• 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 5 - Course of Action

“I’m telling you Twilight, I saw them fighting over here… see?” A small reptilian creature says while pointing to the dead corpses of the dogs with a shaky finger. He can still hear the sharp cracks of the strange weapon wielded by the strangely-dressed ape-like beast, see the head of one all but exploding, and blood gushing from the wounds they caused.

“Hmm, those are the Diamond Dogs alright…” a single-horned and lavender-furred mare said while checking the bodies to confirm if they were dead… and finding they not only were, but they sported some very odd but clearly lethal wounds. “So. Okay. So where is this ‘gorilla with a noise tube’ you saw, Spike?” The horned one asks the small reptile, who is staying behind her for protection.

“I-I don’t know… it was struggling with the last one and fell down a hill! “The reptile says, too embarrassed to say he stayed hidden in the brush for an hour afterwards, so badly shaken by what he saw.

“What were you doing out here anyway?” she asks him, inspecting the surrounding area where she finds more strange hoofprints in the ground.

“Just w-went to visit Zecora…” he replies, staying close to her for protection. “Had some ruby tea and sh-she said there were ‘strange folk about, there is no doubt! Odd creatures and contraptions… perhaps from different factions!’” he mimes the zebra mare’s voice surprisingly well.

Twilight has no idea what their striped friend could mean by that. She decides to visit her next, after solving the immediate mystery of what happened there.

“Hmm. These hoofprints are quite interesting. I wish we could have seen that gorilla, Spike…” The horned mare says, more than a bit curious of what may have made the oddly-shaped impressions in front of her.

“I’m really sorry, Twilight. If I called you sooner… maybe you could have~” he can’t finish and lowers his head to say sorry to his caretaker, mother and mentor.

“It’s alright Spike… whatever did this to them must have been really scary to see. Though I really wish I could figure out what~”

“God damn it! Son of a BITCH!”

Both of them fall silent as they listen intently to the slightly muffled voice, spouting cursewords they’d never heard before, the small reptile seeking protection behind the larger mare yet again…

“Oh that’s just great! Fucking, no good piece of… of ALL the fucking luck! It’s been been, what? almost half a day I’m hanging around this piece of crap!”

Both of them look at each other and then very cautiously go to the source of the voice, which sounds to be coming from down the hill, if not over the cliff. Careful of their footing, they edge toward it and peer over the side, to finally behold…

A very strange ape-like creature who was tangled in tree branches a few feet from the edge of the cliff, hanging upside down by his knees and seemingly unable to pull himself up, the ground beneath the tree slowly giving way under his weight and threatening to drop him into the ravine.

“Damn it!! I won’t die like this, Not hanging upside down from a fucking tree! Ugh!” Vasquez tries to pull himself up to grab a second branch but his actions only serve to loosen the tree trunk further, causing an ominous creak as it tilts over further.

“Great! Just GREAT! So this is it for me?! You spare me from a nuke to make me fall from a tree? HUH? Answer me GODDAMN IT!” Vasquez talks to no one, losing hope along with the tree’s grip on the cliff edge.

“It’s not it…” A female voice from atop of the cliff echoes to Vasquez’s head. He looks up to see… another mare! Only this one is purple and has a spiral horn jutting out of her forehead.

Despite the appearance of a second pony—and her even stranger-looking companion; a green-and-purple lizard-like creature—Vasquez is just relieved and thankful that finally, someone came to help him.

“Hey. Hey YOU! Please… can you help me?” Vasquez calls out, praying they won’t abandon him for being an alien ape… but also not knowing how they were going to get him out of there given he had but seconds left before the tree gave way and he went plummeting to his death.

“Okay, hold on gorilla!” The horn of the purple pony suddenly shines and then, as if like magic, Vasquez feels himself being picked up by a strange violet aura as he floats up to the air and lands safely on top of the cliff, the loosened tree finally crashing loudly down the cliffside.

Though stunned by his close call and his savior’s actions, he’s too relieved to care. “Thanks, and by the way… I’m, uh, not a gorilla. I’m a human and my name is Alberto Vasquez. I’m a Lieutenant of the USMC 1st Force Recon… or used to be.” he falls forward to all fours, still shaky and breathing hard from his close call.

Twilight understands little of what he said—what’s a human? USMC?—but she does recognize the word “Lieutenant”, knowing that’s a military rank; one her brother has held. So is he some kind of soldier…? “I see… well I’m Twilight Sparkle and this is Spike, my dragon assistant” Vasquez looks to the small thing which appears to be a small lizard.

“Is he a real dragon?” Vasquez asked in curiosity, amazed he can ask so calmly.

“Yes he is… but he’s still a baby though.” Twilight says looking at Spike, who seems a bit peeved off by Twilight’s description on him.

“Yes, I’m a dragon! But… what the hay are you?” ‘Spike’ says, keeping ‘Twilight’ between them, peering out at him from behind her.

After encountering so many strange creatures, Vasquez is finally starting to take things a little more in stride… even another talking animal, though at least this is one is bipedal. Then again, the dog-creatures were too, and they weren’t friendly… “I’m, uh…” He starts, only to trail off—he’s already introduced himself, but how are you supposed to explain yourself to alien creatures on another world? And how did they even speak his language?

“You’re not from around here, are you?” Far from being afraid, ‘Twilight’ appears completely intrigued by the creature in front of her, almost studying him like a lap specimen.

“Well, you could say that, yes…” he grants. “As the matter of fact. I don’t even know how I got here.” Standing back up, Vasquez looks for the gear that he dropped in the struggle with the strange canine-like creature. “Have you two seen my pistol anywhere?” Vasquez asks the pair.

The two glance at each other; the baby dragon giving an uncomprehending shrug. “Pistol?” The pair say at once.

He hesitates, but replies, deciding there’s no point in hiding the truth. “I’m a soldier. It’s… a kind of weapon we use where I come from.” He hopes they won’t take that badly.

“What does it look like?” Spike asks as he spies at a strange metal object thing in front of him.

“Its looks like… uh…” Vasquez thinks of what he can describe it for these strange creature who certainly don’t know about modern warfare. “It’s metallic, about the size of a brick and looks like the letter ‘L’… You do have letters here, don’t you?”

“Oh… is this it?” Spike raises up the pistol that he found near a bush, grasping it by the barrel and looking down it. After a moment of panic before remembering the gun had jammed and can’t fire, Vasquez thanks Spike and takes the pistol, clearing the jammed round and clicking on the safety before reholstering it. “Wait… is that the noise tube?” Spike panics anew, hiding behind Twilight again.

Vasquez looks at him, something clicking. “Wait… you were here before?”

Spike nods sharply but stays behind Twilight. “Y-yeah… I was heading home from Zecora’s when I saw you and those Diamond Dogs,” he explains. “I hid. And then you…” he points at the pistol and cringes, his hands (paws?) going to his ears.

“Oh…” the Lieutenant said, finally recognizing why the small ‘dragon’ was afraid of him. “Don’t worry, it’s safe. Those… things you called ‘diamond dogs’ attacked me and I had to defend myself,” he explains, finally knowing the names of the strange canines he’d grappled with earlier.

“Then… how you you make it do noises?” Spike asked, really curious about the heavy thing.

Vasquez shakes his head. “Sorry kid, this isn’t a toy. It could kill you, like what I did with those dogs there.” Vasquez points to the two corpses of the dogs near them

“You did that?” Twilight asks, astonished and a little appalled—the diamond dogs were no favorites of ponies to be sure, and did sometimes set ambushes for travelers on lonely roads to get their bits and gems. She certainly understood defending oneself against them, but to actually kill them…

Recognizing her wary look, Vasquez immediately tries to explain himself. “I’m sorry, but… what else I could do? I tried to be friendly but they surrounded me and attacked me! So I… used my pistol. But unfortunately, one of those dogs jumped on me and rolled down the hill. That’s how I ended up in that tree…” he gives another shuddering gasp, remembering his close call once more.

“Oh, I see…” Twilight still isn’t fully convinced of the circumstances, but recognizes that in his mind, at least, he was acting in self-defense. But what kind of world must he come from that he immediately resorts to deadly force…?

“By the way, uh, Twilight…” It feels decidedly odd to him to call her by name. “Do you know a pegasus named… Fluttershy?” Vasquez asks, to the surprise of both mare and dragon.

“Huh? You met Fluttershy?” Spike replies on behalf of Twilight.

“Yeah, well kind of… we, uh, rescued her from giant snakes. Or a Hydra, I think she called it.”

“A hydra? W-Where is she?! Is she okay?” Twilight speaks out, very concerned about the winged mare.

“She suffered a leg wound…” Vasquez tells her all about what how they rescued her the previous day, explaining that she’s currently in a cave with his partner. After the short explanation, he invites them to follow him back to the cave so that they can see her, and they both eagerly agree.

Just as they are about to reach the cave they see two unfamiliar figures by the entrance… and they are definitely not Marines, or even American. Vasquez quickly tells the two to hide until given the signal to come out, while he goes to check on them.

Drawing his pistol again, he slips in a fresh fifteen-round magazine, trying to get a closer look at them, uncertain if they are combatants or just civilians seeking shelter. As he gets a clear look through a hole in foliage, he recognizes the pair from their garb and weapons as ultranationalist rebels, the same ones they’ve been fighting for weeks… and judging by the voices, that there are several more inside the cave.

Recognizing the odds did not favor him, not wanting to endanger either of his two friends and realizing that Jackson and Fluttershy had already left if they were acting so calmly, he decides that discretion was the better part of valor and began to back away, but the snap of a twig gave him away. The two rebel soldiers level their weapons and open fire at him, though they couldn’t see him clearly through the dense undergrowth. Rounds flying around him, He takes cover behind a nearby tree and shouts at his two new companions to run before they get killed.

Stunned and wide-eyed at the cacophony of noise and the sensation of projectiles whizzing past them, chipping logs and tree trunks at speeds too fast to see, they shake off their panic and obey, getting up to run the opposite way. But Spike is caught by a stray round and drops to the road holding his left leg in pain, purple blood flowing down his calf. Twilight tries to help him up but can’t concentrate enough to use magic because of her fear, the flying bullets and the very loud gunfire breaking her focus, making her panic.

“Help!” she shouts at Vasquez, trying desperately to pull Spike to safety with her strength alone.

Vasquez returns fire as he goes to the injured Spike, the ingrained credo that Marines never leave their comrades or friends behind foremost in his mind. Arriving at a dead run, he reaches down and picks him up with one arm—he wasn’t that heavy, being roughly the size and weight of an 8-year old—and drags him behind a fallen tree, the unicorn mare close behind.

“Ouch! Ow! It hurts! It hurts! What’s with those guys? why did they throw a metal thing in me?” Spike didn’t know that he was shot, only that he was in great pain and losing purplish blood rapidly; Vasquez knows he has to act fast, or his new friend might end up being dead. Removing his belt, he goes for his first-aid supplies and takes out a roll of gauze, wrapping it to the young dragon’s wound, tightening a belt around it.

“What’s happening? Why are they attacking us?” Twilight asks wildly, confused and uncertain what to do.

“Damn… Twilight, right? Take this cloth! Keep pressure on the wound and above all else, stay hidden! I’ll take these guys out!” Without waiting for a response, Vasquez leaves Twilight to tend for Spike and makes a low dash for a second piece of cover, a nearby tree with attached brush, listening intently as the Russians came looking for him. Catching the point men by surprise, he drops the first two with well-placed shots, but three more follow and immediately open up on his position, though they still hadn’t spotted him, their shots not finding him while a thrown grenade doesn’t make it through the brush, knocked to the ground by a branch and exploding harmlessly twelve yards short of him.

Dropping to the ground, he takes careful aim and kills a third rebel with a headshot, leaving two, who immediately fall to the ground, shouting in Russian at each other. As the Lieutenant is reloading, they suddenly leap up and run in opposite directions, trying to flank him. Slamming the fresh clip home, he takes a flurry of shots and manages to hit the leg of the 2nd one, leaving him screaming in pain. He immediately spins right, searching for the last Russian, but he is out of sight.

“Sir! Look out!!” A freshly panicked Twilight shouts. As Vasquez turns, the last Russian bursts out of the brush behind him, leveling his AK-47 directly at the Marine’s head!

“You will die… American!” Vasquez is in total daze as his life flashes before his eyes yet again that day, his pistol pointed uselessly away. He watches helplessly as the Russian prepares to fire, gripping his trigger tighter and tighter…

The sound of automatic weapons fire echo through the forest as a bullet-riddled body falls dead to the ground….

Author's Note:

It's been years since I continued this story, and now, it's being rebuilt to exterminate several miss-spells and grammar problems, plus the one editing is non-other than the editor and co-writer of Phoenix wright Turnabout Storm... Firesight! yay...... :rainbowkiss: