• Published 30th Nov 2011
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Call of Duty - Equestrian Warfare - ChromeRegios



After a Disastrous mission gone wrong, Jackson was left for dead at a nucler explosion when he foundhimself to be the first human... in a whole new world.

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Chapter 2 - Fluttershy

This is CRAZY! This can’t be… am I losing it?

“You spoke? You can really talk?!” Jackson is in shock… unable to believe his eyes or ears!

“Y-Yes…” she confirms again, more weakly, uncertain of the strange bipedal creature’s intentions.

Jackson staggers back against the wall of the cave. “A mare that can talk?!” he whispers to himself… thinking the whole situation was absurd! In all the times he’d been in battles, he’d encountered trained dogs and even dolphins before, but none of them had ever talked!

“I’m dreaming! Yeah that’s right! I’m dreaming.” he thinks as he clutches his head, trying and failing to accept the idea of this talking young mare before him! Suddenly wondering again if he really is dead, he then asks her a question…

“What were you doing here, with those giant snakes?!” he asks, still is trying to piece it all out… if it’s a dream, if it’s real… if he’s in fact dead or alive.

“Um… I-I was picking some herbs in the forest, when that… that Hydra came out of nowhere and chased me through the swamp,” she explains timidly. “It had too many heads… I couldn’t stare them all down…”

Jackson was in a daze, the content of her words still registering less than the simple fact she was speaking. “She really is talking!” he admits to himself. He then pinches himself on the arm and face several times to try to wake himself up, but gets only bruises from his actions, finding it hurts a lot, especially given the flashburns he’s still nursing from the nuke strike.

Finally convinced he isn’t dreaming, he looks back at the mare and sees a confused expression on her surprisingly expressive face

“What were you, d-doing h-here?” she asks with an audible tremor in her voice, visibly frightened by him. “I’ve never seen anypony like you before…” she looks him over again, taking in his alien features, strange garb, and odd metallic items.

“I’m… um…” he has no idea what he can tell her, so he simply doesn’t. “It’s nothing… nothing that you need to worry about it.” He shrugs it off and checks at the pretty mare’s injuries, as much to master his nerves as to tend her.

“How’s your leg? Can you move it?” he asks her, and she responds, showing him that she can just fine.

“That’s a relief,” he sighs, strangely happy to know that that she’s okay.

“Um… thank you…” ‘Fluttershy’ responds, starting to relax just a bit. Though she still has no idea who this strange creature is, she quickly decides he is a friend if he took care of her.

Just then Vasquez returns with the firewood. Arriving just outside of the cave, he is surprised to hear the Sergeant talking to someone. Thinking that his subordinate might have found another survivor, he goes inside to see… nobody but the mare and Jackson there, though the former has woken up and is now staring at him with very large, teal-colored eyes.

“Who were you talking to, sergeant?” Vasquez asks as he drops the firewood in the floor and prepares to start a fire, sparing just a glance to Fluttershy, wondering what kind of owner would give their pony colored contact lenses along with the yellow fur and pink mane dyes. “I see our guest is awake.”

“Well, uh… you’re not going to believe this, L-T, but… I’m talking to our guest.” Jackson points to the now-aware mare sitting near Jackson, peering uncertainly back at him…

The Lieutenant gives him a look. “You’re talking to the animal now? Did you hit your head when you got thrown from the chopper? Or are you just lonely?” Vasquez teases Jackson a bit, trying to lighten the mood. “Bit silly for you to talk to an animal, isn’t it?”

Jackson smirks like the joke’s not on him. “She’s not an animal. Her name is Fluttershy, sir,” the Sergeant corrects his superior.

Vazquez gives him a look. “Oh, so now you named her? And what kind of name is Fluttershy? I guess it does kind of suit her, but I mean, how girly can you get?” He laughs at Jackson even more as begins to make a fire pit.

“Damn it, L-T, this isn’t a joke! She really can talk!” He raises his voice at the Lieutenant, glancing at Fluttershy for help. Fluttershy understands his look, looking between the two creatures that probably saved her life as she gets the idea that the first stranger needs her help on this.

“A-Actually, he’s telling the truth” Fluttershy speaks in a very small but clear voice stopping both Vasquez and Jackson’s conversation in its tracks. They both looked at each other, and looked at her. Shocked, Vasquez accidentally snaps his plastic lighter in his grip, causing it to crack open and spills flaming oil all over his hand and firewood…

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!” Vasquez literally shouts in surprise as he tries frantically to beat out the flames.

“So, you heard it too?” Jackson asks his dumbfounded Lieutenant.

Vazquez doesn’t immediately reply, dumping canteen water all over his hand. Once the flames are out, he remembers the question. “I heard it alright, but… is she really…?” He can’t even complete the sentence, still in shock over the whole thing.

“It’s true, sir. We’re not dreaming; she is talking! I tried to pinch myself awake earlier. I don’t know where we are or where she came from, but sir… this ain’t a dream,” Jackson says, assuring himself as much as his Lieutenant that everything they’re experiencing is real.

“Um, excuse me…” Fluttershy speaks up again. “Thank you for your help and for fixing my leg. But um… w-who are you?” She looks between the two strange creatures again.

After much explaining and talking to Fluttershy, they start to understand each other bit by bit… though for the two marines, they’re getting more questions than answers.

“So you live in a town called Ponyville?” Jackson asks her, scarcely able to believe a place would be called something so self-descriptive.

“And there are others like you?” Vasquez adds another question before Fluttershy can answer the first one.

“Oh, yes, many others! Not just ponies either! But even among ponies, we can be quite different…”

“Different?” Vasquez and Jackson ask at once.

Fluttershy stands up and takes off her saddlebags. She carefully sets it aside to reveal… a pair of feathered appendages attached just below her shoulders. She flares her wings up and stretches them outwards to show their full length to her stunned rescuers, who flinch backwards at the sight.

“There are several different types of pony. For example… I’m, um, a pegasus pony,” she says to them, a bit taken aback by their reaction. “I can fly, though I don’t really like to.”

“A pegasus….” the dumbfounded Jackson begins…

“… pony?” Vasquez finishes in an equally stunned voice.

“Y-yes… I umm…” Fluttershy hesitates before she continues. “I-is that okay?” She shifts her face partially behind her long pink bangs.

The two men share another glance, thinking nothing is okay about this entire day. “It’s okay. We understand…” Jackson reassures her as he pretends to know what she’s talking about.

“You do?” Vasquez asks blankly, completely oblivious of Jackson’s thought. Not wanting to frighten their nervous guest, their only friend in this new world, Jackson gives him a quick elbow him in the midsection, trying to get him to play along.

“So, uh… do you have a house nearby for you to go home?” Jackson asked, standing up and looking outside, noting darkness had nearly fallen, and there were more unfamiliar animal sounds coming from the woods.

She nodded. “Actually, yes I do. It’s on the other side of the forest but it’s far to walk from here…”

“Then, we should go there first thing in the morning… if we go now, we might see much more than what we just killed before.” Vasquez looks out of the cave as Jackson is thinking much the same thing, already worrying about what other creatures they might encounter in the dark of night. With their night vision gear fried by the nuke’s EMP, they had no means to see, and the available light was rapidly fading.

“Tell me, are there anything more monsters, except that giant snake-thing from earlier?” the sergeant asks, clutching his rifle a little tighter.

Confirming his fears, she nods somewhat jerkily. “Oh yes… there’s Manticores. Ursa minors and majors… also dragons, though they don’t usually come this far south. So be careful out there if you do go out. Be especially wary of a certain creature called a cockatrice.”

“Cockatrice?” the two marines chorus.

“Oh! Um… a cockatrice is a snake with the head of chicken that can turn you to stone just by looking at you!” she informs the human pair, whose minds can barely process what they’re being told. “I only barely stared one down before.”

Vasquez is even more dumbfounded, recognizing from one of his college western literature classes that most of the monsters she was describing were right out Greek Mythology… Looks like they’re real here! he shuddered slightly, only belatedly noting that pegasi are supposed to be mythical creatures as well. “Then it’s best to stay the night here… and no wandering outside after dark, understand, Sergeant?” Vasquez gives a command to Jackson, who after all he has already seen it takes it very seriously.

“You don’t have to tell me twice, L-T!” Jackson replies to the Lieutenant. “Believe me, I’m in no hurry to die.” If we aren’t already dead… he can’t help but think again, wondering if they’re in some strange hell or purgatory.

“Me neither.” Jackson then tells Fluttershy to sleep, while they stand guard… though the strange winged pony is a bit persistent that they don’t have to do that, as she doesn’t want to be a burden to them.

The pair share a smile at that. For her pretty appearance and bashful nature, the two marines are starting to see her as less alien than adorable. “It’s no burden at all, Miss Fluttershy… so please get some rest. Tomorrow, we’ll get you home safely…” Jackson promises the canary-yellow Pegasus with a smile on his face. Reassured, Fluttershy does just that, closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep…

For even though she only just met the strangers… she already trusts them with all her heart.

Once she was asleep, Jackson stands up and goes to Vasquez, who stands guard just outside the cave. “Say Lieutenant, do you think those creatures she mentioned… are they real?” he asks his L-T.

Vasquez hesitates before replying, his mind still reeling. “Well… if what we saw and killed is real enough… I think we have to assume they are.” He struggles to keep the tremor from his voice.

“I think you’re right,” Jackson agrees, long experience with his officer friend telling him that he’s quite rattled. “But the one thing she can’t answer… how did we get here? And where is here…?”

“I don’t know,” the Lieutenant admits with a shake of his head, “but until we have some answers or a better sense of this place, we don’t drop our guard, got it?”

“Copy that,” the Sergeant quickly agrees. Jackson then looks towards the night sky, thinking about something. “You think tomorrow… we’ll meet her friends though?”

“Probably. Why? Are you excited to meet more ponies?” Vasquez manages a wan smile at his weak joke.

Jackson gives him a look. “Real funny, L-T… I just want to know how we got here in the first place… think maybe somebody here might know?”

“Maybe. But that’s not really a bother… I mean, we just survived a nuclear blast!” the Lieutenant laughs nervously.

The Sergeant gives his L-T a disbelieving look, not liking the shaky tone in his voice. “But that’s just it! We should be dead! But somehow we ended up here instead!” he motioned to Fluttershy then at their surroundings.

Vasquez shrugs. “Dunno. Maybe we went to an alternate universe or something,” he chuckled in the same nervous tone.

“Yeah, like that’s going to happen,” the Sergeant snorts, trying not to think about the possibility that somehow, they already have.

After their conversation, Vasquez takes out his pistol and starts to walk towards the cave entrance.

“Hey! I thought you said not to go out after dark?” Jackson reminds his L-T as he keeps walking.

“I won’t go far! I just need some… some air, okay?” he walks away with another glance back. “See if I can find us some food, too.”

Jackson can only watch him go, hearing the slightly shrill note in his L-T’s voice and deciding that whatever’s going on, he needs some time to process things. So he returns to the cave and lays back against the rock walls, watching over Fluttershy as she sleeps. Hungry as well, he grabs an MRE from his pack and thinks back to the USMC Annual Thanksgiving Dinner the previous year. “It was a lot more fun than this year was…” he mutters to himself, shaking his head as he revisited the day in his memories, finding himself speaking softly to Fluttershy, even though she was fast asleep.

“It was November 24th and we had some Canadian marines visiting,” he told her, hoping he didn’t wake her but desperately needing a sounding board. “I visited a friend on the barracks who was throwing a Thanksgiving party along with the other marines. Lots of turkey and beer and some harder stuff too. We were having the time of our lives. My friend refused alcohol but insisted that I drink… so I did. After four rounds, I said I had enough, but they he kept putting more cups in my hand. After a while, I was completely drunk and had no idea what I was doing… the last thing I remembered before blacking out that I took a L.A.W rocket launcher and pointed it at something…”

He shook his head and chuckled. “The next morning I woke up in the infirmary with a splitting headache and learned that my friend was facing court-martial because he drunkenly destroyed 4 humvees with the LAW inside the compound. He knew I’d just been promoted from Corporal to Sergeant and had a promising future ahead while his reputation was already shit, so he took the fall in order for me to stay in the service. Don’t know if I’ll ever live that down. Also don’t know if that’s really the reason why he chose to take the blame or not, but I was grateful to him. He got booted right out of the Corps but hooked up with the Army instead. He truly is a friend… I just wonder if he’ll ever make it into the 75th regiment in the US Army Rangers…” his voice trailed off, hoping and praying he’d somehow be able to make it up to him…

And that he’d yet make it home to do so.