that we have all the time in the world, sadly we don't.”I pointed out to him. “Also,” I continued “I have yet to brief my squad on our next mission so I don't have all night! We must find another alternative within the next half hour or by the time I tell my people what the situation is, they would not have had enough time to prepare!” The Doctor sighed, he too was just as frustrated as I was by the lack of time. For roughly a minute, there was not a sound. The white walls of Twilight's mind showed just how still the atmosphere was.

“Shame you can't use the TARDIS to crossover into this realm.” Came Twilight's sad voice. At that, the Doctor's head shot up in surprise.

“Yes!” He exclaimed loudly. “Yes! Oh why didn't I think of it before? It's all here!” He continued.

“Eerr... what?” I asked.

“The TARDIS, using Discord's power, I should be able to jump momentarily into your Universe, but not for long.” He explained.

“Look, lets just say that I understood all that, can you get Twilight out of here?” I asked. The Doctor smiled happily.

“Of course, it will take some time, but my immediate problem will be locating you. Its not like you have a locator beacon with you especially in your time period.” He joked.

“Is that like a radio?” This time, the brown pony didn't say a word, in fact, he seemed surprised or at least shocked.

“Of course!” He yelled out once more. “Do you have a radio operator in your squad?” He asked.

“Yeah?”

“Then that's it, on the fourth day, you can send out a radio signal on any wave length. Just repeat the word Doctor and then the TARDIS should pick up the signal and I will be there in a jiffy!” He concluded.

We discussed the plan a bit more, I even began tacking notes while he re-explained everything once more. Once I had all the notes I needed, the Doctor told us that he had lots to do but on the fourth day, he would be awaiting our radio broadcast. With all the info gathered in my little note book, me and pony Twilight decided that it was probably best that we got going. Lets just say that getting back this time, took more than a hug to make her feel tired.

FLUFFY CUDDLES!!!!!

XXXXXXXXX

My eyes strained to adjust to the dark around me when it had been pitch white only moments before. As I grew more accustomed to the dark, I suddenly realised that I was lying on Marks lap as he continued to try and wake me. When he realised that I was responsive, both Mark and Jack began to detail their worries about what happened when Twilight initiated her spell.

Twilight was up at the same time as me and pointed out that we were lucky enough to still be in physical contact or I would have never have been able to get back into my own body. Well, not on the spot at least.

It took a while to explain what had just happened and what had gone on inside Twilight's mind. Though I had trouble explaining, Twilight had no trouble. However, Mark and Jack were just as confused as I was the first time I heard all that magic babble. Thankfully for me (or for this story) they didn't press the matter any further, but I still needed to brief them on what our new orders were.

“Right lets get this over with as quickly as possible, cos we need to be ready for tomorrow night.” I told them as we sat ourselves round a map I had proceeded to pull from my jacket. Laying it out, Mark used his torch to make a small light for us to see. Hopefully, the japs wouldn't spot it...

“Here is the camp, and here is a starting off position.” I pointed to the area on the small map where our front lines were situated. “We will leave here at 2100hrs and pass our lines by 2200hrs. It will still be dark so we will have cover for a few moments before we enter the jungle. Some time tomorrow, we will go to the supply bunker and pick up:

_2 belts of Carbine ammo

_2 belts of Johnson rifle ammo

_4 more Johnson Mags

_5 satchel charges with timed detonators

_1 extra full canteen each”

Jack took down notes as I rattled off the list, he asked whether we were getting extra bandages or food? They were less than surprised when I told them that we would be setting out with what we had already in food and bandages.

“Alright, now our equipment is listed... we will be taking a long and dangerous detour around the jap positions. We have 5 days to get there. We will be moving all day and all night. We will stop only when a member is certain that their endurance is down to the minimum! We have no time to stop and have proper dinners or lunches.” They nodded, but the look on Twilight's face clearly said that she didn't want to walk all day and all night without proper rest.

“So... we only have 2 canteens each during the entire journey?” Mark asked, I understood his concern. Out here, in the jungle, temperatures were rather demoralising especially when you had nothing to drink, and this whole thing was a 10 day trip or more if we had any slip ups on the way back.

“Plus, we won't have much energy left if we walk that far, we might need to stop somewhere along the way--”

“We won't have time, we already have a Rendez Vous with Twilight's friend who will come and pick her up...” I traced the map with my finger until I located the area I was looking for. “... Here! This right here is a clearing where Mark will radio the Doctor should land his... Police Box?...” They both gave me incredulous looks but I shrugged them off. “I can't explain it, nor could he.” I answered.

“So is that it?” Mark asked, turning off his torch. I nodded, my only response as I began to yawn. My tired mind wanted nothing more than a good night's sleep. I didn't bother telling them what my original orders were, there was no need. So as we each returned back to our original spots, one by one, we began to nod off. Twilight crawled into a corner with me a rested her head against my chest. As she rested, I heard Mark chuckle.

And so there we were, slowly falling asleep, and as the moon rose high into the cloudless night sky, I closed my eyes.

“INCOMING!”

XXXXXXXXX

“Is there anyone there?”

“Is there anyone still in there?”

“Hey! Can you hear me? Are you alright?”

“Please help me!”

“It's alright, we're here.”

“I can't breathe! I can't breathe!”

“How many do you count?”

“About six hits in total... I can't figure out where this came from.”

“Hey! Hey! Over here, we're trapped!”

“Help... Help... Help... Help... Help... Help... Help...”

“Go check on second squad!”

“Lou, are you in there?... Is there anybody in there?”

“I can see a hand! It's still moving!”

“HEY! HEY! YOU GUYS GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME DIG'EM OUT!”

“We've got'em! They're still alive!”

“It's alright Sargent, we've got you...”

I breathed, my lungs taking in deep heavy breaths. I was alive! Above me, Twilight's worried face talked to me with inaudible words. The only sound was a strange ringing that had invaded my ears. As sound slowly returned to me, I began to sit up. Twilight helped me, she continued to hold me as I looked around. A medic, knelt down in front of me and passed me a canteen of water. I took a few tentative sips before handing it back to him.

I hadn't noticed that everyone that had helped to get us out, had already left to help elsewhere. Last night's shelling had been nothing out of the ordinary. Except... we got hit. Mark and Jack were both leaning up against the remains of our home. Smoke still rising from the caved in roof. We should be dead! But Twilight was there. All I remember seeing was her, raising her hand putting her magic into effect and a rosy dome covered us, though the shock wave erupted the barrier and everything inside.

Getting up, slowly, Jack made his way over to the shelter. There was nothing to be done, We were lucky that we were even pulled out of there! Inside, there were parts of our equipment, clothes and rifles. Even if we could retrieve them, there was no way that we could ever fix them. They were gone.

“Make that 3 extra weapons to our shopping list guys.” Jack mumbled, turning around and looking back at us and more directly to me.

Mark gave him a sluggish 'thumbs up' all while groaning loudly. I stood up and looked around, I was lost. Jack looked at his watch, sighing loudly.

“Well... I doubt we should try and fix this thing up, either way, we're in no condition to start digging out a new hole.” He said, looking down into the pit. “At least I pulled our footlockers out yesterday or we would have lost everything!”

As I continued to stare out into space, I noticed Lieutenant Stone rushing towards us. He had his carbine slung over his shoulder and had a worried look on his face.

“Sargent! Sargent!” He called out while he kept on running towards us. “ Sargent, I heard that you guys were hit last night, are you alright?” He asked as he approached me. I only nodded, my left ear still ringing.

“Are you still combat ready?” He asked, I never looked at him up close. I just continued to stare out into space. He looked at me for a few moments before asking again. “Are you still combat able, sargent?”

“Oh for Pete's sake!” I yelled at him. “Give me a fucking minute to rest!” I said before collapsing to the ground. My head... my head was burning! I could feel a bump from where part of the roof had fallen on me. I lifted my gaze to look at Lieutenant Stone. He didn't seem shocked by my words. It was probably the first time he had ever heard me use the F word.

“I'm sorry Lieutenant...” He left, walking off slowly without saying a word. I knew he didn't take anything to heart, but somehow, I knew that after that incident in the jungle had changed him somehow. He seemed to care more about us. And he also seemed to hang around a lot more with his men.

I continued to lie there... almost at peace. But slowly, I got up, Mark and Jack following my lead. Twilight didn't move, however. She continued to stare out into space. Mark, who was sat next to her, knelt down to help her up. I helped too, since she seemed rather unsteady.

Once we were all standing up, I took a chance to check in what condition each of us were in. Aside from the fact that we were all covered in dust, Jack had half of his jacket torn off. His trousers were in a similar state, torn and ripped down the left leg.

Mark was in a similar condition, the only exception was that he had blood trailing down the left side of his head.

Twilight too was covered in dust and her rain coat was barely holding together. Whenever she walked, her wings became visible. They appeared to be in rough shape, feathers that she usually kept neat and tidy were now in disarray.

I, myself was in rough shape. My clothes were completely ruined! But all I could care about was getting myself clean. I turned my head to talk to the others as we began to wander through the camp. Mark was walking steadily, Jack was also walking steadily though he appeared to have a slight limp. Twilight on the other hand was leaning against me to balance herself. She had a pretty severe limp and appeared to be a in a small amount of pain.

At first, we had no real destination in mind. But slowly we found ourselves heading for the showers. We knew that we wouldn't be able to get a spot in there, but there were usually barrels filled with water outside. A quick face wash can do wonders.

The showers were ruined, and so were some of the barrels of water outside. However, we found one that hadn't been hit by shrapnel. Jack tore off a piece of his shirt and began soaking it in the water. He then began to pass it round to all of us, and we began cleaning ourselves with it. We were so happy to be refreshed. Twilight was able to slightly spread her wings to clean them, onl when nobody was looking. Either way, we covered her.

Our faces clean and our minds a bit clearer. We slowly made our way to the supply depot. There, we talked to the Sargent about our mission and the equipment we now needed. The Sargent there demanded to know why we needed knew weapons. When Jack came back with our crippled weapons, the Sargent understood what we needed.

He gave us our immediate supplies rather quickly but was rather choosy about the weapons he was going to give us. In the end, Jack picked up a Carbine barrel and said that he just had to remove the one that was currently broken on his gun. However, for me and Mark, there were no spare parts. So instead, Mark went slid off and grabbed an M1 Garand from a box near the far end of the tent. Though the Sargent protested and said that: “Marines take Springfields! Garands are for the Army!”, Mark replied: “Springfields are for regular Marines! I'm not one of them.” The conversation ended right there. I made it easy on myself. I took whatever weapon the supply officer gave me. An M1928. After grabbing everything we needed, we made our way back to our tent that had somehow survived the bombardment again.

Putting everything down, we all strolled back outside.

“Sooo... what now?” Asked Mark, who was trying to shoulder his new weapon on his shoulder comfortably.

“I think we need some peace and quiet, I suggest that we head to the shore and to clear our heads. There we should also get a chance to go over the operation again.” I told them. They had no quarrel so with out waiting a minute longer, we headed through the jungle, towards the sea.

XXXXXXXXX

It was mid day, and Me, Mark, Jack and Twilight were all sat on the white beach. We were so glad to be free. We were not sat in the Hospital, we were sat on the beach, with a nice warm breeze blowing. We had already gone over the plan three more times. We were going to advance through our lines out into the deepest part of the jungle. There we would turn SE towards Lunga river, and a small clearing dead ahead from there. Once there, as I had explained to Twilight's friend, we would send out a repeated radio call on several wavebands so that he could find us.

Of course, this was quite dangerous as well. Enemy troops could also listen in on these signals and pinpoint our location just by listening in on our signals.

“So we're all clear on this?” I asked the others, nods and 'yes's confirmed my question. “Good, well we'll leave the camp at 1930hrs, from there we head out.” I explained before lying backwards into the sand, in the shade of the palm tree. I closed my eyes as I heard the others do the same.

But I heard someone get up, I was about to crack an eye open only to open both eyes as Twilight placed herself next to me. She laid down and took my arm in her hand. She looked at me and smiled, before closing her eyes and resting up next to me. I heard Mark chuckle, then groan as he turned himself onto his side.

Twilight sighed and closed her eyes as she yawned, her tongue poking out slightly in a extremely cute manner. She then looked at me, her eyes turning inwards as she focused on me, dark violet eyes looked into mine.

“I'm looking forward to getting back.” She said, but her voice betrayed a slight hint of sadness. “But I don't know what to do... I mean, you guys have helped me so much, I don't want to leave you guys here! And yet I know that with out you, you won't be able to save your people from those terrible explosions.”

“So what's the catch?” I asked.

“The truth... I care about you.” She admitted, her eyes lowering. “ I care about all of you, and now that Tomy's gone, I... I feel that, I may have broken your... group spirit.”

“No.” I said, turning my head to the sky. “Tomy's death was not on you, and I'm sorry that you have to feel this way, but if you didn't! Not suffering would be an insult to his memory.” I returned my gaze to her eyes. “It's not, I assure you. But I can tell you this, had you not come here, we would long dead. You've saved us more times than I can count.” I said, resting a hand on her right arm.

“Let's get you Home.”

XXXXXXXXX

We marched. One column of four people, all dressed in green. Our faces covered in camouflage paint, our helmets covered in leafs and sticks. Our jackets were closed, our belt buckles tight, our rifles shouldered and our heads held high.

We marched. On the road to destiny, the path towards the endgame. Marines, pilots, sailors. All came out of their holes and watched us go. The further we walked, the more and more people came out. They looked at us, sad faces, none had any envy of us.

We marched. The most important of us all stood at the end of the road. Behind us. Carlson, stood near the end of the road. He watched us, the rest of first Platoon were standing there. Maybe even some from second and third Platoon. As we past them, the ones closest to us extended their arms and shook our hands the others saluted us.

No words were exchanged as we past them, no questions about Twilight. Carlson must have known about her for a while, maybe he even knew our orders about her. At the gates of the camp, a crowd assembled and watched us go. We spared no second glances, we dared not look back. A fear of wanting to go back, to be safe. No... We dared not look back.

The road was long, but not long enough. The jungle loomed over us on both sides, the dark shape of the trees filled our hearts with strange emotions. As we approached the depot, we were greeted with same kind of farewell that we had had in the camp. Marines and Army men stood there, saluting us as We Marched down a path into the jungle.

Upon entering the jungle, we holstered our rifles and walked further down the path. Carefully watching out for trip wires or mines placed in the trees. We past three men, sat in a small clearing, waiting to cover our retreating troops if ever they needed to fall back. I gripped my Thompson fiercely... the place around me reminding me of that night.

We exited that part of the jungle, to enter the battlefield. The ground was clear, no bodies to be seen. The troops manning the position looked up at us as we approached, their weapons pointed straight at us. We hopped down into the trench, the sergeant stared at me for a moment but dared not speak to any of us. Neither of them wanted to find themselves talking to people that had riskier jobs than they did. So they stayed out of our way. As Jack was the last one down, we all sat down for a moment and did our final equipment checks.

2153Hrs, “Five more minutes, then we move.” I whispered to the others. I took my Thompson and pulled out the mag. Twenty rounds times by five. Sure hope that it would be enough.

2158Hrs, “Let's move.” I got up, followed by the others. We crossed the line, the barbed wire, the field and entered the far side of the jungle. We found our path, and followed it. Now all we had to do was follow our compasses.

And as we ventured farther into the jungle, a feeling of dread found its way into my very being; 'Would this be the last time I'll ever be with Twilight again?'

Comments

[p61blkwidow]

another exciting and powerful chapter.as always each chapter is well worth the wait!and merry christmas too you!

[FIRE FLASH 3]

9365220
Thank you sooooo much.

Merry christmas to you and thanks again!

[FIRE FLASH 3]

9370446
I'll do my best to get it out as soon as possible.

[SovietWafflez]

Please do continue this story. You got my every attention from the start.

[FIRE FLASH 3]

9375114
Still working on it !