A young lad, no older than nineteen or twenty, walked through the corpse strewn field with three of his fellow soldiers. They stepped carefully, as the ground was slick and wet with the blood of thousands of equine warriors. All of the fallen ponies they saw, had upon their faces expressions of intense hatred or determination. The young man shifted the weight of the M240L machine gun in his hands, as his comrades spoke about the war and the pony kingdom.
“What’s the ruler of these four-legged fucks again? Princess Luna or some shit like that?” One of them asked.
“She’s one of them, but Luna is the younger of the two. Celestia is the real bitch behind this nightmare.” Another responded. He took a drag from his cigarette and continued. “I heard that our boys up north near Minneapolis actually were able to take some prisoners.”
“Really? These ponies are so damn suicidal, I thought none would be taken alive.” Said the medic.
“Well one prisoner to be exact. Plus he didn’t come quietly. If I remember, that pony stabbed two of our guys before they got the weapon away from him.”
“We get any info from this P.O.W.?” The first soldier asked.
“Not much initially, but after a few days of getting the shit kicked out of him, he finally spat out something other than his name, rank, or division.” He paused, taking another puff from his cigarette. “The ponies are divided. He said that the high casualties and slow progress are making the pony public weary of the war. Many want peace, but bitch-on-high Celestia won’t let anything like that happen. She crushes all who oppose her, and ponies who question her disappear.”
“Damn. She’s like a ponified version of Hitler.” The medic laughed.
“That’s just FUBAR.” The first one spoke. “A pony Hitler who stirs up her troops to suicidally charge entrenched positions defended by machine guns, tanks, and artillery? And on top of that, she intimidates her own kind. That’s just messed up, she has to be a sociopath.”
“Probably.” Replied the medic. “But you have to remember, the ponies claim that her and her sister are goddesses. That’s why they’re so afraid to go up against her.”
“I thought divine rulers were supposed to be kind and compassionate.” The first said in a condescending tone.
The group of soldiers laughed at this, and even the young machine gunner laughed with them. For he had been mute during this conversation.
“Peterson.”
The machine gunner turned his head to the first soldier, who had an ace of spades playing card stuck on the side of his helmet.
“Yeah, Ace?” Peterson asked.
“You okay? You haven’t spoke a single word since the attack. We were starting to worry about you, ya know? Afraid that maybe you finally cracked from it all.”
“I haven’t cracked.” Peterson said gruffly. “I’ve just been thinking.”
“Suit yourself, just checking on you.”
Peterson only grunted in response, returning to his thoughts. All he could think of was the previous battle a few hours ago. How he had wielded his machine gun and killed well over one hundred ponies in this battle alone. How the bodies had piled up so high that the ponies had to climb the mountains of their own dead, only to be mown down and become part of the hill they climbed. How that one of the forward positions was overrun and everyone there was slaughtered. How the smell and sight of the huge amount of bodies made everyone want to vomit.
He looked down at the weapon in his hands. His M240L seemed to be covered by a shroud of malice, gleaming hungrily in the sunlight. The twenty-two pound weapon had taken human lives before, but now it took the lives of countless ponies. He did not know how many lives, human or pony, that he and the extension of his arm had taken, nor did he want to know. Deep down inside, he was saddened and sickened from the amount of lives he had taken during this war. While the ponies weren’t human, he could not help but sympathise with them slightly. He respected their determination and bravery, but at the end of the day, it was them or him.
Ace spoke again after a short while. “So why are we here in this field of death and blood again? Shouldn’t we be back at base camp celebrating or something?”
The soldier with the cigarette, who was their Corporal, replied. “Well Pvt. Jackson, we are out here because command told us to be out here. As for our objective, we are looking for survivors, so as to obtain prisoners. If we find one, hopefully we’ll be able to get some intel from it.”
“Watch the corpses carefully.” Peterson suddenly stated. “Sometimes the wounded bastards who survive play dead until you get close to them. Mind yourselves.”
“How would you know this?” Ace asked, being a smartass. “Personal experience or something?”
Peterson stopped walking and was instantly transported into a flashback. The horrible memory played in his mind as he could only watch in despair, unable to change anything.
“Peterson?”
He heard his name faintly in the background as the terrible scene unfolded. He relived it all again, him and his buddy walking through a field, the pony jumping up and stabbing his friend, him shooting the pony, trying hopelessly to stop the bleeding, his friend dying. He was powerless, and that feeling of helplessness and guilt still haunted him. Why did his friend have to die? Why not him instead? Why?
“Peterson!” His name ringed in his ears, and he was pulled back into reality. His Corporal was shaking him as he regained awareness.
“Are you okay Peterson?” He asked, concern lined his face.
“Yeah... just a flashback...” Peterson said as he looked away and started walking forward again.
The Corporal looked at Ace and gave him a stern look. Ace shrugged and mouthed, “How was I supposed to know?”
The group combed the field extensively. After a few hours, they had found nothing but corpses, some intel, and a few “souvenirs”. They were about to call it quits when Peterson stopped suddenly, looking around frantically.
“Did you hear that?” He asked.
“Hear what?”
“Sounded like coughing.”
A muffled noise came from a distance away, and it did sound like coughing.
“One of them is alive somewhere, and I think I know where.” Peterson said as he pulled the charging handle back on his M240L, chambering a round. “Cover me.” He said as he moved slowly to a shell crater with some corpses strewn around it, holding his weapon up to his shoulder.
-----------------------------
The light yellow earth pony was terrified. She had laid there for hours, waiting for the humans to go away. When she thought they had gone, she had let out a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, she began to have a coughing fit, due to accidentally inhaling some of her own saliva. She heard one of them say that he heard something, and had failed to successfully muffle her coughing sufficiently. The crunch of his boots came closer and closer as she frantically pressed herself against the side of the crater, praying to Celestia that he wouldn’t see her.
The human approached the crater, and stood on the edge of it, directly above the mare. He scanned it, and the surrounding area. He seemed not to see her as he jumped down into the pit in front of her. She wanted to scream, but shoved her hoof in her mouth to keep herself quiet. The thoughts and rumors she heard of what humans did to captured ponies, especially mares, flooded her brain. She had heard stories that humans liked to beat and torture ponies, and that some of the most disgusting of the humans would rape mares.
The human moved around, no doubt searching for her, and was becoming frustrated. “I could’ve sworn I heard it come from over here.” He spoke to himself.
Apparently giving up, the human approached one side of the crater and yelled out, “Don’t shoot me, I’m coming back up.” As he took the step out of the crater.
At that very moment, the mare felt another wave of coughing coming up. She tried to stop herself, being filled with fear with what might happen if the human found her. Like most coughs, it irritated her throat and would not go away until it was released. Tears accumulating in her eyes, she tried not to cough. But her breath was running out and the cough was practically forcing it’s way out of her throat. She had to open her mouth to let the used air out of her lungs, and the coughing followed.
The human stopped dead in mid-step upon hearing the coughs. His head whipped in her direction as his black, empty eyes stared at her. For a moment both human and pony sat there surprised and afraid. Suddenly, he called out, “I found one!”
The mare gave a loud shriek and tried to pull herself out of the crater with her injured body.
The human wasted no time in acting. He turned on a dime and leapt at her. She shrieked again as she feared for her life. She was defenseless, having lost both her sword and dagger when she was injured by the thunder missile.
He landed on her back and wrapped one of his arms around her neck, trying to put her into a choke-hold. She whipped her head back and smashed her helmeted head into his. Stunned, she was able to shake him off and continued to climb. She had reached the rim and was about to pull herself out. He recovered quickly, and grabbed her hind hoof and pulled her back into the crater.
She flipped herself on her back and lashed at him with her caught hoof. It struck him in the chest as he lost his grip on her and his weapon. She flipped over again, and tried to ascend the crater side once more. But again, he pulled her back down.
This time, she rolled down the side of the crater colliding with him. The two combatants turned over a few times, wrestling to end up on top. They stopped rolling and the mare’s heavier weight went against her, as the human ended up on top of her. He pulled out a knife from his belt and tried to stab her. She stopped his arm with her hoof, while he gripped her other hoof to prevent her from lashing out with it.
The two sat there for a few moments, struggling against each other. Slowly, the human was bringing his knife ever closer to her neck. He was going to win, unless she acted fast. An idea crept into her head and she chose to enact it, as risky as it was. She allowed the knife to come closer to her. Sensing this change, the human thought victory was assured.
He stopped pressing after the tip touched her neck. “Yield. You’re done.” He said.
Surprising him, she gripped the flat of the blade with her teeth. She then yanked the knife out of his grasp and hit him in the chin with her now free hoof. She rolled them both and now he was on the bottom, pinned by her. Flipping the knife into the air, she caught it by the handle with her mouth and spoke through it, “No, you are done.”
“Hey! Equine bitch!”
The new voice startled her and she looked up just in time to see the butt of a rifle slam into her face. The force of the impact knocked her off of the human and onto her side while the knife flew from her grasp. The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was the dirt brown side of the crater, with three ominous shadows looming over her.
Hoh-kay, two things.
First: awesome story. It's short thus far, but I'm absolutely loving how you're going about this. I always like it when an author goes with a more uncommon approach to an otherwise well-worn plot device (TCB or near-TCB human vs pony conflicts, for example).
Second: this is only a small issue, really, but this chapter is a bit too short. Excellently written, of course, and it's got a great story to it...but not enough story, if you get my meaning. When I read this, I had conflicting feelings. On one hand, I see the makings of a wonderfully entertaining fic. On the other, the chapter's so sort that it leaves me feeling kinda...unsatisfied. The way I see it, you got your "hook" with the 1700-ish word intro, now you need to feed your readers with a bit more of the "line". A cliffhanger's fine, but not too soon in the chapter. Some stories work with shorter chapters, this one...isn't one of them.
That said, I nonetheless wait eagerly for the next chapter.
good chapter again loving this fic
2518535 Thank you. I've not really read many human vs. pony conflict stories, or TCB for that matter, but I know the usual stereotype; Ponies appear, stuff happens, magic, more stuff, ponies win by a landslide. I wanted to make a story that broke that mold. Something that portrayed a more realistic version of what would happen if humans fought ponies with modern/slightly futuristic weaponry and add some twists here and there. Thus, this was born.
I'm glad that you're enjoying the story, and I agree with your second point. I even felt this chapter was a bit too short. I could have sworn I remembered it being longer before I looked over it to post it. Oh well, the next chapter will be longer, so no worries.
2518670 Thanks.
Awesome story but I have two complaints.
1- The chapters are too short
2- They aren't posted fast enough
Other than that this is the best TCB story I have seen in a while.
I'm delighted to see this being updated. A little too short, though. Can't wait for more.
2519384>>2519456 Glad you guys enjoy the story so far. I'll try to get the next chapter for this out a bit quicker, not to mention make it a bit longer.
2520829 To be entirely honest, I had this chapter practically completed a while back. Although, I went over it and redid and removed a couple parts about a month or so ago. All that was needed before posting was for me to go over it one last time and edit it.
The reason I didn't post it then was because I was trying to focus solely on my other story. After I completed chapter two for Warmongers, I essentially threw it into storage until I got caught up with my other story. So yes, it is a bit sad it took this long, but that is also why the next chapter will be out much quicker this time around.
I... Am at a loss for words, that was incredibly well written.
2530236 Thank you for the compliment.