> The Melding of Two Worlds Pt. 1: The Battle for Ponyville
>  by Luckless
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1:  Whole New World
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another day, another dollar.  That's what everyone says.  I guess that's true.  By no means does being in the militia pay well, but I got paid.  Usually, this was to just look out of a guard tower, go on a patrol on the week ends, or (as per usual) wear your equipment everywhere and just be ready for a fight.  It was boring work usually, but not as bad as watching paint dry.  And those were the good days.  Bad days included raids from traveling bandits, where there was always the risk of someone dying, but there was always something getting blown up or someone getting hurt, so what's one more insident.  
Today started no different than any other Sunday.  Got up, dressed quickly, clean my weapons, go out to the base and CO's office to get my assignment.  Which was to stand guard at the gate entrance.  I've been standing there since.  The sun was rising, a beautiful painting full of yellow, pink, and purple.  It was a nice sight to look at, though for someone who hadn't had their morning coffee yet it was oddly sleep provocative.  My eyes fluttered in weariness, and I swayed back and forth, grasping my machine guns' barrel, whose stock was digging into the ground for balance.  It was for these reasons that while I kept watching the watery horizon, I mistook the strange land that appeared as a mirage.  This strange new "mirage" connected on the far side of the city shore to the left, and left a continuous open lake that led from New York Harbor to  the right.  I was so tired, that I failed to see that it was real for several minutes, until my burdened mind finally came to a realization.  
"HOLY SHIT!"  I bolted from my position, charging for the CO's office, militia members looking at me running in armor and a massive machine gun.  I crashed through his door, just to find that the Captain was in the middle of a meeting with actual Army officers.  I pop a quick salute, and quickly say, "Sir!  A new land mass just showed up outta nowhere!  You need to see this!"
Captain Averill looked up at me, along with irritated looking officers, "You aren't high, are you?" one of them asks.
"No sir!  Seriously, come look at this!"  I grab Captain Averill, pull him out of his seat behind his desk, and dragged him with one arm out of the building to look out at the new land.  I'm holding the small man by his collar, holding him up to look at the healthy forested land.  
"No shit." he whispered in awe.  


Two months later


"We now know the results of the Land Formation that occurred two months ago.  It would appear that the Earth has doubled in size.  The new dry land that we now find ourselves with covers a significant amount of what was the Atlantic and Pacific, which has grown significantly.  This land is roughly the size of Eurasia, and preliminary explorations have revealed that it is inhabited by several intelligent species.  I shut off the TV with mild distaste.  The same story had been playing on repeat for the past few days, and nothing else was playing.  Even kids show channels wouldn't stop with the broadcasting.
I get it, Hawaii's buried under another continent, and the other thing is blocking trade.  Can we talk about something else please?
I sighed, standing up off the old couch I was in.  It, like many of the things I had, had been scavenged off the streets, or bought at low prices by people who were just looking to get rid of them.  I looked at the still sleeping form of Zlat underneath a heavy comforter in the reclined position of the best thing we collectively owned.  Well, someone's got to wake him up for school.  
I quietly padded over, not making a sound, and tore off his blanket quickly, revealing the curled up form of an anthropomorphic red fox.  He muttered, "Is it really that early?"
I grunted, "I wouldn't've woken ya otherwise.  Come on, we need to git goin' bro."  I hooked my foot around the lever that controlled the recliner, and Zlat was sitting up, beginning to open his foggy white eyes.  With the same foot, I popped up the cane that my blind brother needed to walk around without tripping on something.  
"How much time do we have?" he asked, standing up and grasping around for the cane.
I took his furred hand in mine to hold it still, and plopped the handle into his grip, "Enough so we can eat somethin' and have some coffee."  I went over to our "kitchen" that consisted of a gas stove, a microwave that I still needed to look at fixing, cupboards, and a sink that had poor water pressure.  On the table that was about a yard away from the cupboards, was the breakfast I'd thrown together while Zlat had slept.  
"Do I smell... *sniff* *sniff* oatmeal, pancakes, and milk?"  he asks in our habitual game.  Whenever one of us made a meal, the other had to try and smell out what it was.  Being a human, it was no surprise that I always lost to Zlat's superior nose.  Plus, he wasn't all that good a cook.  Meaning everything he tried making except cereal ended up getting burnt.  
"You got it.  Be ready tah be amazed!" I say overly dramatically.  Zlat laughs his nasal laugh, and I see them pearly whites of his.  We sat down, ate the fairly well prepared food, and then relaxed for a bit of coffee.  
"I take it you've already looked at the news."
"Yep.  Nothin' new.  Still ravin' 'bout the new land."  Even to me, we sounded extremely laid back.
"Your coffee, taking it black I see?" Zlat jokes.  It was his favorite, so he used it every chance he got, which was pretty often.  I still gave a snort and a smile.  
"And I see yer having some coffee with yer sugar an' cream."  Was my amused sounding retort.
"I can't help that the coffee is too strong."  
We fall silent as we drink some more of our coffee.  "So you thinking about joining that brain-a-thon thing?" I ask.
"Yep.  No doubt in my mind that I could win.  You thinking about asking your CO about going out to be one of those adventurers that're being sent out?"
"Hell no.  I know you ain't exactly helpless, but I still aim to make yer livin' easier.  Brothers are brothers, no matter where dey come from.  An' brothers don't split."  I say this with a final poking of a finger to the table to emphasize my words.  I stopped, realizing the stupidity of using my hands to talk.
"You did it again, didn't you?" Zlat asked me laughing behind a paw.
"Yeah, dammit.  I started using my hands to talk again."  I downed the last of my coffee, dumped it in the sink, and headed off to our "Bedroom".  Really, it was a guest room for whenever someone came over (meaning never).  There were two beds, each against opposite walls.  These were pretty old beds, but I'd managed to get my hands on some bedding that didn't look ugly.  The only thing either of us used in this room was the shallow, doorless closet and cheap wardrobe for the clothes we had in them.  I fished out a pair of jeans, fresh socks, and t-shirt for Zlat, laying against the farthest bed.  For me, I had to wear different clothing.  
Being in the militia doesn't mean that you spend only a few days as a guard, or be weekend warrior.  It meant that you were always in combat fatigues, and ready for a fight no matter what you were doing or where you were going.  I wore  two layers of clothing, my underwear and tank-top was the first.  The next part of suiting up was needlessly complicated.  In the militia, you weren't issued combat armor or helmets, but you could still wear some if you got your hands on them.  And I actually had a set.  It was practically an heirloom if the price that it would normally cost was anything to go off of.  The only way I had managed to get it, was by fending off some raiders that were lucky enough to get into the city.  I won out a four hour long gunfight, getting shot, and saved a few civilians that I hadn't noticed.  There was only one catch to this reward, I stopped the raiders in one of the richest neighborhoods there was in New New York City.  If this happened in a poor block like mine, the most I would've gotten would be a small bonus on payday and possibly a medal.  
So I'd gotten the armor.  It was styled to fit into the general image of a Militiaman, but it was also clearly unique.  The torso part covered everything from my waistline to my shoulders, of which went far enough down to cover most of my upper arm.  It fit like spandex, tight against my body.  The armor itself was a fright of it's own.   It looked very much like it had was plate armor which bulged over my biceps, but this was even better.  Using technology developed in 2025, right before hell opened up, my armor was manufactured using one of the most protective materials ever conceived, which I hadn't even been graced to know the name of.  Everyone nicknamed it "Liquid Diamond".  These plates of the armor had no breaks, which normally would've been bad for the wearer's mobility.  However, this deceptively stiff looking material could actually bend with the body of the wearer.  But if a bullet, or some other object moving faster than a angry punch, struck the armor, it would be like it had hit a plate of metal 15 inches thick.  Rumors said that even a 37 millimeter cannon couldn't penetrate it when they tested it, not that I'd be stupid enough to test that large of a caliber anyways.  The next best part was, it was self regenerative, meaning that if something managed to put a dent in it, or a hole, then it would seal right back up like nothing happened.  Now, unlike kevlar, it could actually stop the stabbing or slashing of a knife.  Strangely enough, punches still performed their purposes. Blunt force worked on this kind of armor.  So when I got shot by bullets, I'd get a bruise or cracked rib at worst.
Next, I slipped the gloved sleeves on.  These reminded me more of muscles than armor, excluding the steel segmented fingers.  These gloves were designed especially for punching, and a little milder protection.  It'd still turn away a lot of large calibers, but certainly not a cannon.  What came next were my boots, which were a pain in the ass to get on.  Firstly, these boots had three layers.  The softer cloth on the inside, then the kevlar, and lastly, the hardened leather.  Attached to the tongue of the boot, was basically a set of shin guards made from stainless steel.  The boot, needless to say, had a steel toe, plus an interesting addition.  The sole of my boots were made of many layers too.  The very bottom of the shoe was made of rubber that refused to creak and squeak.  Next, was the Liquid Diamond, then a thin plate of steel, a layer of padding, and lastly the removable sole.   Protective against land mines, and comfortable to wear.  I made sure to put the shin guards underneath my pant legs though, they looked stupid if I wore them on the outside.  
I had only four more articles of clothes to put on, and then I'd be set.  The first, was the fatigue pants, then the shirt, and the armored duster coat.  They all shared the olive drab green, so I could still be easily identified, and it also had a utility belt on it.  Attached the belt was a gas mask, and an empty pistol holster, and several attachments to hold grenades or ammunition.  Nothing else yet.  The coat itself was made of ballistic fibers which were meant to stop or at least slow down a bullet.  Plus it was raining today, and it was for the most part water proof.  The last article of clothing I put on, was my helmet.  
The armor set I'd been rewarded with didn't come with anything for my head, so I'd had to find something else to protect me.  This was an old fashioned helmet that followed the same design that the US military used in WW2.  The outer shell was made with a very high grade of steel, stronger than what they got in WW2, while the liner was made of compounded kevlar and fiberglass.  I strapped it onto my head, and I went out into the living room, passing Zlat, who was going to get out of his pajamas into some actual clothes.  "Gotta pile for ya on the bed to the right." I say.
"Thanks.  T-shirt and jeans?"
"T-shirt 'n jeans."  In the living room hanged all my arms.  Like any good soldier nowadays, I had three firearms, and one massive knife as a reserve.  I held an affinity for large arms, so it would make sense for me to carry a machine gun.  More specifically, the DB-231 machine gun.  This had been assigned to me day on one with the militia, and I'd never been disappointed by the 200 round, belt fed machine gun.  My secondary on base was a grenade launcher or a bazooka that would attach to my pack, but for the urban areas those weapons were too destructive.  So instead, I strapped an M16 with a laser pointer to the side of my pack.  My side arm was a Desert Eagle, a monster pistol that fired .50 caliber bullets.  Bullets that were large enough to blow apart a head.  
I jumped a little as a hand was placed on my shoulder, which I really shouldn't have done since I knew who it was.  Zlat was looking towards me with a bemused smile, "You really think you need all of this?"
"It's procedure, I ain't suppose-ta break it."  
He shrugs, removing his hand, "As you wish."  
I go back to the task at hand, which involves attaching bags to carry ammunition in.  I could only carry two addition magazines of my machine guns ammo, but 10 more 30 round mags for the M16.  My Desert Eagle got itself only one other clip.  Lastly, I attached my brass knuckled Ka-Bar knife.  I was armed to the teeth, and ready.  I hoisted my bag onto my shoulders, and I found that Zlat was waiting for me.  
"Ready?" he asked in a bored tone.
"Ready."  We left the apartment building, passing many other doors that belonged to people we didn't know much about, as they were about as introverted as I was.  Zlat had his hand on my shoulder, using me as a guide.  We went down the stairs with practiced ease now that Zlat had finally counted how many steps it took to get there.  We finally reached the bottom of the stairs, which was a tiny foyer.  Outside, as per usual, it was raining heavily.  Already, Zlat had opened up his umbrella, holding it over both of us.
We walked to the bus stop, and waited patiently with all the other people who were waiting for it, although probably for work rather than school.  The bus showed up on the dot, and after I paid our fare, we were on our way.  We got dropped off one block away from school, which we walked through in the downpour.  People stared at the sight of a blind man and his soldier brother walking down the street.  
When we got to the school, there was practically no one in the massive entrance.  I figured that we were early, but my watch and the clock on the wall told me otherwise.  We were on time.  I looked to the lady that sat behind the desk, the lady that had let us in.
"Hey, where are all the kids?"  She simply answers by pointing to the sign taped to the edge of her desk.  All students report to the gymnasium.  I thanked her half-heartidly, mostly due to her emotionless reply.  We walked around the whole school, and arrived with a few other students, who had apparently been at their lockers.  Inside the gym, we saw something new.  The bleachers had all been pulled out, chairs placed to face towards a makeshift stage that was on the other side.  And it was packed in here.  Every student must be here.
We found a pair of seats in the back of the room to sit in, and waited with our packs on the ground in front of us, my machine gun now hooked onto it.  15 minutes passed, and our Superintendent walked his way up onto the stage.  He was a massive man with grey skin, and no hair.  While his skin and square, emotionless face scared nearly everyone, he was actually a good man.  He stuck to a rigid moral code, and never violated it.  I had honest respect for the man.  
He cleared his throat as he spoke into the microphone, "Dear students, late last night, our scouts on the new land have made a wonderful discovery.  We have found the existence of two countries, known as Equestria and The Crystal Empire!  Equestria is led by two princesses, the Crystal Empire is led by a princess and a prince, both are currently at a stage of technology that they could never defend themselves against a foreign invasion.  Amazingly, our three governments have quickly created an alliance, and have informed every nation in the world that the land has already been claimed by a host of other nations we have yet to meet, as well as in the Pacific continent.  Unfortunately, several countries have declared war on Equestria, mostly for their resources that no one is sure about them actually having.  These countries include France, Germany, Austria, Brazil, Poland, Ukraine, Serbia, The Federation of Trade, Russia, and South Africa.  While none of them have formed an alliance, this will prove to be one very bloody war, a free-for-all.  We have mobilized our military to invade the attacking countries, and form a line of defense on their eastern border.  You might be asking why you're hearing this from your Superintendent, and not from the news.  The reason in simple.  We have also agreed to send out our militia's to serve as a protective guard, and to train the local populace to fight.  We aren't sending out every one of our militia's, nor are we sending out every member of the ones we do send.  However, every student here, who is in the local militia has been called to serve.  Please, come up to the stage to be recognized when your name is called."
I was stunned.  I was actually being called to go off, and protect a people that I didn't even know what they looked like.  I wonder what would happen to my brother.  He was blind, and relied on me for a great many things.  How would he handle himself?  I was startled out of my thoughts at the sound of my name, "Wolfgang Piatek."  I stood up, shouldering my pack as I stood, and walked up to the impromptu stage.  Right in front of it were the other militia members that were standing at attention, their rifle butts against the gym floor. I came up to the stage, rifle in hand, and approached the the grey man.  He holds out a hand, looking for a shake.  I shoulder my rifle, switch it to my left shoulder, and grasp his hand in a tight grip for a firm handshake.  He gives me a short blessing, and dismisses me to stand at attention with the other militia soldiers.  


Later, at home


The day had been miserable for me, even if we'd more or less been given the day off, every class been regaled to old movies from the century before, all I could think of was how Zlat would live without me helping him.  When the final period ended, I had reserved that I would get my CO to let my brother come with me, even if I had to beg him on my knees.  
Dinner that night was a prepared meal of Salisbury Steak and Mac ' Cheese.  I was quiet, as per usual, but somehow Zlat could tell something wasn't right, "You're worried about me, aren't you?"
I choked on piece of steak, coughing it back out onto my plate, "Fuckin' 'ell man!  How do ya always know?"
"You always smell different when you're worried."  
My mind, as used to his responses as it was, took a second to remember that his nose was a lot stronger than mine, "I don't smell to pry, but you know how it is.  It's hard to miss a smell when it's wafting through the air.  But really, I'll be fine.  I'm sure one or more of the neighbors would be willing to lend a helping hand to a blind man."
I chuckled a little, "We ain't men yet, remember?  We ain't 18.  But I get yer point.  It still don't feel right though, leavin' ya behind."  I paused, and asked him, "What would you think about coming with me?  I mean, I still 'ave tuh ask my CO about it, and even then it's a long shot that he'll say yes.  But in the case he does, would you want to go?"
He smiles, "Walking on the new land does sound pretty cool.  Why not?"
That night, we slept fairly well, even though I was still nervous as all hell that he might not be able to come
> Chapter 2:  The Land of Ponies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was feeling quite happy at the moment.  Zlat was with me on the flight to the drop zone, where with our equipment (which was in a giant box), we'd jump from the back of our plane.  We were all sitting on our packs, which we'd tied firmly to our legs.  
"So how much longer do you think it'll be until we reach the drop zone?"  One of the other militia men asked.
The only any actual soldier on the plane (which was also our new commanding officer for our battalion of militiamen) answered, "Not more than a few more minutes, so the red light should be coming on right about-" he waited a few seconds, "Now."  The red light turned on.  Our commander was Colonel Mien Bláha, a Tigarian man in his mid 40's.  I couldn't see him from where I was, but I knew that he looked like a humanoid version of a orange and black striped tiger, grey only just starting to grow into the fur on the top of his head.
I turned back over to Zlat, "You remember how ta use the chute?"
He nodded, "Yeah, got my hands on the rings that I need to pull."
"Right, pull 'em after fifteen seconds.  Otherwise the chute won' open right."  The image of Zlat being splattered on the ground sent a shudder through me.
"Got it." Was my answer.
Minutes passed, and the bay door of the plane opened downwards, now becoming a ramp and revealing the bright daylight outside.  Everyone stood up, and placed our hands on the crate that contained a fair bit of equipment, and prepared to push when the light turned green.  In a few seconds, the light turned green.  "Time to go Zlat!"  With all our collective might, we shoved the crate out the back of the plane.  As soon as it left the plane, the chutes opened.  I turned around to get to Zlat as the others began to jump out, one by one.  
I guided him to the edge of the ramp, "See ya on the ground!" I yelled above the roar of the twin engines roar.  
"See you too!"  He yelled in response, and he jumped.  I only waited a second before I jumped out with him.  I was face down, looking at the ground that was approaching.  We were above a fair sized town, the centerpiece being a large, crystal tree looking castle.  I looked around for where the flare that the path finder had dropped, the target landing zone.  It was to the north of the town, about a mile away.  We were facing west, meaning we'd overshot it by a bit.  My countdown hit 15, and I pulled my chute.  It shot out of my pack, flapped in the wind for a bit, and finally opened, halting my decent sharply, sending a immense pressure to my shoulders and waist.  Pain was erupting from my leg, the one that I had tied my bag to.  The leg was straining immensely from the strain of what I remembered to be nearly 75 pounds of equipment.  That sudden stop must've dislocated something.  
All I could do, however, was hold onto the straps of my chute, clench my teeth, and wait for landing as I listened to the wind.  It felt like an eternity, but finally, the ground began to look close enough to where I could see figures on the ground that looked like horses.  That can't be right.  Why would such a new species look like horses?  Well, there are creatures that look like animals, so I guess them looking like horses isn't too far a stretch of the imagination.  Now, I was realizing something else.  The pilot had told us to jump not only too late, but he'd also dropped us into an air stream that was dragging me into the town.  I was getting closer to a massive building with a tower as a centerpiece, and to my horror, that seemed to be where I was doomed to land on.  I was helpless.
My body missed the towers top, but my chute didn't.  It caught itself on it, and I was left dangling above several layers of canopies.  There was only one way to fix this, and it wasn't going to be fun.  Painful, rather.  I got out my Ka-Bar knife, and started cutting at the strings to my chute. Strings started flopping over me as I cut through more and more strings, until I got to the last one.  
That's when someone from below me cried out, "Look!  What is that thing?"  I looked down, and low and behold, there was a massive crowd of horse... thingies gathering to look up at me.  They can speak English?  Lucky strike I guess.  That'll make being here a little bit easier.  I looked back up at my last string, and forced my knife to slice through it with a snap.  
I fell with just enough time to sheath my blade before I hit the first canopies' railing, which promptly broke underneath me, and toppled me over the second without touching it.  I then hit the angled roof of the base level of the roof, and rolled over and over down it.  I was in the air once more for a brief moment, before coming down hard on my side.  I couldn't hear the bone braking over the sound of my weight hitting the ground, but I sure felt it.  
I cried out as pain lanced up and down my arm, and I grimaced, trying not to let anything else out.  I could hear the panicked cries of several of the... horses.  I sat up slowly, holding my left arm like my one hand was the only thing holding it together.  I let the useless appendage hang freely as I untied my pack from my leg, which was indeed dislocated.  I managed to get my good leg underneath me, and started to stand up, sucking in a pained breath.  
I somehow managed to get my pack over my right shoulder, and address the crowd of cowering horses, most of which were about as tall as I was, "Good afternoon."  With that, I started limping my way north towards the landing zone.  
I'd only managed to go about a blocks worth before one of the horses trotted up to me, "Um, what are you doing, strange... thing?"  It was a very shy, female voice.  I turned, and saw that the source was a yellow... pegasus... with a long, soft pink mane and shy blue eyes.
"I gotta regroup with my unit." I said through clenched teeth, pain thoroughly obvious.
"Are you hurt?" She asks worriedly.
"Yep!  Broke mah arm, an' dislocated mah leg."
She gasps in horror, places her hooves on my shoulders, and tried to push me down, "Please!  Sit down and let me try to help you."
I try to limp away from her, "I'll be fine.  The medic will take care of me once I reach him."  But she just pushes me down further.
"No, you need to sit so I can at least fix your leg."  She says this with a surprisingly firm voice.  I can't help but obey, and sit down with my legs out.  She gets around me, and asks, "Where is it dislocated?"
I gesture at my ankle, "The ankle, just jam it up towards where there should be a AAAHHHHH!!!! I screamed, as the yellow pegasus rammed my foot back into place.  I proceeded to curse loudly, using every one I knew.  "F***ING F***!  DAMN F***ING S**T!  C*** SUCKING MOTHERF***ER-!"  I proceeded to curse a little more before I calmed down enough to where I just heaved in breaths.  
Somewhere between breaths, I managed to say, "Thank you."
"You're... welcome?  What do those words mean?"
"Just know that ya shouldn' repeat 'em."  With that, I stand up, and start walking again.  The sound of hooves follow.
"Um, where are you going?  And why are you here?  I've never seen something like you before."  she asks.
"I'm goin' to the place my unit was suppose-tuh land at.  I'm 'ere because, well, yer country is at war, an' my country is 'ere to help in its' defense.  My battalion is suppose to be guardin' this town while the war goes on."
The pegasus gasps in horror, "We're at WAR!  Who is it?  The griffons?  Yakyakistan?"  
I stop and turn to face her, "What?  You haven't heard yet?"  She shakes her head.  "Well, none of d'ose countries.  It's a host of European countries an' South Africa.  I don't remember most of the European countries, 'cept the Federation of Trade."
"Why though?  We haven't done anything."  she says defensively.
I shake my head, "It ain't 'bout what ya did or didn't do.  It's what the soil of this country has.  Plus, it'll get 'em closer to my country, so they could invade later."
"What do we have that they want?  We could just give it to them and no one would get hurt."
"You ain't thinking it through.  This country has been known about fer 'bout two months, an' no one 'as managed to get a good look at what the land has to offer.  Besides, none of these countries 'ave much to trade with.  This would be the firs' case of war bein' the cheaper option."
"Well, I guess that makes sense.  Why aren't you consistent with your accent?"
"What do ya mean?"
"At first, you said 'as, then you said has, like normal."
I shrugged, " I don't know, it's just the way I talk."
"So, what's the name of your country?"
"Well, it's commonly known as America, cuz we have the same territory as that country did, as well as what's mosta old Canada.  My country is called Chestien."  I keep walking.  
"So you're here to protect us?"
"And to train a new militia outta the people here."
"Oh."  I walked in silence, the horse following me, stares from passersby were plentiful, "How did you get hurt?" she asks shyly.
"I jumped out of a plane, an' got caught in the tower.  I had to cut the strings of my chute if I wanted to get down.  The fall broke my arm."
"And your leg?"
"I had my pack tied to my leg fer the jump."  A little quieter, I added, "Damn pilots are outta practice."
"What was that?  I couldn't hear you." she asked innocently.
"Nothin', just angry at the pilot that messed up."
"I'm sure that whoever he is, he did his best."  She sounded confident, kindly so.
"No.  Those idiots have their heads in the clouds.  Metaphorically and literally.  If he'd actually done his best, then I wouldn't be in the condition I'm in."  
This time, the silence is absolute.  There isn't any pause for consideration on words, just the sounds of my boots, her hooves, and the sounds of gasping horses that sounded like any other humanoid.  
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Fluttershy

I didn't know what he was, but he seemed nice enough.  I didn't think I could believe him about the war, and I'd never heard of such countries.  But he sounded so sure of himself that it made me want to believe him.  I also had to admit that he was quite fortuitous to still be walking.  If a pony had dislocated their hoof, it was be at least a day or two for them to be able to walk again.  If they'd broken a bone, they'd probably just hug the ground and cry.  
He walked straight out of town, north, towards a field full of other creatures like him.  They were all folding up large sheets of cloth, putting them back in large saddle packs. They were dressed just like this first creature, in a dull green uniform, but lacking in the helmet that this human wore.  Some of them weren't even the same species as he was.  They were like animals, but also like this one.  Was he important in some way?  Was he the commander?
The human called out, "ZLAT!  BROTHER!"  He (or at least I assumed it was a he) broke out into a dead sprint.
"Wait!  Your leg!"  As if on cue, a sickening crack emanated from his ankle, and he stumbled to his knees, but he recovered and continued his sprint with a severe limp.  "He's certainly a stubborn one."  I followed after him with a quick trot.  He ran up to what looked like a fox, and embraced him with a wondrous glee.  They laughed together as the creature I'd met lifted the other around the barrel with a single limb, and swung him about in circles.  As I got closer, I noticed something odd.  This fox creature had milky white irises.  That was something new to me.  
The creature set down the other, looking intently upon him as the the fox spoke.  "What?  You smell a horse?  Oh!  I know what you're talking about.  Hey you!"  This, he regards towards me.  I've finally caught up.  
"This is my brother Zlat!  I'm Wolfgang Piatek."
Zlat held out a hand, his eyes pointed towards nothing.  "Um, what is it?"
"It's a custom of ours to greet everyone we meet with a handshake." Zlat says kind and soft.  
I put a hoof in his outstretched hand, and he shakes my hoof once with a firm grip.  "A hoof?  So you really are a horse."
"My-my name is Fluttershy.  And I'm exactly a horse.  I'm a pony.  How come you were surprised that you had a hoof in your hand?"
He cocks his head, looking at me funnily, "Can't you tell?" he says, waving a hand over his face, "I'm blind."
HE'S BLIND?!?!  "OH MY GOSH!  I'm so sorry for you!  How did it happen?"
"I was born with it.  Is, is blindness rare here?"  He asks this like it's a simple question.
"It isn't even a problem!  If anypony is hurt so badly, they usually go to a unicorn who specializes on healing magic."
The brothers both look at me, with slack-jawed expressions, before breaking into laughter.  "Did I say something funny?"
Zlat is the first to regain control of himself, "We're sorry, I'm sure that you have good reason to believe in magic, but magic doesn't exist as far as we can tell."
"Then I'm sure I'll be quite a surprise for you!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wolfgang

I take it back, magic exists.  This purple cross between a unicorn and pegasus was certainly proof of that, as she magnified her voice from nowhere, and appeared not a foot away from me.  
"I am Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Magic!" She declares with a purple lizard about the height of a 12 year old by her side, "And would be so kind as to tell me why you are here with hundreds of your kind and... whatever they are?" 
My mind sort of just stopped working, what with the fact that she materialized right in front of me, was a princess of something that didn't need an authority of, and yet somehow didn't know what this was all about.  I cleared my throat, trying to get some more time to understand, and throw together a response, "You- ah... We're the malitia that the Chestien government promised.  If yer a Princess, then weren' you there to negotiate it?"
She looks at me as funnily as I must've looked, "No, Princess Celestia and Luna don't usually tell me about anything going on in politics.  Where are you from?"
"Like I said, Chestien.  It's to the west."
"Hmm, I've never heard of Chestien before.  Is it perhaps that peninsula?"
Peninsula? Is she talking about that one that connected to the harbor?  Or does she think that Chestien is that small, "Uh, no.  We're from the continent of North America.  Haven't you figured it out yet?"
"Figured out what?" the lizard asked in a young voice that suggested that he was probably about 13 if that voice crack was an indicator.  
I take a moment to look at it, this being a very new thing for me.  The scientists that had spliced the DNA of humans and people together never tackled lizards or amphibians.  Just land based mammals.  Mostly because it had been so easy.
"Well, the fact that the days and nights 'ave gotten longer, the moon is startin' to be ripped apart, an' the fact that there's a new continent to the west are some pretty 'ard to miss signs that one way or another, Earth 'as expanded.  My personal guess is that something combined my planet with yours.  In any case, you're a bloody Princess!  How could you not know 'bout us coming?"
As I say this, the lizard thing burps louder than his age should have allowed, a green fire erupting to reveal a wax sealed scroll.  He catches it in his claw, breaks the seal, and began to read as if this was a common occurance, "Dear Twilight, I have been very busy for the past few weeks, and so I must apologize that I didn't tell you that a battalion of Chestien Militia has been deployed from our new ally (the nation Chestien) to act as the defending force of Ponyville, and to train ponies to fight against the other neighboring countries which have... d-d-d-d-d-d-DECLARED WAR ON US!" He stares in shock and horror at the Princess, who gasps herself.  He continues reading with a terrified voice, "I know that you are more than capable of handling yourself in a fight.  However, I am afraid that the weapons that our neighbors possess are too powerful for even me to resist for any length of time.  Once they have arrived, which should be by parachuting from the sky, look for a Colonol... can't say that, who looks like a lot like an orange striped tiger, who should have a silver eagle on his helmet to distinguish his rank.  Sincerely, Princess Celestia."
I sigh, "Well, looks like we gotta go find the Colonel."  As I walk through the camp, I see that a large number of soldiers had suffered sprained and dislocated ankles.  Twilight and Fluttershy take notice as well, "What happened to them?" Twilight asks.
"We had tied our packs to our feet so our parachute pack could be on our backs.  But when we opened 'em, the sudden drop in speed caused a whip lash of sorts.  Dislocating our ankles.  In hind sight, we probably shoulda strapped them higher or something."  
Twilight and Fluttershy say that they're sorry to hear that, and that the doctors here could probably help out.  When we finally found the Colonel, it is almost comforting to see that he didn't sport the splint around an ankle.  He was just as much of a tough badass as the rumors said he was.
I salute him, "Colonel, the... uh, Princess of 'Friendship', is 'ere to ask about the goings on, sir.  She jus' got a letter from the princess our diplomats talked to."
The Colonel salutes me back, and after looking at my badly twisted ankle and limp arm, asks, "What happened to you son?"
"Wind blew me intuh a tower sir.  I think it was Town Hall or somethin.  'Ad to cut myself down sir.  My arm's broken, an' my ankle is dislocated like everyone else here, sir."
Fluttershy interrupted, "That's because you ran on it after I reset it."
I turn around briefly from the Colonel, "Hey, I was worried that somethin' had happened to my brother.  I was jus' 'appy to see him alright!"  I turn my attention back to the Colonel.  I might not be military, but I knew it was still a bad idea to anger a man in such high respects.  
"Get yourself some rest.  You're going to need it.  Everyone is pulling their weight here, even our wounded, so you won't be going home."
"I wouldn' dream of abandonin' my brothers in arms, sir!"
The Colonel smiles, showing his sharp teeth.  I can see he likes my enthusiasm, "Good!  That's exactly what I need out of my men!  Dismissed."  
I salute him again, and lead my brother with me over to where a medic is trying to ram a large black man's ankle back into place.  I sit down next to the man, giving him a piece a of cloth to bite down on as the medic tries again.  The man grunts out in pain as the medic finds success.  
"Thanks man." he reaches out a hand, which I shake, "Name's Danial."
"Wolfgang."  He hands back my cloth, which I now put in my mouth as the medic, a pencil thin, white furred Mousian, grabs my ankle.  He looks up at me from under his cap, "Ready?"  I nod, and he shoves, trying to fit my foot and ankle back into place.  I scream into the cloth as I bite down in agony.  I feel a pop, and I know that it's in place.  The medic knows too.  
I practically rip out the cloth out of my mouth, breathing heavily.  "Thanks man."  The medic just pats the side of my leg and moves on.  Fluttershy taps my shoulder before I could get up, "I think we need to get you to a hospital for your arm."
I brush her hoof off me, "Yeah yeah, just let me find my sarge first."  I get up, and limp off to find the man.  It takes nearly half an hour of me walking pass rows of men laying down, waiting for someone to stop and help them.  Fluttershy makes us stop several times to help soldiers who seems to be in particularly bad pain.  After, of which, she would recommend that we go to the doctor in the town.  
After a while, I do find him, a thin white man that was seemingly unhurt, "Hey sarge, yer lookin' well." 
He looks at me, grimacing at how my arm was hanging, "Hey.  Bad landing eh?  You get a medic to look at you?"
I shake my head, "No, the pegasus here, Fluttershy, wants to take me in to see the local doctor an' get 'im to fix me up."
He nods approvingly, "I don't know what good their doctors can for you, seeing as how our biology is so different.  Well, good luck then."  He waves me off, and I leave the field with the yellow pegasus, still leading Zlat.  We walk through town, and I'm still being stared at, though these... uh... ponies didn't look like the same ones from when I crashed.  I ignored what comments that were made, and just kept walking.  
By the time we'd reached the hospital, my arm had started throbbing.  The secretary inside was no different from any of the other ponies.  Seriously, are all of these people so fragile an' easy to surprise?  SERIOUSLY?  Come on!  Sentient horses are f***in' strange too!  
"Hello nurse Redheart!  I need some help for my friend here.  He broke his arm falling from the roof of Town Hall.  And do you have an eye specialist?  His brother is blind."  
"Sh-sure.  We can fit them in the same appointment."  Wait?  Zlat might be able to see?  I'm going to owe them so deeply for this!  In my head, I started celebrating and laughing.  Looking over at Zlat, I could see he was grinning ear to ear.  
We were greeted by a unicorn in what looked to be a ponified version of a lab coat.  He hesitated before he spoke, but nonetheless, he maintained an er of confidence, "So.  I hear that I have some more work for me to do."
"Yes, Dr. Hoofinton.  One blind, the other with what we think is a broken arm.   You think you can help them?"
"Well, I've never seen their kind before, but I think that I can do something to help them."  Addressing us, "Come with me."  Fluttershy nodded to us encouragingly.  With that, Zlat and I followed the unicorn doctor down the hallway, and into a hospital room with two empty beds.  
"Please, sit down and make yourselves comfortable."  The doctor said warmly.  
I thanked him out of reflex, sat Zlat down on one bed, and took the other for myself.  The room reflected the style that most hospitals back home used.  White floors, tan walls, the weird paneling on the ceiling, and the dull green curtains for the window.  
The doctor came up to me first, "Please, roll up your sleeve.  Thank you, now how did you break your arm?"
"Well, I ain't so sure it's broken.  I'm thinkin' a fracture.  I fell off the roof of Town Hall."
The doctor had been lighting up his horn, brown light enveloping my offending arm, and sending off more light to black sheets of paper.  He'd shone the light on them when I told him I fell off Town Hall, "How did you even get up there?!" 
"I parachuted down from the skies." I say bluntly.  The doctor just stares at me, no doubt trying to picture the scene I'd painted.
"So you got stuck on the roof?  You know, you could've easily gotten in through one of the windows.  There wasn't any need to jump off."
"I said I fell off the roof.  I didn' jump.  My chute got caught on the tower, so I 'ad to cut myself from the chute."  The doctor seemed to be understanding now, made more obvious by the, "Oh." he emits.  He places the black paper in front of a wall light, and suddenly a white picture appears of the bones in my arm.  There are minute fractures that ran up and down both the bones in the lower arm as well as the upper arm.
"Hmm, you were right.  You have multiple hair-line fractures."
"So how long do you think that it'll take for my arm to heal?"
"Well, I'm no expert in medical practices regarding your kind, however if I had to guess..." he visibly mulls it over in his head, his eyeballs rolling around upwards, "about 5 hours."
"Well hot damn!  That's pretty cool!  How 'bout me doc?"  Zlat says excitedly, quite literally on the edge of the bed leaning forwards.
"Well, eyes are much easier to heal, believe it or not.  I can indeed bring you back your sight.  It is usually a very simple task when it comes to repairing the nerves in the eyes.  There are just too coax into working harder in the arm that the eye. 
How, might I ask, did you come to be unable to see?"
"Glaucoma, since I was born."
"Ah, very common, and very easy to fix.  You'll be able to see in about 10 minutes.  However, in that time, you cannot open your eyes whatsoever, as the spell used takes time to repair the nerves and their connections.  So in that time, I will place cloth over your eyes.  Who would like to go first?"
I point over to Zlat, "I think he should.  This's a day he's been prayin' fer since he understood what sight was, an' I'd say this is a long time comin'."
Zlat smiles gratefully at the sound of my voice, and he turns to face his milky white eyes at me, "Thanks brother."  
I get off the bed, and walk over to hold his hand, "Yer welcome furball."
He chuckled, "Skinny."  
I had been smiling before, but now my grin was starting to hurt.  I beckon the doc over, "Come on!  Time's awastin'."
The doctor walks over, each clop of the hoof ringing out like wood hitting wood.  His horn lights up, and gently, ever so gently, touches his horn to each of Zlat's eyes, a short pause before moving on the next.  Quickly, he levitates over a cloth, which he binds tightly over Zlat's eyes.  
"It's done?  The spell?"
"Yeah bro, he's done.  I'm counting down fer ya."
He grunts in acknowledgment.  I sit down on my own bed, and look at the doc, "Do I need to do anything?"
"Be very still."  The doc brings over a table, the legs forming an "x", and makes the table elongate to reach me.  He then places my arm on the table.  His horn lit up in the familiar light, and touched my skin at my shoulder, where the first crack was.  A very eerie, powerful chill ran up and down my arm, followed by a feeling of being numb.  He ran his horn up and down my arm, following each fracture if I had to guess.  He continued this for what felt like an hour, but I kept my mouth closed about this.  He was helping me out.  
"So why is it that you are here?" he asks.  Oi, this is gonna be tiresome.
As gently as I could, I told him the situation, "I see.  So your Chestien militias have come to be stationed as last resort defenses against invading military's.  If what you say about your weapons and warfare is true, it would be a bloodbath for our soldiers to fight in."
"That's putting it lightly.  Only you unicorns could really put up a fight, but only if they attacked from a considerably short distance."
"Even then, I think we would still be easily defeated.  I'm glad to know you were willing to come and protect us.  Now, did your militia come to protect every city and town?"
"To the best of my knowledge."
"How many men came?"
"Well I don' know fer sure.  I think that we were gettin' 'bout a battalion here with us, but I can't say with absolute certainty.  We might 'ave gotten more or less."
"Interesting.  Well, I'm done with the spell.  Now, time to wrap your arm in plaster."  He brought out a bucket, filled with a liquid grey substance that I recognized to indeed be plaster.  He took both the bucket and my arm, and dunked my flesh into the liquid.  He drew out my arm, the plaster already hardening.  
"Now, all you need to do is wait.  Would you like to do this in the waiting room?"
We waited in the waiting room.  I focused on the count down, finally hitting the  10 minute mark.
"Hey, time's up.  Ready to see again?"
"Born ready!"  He attacked the cloth with enthusiasm, and when he finally withdrew them, I saw his eyes in their full splendor.  Green, with shrunken vertical pupil.  It reminded me of an animals eyes in the way they looked so ferocious.  Zlat was crying with a beautiful smile on his face.   
"I can see!"  He reaches up with shaking hands, and he feels my face, knowing now what I looked like.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zlat

The world of darkness was gone.  In front of me, I saw him.  My brother.  His face was relatively square and hugged the bones, with high cheekbones, lazy Italian eyes that were a deep color of brown, with black eyebrows, wearing that steel helmet of his.  He was smiling his crooked teeth grin.  Any doubt I had that this wasn't him was dashed away when I felt his face, it was him.  This face belonged to my brother.  I now knew what he looked like, and I was never going to forget.  This, with no doubt, had to be the best day of my life.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wolfgang

We were laughing as hard as we could without busting a lung, and we held each other in brothers embrace.  He couldn't stop looking at things and immediately start describing the details of what he saw.  It was sort of annoying, but what else could I do?  He was having the time of his life, and I'd be damned before I stopped it.
"Come on, let's go outside!  I want to see the world!"  He says happily after he's found that he'd gone over everything in the room.  
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" I say as I get out of my seat, Zlat pulling on my one good arm to pull me up faster.  Once I'm up, he's peeling out of the building so quickly, that I'm having trouble keeping up with him.  I can't help but feel warm inside when I see how amazed Zlat is at the world around him.  The ponies around us seemed to be more concerned than before.
"Is he alright?" a mare asks me. 
"He's more than alright.  This is first time he's been able to see."  I would be asked this question repeatedly throughout the day.  Finally, my countdown of my time for healing was over.  I smashed the cast on the side of a building, and the cast crumbled into large chunks and dust.  By now, the sun was starting to get low in the sky.  
I didn't want to do this, but I had to bring an end to Zlat's fun and amazement, "Zlat, we need to get going back to HQ.  We're long overdue."
Zlat's smile stays on his face, "I can guess why.  Man, you shoulda said something earlier." 
"Aahh, I didn' want to spoil yer fun."  	
We walk through the streets, heading north to the field we landed at.  Lo and behold, they weren't there.  All I could see was that the field had been thoroughly trod upon, "You sure they were here?  All I see is a muddy field."
"That's from them walkin' all over the place.  Looks like we're gonna have tuh find them."  We head back into town, asking the ponies that were still in the street about a bunch of humans gathering.  It didn't take long to learn that they'd set up camp on the east side of town on the Canterlot bound road.  When we arrived, there was a full blown party in motion underneath tents.  Electro-party-polka music blared loudly, and the militiamen listening were dancing like no tomorrow, badly.  
What the hell is this?  I walked through the tents, looking for my unit.  I had to have passed nearly a hundred tents before I found my sergeant.  He was sipping whiskey out of a shot glass with a smile painted on his face.  Something I don't think I'd ever seen before.  
"Sarge, what's with the party?" I ask.
He turns to look at me, "The pink pony, whats-her-face, she started a welcome party for us!  Brought out cake and stuff.  You want in?"  He sounded drunk.  The half empty bottle of Jack Daniels providing ample proof.  I wondered how he managed to get alcohol here, but then I remembered, this was sarge I was looking at.  He probably replaced all of his equipment with alcohol, again.  
Zlat nudged me with an elbow, "Is this normal?"
"Yes."
"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?"
"Depends on whether 'r not he's drunk enough to share." I whisper to him, "Hey sarge!  Got any love to share?"  I put on my best smile, and sarge gives in without any resistance.  
"Hells yeah!"  He reaches over to the other side of the bed he's sleeping on, but falls over.  He stands up, stumbling drunkenly.  In his hand, a bottle of vodka from Russia, as made evident by the alien Russian letters.  
I smile, grabbing the bottle.  "My weakness!  Oh no!" I say sarcastically.  The drunken sarge laughs overbearingly.  
"Whatcha laughing at?" a high pitch voice asked.  I yelp at the sudden new voice appeared beside me.  Beside me, is a bright pink pony, with an even more vibrantly pink mane that was in a crazy swirl.  
"Uh, something stupid.  Who're you?"
"I'm Pinkie Pie!  Enjoying your welcome to Ponyville Party?!"  As she says this, she pulls out a large cannon that looked like it belonged to a circus.  It fired out confetti, the blast sounding like a party-noisemaker going off.  
I look at the vodka bottle fondly, "I just got here, but fer a party, it sure looks good.  Guess I should introduce myself.  Name's Wolfgang Piatek.  I'm a Private in the New York City Militia."
"And I'm Zlat Zavala.  Pleased to meet you!"  Zlat says, extending a hand in greeting.
Pinkie grabs his hand with both hooves, and shook powerfully.  She then cheerfully bounces off to talk with some other soldiers.  I sigh.  This war is gonna kill her.
I twisted off the cap, and took a swig.  It burned down my throat with a fire I hadn't felt in years.  I coughed and wheezed, "Damn that's good!"  I started coughing harder as the liquid settled to warm my stomach.  
I look at Zlat, who was shaking his head in disapproval, "I will never understand your love of destroying yourself."
I cackle out a laugh, "Cuz it's fun!"  I take another swig, this time the burning liquid went down a little smoother, and I don't cough as much.  I cap the bottle, and look about wondering, Is our bed stuff here?
I look over, and see Jackson, a gangly redheaded boy, sitting on his bed, drinking up a Coke.  "Hey Jackie, is Zlat's an' my beds 'ere?" I ask.
He looks over, nods, and points over at two beds that had been half set up towards the opening of the tent.  I thank him, and walk over to the beds.  I took the one closest to the opening, finish moving the parts into place, and dropped down onto it.  I didn't bother trying to pull the blanket over me as the alcohol began to take effect.  I yawned, and fell asleep.
> Chatpter 3: Digging In
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The day started out simple enough.  After I'd gotten my hangover gear (ie sunglasses and a cup of coffee), I'd left the tent and looked at the town.  I then proceeded to have a mental meltdown as I stared at a cyan blue pegasus with rainbow colored mane and tail flapping at eye level.
"What are you?" asked a feminine voice.
I pulled down my sunglasses, much to my eyes protest, trying to ensure that I was looking at what I thought I was looking at, "A human.  What are-"  Everything clicked.  I remembered the day before, and I understood, "Nevermind.  My name's Wolfgang.  Can I help you?"
"Yeah, what are you all doing here?"  She asks, spreading her forelegs out as she spoke.  
"You haven' heard?" She shakes her head, looking annoyed, "Where 'ave you been?  We got here in the middle of the day!"  
She shrugged, "I was asleep."  It sounded like this was a normal occurrence.  I groaned, and filled her in.  She didn't look too happy, "Really?  Equestria and the Crystal Empire are at war?"
"Yep."
"For stuff in the ground, that nopony is sure of being there?"
"Stupid, but yep."
She snorts from her nose, "What makes you so sure that Equestria needs help?  We've got our own army!  It's quite impressive."  She says this with a confident zeal.  
I groaned.  My hangover forcing my brain to drag itself through all sorts of pain just to process the quickest solution.  My mind fell onto a single, simple solution.  "Come with me."  I say, turning around and walking off east of camp.  I yawned as I entered an empty field.  I looked around for a suitable target.  I saw a thin, dead tree that was still standing.  Bingo.  
I pointed at and said, "See that tree?  I'm gonna demonstrate what our army can do."  I pull out my Desert Eagle, take aim, and fire.  The bullet hits dead center of the thin trunk.  The tree was so thin, that the tree actually cracked, and fell over.  I looked at the pegasus, who's jaw was hanging over as she stared in disbelief at the fallen tree.  I unloaded my pistol, and took out a bullet.  
"You see this here?" I asked.  I got a nod, "Imagine the head of this, movin' faster than yer eyes can follow.  That's enough to rip through at least five bodies before it stops movin'."
The pegasus drops to the ground, her wings falling to the side, "We're...we're... doomed."  Her eyes started tearing up, but she holds herself together fairly well.
I put a hand on her shoulder, starting to feel bad about the bluntness of my demonstration, "No yer not.  You got a whole nation gearin' up to fight fer ya.  You ain't gonna git hurt if we got somethin' to say 'bout it."
"What can you do against something that can knock over trees?"
"We shoot 'em, an' drink."
Before she can ask me what I meant by that, I raise up the bottle of vodka that I somehow still had in my hand.  I open it, and hand it to her.  She takes it hesitantly, but takes a swig.  Her face screws up, like she's about to spit it out.  But she swallows, coughs, and asks, "What is this?"  
I take the bottle back, and close it, "Some of the best vodka I've ever drank."
"That tastes terrible!  Why would you ever want to drink that?"
I chuckle, "To get drunk an' shitfaced!" 
"If you wanted to get drunk, you should try Applejack's apple cider!  It's sweet and alcoholic."  
"Alright, when I manage to get some of... whatever currency you use here, I'll see 'bout gettin' some.  Hey, by the way, what's yer name?"
"Rainbow Dash!  But you can call me Rainbow."  She says this with a smile.
"Ok, Rainbow.  Look me up if I ain't doing anythin', an' we can see 'bout havin' some fun in this town of yers."
She smiles, and raises a hoof, "You got it!"  I raise a fist, and bump her hoof, "Whatcha doing today?"  
I groan, "This new Colonel of mine gives me the vibe that we'll be gettin' straight tuh work fortifying the town.  That means diggin' trenches an' fillin' sand bags."
Rainbow lets out a sympathetic ooh, "Well, if you need me, I'll probably be at Sugar Cube Corner at some point."
I sigh myself, "And I'll be here somewhere, diggin'."  The size of the upcoming task was beginning to take a toll on my imagination.
Rainbow gives me a friendly punch on the shoulder before flying off into the sky.  She seemed nice.  I like her.  I went back to the city of tents.  After morning call of from the trumpet playing revali, we all gathered at the mess tent, where four lines of men had developed.  When I found myself at the counter, I found that our breakfast were ration "eggs", toast, and something that looked like hash-browns.  Not exactly the best of breakfasts, but it was better than nothing.  The cook took a saucer, scooping up some of the yellow "eggs" with pepper sprinkled into it, and plopped it onto my tray.  I thanked him as I grabbed a couple slices of toast, and moved on to get another chef to plop on some of the hash-browns.  Another thanks, and I continued on.  The mess hall didn't have any tables or benches, and there appeared to be a reason, as the men who'd gotten their meal were now walking out of the tent.  I followed them, allowing for the sea of fellow militia men to lead me off to wherever we were going.  
We finally came to the empty field that I had been in, Colonel  Mien Bláha was standing on the supply crate that had been in the plane I'd jumped out of.  There were hundreds of men here, too many for me to count.  They were all sitting and eating as they waited for him to begin.  I sat down with them, and started eating with a stainless steel spoon.  Everything just tasted bland, tasteless.  Zlat sat down next to me, somehow finding me through the sea of troops.  He had the same thing as I did.  Eggs, toast, hash-browns.  
After about a minute, the Colonel seemed to be satisfied that enough men were here, so he began, "Well men, it appears that we're ready to begin.  Unfortunately, command hasn't given us an entire battalion of troops to defend the town.  Right now, as it stands, there's only 650 men here, including myself.  If it is deemed necessary we'll be reinforced by an artillery contingent whose size will be determined later."  he was met by nervous mutterings from us.  I wasn't very happy myself.  I mean, a battalion wasn't exactly very big to begin with, but now we're even less than a battalion?  This was very bad news if we got attacked by a significant force.  We needed to get our fortifications up, FAST.  
The Colonel started talking again, "I know, this is very unsavory news.  However, this is more reason to start getting our defenses up quickly.  Thanks to the local alicorn princess, we will be getting some help in our defenses.  Most notably, she will be raising the ground of this town Ponyville, up by nearly a hundred feet.  Right at this moment, the local populace is being notified that the change will be occurring in about an hour.  We will be arranging our trenches to face downhill in both directions.  Your platoon leaders will instruct you on where to dig.  Now, if we get reports that the enemy is advancing towards us, we will then begin the task of mining the roads, destroying the rail road they have here, and setting traps in the fields surrounding the road.  The local populace, however, will need to be evacuated.  Some of the unicorns, pegasi, and... uh... earth ponies will be staying behind to try and help maintain the town and defenses.  They shall be using the train that faces west, and will destroy the rail as they leave.  Now, find your platoon leaders, and let's get ready."
We scrambled to finish up our meal, throwing our treys at the mess hall in panic, and rushed about in a frenzied crowd trying to find our lieutenants.  I found him, a tall, lanky Racoonian man.  The rest of the 649 men finally settled down to wait over the final hour.  The wait opened up for our fear of what was going to happen grew.  Our imaginations started coming up with all sorts of different possibilities.  Like, would all of a sudden be on top of a hill?- all of a sudden rise up quickly and be flown up into the air?- or would it be a slow rising feeling?
Our answer was simple, we rose slowly.  It was slow, yet it didn't take long before we were done.  Our result, a beautiful hill to defend.  The top of the hill was the town, which as far as I could tell, had the size of about two football fields put together.  The hill's decline had about the length of 50 yards, of a gentle decline, enough to allow the trenches behind the first to easily shoot over their heads.  
We look to our lieutenant, and he began speaking, "Alright, we'll be digging out the first line of trenches at the bottom of the hill.  It's going to be going around the entire hill.  Once we finish that, we'll need to be making another line of trenches that'll be about ten yards behind the first line, and so on and so forth.  At 30 yard intervals, we'll need to build concrete pillboxes." We're all already groaning, even Zlat, and as far as I knew, he didn't even need to help!  
He speaks up though, "Um, sir?  How do I enter the militia?"  All eyes are on him.  
"You serious?" someone asks.
"I am."
The lieutenant sighs and hands him a paper and pen, which I recognize as the papers that said you agreed to fight and aid in the fighting of whoever he was ordered against.  The same ones I'd signed.  Did he carry those around with him all the time?  He signed quickly and filled out some of the personal information, and handed it back.  "Welcome to your new home I guess."  someone says.  
The lieutenant says, "You'll get your tags in a week or so."
Throughout this whole thing, I had my eyes glued to Zlat.  I just, couldn't believe it.  This guy was such a pacifist that he would gladly take a punch from a bully in school.  That guy, was now a member of the militia of New York City.  We got our entrenching tools, small shovels and pickaxes, and walked down the hill at our target, and started digging.  It was boring.  Therapeutic, but boring.  We dug the trenches about two and a half feet wide, and eight feet deep.  We had to be reminded to put down more dirt for a fire step that would allow the soldier to stand up and fire over the edge, which was about 2 and a half feet high.  The squad split in half, digging in two directions.  Above, another squad was filling up sandbags full of the dirt we dug up.  The rest of the day we spent digging.  Squads split up to dig out sections of about 20 feet long, then we'd make a small growth in the trench width, which was where a machine gun would go.  That little growth would be when we'd meet another squad doing the exact same thing.  It was at this time, that everyone knew that this was going to be a long day, so we made a quick trip back to our tents to toss down our shirts and anything else that wasn't our pants (which included our shoes and socks).  Our pants we wore.  This day was impossibly hot.  Our bodies were drenched in sweat, humans glistening in the sunlight, while the anthropomorphics fur plastered themselves to their bodies.  But all of our feet were dirtied by mud and dirt.  By midday, we were all bone tired, and had only managed to dig out 2 full trench lines, and a quarter of the third.  We hadn't even started building the pillboxes.  
We couldn't even crawl out of the trenches we were so tired.  There wasn't a single smile in my squad.  Not even Zlat's optimism seemed to be able to penetrate our weariness.  We heard the sound of several carts rolling up.
"Cider!  Apple cider!  Come an' get it!" Came the voice of young voice with a hint of southern drawl.  I managed to pull my head over the side of the trench.  Three ponies were dragging carts full of wooden barrels.  One was a large stallion with a red coat and orange mane and half an apple on his flank, another was orange with blonde ponytails, freckles, and a brown cowboy hat.  The final one was small, had a yellow coat and red mane and tail.  I managed to pull myself out of the trench, and started stumbling over.  
"My my!  So that's what they look like."  The orange one said.  
I stopped in front of them, and asked, "Is it free?  Cuz I don't exactly have anythin' to pay you with."
"Nope!  It's free!  If yer fighting for us, least we can do is give you something to cool you off!"  Said the small one with a cheerful smile.
"Eeyup." The large one confirmed.  
I met their smile with a toothy grin, and called over the rest of the unit.  The ponies turned their carts around, showing the three barrels in each cart that faced towards us, and mugs hanging off the sides of the cart.  I grabbed one, held it under a dispenser, and let the cider flow until it filled up the mug.  I moved out of the way for the others to come forth.  
I looked to the orange one, "Thanks.  It's been a long day, an' this is sure tuh help."
"Yer welcome!  Name's Applejack!  This here," she gestures at the stallion, "Is Big Macintosh, or Big Mac fer short, and this," she ruffles the hair of the younger pony, "Is Applebloom.  We're all siblings, and we're mighty grateful fer yer work here."
I reach out a hand, which Applejack puts a hoof in, "Even though you'll probably forget mine, my name's Wolfgang Piatek.  Pleased to be of service."  I then chug down the entire mug of cider, which was one of the sweetest drinks that I had ever had the pleasure to drink.  I gave out a resounding gasp of air with a smile plastered over my face.
"Hot da-" I started, soon realizing that there was a kid nearby, I censored myself, "aaaang.  This cider is pretty awesome!  You made this?"
"Yep, right down the other road at Sweet Apple Acres, the local apple farm.  Yer welcome to come by if you ever get the chance."
"I just might come down.  If I ain't doin' anything, I might come to help out with any work you might 'ave.  I hate 'aving the feelin' of owin' a debt to someone."
"Well sure!  Help would be a welcome sight.  Depending on what you get done will determine yer pay though.  We ain't like them factories in the cities that pay you by the hour."
I nod, "Makes sense."  I bid them good-day with another thanks, and headed back down to the trench, where the others were already beginning to gather again.  I felt better, rejuvenated even, like the work so far had been light.  The feeling grew to the point where I felt well rested, and a strange energy seemed boil in my veils, like I'd drank a few energy drinks.  My foot was tapping against the ground quickly as I wolfed down my food.  Looking around, everyone else looked to be under the same effects.  Work resumed, and our unit, as well as any other units that tasted some of Applejack's cider, ended up working faster than we had that morning.  By the end of the day, we ended up finishing 10 trench lines, and three fourths of the 11th.  That night, we all went to sleep immediately.

The following day started just like the last.  We dug more trenches until the final trench line was built.  After that, we started filling up the trenches with wooden planks to build something of a flat floor for the trenches, which had a bowel shape to it.   This was going to be very helpful, since once we had rainfall, water would be pooling on the bottom.  We did the same for the firing step.  For the back end of the trenches, we placed a weave between wooden pikes (which were buried into the ground) that kept the dirt and mud from slipping forwards.  This work went much quicker, and we finished this for all of the trenches within the day.  
The day after, we all began the construction of the pillboxes.  I wasn't an engineer, and neither were most of the other people in the militia.  But we managed to learn quickly from the diagrams that were handed out.  First, we dug out a section of untouched dirt that would be large enough for the pillbox about 3 feet deep.  We then set up wood posts on the corners, and connected them with plywood.  We then made wall for it that spaced about a foot away from the first wall.  We made sure to make the openings for the gunners, because we really didn't want to use our pickaxes to make them after the concrete sealed up.  We'd pour in the concrete, and let it sit.  We actually managed to make a decent amount of pillboxes that day, about half of the needed pillboxes.  All we had to do was wait for a few days for them to solidify.  The next day we finished up the final pillboxes, and had even made a spotting tower for the east side of town.  With that, we were given a day of rest.  
-
I woke up, and I was immediately assaulted by the smell of sweaty, stinking men and muscles that cried for me to not move.  But my nose won out the debate of whether or not to move.  I needed to get out of here and get a bath.  I fell out of bed, and rushed out of the tent, my stomach beginning to revolt against me.  I took two steps out, and I retched out whatever it had been that I ate last night onto the dirt.  I coughed a few times before standing, and looked for the shower.  But  I found nothing.  We'd been so focused on the construction that no one had thought to set up the showers.  I went into the town, where I continued to look for a source of water to clean myself with.  And there it was.  A creek deep enough for me to wash myself in.  I waded in to the center which was about 4 feet deep, and began to scrub myself with my hands.  I scrubbed and scrubbed and washed as hard as I could, but I couldn't seem to get clean enough to where the stink would leave.
"Do you need a shower?" a familiar voice asked.  I turned around to find Twilight, and a host of other ponies, most of which I'd already met.  
"Need is a bit of an understatement.  I haven't showered in almost a week now, and I'm covered in filth."  I say.  The white unicorn with a purple, styled mane held a hoof to her mouth as if that were the only thing keeping her from throwing up.  Oh, if that's enough to make you feel like throwing up, you shouldn't try to go near camp or else you'd never stop.
"Come with me then, you can take a shower in my castle!"  Twilight says.  
I thank her, and stepped out of the creek.  Rainbow Dash and Applejack are looking at me hard when I come out.   Or rather, at something on me, "What?"
"Oh, nothing it's just that you have... a lot of muscles."  Rainbow manages to say.
"Very large ones too."  Applejack says, still staring.  
OOoooooh.  I see what's going on!  You're getting the hots for me!  I think sarcastically in my head.  I laugh inside as I followed them to the crystal castle, but I also take a look at myself.  I wasn't all that muscular.  If anything, I'd actually lost some weight in all that hard labor.  Inside the castle was a labyrinth of halls with signs that had been placed on each hallway telling the reader where it led.  She led me straight to one of the bathrooms, and opened the door for me as I approached it.  I gave a short thanks before entering, and shutting the door behind me.  I undressed myself, entered the shower (which oddly looked much like a human shower) and turned the water on.  Nice, cool water fell on me as I proceeded to wash myself clean.  It amazed me how many layers of dirt had piled on me.  Layer after layer fell, until I finally came to skin.  Bright.  Red.  Skin.
I finally finished, put on my filthy clothes, and stepped out of the bathroom.  My mind, and I think my heart too, stopped for a few moments as I saw what lay before me.  All six ponies, which looked to have just race backwards, were trying to look as inconspicouos as possible, whistling and playing at the floor with a hoof.  
"Ok, mind tellin' me what you want?" I ask, feeling a bit violated.
"We were, curious to see what it was humans do in the shower." The white unicorn asked.
I raise an eyebrow, not enjoying the thought of ponies trying to see me nude.  I mean, being ponies, they probably wouldn't think of it sexually, but it still felt wrong to me.
"If you really want to know more 'bout humans, would you just ask?  It's a lot less creepy that way."
Twilight seemed to squee in delight, "Ooh!  I know the perfect place!"  Her horn lights up, and a flash later, we're in a totally new room, one that has a massive round table made out of crystal.  My stomach, for the second time today, revolted against me, and I started dry heaving.  
"What, are you doing?" asked Twilight in a very disgusted tone.
"Dry- BLEH!!- heaving," I moaned before continuing for another few seconds.  
"Ok, note to self, don't ever teleport humans!   EVER again!" Twilight says.
I'm breathing heavily as I bring myself back into a sitting position, "That would be smart.  So, what questions do you 'ave?"
Twilight teleports a scroll, a quill, and a few bottles of ink, and she's ready to write, "How many countries besides ours is there?" She asks.
I have to ponder this one.  Most of the smaller nations had been swallowed up over the years, and others had broken apart, "I'd say, 'bout 150 of them.  But that ain't an exact number, just a guess.  You see, I ain't a very worldly man."
"Ok, my turn," Rainbow says, "What kind of sports do you have?"
"Football, baseball, soccer, tennis, and more that I don't know."
"What are the rules?  How are they played?"  She asks fervently.
"Hell, I don't know.  It's a bit much to explain.  It'd be better just to show you, and explain as a game went on.  Let's just say this, football is a contact sport that occasionally results in broken bones, baseball is a classic sport with fewer injuries includin' hittin' a ball with a bat.  Soccer is kickin' a ball on the ground and tryin' to shoot it in a goal, and tennis is hittin' a ball over a net at another person.  Most of these sports are actually kinda borin'.  Next."
For the next several hours, I was answering questions about the human world and how our society functioned.  I made it clear, however, what was affected by biases and what was simply fact.  Finally, they asked, "What's with the human and animal hybrids?"
Well, that was going to come up at some point.  "Well, that's something of a touchy subject, and a long story.  A long time ago, well before my great-grandparents were born, some scientists got the 'great' idea that we needed more diversity.  Whether it was out of some sort of fetish, or genuine want of diversity in the world, they managed to do it.  First, they started with apes because our genetic code is so similar, which turned out pretty badly.  The kids that they created had the mind of a kid, but the strength of several men.  Broken bones and concussions were commonplace when they mingled with people who got them angry.  By the time they reached their teenage years, the test subjects ended up killing several scientists that were working on the project.  Bound by law, they executed the test subjects."
The group gasped, "Why?  Why would they do that?"
I shrug, "It's the law.  Look, I get it.  Equestria is a nice place, an' I doubt that murders happen very often.  But look at it this way.  Once someone has killed another person, who's to say that they won' try again?  If we send them to prison, they're just as likely to kill people in there, or get corrupted by the gang members that are there."
"Even if it was only an accident?"  The yellow one with the pink mane asks.
"Well, that's why we 'ave three different levels of murder.  Third degree murder, second degree murder, an' first degree murder."    I proceeded to start talking about our legal system and how complicated it was.  
"Wow, that is..." Twilight cuts herself off, unable to find accurate words.
"Complicated." Rainbow, Applejack, Spike and I say all at once.
There's a long pause before anyone says anything.  Finally, Rarity asks, "What do you think of us?  As a whole, I mean."
Well, there's a loaded question if there ever was one.  I take a moment before I answer, thinking of an answer, "To be honest, I'm not entirely sure.  We have animals back home that look uncannily similar to you, an' yet I can still make the distinguishment between the two of you.  But when I look at the people here in the mental sense, I'm terrified fer what's to come.  You ain't ready for what's coming, not by a long shot."
"What do you mean?" Spike asks.
"When's the last time Equestria was at war?" I ask pointedly.  The ponies and dragon think, debating to each other.
"We don't know.  The last time we were at war must have been over a thousand years ago before Celestia and Luna took over." Fluttershy says.
"There you go.  War is brutal, unimaginably so.  Men an' women tryin' to kill each other fer some reason they don' really know besides that they're doin' it for their country.  Thousands, if not millions of people shootin' at each other.  You aren't ready for that kind of chaos.  If you watch, I fear what that will do to your minds."  I pause, feeling like crap for saying this, "However, you probably see it as us being unbelievably violent an' barbaric.  If so, so be it.  I'm here to make sure that your country will stay free, an' I'll be damned if I don' follow through with it."
The silence was absolute, so much so that I could hear my veins pumping in my head.  The girls and Spike looked at each other with a strange look of understanding.  "So let me ask you a question, what do you think of my people?"
They said nothing for the longest time, which actually made me start to think that they didn't know what to think.  "I think that you are as kind as your world allows you to be."  Fluttershy muttered.  
That's... actually nicer than I expected.  I smiled at her sadly, "That's very nice of you.  Unfortunately, I don' know how accurate that is.  I've seen good men in my home city, but I've also seen how depraved an' horrible we can lower ourselves to be.  I know that people 'ave their reasons, but sometimes, I wonder what life might've been if we hadn't fallen so far."
They looked at me strangely, "What do you mean?" Pinkie Pie asked, no hint of her seemingly habitual happiness in her question.
"Well, there used to be a time where people were nicer to each other.  We talked to each other, left our doors unlocked, an' no one had to fear 'bout being robbed outside of a city or raids from bandits.   Now, the only thing keepin' people safe are the militia's an' the military."  I hunched forwards, feeling dark, "Every day, I pray that I don' have to shoot at anybody.  At the very least, this war has provided a good incentive for our military to round up all the bandit hideouts and force them into service.  Maybe this war will bring some good."
"What happened?" Rainbow asked.
I chuckled stupidly, "Where do I start?  A couple world wars, a few nukes gettin' dropped, a few pandemics, famine, droughts, an' some computer virus's.  At one point, tanks were a common sight in battle, but now, we're lucky to find a dismantled relic.  Our airforce used to have engines that made their own fiery propulsion, now we're regaled to propeller planes, just like two centuries ago.  We're a shadow of our former selves, but at least we're gettin' better."	
I know that they didn't understand exactly what I'd said, but the meaning was clear, and they understood the drastic differences between now and then.  I felt like the world was crashing down on me as for the first time, I processed life.  I lived in a small apartment, barely scraped by financially, and had a job that threatened to kill me nearly every day.  All in a world that felt like it wanted to crush you.  I knew that subconsciously I had known this, but I'd drowned myself in alcohol to snuff it out.  
"Sounds like you aren't exactly in the best shape to be defending us from other countries."  Applejack said.
I puffed out my chest, scowling, I roared, "I thought I made it clear that the entire WORLD was sufferin'!  Believe it 'r not, Chestein is actually doin' better than most!  We've almost rediscovered how to make tanks again!"
Applejack seemed to be taken aback, unsure of my outburst.  I sighed, feeling embarrassed at my lack of control, "I-I'm sorry 'bout my outburst.  I gotta go."  I stood up and quickly made for the door.  As soon as I put a hand on the door, a hoof was placed on my shoulder.  It was Applejack.
"I accept yer apology, but I'm kinda curious 'bout why you seemed so mad."
I sighed again, not wanting to say, but I figured I didn't really have a choice, "Cuz as f***ed up my country 'as gotten, I'm still proud of it, an' I don' like hearin' unfounded insults bein' attributed to it.  I gotta go."  With that, I opened the door, and found my way out of the castle.  
I walked back towards the tents in silence, the town not having awoken yet.  I shoved my hands into my wet pants, and hunched my back.  My mind kept punishing me with the feeling of guilt for lashing out, and anger at myself for not maintaining control.  I quietly cursed at myself.  When I got back, enough men had woken up to where we were organizing into our groups again.  We were told to go out and run laps in the trenches to get familiar with them.  One lap on the first trench, and then two on the second.  By the time we reached the 15th trench, we'd have to do 15 laps for that trench.  Now, not only were our backs and arms in pain, so were our legs.  We were all groaning and cursing at the Colonel under our breaths.  When lunch rolled around, no one was leaving their tent. Rather, we drank from our canteens, and huddled by the watertower for refills.  Dinner rolled around, and we pulled ourselves away from the source of water, and settled to eat boiled green beans, mashed potatoes, and beef.  It tasted terrible, but we all wolfed it down as fast as we could, and tried to get seconds.  A lucky few managed to get some vegetables, and I wasn't one of them.  
I fell in with the rest of my unit, and dropped onto my bunk, only, I felt something off about my bed.  I was laying on something.  I rolled over and found a small pile of letters addressed to me and many of the others in the tent.  Sarge, a guy we called Mishap, Charlie, Maxwell, me, Zlat, Vinnie, and Marcel got letters, mostly me and Zlat, since our school seemed to have a lot of curious students.  Unfortunately, this left the Barborov twins without any mail.  I felt bad for them, but there wasn't a readily available solution.  All I could think of was letting them read my mail if they weren't going to make them depressed as all hell.  I had 12 letters, the first of which was from my principal.  
Dear Wolfgang,
Your fellow students are very excited by the prospect that they have a fellow student in Equestria, and would like to be able to write to you, as evident by the many letters you and your brother will be receiving.  The entire school is actually interested, but we have decided that we would only let through a few letters for you to read.  If you know of anyone who would enjoy talking about their experience and Equestria with our students, please make a list.
Principal Spiller
Well, this was interesting.  I called out to the guys, asking, "Hey guys, read this will ya?"  I passed around the letter.  I took notice that the Barborov twins seemed to take particular interest.  "Would you guys be willing to get involved in this?"  Everyone was smiling, so the general result, was yes.  They were all very interested.  I started writing a note back with a pen and some scrap paper.  
Dear Principal Spiller,
My entire unit is more than interested in writing back to someone from school.  We've just finished up building our defenses, and I'm not so sure what we'll have to do otherwise.  Here's a short list of the guys, other than Zlat, who would be glad to write back.  There's 650 guys at the town I'm in (Ponyville), so there's bound to be plenty of people who would love to write back.  If I can, I'll see about getting some of the locals to agree to it too.  They're good people, and they write in English if you can believe it.  OH!  Great news!  Zlat isn't blind anymore!  They've got a cure for that.  It's quite literally magic.  No, I'm not joking.  I didn't want to believe it either, but it's true.
Wolfgang Piatek
That last bit made me feel a little apprehensive.  I only knew 7 individuals here, and after my exit, I wasn't feeling too confident about coming back, my guilt was still pressing on me.
> Chapter 4: A Surprise Visit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I knocked the massive knocker on the castle's door.  No answer.  I knocked again.  Same result.  For the next couple of minutes, I knocked.  Nothing.  I sighed, and left a scribbled note on the door, asking about writing letters to the kids back home.  The only other place I knew of looking at was Applejack's farm.  I walked down the road through town, following her vague directions to her land.
The ponies in the streets still looked at me with curious looks, but I guess that was to be expected.  As far as I knew, nobody from camp was really talking to them.  I continued down the street, out of town, and further down the road.  In the distance, I saw the trees that were organized in strict rows.  The trees were on the other side of a white fence that bordered another dirt road that splintered off from from the main road.  The road continued for a fair distance until it arrived at a few large barns.  One, of which, appeared to looked a lot like a farmhouse crossed with a barn.  I walked up to what I surmised as the front door, and knocked.
I heard the sound of hooves clopping against the ground, so I quickly surveyed my appearance, straightening my fatigues, rubbed a few wrinkles out, switched my rifle strap from holding on just my shoulder to going across my back, and tried re-balancing my helmet.  The door opened, and I was met with an elderly looking green pony with a greyish-white mane and tail done up into buns.
"Yeeess?" her very old sounding voice asked.  She then looked up to my face, and before I could say anything, "Ooh!  Yer one of them humans Applebloom has been talking about!  Please!  Come in!  Come in!"  She opened the door further, using a hoof to beckon me into the house, more specifically, a dining room full of the ponies and dragon I happened to know.  I ducked my head underneath the short doorway, trying to sound polite as I thanked her. 
"Hello there Wolfgang!  What brings you here?" Twilight asks cheerfully, as if this morning hadn't happened at all.
"Actually, I've been looking fer one of you.  You weren' at the castle, so I came to the only other place I'd been told about that one of you lives at.  You see, I got a letter from the principal of my school askin' 'bout the students writin' to the guys in my unit.  I thought that maybe, seein' as how there are thousands of kids in my school, that maybe, you an' some of the people in Ponyville would like to write to them.  What do you think 'bout this?"  
From the grins I was receiving from everybody in the room, it looked like they thought it was a good idea, Spike started, "That sounds kinda cool!  It'd be pretty interesting to know what life is like over there."
"I bet I could get the printing press to put an add in the paper about this!"  Twilight says enthusiastically.  
"An' I bet the army would actually like this.  It'll give the people another reason to be fightin' in the war besides it bein' the right thing to do.  If yer fightin' fer yer friends, then you fight harder." I say.  I collect their addresses, and names.  I leave a quick scribble of a note for Twilight to give to the presses, and I was starting to feel a lot better.  
I was starting to leave when Applebloom asked, "Where you going?  Aren't you gonna stay fer dinner?"  For whatever reason, she gave me an adorable begging face.  I could quite literally feel my stomach and heart twinge with the desire to comply.  I looked to the others, and I was greeted by nods all around.  A growl from my unsatisfied stomach pretty much gave my answer.
"I guess it's unanimous!  I'm staying fer dinner."  She gives out a "YAY!"  I take a seat next to Big Mac, where a new plate found it's way to.  The meal was apple pie.  And by God, if this wasn't the best I'd eaten in forever, I couldn't remember what had been able to beat it out.  I was trapped between the urging of my stomach to eat quicker, and my taste buds telling me to slow down and enjoy the food.  The ponies were talking mostly with each other, which was alright by me, that just meant I could keep eating.  
When I'd gotten my second helping, Twilight asked me, "What do you think are the chances of Ponyville getting attacked are?"
Conversation stopped immediately, all attention was focused on me, with a fork full of apple pie halfway into my mouth.  I sighed, placing it back on the plate, "Well, Ponyville is in the middle of Equestria, which in an' of itself is pretty large.  The main concern is to the East, where Canterlot, Manehatten, Filliedelphia, Dodge Junction, an' the like are the most risk an' therefore, they got the most support.  There are two reasons that Ponyville was given a garrison.  One," I pointed at Twilight, "You an' yer castle are here.  Apparently, the other princesses were pretty adamant about you gettin' some protection.  The other reason is that this town has a major road runnin' through 'ere to some of the other cities.  Stalliongrad, Los Pegasus, Trottingham an' more.  Plus, beyond the town is the only split in the railroad that goes to the Crystal Empire in all Equestria, which would be a great way to flank them.  This town is a pretty important strategic point if the enemy gets far enough.  If either of these things were taken outta the equation, then I'd be sent somewhere else, an
this town would be like all the other ones.  No one to protect 'em."  
I look at their faces, and they looked terrified.  "In otherwords, if they take the East, they're coming here!" Spike cried.
I nodded, "Yeah, but I highly doubt that they'll make it this far.  We're talkin' 'bout thousands 'pon thousands of well supplied soldiers, who 'ave orders to defend their assigned cities to the death.  No way those cities will be taken.  Now, let's say fer sayin's sake, that if they manage to reach us. We're entrenched on a hill with pillboxes that are almost done dryin'.  If my Colonel gets 'is way, we'll get artillery support place in the hills."
"Would you mind telling us how powerful your weapons are?"  Rarity asks.
"Our 50 cal machine guns can shoot lead down range at 600 rounds a minute.  Which is pretty fast fer such a large bullet.  The standard rifle that we use, the M16, shoots at 950 rounds per minute.  We 'ave a variety of other weapons that fire quickly, but I don't know 'em all.  We also have mortars, which I think were already set up at the top of the hill.  They blow stuff up."  I look at the ponies around the table, who are now staring at me in disbelief, their jaws hanging freely.  
I took the opportunity to start eating again, but when I had managed to get a mouthful, Applejack asked, "An' what do they have?"
I put up a finger, asking for a moment as I swallow, "Most of 'em got crap.  They'll be lucky if their weapons don' jam every ten shots.  The AK-47 schematics got messed up pretty badly, an' all the originals broke down a while ago.  So now, they keep on tryin' to git it right.  They got machine guns an' artillery too, but both are hard to lug around."
"Are you saying we're safe?"  Applebloom asks cutely.
I nod, "Safer than the princesses themselves."  That was probably a lie, but smiles spread around the table, and I felt a little better.  I finished off my helping, put my plate and fork in the sink, thanked them for their hospitality, and left back for camp.

The next day, revali woke us up.  We got up out of bed, and got our assignments.  Take off the molds of the pillboxes.  I had to say, along with everyone else, that we'd done a good job making the pillboxes.  They looked exactly as they should.  Our next order was to start equipping M2 Browning machine guns to them.  This was actually pretty easy to accomplish.  It didn't even take two hours to finish equipping the pillboxes, and we began setting up the .30 caliber machine guns, also Browning, into the divots of the trenches that was meant for a machine gun.  This took much longer, as there were more divots than pillboxes, and we had to add sandbags around the guns to protect the gunner. Once we had achieved this, we loaded them, and piled ammunition boxes near the guns.  We were more or less finished with the official preparations.  All we had to do next was probably add some dugouts for us to stay in when we started living in the trenches.  We were feeling pretty satisfied with our work when a loudspeaker screamed at us with the voice of the Colonel.
"Attention!  LINE UP!"  It took us a second to process this, but when we had, we scrambled up the hill in the remaining field on the hill.  "NO!  On the bottom of the hill!  Get your guns while your at it."  We got our guns, and dashed down the hill.  The Colonel sounded urgent, almost panicky.  We managed to get ourselves in formation just in time to see a carriage being pulled by two pegusi in gold armor.  I'd seen pictures of carriages before, and let me say, this thing looked beyond expensive.  It look like all the money in the world had been used up on this thing.  It landed on the field atop the hill that we'd just left.  From where I stood, there wasn't much to see besides the form of the carriage.  
I shifted uncomfortably between my feet, waiting for something to happen.  Several minutes went by, and a tall figure appeared to be walking down the trench lines, jumping over each gap, along with the Colonel who went down into and up out of each trench.  It was only when they'd passed the 5th line of trenches when I was able to see a crown adorned the head of the white figure, who had both wings, and a very long horn.  I wonder which princess this is.  Celestia, or Luna?  The princess walked straight up to us, and examined each one of us at the front of the formation.  That included me.  She stopped in front of me, and stared straight into my eyes, like a challenge.  I stared right back into those pinkish eyes, emotionless. 
She leaned in, and whispered into my ear, "You seem different."  What?  Different?  What?  She left me there in my stupor without explaining herself, though from the smile she was bearing, it appeared that she'd done it just to play with me.  Sly.  Looks like royalty knows how to have fun around here.
She continued down the line as she had before she'd stopped in front of me.  She went back to the Colonel, who'd stopped at the edge of the lead trench.  "They look, and smell like they haven't bathed in days, except for that one over there." she pointed at me with a hoof, "And while the defenses appear to be well made, I fear that they are too few in number to do any good.  I've seen demonstrations of your machine guns, but I still believe that you might not have enough support."
The Colonel maintained an even, and respectful tone, "I've just been given the news that we'll be assigned a few 122 millimeter artillery cannons.  I've also received news that a collection of town militias have put forth volunteers, so they'll reinforce us, and we've yet to deploy our land mines.  We're waiting until we hear the news that an army has invaded us to deploy the mines, however, as they can't discern the difference between ponies and us.  We'd rather keep as much of the local area open as much as possible."  
The guy next to me turns around to look at the sky.  He's a German Shepard, so he must've heard something with his ears.  I nudge him, and whisper, "Dude!  What is it?"
He doesn't look at me, he's just staring at the sky, like many of the other anthropomorphic guys are beginning to do, and says, "There's a plane coming from the east."
A plane coming from the east?  We don't have any airfields there do we?  Realization dawns on me as I turned around to look at the sky.  The menacing shape of dozens of planes were coming into view.  They weren't ours.  "GET TO COVER!" I scream.  I bolted from formation, picking up the startled princess, and raced for the trench.  I barely registered her more than significant weight and size, but the bombers closing in on us was more pressing. I dumped us into the trench, and I peer out of the trench, my rifle in my hands.  The princess is standing up now, periodically ducking as soldiers jumped over the trench.  
"What is it?" she asked.
"Bombers!  They're going to drop their loads on us!"  I hear the popping sound of the quad-gun, an anti-aircraft gun, firing.  I took futile aim myself, and started firing.  All around us, automatic rifles fired until some men got into the bunkers and started shooting the .50's.  A flame rippled from an engine in the lead plane, and it started to dip.  My gun went dry, and I stepped down from the firing step to reload.  I jammed a fresh mag in, pulled back the firing rod, but before I can jump up again, I see Celestia.  She's huddled up in a ball, trying to cover her ears with her hooves.  I looked up at the planes, another plane had lost a wing, and was falling fast, while the others had arrived in what I thought looked like the bombing position.  
Before I knew what I was doing, I was on top of her, and I was yelling above the noise of gunfire, "Get as small as possible!  They're gonna bomb us!  I'm gonna cover you!"  I was practically hugging her, and she was doing the same.  Soon enough, the sickening sound of the whistle from the bombs attacked my ears, and my heart start pounding.  
Each bomb shook the Earth below me, physically lifting me up, and dropping me back down on the princess.  I felt like a ragdoll as I tried to keep myself on top of Celestia, who was now crying.  At one point, I managed to grunt out, "If you scream, you won't suffer as much hearing loss!"  I didn't know how true that was, but it couldn't hurt, right?  And after that, she screamed.  It was an ear piercing, bloodcurdling, demoralizing scream, and I instantly regretted saying my bit.  A bomb landed right in front of the trench, and dirt was sprayed on top of us, creating a blanket.  More bombs were landing, and it was at this moment that I realized, not a single gun was firing right now.  The bombing continued for another minute, and it was over as soon as it had started.
I groaned as I pulled myself out of the dirt that had landed on us, and pulled the princess up with me.  Her white coat was now filthy brown, and she looked shaken beyond anything I'd seen from humans.  I asked her, "Are you alright princess?"  She looked at me like she didn't even realize I was there, and once she had looked at me for a second, she nodded.  I looked back over at the battlefield, and... holy crap.  It had been bombed heavily.  Craters were everywhere, but it didn't look like any of the trenches had been hit.  I started feeling good again.  We all survived a bombing, and our hard work hadn't been for nothing.
I felt good, that is, until I laid my eyes on the tail fins of a bomb not 10 feet away from me.  And just my luck, it wasn't just any kind of bomb, this was a gas bomb.  It had a vent sticking out, and a sickly green gas was now pouring over the ground.  I screamed, "GAS!!  GAS!!!" I ripped off the gas mask off of my utility belt, and thrust it at the princess, "Put this on!"  She put it on using her magic, which is probably how the mask managed to fit over her long face.  "Now run uphill!"  I grabbed my dirt covered rifle, and jumped up and over the trench wall, and grabbed the gas bomb.  My lungs, throat, mouth, nose, eyes, my everything burned like fire as the sickly green gas enveloped me.  I screamed out in pain as I lifted it up, and started running away from the trenches.  I was crying involuntary, tears streaming down my cheeks.  I found that is was beginning to grow difficult to think, and put each foot in front of the other.  Count steps. I thought.  
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9...99, 100. I dropped the thing in my arms, and I fell next to it, unable to breathe, but still coughing.  My body was giving up, I could feel it.  Damn it!  Dying.  No.  I don't want it.  My thoughts dissolved from thoughts that took the form of words, to feelings.  I felt that I was dying, dying was bad, and I was afraid of it.  I rolled over, and started pulling myself forwards in a crawl.  Everything hurt.  Everything hurt.  
I couldn't take it anymore.  I gave up.  I couldn't feel anything anymore.  No thought, no pain, I couldn't even feel the ground below me.  It was flat out nothingness, except for one thing.  I could hear.  I could hear my heart beating slowly, and I could hear impacts on the ground, but from what I didn't know.  I couldn't know.  It was just there, without meaning.  I then heard something being dragged.   Slowly, my mind faded altogether.

I woke up suddenly, and all I knew was pain, pain, and more pain.  I tried to scream or cry out, but I couldn't make a sound, so my mouth just opened and shut, opened and shut.  I tried to open my eyes, but they had been forced shut.  I tried to writhe, but not only was I being held down by strong hands, but everything cried out against me in the short burst of movement.  The pain was growing.
"Someone give him morphine!" someone yelled.  Over all the pain, I barely felt the needle prick me in the arm.  Immediately, I felt a little better.  Progressively, the pain died off until it had been halved, but all it did was give me the strength to try and writhe again.  
"Another shot!"
"That could kill him!"
"ANOTHER SHOT!!"
Another needle, the pain was gone as if it never existed, and I stopped resisting.  I felt funny.  My mind felt like all the clouds in the sky had been pumped into my head and my fingers tingled like electricity was pulsing through it.  I breathed cleanly, but I could still hear the vibration in it.  
"How're you feeling son?" someone asked.  My reply was a gurgle.  I tapped my hand against the bed, asking for my arm to be released.  All of the hands were lifted off of me, allowing me to raise a hand, and give them a thumbs up, though for some reason, I couldn't feel my hand closing, or, my hand itself really.  
I heard a booming laugh come from the man, and I suddenly knew who that voice belonged to.  It was the Colonel.  The sound of cracking blisters seemed to suck up all the sound of the room.  It was the only sound as I raised my arm to my brow in a weak salute.  "Sssssir. I wheezed roughly.
I heard the other men in the room suck in their breath in unveiled gasps.  I felt a small twinge of pride and satisfaction from this.  The short rustle of clothes was the only indication that I was given a salute back, but I maintained my salute until the Colonel said, "At ease son."  My elbow thumped against the bed, proceeded the rest of my arm.  I coughed again, and I could feel something fly from my mouth.  A splat later indicated that it was blood.  Somehow, I fell asleep again.
> Chapter 5: Rewarded
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Well this is ironic." I say.  My hand is on Zlat's shoulder, leading me towards some food.
He laughs, "How so?"  I try to suppress my irritation at his little prod at me.  
"You know exactly how.  Yer doin' what I did fer you fer me!"  I curse aloud when I realized how poorly I structured that sentence.  
He's laughing his ass off, but he doesn't make it worse by saying anything further.  He stops, saying that we're at our booth.  I feel the seats' back with my hand, and the seat itself with a foot.  I sat down, and instantly, felt uncomfortable.  This table wasn't designed for humans.  The table was much too low, as was the booth.  My legs were splayed out under the table, as were Zlat's if I had to guess.  
A hesitant voice of a man asked, "What will you two... uh..." he actually paused to think, "sirs?  Is that correct?"  I nod.  "What will it be tonight sirs?"  
I heard Zlat make the order for us, "Two orders of bean and rice enchiladas, and curry please.  Charge it to this account."  I knew that Zlat had taken out the card that guaranteed us free meals in Canterlot restaurants.  I had somehow impressed Celestia so much, that she believed that she needed to give me a medal and ceremony in her castle.  That had been a few weeks ago, long enough for my blisters to heal and for my lungs and throat to regain the ability to speak again.  I listened to a recording that Zlat took, and I found that I didn't sound like I had before.  My voice was deep and graveled.  I had simply made a joke, and it made me feel a bit frightened.  When I heard my laughing with the others in the unit, I was downright terrified.  A demon would've sounded like an angel in comparison.  
The sound of his hooves walking away was my evidence that he left.  I heard another couple of sets of hooves walking by, and I heard the young, ever so young voice of a little girl ask, "Mister alien, what happened to your eyes?  Are you blind?"  I hear the parents gasp in alarm, but before they can scorn the little filly, I turned my head towards the sound of her voice.
"I got hurt in some fightin'.  I'm blind fer now, but the doctors say that they'll heal.  Besides, even if it's permanent, I know a guy in Ponyville that can correct it in a snap."  I say with a smile.  Even blind, little kids still managed to make me want to be nicer to them than the normal populace.  Their innocence was something that always got me.  
I hear the voice of an old man, a grandfather, "I'm so sorry mister.  She's still young, and doesn't know to ask such things."
I blow a raspberry, "It's fine!  She's young yet.  She needs to ask questions to understand the world around her.  It's how she grows."  I was about to ask her if she wanted to know how it happened, when I both realized that it probably wasn't a good idea, and the girl beat me to it.
"How'd you get hurt?"  Damn, that is way too cute!  
I looked towards where the grandfather's voice had come from, "What do you say?"  I heard a confirming grunt, "Ok then, well sweetie, your Princess Celestia came to visit Ponyville to see the defenses that we'd made."
"Really?"  My heart skipped a beat, and my smile grew.
"Really.  I guess she was pretty impressed.  She even spoke to me to tell a joke.  Then, giant contraptions called planes came in from the sky.  Now, a plane 'as a long cylinder with two wings on it.  It uses somethin' called a propeller to push air under it's wings to create lift.  These planes dropped somethin' called bombs.  Bombs explode, hurtin' people near it," she gasps, "I picked up the princess, an' dove into a trench, which is like a really deep ditch.  I covered her up with my body, an' the bombs blew up all around us.  But we were safe.  When the bombs stopped fallin', I looked over the lip of the trench, an' there it was!"  I was using a voice that you would use when you'd tell a thriller story to little kids.
"What?  What was it?"  She asked on the edge of her metaphorical seat.
"A gas bomb.  It unleashed gas that hurts people even worse.  I got Celestia to git on a gas mask to protect 'er, an' I entered the cloud.  It burned my skin, my eyes an' my lungs.  I picked up the bomb, an' dragged it over hundreds of feet away until it would be too far away tuh hurt anyone.  But I was too weak to get back on my own.  I only got halfway back before my body gave up.  I died before my buddies could get me into the hospital."
"You... died?  But you're here right now?  How could you be alive?"
"They revived me.  That's the thing.  We can bring people back to life if they died recently.  They got me into the hospital, an' worked on me.  Weeks later, here I am talkin' to you."  I end the sentence with what I hoped was a happy tone.  I guess it worked, cuz she went, "Woooooowwww!"
I giggled, actually giggled.  "That was a great story mister!  I can't believe it!  You saved the princess!  Twice!"  The sound of her hooves clopping all together was my indication that she was hopping away, saying, "Hero! Hero!  Hero!"  Over and over again.  The grandfather laughed at her antics, and said to me, "Thank you for saving our princess."
I hardly tasted the food when it arrived.  I was feeling too happy.  "Feeling good?" Zlat asked me.  I nodded with a stuffed mouth.  I finished eating.
"How much time do we have?" I asked.  We had to be at the castle by 2 pm, and we'd gotten to the restaurant at around 11:30.
"The ceremony is at 13:30, so about two and a half hours.  Time to go I guess."  To be on time is to be late.  To be early is to be on time.  We stood up, and I placed my hand on Zlat's shoulder, and he led me off.  Before we'd arrived (by a bumpy ride via jeep), I'd asked Zlat to describe the city for me.  Basically, it turned out that the place looked like an artist and an architect had had their ways with creating the city.  He tried to describe it for himself, but he was out of practice in the ways of describing things, since having his sight was still recent.  He still tried though, as we walked down the street, commenting on how no two ponies looked exactly the same.  Some looked very similar, but still different.  
He then stated after a long walk, "Here we are.  The castle.  There's a Victorian-goth style gate, the ones that look like spears facing up and bound by a length of steel.  Two grey earth pony guards in golden armor are on either side of the gate,  watching us.  Hey guys!  We're here for the award ceremony.  This is Wolfgang Piatek, the guest of honor!"
I "look" at Zlat, "Dude, I'm blind, not mute."
He just chuckles at me, "Hey, you did the same thing when I was blind!  This is comeupance!" 
I... I did that? "Really?  No s**t?" he nods, "Damn dude, sorry."  I turn back to where I assumed the gate was.  "Is the gate open?"
He chuckles again, "I forgave you a long time ago, and yes, the gate is open.  Let's go."  We were moving again.  We twisted and turned about, and I was really wishing that I could see.  I was feeling more and more unnerved.  I had no idea where I was, and that is what made me feel so small.  Then, the sound of massive doors swinging on their hinges.  The sound of people talking surrounded me.  
"I'm taking you to Celestia and who I think is her sister Luna, they're waving us over."  We take a turn right, and about 20 steps later, we stop.  
"Hello Wolfgang!  How are you feeling?"  Celestia says, meaning every word that she said.
"Better.  I can talk again, and breathe unassisted.  Even most of my blisters have healed, although the doc said that the scarrin' is permanent."
"You sound... different." she says, trying to choose her words carefully.
"The gas damaged my throat pretty bad, this is as good as it'll get as far as I can see."  Zlat laughs, and punches me in the shoulder.  I can't help but smile, and punch him back.
"What was that?" A new voice asked confused.  It wasn't the same, motherly sounding voice of Celestia.  It was a voice that made me think that the pony it belonged to wasn't that confident of a person.  It sounded both old and young at the same time, which didn't really seem to fit right, or make sense.
Zlat answered for me, "It was my favorite joke when I was blind."
"You were blind?"  Both sisters asked.
"Yep, your doctors are very good at their magic craft, because I ain't blind no more!"  I can tell that he's still very happy about it, even though it had to be about a month since his sight was restored.
I felt a pair of eyes settle on me, "So you are the one that rescued my sister?" she asked me.  I nodded.  
I feel a weight placed on my shoulder, and I assumed that she had placed a hoof on my shoulder, "Thank you.  I do not know what I would do if my sister died."  She says this with absolute sincerity, and I believed her.  
"Yer welcome, ma'am."  I say.  
"You aren't one for words, are you?"  Asked Celestia, oddly bemused.  All I do is shrug.  She giggled, having her question being answered while reaffirming it.  Her giggle made my nervousness settle down a bit, allowing me to smile back.
The hours boiled down, mostly with Zlat talking.  I had sat down in a hair, and was now just waiting, not listening to anything.  My mind was numb, no thoughts coming forth.  Periodically, I would break the silence, and listened on what was around me, only to find little had occurred other than more people arriving.  
The upteenth time I had broken silence, I asked Zlat, "Hey, what time is it?"
"Two, everyone is getting ready.  The princesses are up on their thrones, the human higher-ups are standing in front of them, and the pony elites here are starting to pay attention."
"Everyone, we're here today to recognize the bravery, and feat of a human soldier today.  He saved my life not once, but twice before I could even comprehend what was happening, as well as protecting his brothers in arms, and the citizens of Ponyville from a chemical weapon, called mustard gas.  Wolfgang Piatek, will you please come up to be awarded?" Celestia asked, her voice booming throughout the room.
I stood up, and Zlat guided me to the carpet, "I can't follow you any further bro, just walk forwards." he whispered this to where I almost didn't hear him.  I gulped, fearing what would happen if I messed up, but wanting to accomplish this on my own as well.  I sucked in a breath, puffing up my chest, and I marched forwards with as much dignity that I could muster.   After 28 steps, I felt an incline in the path.  I became unsure of my step, and I more than noticeably started shuffling, trying not to go too far. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Celestia
Wolfgang's walking was painful to watch.  You could see the struggle and pain in each step as he marched, head held high, chest puffed out.  If his face wasn't bound by bandages, I was sure that I would see him flinch.  But he didn't complain, he didn't stop, didn't hesitate.  He moved with purpose forward.  The shudder that racked his body didn't stop him from taking each step right after the other in quick succession.  Truly, humans were strong creatures, determined like no other.  It was an admirable trait, which made my mind be at ease, knowing that we had such an ally in them.
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Wolfgang
"Another two full steps, dear."  I hear Celestia whisper to me, not using her booming voice.  My heart feels like it was going to explode as I took another two steps, and stopped.  
I hear Celestia suck in a breath to speak, For your tremendous act of bravery and selflessness to save the lives of those around you, I am proud to award you the Equestrian Pink Heart of Courage!  The sound of her horn twinkling was my only warning that a necklace was placed over my head, and rested on my neck.  I heard the sound of boots come up from behind me.  "Private Piatek, I am General Hummel.  I am in charge of all militia troops in Equestria, and I must say, that you have done more than admirably in your service.  It is with pride that I award you the Medal of Valor, and with the deepest of sympathies, the Purple Heart."  Ok, that sympathy is BS.  I think as I feel him press the Purple Heart to my chest.  After he drapes the Medal of Valor over my head, I give him a salute, and I hear him say, "At ease."
My hand fell back down to my side.  I flipped my leg backwards, turn perfectly 180 degrees.  Left foot, right foot.  Left foot, right foot. I said in my head as the entire room (which was much larger than I had thought at first) erupted into cheers, whistles, and claps with hooves and hands.  The familiar hand of Zlat was placed on my shoulder.  I leaned into him, a nervous, crazy laugh escaping my lips.  Zlat led me back to our seats, me laughing all the way.  The rest of the night was simply a blur, as I couldn't get over the fact that I'd managed to not f**k it up.  Before I even knew it, Zlat got me out of my chair, and led me out of the castle.  
The air was much cooler than earlier, making me wonder exactly how long we had been in there.  There wasn't a sound besides the sounds of our boots.  
"So how're you feeling about those medals?" he asks.
"I'm just glad I didn' muck up the ceremony.  I'll tell you when it changes."  
-
It had rained while we were gone, the trenches at the bottom of the hill were now filling up with water.  That had been in the morning.  Since then, the incomplete battalion had drained the trenches, and reformed the firing steps, while also having drilled out holes in the wall of the trench, while having Twilight drill out a massive ditch, easily 10 feet wide, all around the first trench.  It looked like the first trench was a wall if you were close enough, but just a small sliver in the ground if you were far off.  I don't know where they got it, but they'd also managed to install barbed wire along the trench line, just below the ledge of the trench to allow unobstructed view.  
What was better yet, command saw the bombing as a sign of interest from the enemy, and had authorized the deployment of the remaining 250 militiamen from Texas needed to complete the battalion to defend the hill, and 10 artillery guns plus crew.  122mm.  What surprised me more, was how the town had been transformed.  Now, every wall of every building was covered up by sandbags, inside and out.  Then there was the fact that Twilight had also created a new spell, which could turn a pony in to a human, and vice versa.  She had... *sigh*... "enchanted" about twenty different necklaces, which would activate the spell to the wearer.  And she was still making more.  
Then, there was a small upgrade that every soldier received.  Helmets.  We all got them.  Humans got helmets like mine, although with a lower quality, and the anthros got Brodie helmets because it would protect their muzzles a bit better, and actually fit.  Everyone was wearing them with great old smiles on their faces.  The thing about helmets that everyone got wrong, was that they actually protected you.  Shrapnel bounced off, and if the gun was a decent distance away, it could protect you from bullets that were a little larger than a .308 rifle round.  Better for me, that affected metal helmets, as mine had a layer of Kevlar on the liner, so I could survive a larger caliber, and from closer ranges.  Plus, I got an emergency replacement too.

It had been a week since the gas attack, and now, my bandages were coming off.  I was in a dug out area of the trench that was going to be my home for the foreseeable future, and Zlat was undoing them.  He cut off the cloth binding the pad to my eyes.  It fell away silently.  He then took off the secondary pads underneath that rested on my eyelids, peeling them off.  I opened my eyes, wincing at the light.  Once my eyes readjusted, I was looking up at Zlat, who was wearing his helmet.  
"Can you see me brother?" he asked.  I smiled, nodding.  I could see.  I could see the others in the unit who had been staring at me earnestly, I could see the dirt walls, the dirt staircase that led out into the light, the lit lamp, everything!  I could see.
"Hell yeah I can."
> Chapter 6: Renovations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ponyville had once been a town of hey roofs, and open streets.  The ponies there had walked about happy as ever through the streets without a care in the world.  Now, it was unrecognizable.  Every building had been walled up with two layers of sandbags, so you had no idea what the building was meant for except for the small sign that either had numbers on it, or had the name of a store on it.  The same went for the streets, you didn't know what street you were on unless you saw the sign because everything looked the same.  And everypony had a belt with a gas mask the shape of their muzzles on.  But they were still happy.  They were under the threat of gas attacks, and they were happy.
I was walking down Baquette row, where most of their restaurants were established on, getting lots of smiles and waves from the pedestrians.  I waved back out of politeness, but I couldn't for the life of me know why they were.  But I tossed the train of puzzlement from my mind, and continued on.  I was looking for Sugarcube corner, where I was going to meet Twilight and the mayor to discuss training the Ponyville volunteers for combat.  I saw the coffee and tea shop, a family owned diner, and finally, Sugar Cube Corner.  I opened the door, and I was greeted by a bell twinkling, and a massive open area, with only three tables.  The mayor and Twilight were in one of them.  I walked over to them, dropping my bag on the ground next to the seat I was taking.  
"Why did you bring your bag with you?  We're close enough to the trenches that you could get back to them if we were attacked." Twilight asked inquisitively.
I just shrugged, "Force of habit?  It's a good habit tuh boot.  What if the attackers overwhelmed our trenches, or attacked from behind before we knew it?  It holds my extra ammunition.  What if someone gits hurt?  It has my medic bag too."
The mayor asks in a very... false tone?  It's either that or the preset that politicians use for speeches, just quieter, "Couldn't you bring those things with you?"  
"My medic bag, yes.  As fer my ammunition-" I opened my bag, and pulled out one of the giant bags that would hook into my machine gun.  "I can only carry on me three of these bags without my pack.  Two in a 'little' side pouch here," I stood again, and patted the very cumbersome bag that held the two mag-bags, and sat back down, "an' one in the gun, which brings me to a third reason, my bag carries my guns in rifle holsters.  It gives me another option fer combat, an' let's my arms hang about at rest, or my pockets if I choose."
"So... you keep it because it's convenient?" Twilight asks.
"To simplify it, yep.  So what about trainin' volunteers do you need from me?"  
Twilight seems to like the shift in subject, "Oh yes!  Well, from the videos we saw of you saving the princess and putting yourself in harms way to save everypony, we think that you'd be the best option to train our recruits!"
Video clips?  They saw them already?  How?  They don't- oh, wait.  I remember.  Cinema industry.  Right.  "Ok, soooo..." I shrug, "What do you want me to do specifically?"  
"Train them the way you'd train your own soldiers, only a little more in depth  because these volunteers haven't been in a human form yet.  We're prepared to pay you for training every volunteer.  We'd be paying you in bits, so if you want to use them back home, you'd need to convert it.  And of course it has more weight here, and not so much in your own country yet.  We'd be giving you 100 bits per volunteer."  The mayor says.  Twilight noticeably flinches.  I pick up on it.
"What's wrong Twilight?"
"That's actually a large sum, considering how many volunteers there are, and likely to be in the future."  She says.
Hmm.  Money.  The prospect of having extra money was so tempting, that my mind was already made up, "You got me.  I'll do it.  How many volunteers will I be training?"
"20 right now, including me." says Twilight.  Ok, 20 recruits will be a lot for one guy, but I think I can manage if they listen.
"Ok, I think I can teach 'em.  But there's a really big problem 'ere.  They're gonna have to relearn to walk, an' get used to fingers.  The technology gap is another thing."  My mind was digesting it as I spoke, and it was giving me a headache, "When will I get 'em?" 
The mayor looks absolutely delighted, "You'll be in charge of them as soon as you're ready.  Here's everything you need to know!"  She tossed a binder on the table that I hadn't seen, along with a vanilla folder.  The binder was pretty thick, while the folder was fairly thin.  I took the folder first, and looked inside.  This was a compilation of single page files of several different ponies.  The pony of the front was... Applejack.  I thought that she had a farm to run?  I flipped through it, seeing various ponies I'd seen in the town.  What the surprised me was Fluttershy.  She seemed to be so timid and shy that her being in combat seemed impossible.  
"Did you know that Fluttershy applied?" I asked.
Twilight answered, "Yeah, about that.  You see, she was hoping that perhaps there was something she could do that involved kindness, not violence."
I found myself nodding in confirmation, "Yeah, we have something like that.  She could be a medic."
Twilight perked up to this, "Really?  What's a medic?"
I sighed inwardly.  I really hated explaining things, "Well, a medic is kind of a doctor.  They keep a wounded soldier alive until they can be evacuated back to a hospital."
"You must have a lot to stay by their side for this."  The mayor comments.
"Not really.  You see, the medic basically puts a rushed bandage and blood thickner tuh stop the bleeding, an' maybe a painkiller if it's bad enough.  They usually can't spend more than a minute 'r two before they 'ave to move on to someone else.  They usually suffer the worse pain mentally though.  Kinda feel bad fer 'em."
Twilight looks confirmed, "How so?"
I then dragged on to an explanation on mental trauma that war could inflict, "End-all be-all, they often end up feelin' guilty fer the men who died, despite their efforts, an' feel like they could've done more, even though that may, or may not be true.  Some civilian doctors get this, an' combat doctors practically always.  The question 'Could I have done more?' or 'could I have saved them' will be with them fer the rest of their lives.   Sadly, this provokes depression, an' sometimes ends in suicide."  They gasp.
"So doctors might kill themselves?  Even after they did so much?" Twilight asks.
I nod, "Yeah.  Someone dyin' on them is so traumatic, that they don' think of the good.  It's even worse fer soldiers."  I realized my blunder as soon as I said it.  I'm asking for it.
Almost on cue, Twilight asks, "They're at risk too!"
I nod, tiredly annoyed at her and myself, "Yep.  At heart, soldiers don' tend to want to kill enemy soldiers unless they grew to hate them.  An example is the Japanese bombin' America in a war, unprevoked, which killed over 2,000 people.  Our soldiers hated them more than you could imagine.  They managed to use their hate as an unconscious shield to keep them from feelin' guilt about killin' them.  Right now, our soldiers don' hate the enemy.  We got dragged into this war by our three governments.  Yer people, they're afraid.  Not angry.  Combined with the fact that war hasn't been waged in forever, I'm very concerned.  Their ability to look down the sight of a gun, an' shoot a livin' being is goin' to be put in question.  Then there's the fact that they'll be shot at, bombed, an' the people around them are probably goin' tuh git hurt, maimed, or killed.  This can be a hellava lot worse.  Please tell me that you will allow them back out."
They were staring, jaws agape.  Finally, the mayor said, "Yes."
"Do they know that these things can happen?"
"To certain degrees."
I sighed.  None of this felt right.  But we would need help, and I would get paid.  My mind was at war with itself, parts wanting to back out, parts feeling honor bound having already agreed to do it even though I didn't want to, and other parts telling me to stop worrying about it at all, man up, and do it.  
"Are you reconsidering our agreement?" The mayor asks, feeling a tinge of fear that I might say I didn't want to do it.
"I can't back out.  I want to, but I can't.  I've taken up a responsibility, and I'm honor bound to keep to it.  *Sigh*  Well, no time like the present.  Let's get started.  Tell them to meet me on the field on the Eastern part of the hill."  
I stood up, taking the folder and binder.  I started looking through the binder as I walked, when I realized that the binder wasn't for me.  The mayor needed it for something else in the town.  I returned it quickly saying, "Yours." and turning back quickly.
On the way, I found as many long, and fairly thick sticks that I could find until I hit the magic number of 20.  Then, I waited.  It actually didn't take that long until everypony showed up.  All 20.  Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, a giant muscled pegasus, and a multitude of pegasi and earth ponies.   There appeared to be only one unicorn.  They were all wearing a pair of dog tags, and held a necklace that looked like dog tags except for a white crystal instead of tags.
Well, let's get it over with.  "Alright.  Has anyone told you what you're gettin' yerselves into?"  I was met with a bunch of nods, "Well I'm going to tell you right now, it's worse than you think, or were told.  You will be eating, sleeping, living in dirt 'n mud once yer training is over.  When you fight, the enemy will be aimin', an' shootin' at you.  Not only with bullets.  Bombs will be landin' all 'round you.  It will lift you up, then drop you like a toy.  They have gas which will kill you if you breathe in too much.  Gunfire will be everywhere.  The wounded will be screamin' in pain, askin' fer help an' their loved ones.  You'll see all the blood an' gore of the wounded, an' you might git hurt like that too.  There are no time outs, an' rarely will they show mercy.  Unless you surrender or run away, it's a fight to the death with one victor.  That victor has to be you, and always you.  Before we go any further, does anypony want to back out?"
A single earth pony came up to me, and handed me his tags and necklace.  He muttered an, "I'm sorry."  And walked off in shame.  I couldn't blame him for deciding against fighting.  Everyone was scared at first, and not everyone could take the rigors of war.  I pocketed the articles, and returned my attention to the group, "First, you're gonna have tuh learn to walk."
Rainbow Dash spoke up, "How do you think we get around?  You've seen us walk!" 
Applejack explains, "He means in human form."
Rainbow just scoffs, and says, "How bad can it be?"
"Well, you're all about to find out.  Put on yer necklaces."  The complied.  Instantly, they all turned into humans of their pony fur color, and on all fours.  I gestured at the ground next to me, where 20 uniforms and boots, "Walk to them, an' put them on."  They tried to walk forwards on all fours, but I bellowed at them, "On yer feet!"  With this, they tried getting to their feet.  Awkwardly.  They had their legs spread, and they teetered and tottered all about with their arms spread as well.  Rainbow Dash and Applejack were the first ones to attempt taking a step, and they promptly fell, got back up, and tried again.  But they slowly learned how to balance themselves.
Eventually, everyone made their way to the uniforms, and managed to get everything on, even the socks and boots.  All on the ground.  It was here that I examined them all.  The pegasi-turned human looked like runners.   Thin and lithe.  Except that white one.  Motherf**ker looked like he could lift a car.  The earth ponies were more bulky, and taller.  The lone unicorn was different altogether.  His body was average, if a word had to used.  What made him stand out, was that he still had a horn, whereas the pegasi wings didn't make the transition, and the earth ponies didn't have anything to transfer over.
I walked over to him, and told him, "Try using your magic.  A simple levitation spell please."
He looks at me, nodded, and his horn lit up.  A large patch of grass flew up next to his head.  "Interesting."  The unicorns can still use magic, this will be useful.
I started handing out the sticks to everyone, "Again, you're going to need to learn to walk.  You'll need to stay in this form at all times so you can get used to your fingers and walking on your feet.  For now, you can use these sticks to help you.  By the end of the week, I will expect to see everyone of you without it."
Now came the hard part, teaching them how to use guns and grenades.  All I had was my rifle and machine gun to teach them with.  So I took them down to the first trench, and got them behind a .30 cal Browning machine gun.  I gave them a brief rundown of what they needed to do to fire the gun, and had them line up, each taking a turn to fire a burst of 10 rounds.  Applejack was the last one to get their hands on it.  The belt had been chewed up quite a bit, leaving only 20 rounds left.  
"Fire, empty the gun."  And she opened up.  She fired until the gun was empty, and she looked confused when it stopped.
"What happened?  Did I break it?"  
I shake my head, "Nope, yer outta bullets.  Now you need to reload.  Everyone, come in and watch."  I took Applejack's hands in mine, guiding them through opening the housing latch, and attaching a fresh belt of bullets, and pulled back the firing pin.  I unloaded the gun again, and had Applejack reload it on her own.  I was satisfied to see that she followed the steps perfectly.  I repeated the process with everyone else, and a smile crept across my face as every recruit managed to get it right.  
The next few days went on without very little difficulty.  All I had to do was demonstrate it once, and they picked it up.  Of course, Fluttershy didn't partake in most of these demonstrations, as most of them regarded using weapons.  When we got to the part on gas masks, I made sure that she was present and watching.  The gas masks in question were used by our entire military.  The goggles looked like those that you'd use when swimming, but also covered your nose.  Then, the tell tale cylinder rested just below it.  The mask also had a rubbering that would cover all of the rest of the head.  I ran through how to get the mask to begin providing the oxygen, and how to replace the cylinder.  The unicorn made me worried, since his horn wouldn't let the mask get on all the way.  For this, I placed a special order back home for a custom made mask that would provide space for the horn.  
In the meanwhile, I equipped the pegasi and unicorn with assault rifles, and the earth ponies with machine guns.  They all got two frag grenades and a couple of smoke grenades, entrenching tools, emergency rations, extra ammunition, a set of medical supplies, and metal helmets.  Fluttershy got the smoke grenades, tools, food, and a several medical packs, and I got one of the company medics to train her how to be a field doctor.  By the end of the day, the doc actually said that he was almost done training her.  He was just worried that she'd spend too much time on one soldier and leave the others on their own.

Finally, training was over.  They were ready to fight.  I presented them in a small formation divided in two halves, and let Twilight take a look at them.  She paced up and down, observing them as they watched her.  By no means were they professional soldiers, but they would survive a firefight long enough to chase the enemy off.
She turns to look at me disappointed, "I thought you said they were ready?  They don't look anything like your army."
I sighed.  I had expected something like this, but she had been more blunt than I'd figured, "Twilight, how do you think we got as tough as we are?"
"Really good training and books?" She said hopeful.
"No.  Everyone from New York, they've been in the militia fer at least a few years each.  Do you know how much trainin' we got?"
"No, I don't know.  How much?" She seemed to start getting drawn in.
"We were taught how to load our guns, an' shoot.  That's it.  We weren't taught how to fight, we weren't taught how to prepare defenses, how to use grenades.  We weren't even taught how to get our uniforms on right!"  I tried to keep my voice even, but I lost control by the end.
Twilight gasped at the realization of the truth, "But-but... you look so... fearsome.  You look like you're ready to kill anything!  I mean, you made so many bunkers and trenches, and it looks so formidable.  How could you not be trained?"
"Because we learned through experience.  In my first month in the militia, I had already fought in twelve gunfights with criminals an' bandits.  I've lost count how many times I'd fought, an' the same can go fer the others.  We learned from experience, an' from experimentin' with the equipment we got.  What yer lookin' at, are survivors from the war waged at home."  I gestured at the twenty people in front of me, "They got somethin' we had to earn, fer free.  Knowledge.  They have one of the greatest advantages, an' that's how to do their new job.  The only thing they don't have which they need, is a gunfight under their belt.  They need to know the sound of bullets flying around them, what the blast of a grenade or explosive goin' off so close it made ya deaf for a second." I leaned in closer to Twilight's face, "They haven't gotten shot yet.  They haven't come so close to death that ya accept it." Twilight shrank away from me, her ears flayed back. 
I straighten my back, "They're as ready as anyone can get 'em, an' I'm proud at how they've turned out."  I smile proudly at them, and they gave me grateful smiles back.  
Twilight doesn't look so confident, "Well, would you mind giving me some proof?"
Proof?  You got it.  I breathed in deeply, and let out, "GAS!  GAS!"  I ripped off my gas mask, removed my helmet, and attached the gas mask to my head, and the helmet ontop of it.  When I looked up, I was more than pleased to see twenty figures on the ground with their gas masks on, with Twilight running around in terror, crying out, "I'm gonna die!"  over and over and over again.
I walked up to Twilight, and grabbed her, forcing her to stop, "Looks like the one unprepared is you."  I turned her to look at the recruits, "They aren't."  I took off my mask and helmet, "Good test run people, good job."  I turn back to Twilight again, "They're ready for gas, artillery, infantry, armored cars, weapon maintenance an' some hand tuh hand fer good measure.  THEY.  ARE.  READY.  Whether you believe me or not."  
The thudding of footsteps drew our attention to the breathless private from 8th Company, a Texan.  He was a rail thin man, and tall at that, even if he was bent over with his hands on his knees, "The Federation landed!  They've been spotted 10 miles out to the South East!"  
Ooooh f**k.  "Twilight, warn everyone in town!  You need to evacuate yourselves away from town, an' keep safe!  Get to the trenches men!"  I dashed off to the trenches myself, the nineteen troops running after me.  I dropped into the 15th trench, and sprinted my way through the maze to the front trench.  I found myself at the lip of the trench line, my machine gun ready, and safety off.  I was ready, waiting for the enemy in blue fatigues to come down the road.  
A hand was placed on my shoulder, "Wolfgang, come with me.  We're going to mine the roads."
> Chapter 7: The Federation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was absolutely terrified.  I was riding in a jeep, TOWARDS the enemy.  This jeep was loaded with mines, and tripwire grenades, and it was pulling a cart full of them too.  Out of all the locations that I had to be assigned to, I had to be given the one furthest from the town.  We were at least 5 miles out, halfway between the enemy and home away from home.  The jeep stopped, and we all jumped out.  The one upside that there is to being here, is that I didn't have to follow a map to where the mines were gonna get placed.  Here, you just laid them out as best you could.  The roads got littered with anti-vehicle mines, anti-personel mines, Bouncing Betties (mines that launched themselves into the air and blew up), and fire bombs.  The fire bombs were the more annoying to set up.  Not only did you have to place the mine in the ground, but you had to drench the road with fuel so the fire could reach everywhere, even the dry grass on the side of the road.  Then we mined the field.  Honestly, with how many mines we placed, it had to be a miracle that we didn't step on one ourselves.  
When we finished, we could see the plume of dust rising in the distance from down the road.  We jumped into our jeeps, and we raced away, ducking and weaving through the various mines we remembered laying.  When we finally got to the trenches, we drove up the makeshift ramps made of wooden planks, and stored them in the back of the town.  Our feet pounded down the road, trying not to run into any of the ponies panicking as they rushed to get their things and leave.  I found myself back in the first trench, waiting for the enemy to come into sight.  The rainbowy flag of the Federation came into sight first.  I took out my binoculars, and looked through them.  A grin found it's way to my face, as I saw a fire mine go off, a massive plume of flame reaching up into the sky as the gas lit afire, burning everything around them.  
The artillery in the mountains boomed as they fired.  The sound resonated through the air.  I smiled, They're gonna have a helluva bad time!
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Our artillery had run out hours ago, and we'd had to resort to watching as our mines kept going off as the enemy kept walking into them.  I felt an odd sense of satisfaction of the deadly work we'd wrought.  The sound of our rifles sounded.  So they've entered the range of our snipers eh?  Can't believe that they're still coming.  They were running towards us in a frenzy, rifles in hand.  It was now that I could see how many of them there was.  There had to be thousands, running in one massive wave.  I flipped off the safety on my machine gun, and I braced, waiting for them to get close enough.  
Finally, our guns erupted.  I was just spraying the line back and forth, as soldiers fell to the ground, yet they were still coming.  A bullet whizzed by my ear, and impacted against the wall behind me.  I just kept firing until my gun ran dry.  I ducked down underneath the protection of the dirt, and reloaded.  I looked up into the sky, though why I couldn't fathom, and saw something that scared me about as badly as the approaching enemy did.  Bombs.  I could see them falling at us from the metal birds above.  I ducked again as dozens of bombs landed and exploded.   People were crying out for medics and corpsmen already.  Crap, this is getting bad.  Where's that anti-aircraft gun when you need one?!
A heard a bone-chilling  ping of a helmet being punctured by a bullet.  I looked at the sound, and found Marcel slumped against the back of the trench, a hole the size of a quarter in his forehead, and his helmet rolling around by his side.  "F**K!"  
I popped up once again, spraying the advancing soldiers.  "Someone get on the .30!"  Someone yelled.  I looked over to the left, where a .30 cal machine gun was steaming.  F**k me. I cursed, and I ran over to man the gun, pulling off the dead body that laid on top of it.  A gripped the handle, and started firing.  The gun recoiled in my hands violently as I kept a steady stream of fire.  

The fight continued on for the rest of the day, until the Federation troops finally started to retreat.  Bolstered by our victory, we left the trenches to chase them in jeeps with machine guns mounted on them for miles until the gas gauges demanded attention.  We then recouped our losses.  12 guys were dead, and 32 were seriously wounded.  When I finally dropped into my trench, one thing was on my mind.  The new recruits.  I looked up and down the trenches, but I couldn't find them.  Just guys who were worn out and trying to sleep at their posts.  
Come on! Where are they?  I didn't find them in the trenches, so I looked through the town, trying to find the crazy colored ponies in human bodies.  Nothing.  I was irritated and worried about not finding them.  My mind began to wander towards their safety. Were they among the casualties?  Damn it, I hope not.   My worry finally got the better of me, and I ran for the hospital.
I barged in through the front doors, frightening several ponies in the foyer.  The nurse attending the desk looked at me nervously, "Can I help you?"  She was a white earth pony with a pink mane done up into a bonnet, wearing a nurse cap.
"Yeah, did you get an influx of humans here?"  I asked fervently.
She nodded, "Yes, why?  Do you know them?"
"That depends, were they different shades than normal?"
She raised an eyebrow, "No, why?"
I audibly sighed out in relief, falling to the desk that the nurse attended for support, a smile growing, "Good, good.  You see, I trained some of the local ponies to be their own brand of local militia.  With the battle, I fear that they've been hurt or killed."
"I did hear something about them going to the castle, they're probably there!"  She said cheerfully.  With a smile, I thanked her and ran off.  The closer and closer I got though, the more apprehension I felt towards who I'd meet there, my little outburst still present. Wow, you just killed however many men and you're still feeling bad about a little outburst?  What's wrong with me?	
Finally, I reached the castle.  Normally, I'd go right in.  But from what I'd picked up, this was also Twilight's home, and I still had my manners.  I knocked on the door, and waited patiently.  The door creaked open, allowing for a small purple dragon to poke his head out.
"Can I help you Wolfgang?" he asked.
"Did a bunch of multicolored people come here lately Spike?  I've been trying to find 'em."
He nodded, a small smile touching his lips, "Yeah! There in the Table room right now.  Come in, I'll take you to them!" Is he... excited?
I followed Spike inside, and walked with him down the halls.  It was silent, unbearably so.  "So you're... a dragon?" I ask.  Already I was cursing myself for the stupidity of the question and how I asked it.
"Yep.  Haven't gotten my wings yet."  He said with an irritated deadpan.
"I'm sure they'll grow in sometime."  I stated through a guess.  I didn't know a damn thing about real dragons, so it was just me playing by ear and trying to make him feel better at this point.
"Really?  Do you have dragons back in your country?"  he asks, not really believing me.
"No, but you're... what?- 12?  13?  Puberty is right around the corner."
He looked pleasantly surprised, "Really?  You think I'm that old?"  Aw s**t, he's younger than that isn't he.
I tried sounding like a normal person, "Yeah, I mean, I've seen kids older than you act like toddlers.  I'd think you'd be older if yer voice didn' sound so young.  How old are you then?"  
"I'm 11."  He says this with pride, like it's something to show off.
"Either way, if dragons are like any other species on the planet, you'll hit puberty soon enough.  I'm goin' to feel bad fer ya though."  I shuddered as I remembered my earlier teenage years.  That hadn't been a pretty time.  
Apparently, Spike is as confused as most other kids are, "What do you mean you'll feel bad for me?"
"Cuz yer gonna git more responsibility, less time to enjoy yourself, an' growing larger don' feel very good.  You have to eat more, an' healthy stuff too 'r you break out with pimples.  I was lucky an' got to skip the pimples cuz my beard an' mustache hairs grew in quick.  An' one other thing, you feel miserable when you wake up."  Again, I shudder.  I mean, it was still miserable for me to wake up, but at least it wasn't to the same degree.
"Well, hopefully I don't get all that.  I mean, we are different species and all." he says, sounding a little nervous.
"If half that doesn't happen to you, I'll wish I'd been born a dragon.  We almost there?"
"Yep, one more turn," we take a turn right, and behold, a familiar large door, "and we're here!"
"Thanks Spike.  Next time I get somethin' good, I'll see about givin' it to you."  I lean down and pat him on the shoulder, leaving him with a big smile.  
I put a hand on a ring to open the door, and pull.  I step into the room, and ducked just in time to dodge a bullet from the smoking gun from one of the recruits.  I roll to the side as more bullets fire from the same place.
"STOP!  DAMMIT!  STOP!"  I yell above the gunfire.  To my amazement, the gunfire stopped.  I stand up, and looked at the ponyperson that had shot at me.  A small green human, hiding behind one of the chairs was the only one who had his gun.  I stomped over to him from around the table, looked him dead in his terrified eyes, and snatched the gun out of his hands, tossing it across the room.
I lower my voice to a low growl, "What the hell was that?"  I swear that the devil himself would've pissed himself just like this kid did.  His knees shot inwards, trying to stop his bladder.
"S-s-s-sorry s-s-s-sir!  I thought you were... one of them."  He whimpered.
"Clean yourself up." I ordered, and with no delay, he sprinted out of the room, and out to wherever he was going.  
I turned to look at the group of 23 ponies and ponypersons gathered, who were looking at me with shock.  They were mostly the units I'd trained, but Twilight and the rest of her friends plus the mayor was here too.
"What?" I asked, feeling a bit defensive towards what I knew was coming.
"That... was... AWESOME!" Rainbow Dash went, her eyes widening ever further than they had already been, "I mean, just by talking you scared him into peeing his pants!"
"That's what you take out of this?"  Now I'm just pissed off.  This isn't what she should've taken away from this, "Rainbow, that guy is f**king petrified an' paranoid.  If I had been anyone else, I'd be dead."  I turn to Twilight, "If anyone else starts actin' up like him, take them outta the force.  He's not dealin' with the battle right."
"PTSD?" She asks, and I can see she's hoping that it wasn't.
I nod solemnly, "PTSD.  Poor B***ard will be havin' nightmares for weeks."  I look over everyone in the room, mostly the soldiers, and I can see that everyone looks fine besides the still shocked faces.  "I just wanted to check in with you all, make sure you ain't hurt.  We lost some guys and I didn' want you to be in among the dead and wounded."
Fluttershy spoke up, mortified, "Some of our soldiers died?  How?"
"I don't know.  The only guy I saw dead was a guy in my squad.  At least he died painlessly.  I'm just glad that your all safe.  How you all feelin'?"  I ask.  I was met by mumblings of, "Fine," or, "ok,".  
"That's good. Go home an' get some rest.  You did good today."  15 of them left the room quickly, relief flooding their faces.  Now, it was just Twilight and her friends, the mayor, and me.  I ask them, "So what are you all thinking about?"
Applejack sat down in one of the chairs, and sinks into it wearily, "I can't believe some of the things I did." She holds up her hands, "My hands still feel shaky and numb."  
"Yeah," Rainbow agrees, "I don't feel so good about the fight."  She was rubbing her shoulder, looking away with a depressed look.  
"Well, you did good either way. You protected your families, an' your neighbors.  Just remember this, if we hadn' killed them, a worse fate would've befallen us.  The independence of yer nation depends on people who are willing to give the ultimate sacrifice to defend their nation from invaders.   That means smilin' in the face of death, an' givin' it a solid punch in the balls."  I say this with a wide grin, and I was met by a shouted, "YEAH!"
The mayor asks, "How is your militia doing?"
I lean against the wall, "12 dead and 32 seriously injured.  Coulda been worse."
Fluttershy seemed to take it the worse, tears falling down her cheeks, while everyone else just looked solemn.  "Anyone else wanna git drunk?" I ask.
"Yep.  Come on, my treat." Applejack says.  Everyone, except the mayor, left the castle for Applejack's farm.  There, we went into the barn, and opened up a barrel of Apple Whiskey.  I gotta say, I'd never known alcohol to be sweet.  The only thing that kept me from thinking it wasn't alcoholic, was the familiar fire that raced down my throat and formed a pleasant warmth in my stomach.  
We drank for a while, silence permeating throughout until Spike, who had been drinking apple juice, asked, "Do you think they'll attack again?"  
"No doubt.  Question is, how?  They know they can't just come up the road an' attack us.  That didn't work, an' they lost thousands of troops."  I take another swig from my mug, "If I had to guess, they'd probably try to set up artillery in the forest, an' send in their troops from the same place."
Rainbow laughed at this, "Yeah right!  They'd get chewed up by manticores, hydras and everything else that lives in the forest.  They may have guns, but the Everfree Forest has more than it's fair share of dangerous wildlife."
"Yeah, but that might be preferable to walking into a wall of bullets."  Applejack reminded, "Besides, they don't know what's there yet."  
"What I'm more concerned about is the bombings.  It's simply dreadful!  What would happen if one of those bombs hit the school, or somepony's house?"  Rarity asks.
"We could dig a cavern under the ground!  That way the bombs can't touch us!"  Pinky says before she chugged down the rest of her mug.
"One problem with that," I say, taking a drink myself, "We can't loan enough guys tuh dig somethin' big enough for everyone.  Even if we could, it would take months to dig enough space.  An' I don't think that any of you, or the rest of Ponyville for that matter, would know how to dig a cavern big enough without cavin' it in.  Actually, I don't think we could either."  I finish off my mug, and refilled it the brim.  Damn this stuff's good!
Twilight goes, "AHA!" spilling some of her whiskey.  "Darn."  Do they never curse?  She quickly used her magic to clean up, and alleviated us of our suspense, "The Diamond Dogs!  Remember when they kidnapped Rarity?"  She asked us.  Everyone in here nodded their heads, grimacing or scowling at what must've been a painful memory.  
"Yeah?  Whata bought them!?"  Rainbow said angrily.  
"Their caverns were huge!  Not to mention they were fast diggers.  What if we got them to make us an underground home big enough for all of Ponyville?"  Twilight finished.  
I looked at Twilight incredulously after taking a long drought of whiskey, "And how would we pay 'em?  From the sounds of it, those guys are bad news anyways.  Who's to say they won't betray us?"
"Yeah!"  Everyone says in harmony, except for Fluttershy who just nods in agreement.
"Because we'll only pay them after they finish the job.  You know how they like gems so much?  Well, once they finish, we'll give them a certain length of time in our gem mines to get what they want, and then leave."
Silence.  None of us had a valid argument against this, especially seeing as how we were all getting pretty drunk.  I stood up, swaying slightly, "You know what, that sounds like a plan."  I drink what's left in my mug, set it down on the table and say, "Well, I'm hammered.  See you all in the morning!"  I take about two steps to the door, and fall flat on my face.  
"Applejack, how much alcohol is in yer whiskey?" I ask as cogently as possible.
"By volume?  'Bout 45%.  Why?" she answers.
My only response is, "Ah hell."
> Chapter 8:  Never Drink with Ponies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up sputtering and coughing my lungs up, a foul semi-liquid flying out.  I tried to turn over, but something was on top of me, holding me down.  I wrenched my way out, and threw up.  In between retches, I fought for air with little success.  After what seemed like hours of suffering, the cycle ended.
"F**k... me!"  I growled out between breaths.  Then, I noticed something else, something quite disturbing.  My pants had been opened up, and I was quite wet.  I looked back over to where I'd been, and saw Rainbow Dash and Applejack still sleeping with what I'd define as drunken smiles in human form.  They... they didn't.  They wouldn't!  I began inwardly raging and cursing as I tried to make up possible excuses in vain.  There was only one answer, one that I prayed wasn't true.  Even drunk they wouldn't do that, would they?  Are they that horny?
When I heard who could only be Twilight yawn, I  buttoned my pants as fast as I could, barely noticing that my underwear wasn't disturbed besides being wet.  I spun around to see a disheveled purple unicorn, who looked extremely hung over, "Ooh, my head!" she complained to herself.
Hearing her say that brought my own mind to the present, opening my attention to the sickly pain.  Pushing past that, I asked, "Twilight, do you know what happened after I passed out?"  There was a tad bit more fear in my words than I would've liked.
She looked at me with eyes that moved separately on their own accord, trying to focus on me, "Vaguely.  We played a few games with you, then AJ and Rainbow dared each... other... to..."  horror spread across her face as her memory came to a conclusion.
"Twilight, please tell me they didn' dare each other to sleep with me.  I need to hear those words." I say obsessively. Her response was a gulp.  Oh dear God.  I uneasily made my way over to a support beam for the barn, and started bashing my head against it, ignoring the pain and the blood that started trickling down my nose.  
When Twilight noticed the blood, she cried out for me to stop, wrapping her hooves around me to pull me away.  This woke up the others, who took notice of me still bashing my head despite Twilight's efforts.  Which made me worder, she was an alicorn, is her hangover bad enough that she doesn't want to or can't try magic?  
The girls managed to stand up, and pulled me away from the bloodied beam.  AJ was the first to ask, "Now what in the hey were you doing that for?"
"Brain trauma is equal to memory bleach."  I state flatly, still trying to push my way back to the beam.
"What are you trying to forget?"  Rainbow asked.  This resulted in my stare at the two mares, which was filled with a mix of fear and anger.
"What do you remember of last night?" I ask simply enough.
"Not much really.  All I remember is you passing out, and the rest is just blank."  Rainbow says.
"You two slept with him." Spike said from the corner.  F**k!  I forgot he was still here!
Everyone besides me and Twilight look at each other with mixed emotions.  Rarity tried, "Which one?"
I groan and collapse the ground, my hangover feeling more and more painful as time went by.  "You don't mean-" Fluttershy started and stopped with.  All I could do was rolled into the fetal position, cover my head with my arms, and groan.  When I managed to look up, both AJ and Dash's heads could be mistaken for red apples.  As soon as my eyes met there's, they fell on their butts, and Rainbow Dash managed to surprise me, "I'm never touching another drop of cider ever again."  
"Well I sure as hell am.  If I can't forget this with brain damage, I'm gonna drink it out."  I make it over to where the barrels of alcohol still remain.  I don't even bother with a mug as I lowered myself under the nozzle and let the cider flow.  Before I could be stopped, I'd been reduced to a drunken, incoherent mess.  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Twilight
I can't believe they actually did that!  I thought for the millionth time.  I was royally angry at my two friends for this.  Rainbow Dash, I could see if I really stretched my imagination of her when drunk.  But AJ? HOW?!  This didn't make any sense at all, even Discord's nature and physics breaking chaos magic wouldn't be able to pull this off.
I shot another venomous glance at the ashamed mares, who were trying to make up for their... whatever it's called by making themselves living crutches for Wolfgang to lean on, "Suh goohd friennnssssss..." He says as his head lolls back and forth.  When his head leans towards Rainbow's way, for whatever reason he leaned his head against Rainbow's, and started crying.
"Ah'm suh sorry!"  He drunkenly moans, "Iffff I ad merr conrollllllll, 'is wouldn' happen!"  He started crying harder, which resulted in him falling face first into the dirt road before Rainbow or AJ could catch him.  
"Wow.  I didn't peg him for being a sad drunk."  Rainbow mused.  
"You actually understood that?" Rarity asked in surprise.
"When you've made the same sounds as he did, then it's your second language."  Excuse me?
"Rainbow, why would you be a sad drunk?" I asked.  Seriously, I don't think that there was one moment in her life that would result in her being horribly depressed.
She shied away from the question with a, "I don't really wanna talk about it."  She sniffed sadly, her ears flaying backwards.  Her face then contorted to that of a questioning alarm, her ears perking back up as she took another sniff.  And another.  "Why do I still smell cider?"
"DRUUUUUUUUNK!" Wolfgang emits, his head popping up just long enough to say his stretched word before slumping back down.  At least he isn't crying anymore.
"No, I smell the alcohol on his breath, but I smell cider too."  She sniffs again, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from.  Pinkie appeared right in front of us as we all took some tentative sniffs ourselves.  Rainbow was right.  The alcohol and cider were coming from two different places.  
Pinkie Pie took in one enormous, overly exaggerative sniff, "It's on his pants!"  She cried.
"His pants?"  Fluttershy asked.
"Yep!  Right there!"  Pinkie pointed at the area between Wolfgang's legs. 
None of us wanted to lower our noses so close to something that we... really... shouldn't be near, but our curiosity got the better of us.  We took a collective sniff, and found that Pinkie was right.  Wolfgang had cider on his crotch.  "Thank you Celestia!  I didn't actually rape him!"  Rainbow cries relieved.
Even Wolfgang raised his head to say, "Yaaay!  I'm a vvrg'n.  Aww, I'm a vvrg'n."  He hung his head again.  
I turned to Rainbow, who looked to be blushing slightly, "What did he say?"
She shook her head firmly, "Trust me, you don't want to know."
Applejack turned the conversation, "If we didn't, uh, you know, then what happened?"
Spike took his turn, oblivious to the situation at hand, "Easy!  You and Rainbow ran into each other over Wolfgang, and spilled your drinks on him.  You tried to clean him off, but you ended up opening his pants by mistake and falling asleep on him.  What did you think happened?"  
Silence.  
"What?" This time, the question was more diverted towards the all consuming silence. 
"Don't worry about it Spike, we'll tell you some other time.  Right now, let's just get Wolfgang back to his trench."  I say.  Celestia as my witness, I'm never getting drunk again.
> Chapter 9:  Snow, Fire, and Bodies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, I'd woken up to the six ponies (and dragon) from the party, all watching me with shy smiles.  They'd managed to keep me from screaming my head off by shoving a hoof in my mouth (no idea how that managed to happen) and they'd explained that we'd all assumed the worse, which hadn't happened.  Instead of being assaulted in my sleep, Dash and AJ had spilled their drinks on me, and had tried to clean me up.  But they were so drunk they thought that their hooves would work good enough, and in using them, accidentally opened my pants.  I cannot tell you how relieved I felt to hear that news, nor how confused as to how hooves opened buttons.
"We good?" Rainbow and Applejack asked in unison.
"Hell yeah."  With that, I wrapped them all up in a hug, and with a great deal of struggling, lifted the 7 of them up into the air for all of 3 seconds before I lost my balance, and we all toppled backwards forming a dog pile on me.  

That was three days ago.  Now, I was sitting in my trench, shivering against the cold.  I'd be inside the dug out, but it was currently being renovated to fit a stove.  I looked over to Zlat, who just looked bored.  Lucky b*****d, you got fur.  Bet you're nice and warm.  "Feelin' alright Zlat?"  I ask as nicely as I can muster.  He just nods.  I shiver again, and try to huddle deeper into my trench coat.  
"So, you think those Diamond Dogs are finished yet?" he asked.
"Doubt it.  They may be good diggers, but da cold 'as hardened the ground."  
A raspy and annoying voice broke into our conversation, "Actually, we finished an hour ago.  The ground close to the surface may be hard, but the deeper you go, the softer it'll get."  I turned around to see one of the Diamond Dogs.  Let me say this.  Ugly.  The head looked a lot like a dog with a bad underbite, the kind that has no redeemable features.  The rest of the hulking mass that was called a body was vaguely humanoid, covered with a simple red vest.  "I must say, we have outdone ourselves.  We may just leave the gems out of simple pride in our work." He declared.  However, my attention was focused on how he wasn't shivering, and I asked him about it.  "Fur."  And with that, he disappeared down the trench line.  Lucky.  I resorted to shivering again, trying to find something resembling warmth.  
Man I was bored.  Trench warfare sucked, especially in the winter.  Our enemy may be miles away, but our commander had refused to let us leave the trenches except for dinner call, where we all lined up in the trenches, waiting to get our food put into our canteen holders, which acted like upright bowls.  You know what, screw it, freezing fingers be damned.  I was gonna read that letter I got this morning.  I stood up stiffly, and shuffled into the dug out, trying to stay out of the way of my squadmates who were trying to assemble the stove.  I got the letter out of my bag, and headed back out, the guys grumbling at me to stay out.
I sat down on the firing step, and opened up the letter to read,
Dear Wolfgang,
I know that you're fighting out there in Equestria, and it must be amazing!  You get to see all the new aliens, and fight too!  I've seen these horse things that insist on calling themselves ponies, and honestly, I don't know what to think.  Apparently, refugees have been flocking to the country, but I haven't seen any.  
So how's it going?  I'm betting that you've seen some action lately.  What's the food like around there?  How about their entertainment?  Any new friends?  I guess that's all I have to ask about.  Bye!  O'Brian Liefer.

Well, that was short.  I wasn't given much time to feel disappointment over the lackluster letter, as a snow leopard ran up to me in a runner's attire.  Isn't he cold?  Wait, no.  Fur.  "Is there a Wolfgang Piatek here?  He's needed in the castle."  I stand up again, a smile plastered on my face.
"Awesome!  I can finally get out of this bloody trench!"  and I took off sprinting through the maze of dirt.  Once I left the trench, I made my way to the castle as angry looking storm clouds began to arrive.  I'm gonna get caught out in the snow aren't I?  I slipped inside the castle with little further thought.  Inside, I shook off the day old snow that had accumulated on me, and walked off to the room with the massive table, since that seemed to be the main meeting room.  I arrived at the massive wooden door, and did what came natural.  I knocked.  The door opened up to Twilight, who looked quite pleased to see me.  
"Great!  Now we're all here!"  She dragged me into the new room.  Inside, was the Mayor, my platoon Lieutenant Alexander, and Arrow Shaft, the blue sergeant of one of the squads I'd trained.  I saluted to my Lieutenant until he returned it, and he gestured for me to take a seat.  I dropped my bag next to the chair, and I sat down.
"Is there somethin' I can help you with sir?" I asked.
"Indeed.  With the losses we've suffered, the mayor and I have agreed to integrate our troops.  However, this leaves a hole in some of our units.  With your past achievements in mind, it is clear that you are well deserving of a promotion.  Thus, we've agreed to give you command of one of the local militia squads.  Currently, there are only 6 others in the squad, but it is getting reinforced soon."  Lt. Alexander tossed me a folder, inside were the pictures and dossier of some very familiar people.  Or rather, ponies.  The first two files were of Rainbow (who carried an M16) and AJ (who carried an M1919 Browning Machine gun), the other four being of some earth ponies and a pegasus.  Smoky was a thin, grey skinned man who was armed with a M16 with a 40mm grenade launcher attachment.  Bouncer, a massive bulk of a man with dark green skin, armed with an M14 and a bazooka.  I couldn't help but wonder how he had managed to stay upright from the massive weight when I realized that he was an afore mentioned earth pony.
Next was a white skinned man, who carried with him a standard M16, but he carried with him extra boxes of ammunition for someone else's machine gun.  His name was Wild Ace.  A pegasus.  Struck me as strange as a weaker man carried heavy ammuntion.  The last member of the group was who I'd knew as Applejack's brother, Big Macintosh.  And dear lord he was armed like hell was about to open up in front of him, and had the size of a small giant.  He carried a .50 caliber M2 Browning machine gun.  A machine gun that weighed over 83 pounds (38 Kilo's) and was 65 inches long (1,654 mm.'s).  The picture of him actually showed him carrying the damn thing over his shoulders and wrapped up in extra belts of .50's.  I knew who Wild Ace carried extra ammo now.  
The thought of leaving my brother alone in the unit, and leaving the unit itself, left a hole in my heart.  A hole that I tried to ignore.  Instead, I tried to distract myself by asking, "When will I be receivin' reinforcements sir?"  I ask.  
"Well, Arrow Shaft will be your corporal," I glance over at Arrow, and I notice that he was carrying a grenade launcher and an M16, "And another pony, I believe her name was Rarity, will be joining you shortly as soon as she's finished her own training.  However, I cannot guarantee the exact date for which you will be assigned the last needed soldier."
"Well, I'm sure that 9 guys will be enough." I say.
"But you're going to have three girls in your unit." Twilight corrects.
I turn to her with a flat face, "It's a generic term."  
"But there's still girls in your unit."
I pinched my nose with a few fingers, "Damn it Twilight, sayin' guys is shorter than saying girls 'n boys or whatever.  It's quick, generic, an' don't need all this stupid debatin'."
She huffs, "Still seems wrong."
"Whatever," I turn my attention to the Lt., "So this is effective immediately?"  
He nods, "Yes, you'll find them in the 4th trench line.  You can't miss it."  
How can he say that?  He just said the 4th trench line, and not where they are.  I think it's pretty easy to miss them if I don't know where the hell they are.  I stood up, saluted, and walked out of the castle.  First, I was going to get my gear out of my trench, say my goodbyes, and find where the unit was in the fourth line.  
I found myself back in the familiar trench, walking around the bend I passed a few guys walking the other way, and I found our dug out.  Zlat was still sitting on the fire step, trying to stay awake.  He failed to notice me walking up to him until I patted him on the shoulder.  His eyelids slowly opened individually, trying to focus on me.  
"Hey man.  What'd'they want?" He slurred.
"I gotta promotion, an' my own unit."
He smiled his sharp toothed grin, but then it fell, "Damn, I'm happy for you and all, but now we can't share the same squad."
I punched him in the shoulder, "Yeah, now you can't keep beatin' me at the 'what's cooking' game."  He chuckled as I popped back into the dug out, and grabbed my bag.  Me and Zlat shared one last brotherly hug before I headed back off to my new unit.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rainbow Dash
I was bored out of my mind.  Living in a over-glorified ditch never seemed very appealing, which was more than I could say right now.  I'd played several rounds of Go-Fish and War dozens of times with the others, and I'd read the letters I'd gotten to death, and wrote replies.  There was literally nothing to do.  Then, in came Wolfgang, wearing the most tired look I'd ever seen.  
"Got some news for you."  He says.
AJ responded from the other side of the room before I could even open my mouth, "And that'd be?"
With a tad bit of pride, he smiled, "I'm yer new squad leader."
"Awesome!  Maybe we can finally find something to do!"  I cried out.  
He looked at me with an incredulous look, "Read a book, play cards, tell stories, hell, you could even help with the underground diggin' to make safer connections between the trench lines."
Surprisingly, he had a point.  The library wasn't too far away, and I'm sure I could get a good work out from the digging.  Before I could even move, Wolfgang froze, his eyes peeling open wide, INCOMING!"  The sound of harsh whistling answered my question before it even arose, just as Wolfgang sprawled himself against the ground.  
The earth seemed to heave as the explosions outside tore apart everything they landed near.  Underneath the volleys, you could hear the alarm that told the townsponies to get to cover.  Well, I guess I'm not bored now, now am I?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Wolfgang
The artillery attack lasted for hours on end.  By the time the enemy guns rested, it was near 4 in the afternoon.  Popping out of the dugout, what I saw made me go pale, and laugh at the same time.  The enemy, in their great wisdom, had undershot us by mere yards of the front line.  However, the barrage had scrounged up enough time for enemy troops to find their way here, and dig themselves a poor trench line a football field away.  
Walking towards us was a small group of soldiers, dressed in blue uniforms were carrying a single white flag, and some metal detectors.  I understood what they were doing.  I dug out a white T-shirt, and pulled out the platoon radioman from a the next dug out.  He was terrified at the thought of leaving the safety of the trench, but I wasn't taking a no for an answer.  I pulled him out of the trenches by the collar once I got his radio gear on him, and holding my shirt high, I met with the correspondents from the Federation.  
We stopped about five feet away from each other, each of us nodding to each other with some respect.  I decided to speak first, "What do you want?"  In my head, I was trying to remember what language they spoke.  My mind settled on French when I heard the apparent leader speak.
A man stepped forward from behind three others who carried the metal detectors.  Unlike his comrades, who wore metal helmets that had an additional ridge on the top of it that ran from back to front, he wore a cap.  The bill was black, flat, and had golden olive leaves arching around the top edges.  Unlike most hats, which would grip the skull, this hat stood as a perfect red cylinder.  I'm guessing this is an officer of sorts.  "We request safe passauge to gather ze dead." 
I pat the trembling radioman, and without shifting my gaze at the enemy soldiers in front of me, I say, "Radio their request back to command, we'll see what they say."  The man fumbled with his equipment, the clinking sounds of metal against metal being the only sound as we waited in silence.  Eventually, he called command, and relayed the request.  A garble of unintelligible words later, and he says, "Your request will be granted under one condition.  For every soldier you put forward, we match with our own to make sure you aren't doing anything."
The enemy officer didn't seem to like this, but nonetheless, he nodded, "Shall we say, thirty men each?"  The radioman relayed this, and we got an affirmative.  This seemed to please the Fed officer, as he turned around to go back to his own trench.  I turned around, walking to my own line.  "You think they're gonna do anything?"  The radioman asked nervously.
"No, I think they want to gather the dead.  We may be brutal, but we always honor the dead, we always respect the white flag, and we honor our agreements."  We finally reached friendly lines, and we made our way to our respective dugouts.  
Arrow Shaft asked, "So what was that all about?"
"They want to gather their dead, an' a few squads are gonna need to go out there an' make sure they don't try anythin'."  I answer, sitting down next to some of my things.  I began getting everything ready, as I had a sinking feeling that my squad would be the ones sent out.  I had just gotten my things put all together, when the Lt. popped in.
"Boys, duty calls.  We're going to be guarding the Feds while they gather the bodies onto their trucks.  One platoon from each side.  Can I get a hoorah?"
We all answer, "Hoorah."  Out of reflex, with a hint of disdain.  The others gathered up their things quickly.  While we made it towards the front line.  While we walk, I gave out orders to my squad, "Mac, AJ, I want you two a ways back from where the Feds are gatherin' bodies.  Be at the ready in case things go south.  Everyone else, partner up with a Fed, an' help out with the bodies.  The more people we got on clearin' bodies, the quicker we can git to our own trench."  They groaned and cringed at the thought, but otherwise didn't object.  They understood the full of this, that's all that mattered.  I was only worried over how they'd react to the brutality we'd employed.  As far as I knew, they'd never seen a dead body before.  Please go alright, please go alright, please go alright.  I thought to myself over and over and over.
All too soon, we arrived at the lip of the first trench.  We were all struck with the terror of coming over the edge, and the enemy not holding their part of the deal.  I looked to the left, and saw the other pony squad.  To the right, the Racoonian platoon leader Sergeant First Class personally led.  None of us were moving.  Well, now or never.  I got to the firing step, and looked over the edge.  Sure enough, I could see the Fed trucks waiting on their side.  
I sucked in a breath, Sure hope my armor will work if things go south.  It was a stupid thought.  My armor always held.  "Wait for my signal." I say loud enough for everyone to hear.  I hefted myself up, and out of the trench, my body shaking visibly.  I stood up to my full height, and braced for the gunshot.  The gunshot that never came.  I looked harder at them, and saw the trucks start up.  I took a few steps forwards over the lowered barbed wire, my confidence growing.  A blue uniformed soldier on the other side of the field stood up out of his own trench, staring at me.  I looked back to the three squads, who were staring at me as if they thought they could shoot lasers out of their eyes if they looked harder.  "Come on guys, time for us to get going."  
And so the others climbed out of the trenches, clutching their weapons in all nervousness.  We advanced past the dead, mangled bodies, and maneuvered our ways through the minefield to meet the enemy.  
Who weren't even carrying metal detectors.
I nearly ran, as the worry that one of them might step on a mine, and make the problem worse.  Therefore, I made it to the enemy group before anyone else.  Remembering the French I'd learned when I had to work in customs at sea ports, I shouted, "Arrêtez! Arrêtez! Il y a des mines terrestres ici!" (Stop! Stop!  There's landmines here!)
Immediately, the brakes from the trucks squealed, and the soldiers froze in their footsteps, "Attendez une minute, nous vous guiderons à travers le terrain une fois que tout le monde sera ici." (Wait a minute, we'll guide you through the field once everyone gets here).  The platoon sure took their time getting over to us, much longer than I felt comfortable with.  Each passing second made my nerves feel more frayed, like something was going to go wrong any second.  
When they finally arrived, I explained the plan to the Feds.  They seemed about as nervous about it as I was, but no one was willing to complain.  We helped gather the dead, in their various states of brokenness.  Our guns had done their jobs bloodily well, in some cases ripping men in half or outright obliterating them into pieces.  When we came across the dismembered, the Feds would take out what looked like a meat hook, only it had two hooks instead of one.  We'd hook the body, and then the limb or limbs to the other part, and then load them up into the trucks.  This dismemberment was made worse whenever we came across a crater from the recent artillery attack that had missed our trenches so spectacularly.  The fact that these bodies had been in the cold and snow made it both easier, and harder to gather the dead.  The bodies hardened in the cold, allowing us to grab them without the flesh peeling off, but the fresh fallen snow also hid the bodies.  This sometimes resulted in us quite literally falling over and onto bodies.  Something that ESPECIALLY didn't help was that periodically, the other pairs would throw up in revulsion.  Not even the guy I was helping was immune to the work.  
I could understand the fact that dealing with dead bodies was disgusting, but what I couldn't understand, was how they weren't able to numb themselves to this.  The humans, I had expected something of a more subdued reaction.  Death wasn't exactly a foreign concept to us, and the numbing of the mind was a common concept of dealing with trauma.  Entire days could be mentally skipped through while at the same time performing a job that required little thought.  Like labor.  The ponies, I could certainly understand, even empathize with.  Their world had been so peaceful that war must have been the most foreign of thoughts possible.  Any dead could be gathered and buried before they started rotting.  They didn't have that luxury here.  All I could do was hope that they would cope with this the right way.  
Hours passed without a hitch, and we managed to fill up most of the trucks and effectively emptied most of the field.  It came to the point where I actually managed to relax and stop worrying.  This illusion was shattered when the worse sound imaginable in this situation.  The sound of a mine going off, and a man screaming an unholy scream of agony.  On reflex, I dropped the ankles of the dead officer I was carrying, and hugged the ground like the man I was working with.  I looked up just in time to see the dirt from the explosion before it dissipated into the air or returned to the ground.  It was where I'd last seen the only pair of Fed body gatherers had been.  
We.  Are.  Boned. I thought as I got back onto my feet, and ran towards the source of the detonation while hunched over.  Already, the Feds in the trenches were yelling angrily in French, too fast for me to catch.  A machine gun barked, the bullets cracking close to me.  A little too close.  I dove into a crater just as the gunner had began to refine his aim.  Inside this massive crater was the same Fed officer from the negotiations, Mac, and Applejack.  
"What happened?"  AJ asked.
"Landmine, they stepped on a f***in' landmine!" I answered frantically.
"They must've gotten a bit too far away from your men." the officer deducted.  
I pointed at him, "Get yer side to cease fire before we all get trapped here, I'll get over to yer hurt guys, an' see what I can do tuh keep them alive."
With that, I exploded out of the safe haven of the crater, and sprinted at full speed at the wounded.  More guns were opening up, but from both sides.  "Cease fire!  Cease fire! Cease-!" I was interrupted when I felt as though I'd been punched in the chest, and I was thrown onto my back.  I looked down at my chest, and found a hole over my right breast, a massive coppery bullet barely peeking out.  I pinched the bullet between a few fingers, and pulled it out.  The bullet was crushed in on itself from the sudden impact.  I stuffed it into my pocket, got back up, and started running again and shouting for everyone to stop shooting.  My side seemed to listen, but the Feds weren't, of course. The Fed officer was getting out of his cover, waving his arms and shouting at his side to stop shooting too.  By the time I reached the small blast area, the Feds had ceased fire.  
What I saw broke me out of my mental numbing.  The first soldier, likely the one who'd stepped on the mine, was missing both of his legs all the way up to the middle of his upper legs.  He was screaming at the top of his lungs in pain.  The other man had gotten sprayed by shrapnel in the chest.  His eyes were barely cracked open, and the only sound escaping him was the wheezing sound of his breathing.  
"MEDIC!"  I screamed as I fell to my knees next to the legless man, dropping my pack with me.  I dug out my first aid kit, ripped out a couple of lengths of cloth, and started tying tourniquets on his thighs.  
"Vous allez bien. Tu m'entends? Vous allez bien." (You're gonna be alright.  You hear me?  You're gonna be alright).  I finished the final tourniquet, and looked for some sulfa and wound dressings.  I lifted his stump, and poured the packets of sulfa onto the bloody stump, and then I covered it over with a couple of dressings, and copied my actions with the other leg.    
This was when Fluttershy dropped in next to the other wounded man.  I noticed that despite her very shy demeanor, she didn't gasp at the state of his wounds.  Maybe she's getting hardened.  I finished working the legless man by applying a shot of morphine.  Only thing I had to do now was get him back his own lines.  I grabbed hold of his jacket, and hefted him over my back.  The man, drugged up and in immense pain, got the hint, and grabbed my shoulders to hold himself in place.  I grabbed the disembodied legs, and started running to Federation lines.  With each footstep, the soldier on my back moaned in discomfort.  All I could do was offer up some comforting words while I tried to hurry.  The blue uniformed soldiers looked at me with both anger and disbelief.  I dropped into the trench, and carefully lowered the moaning man back down onto the ground.  
I flew out of the trench like a bat out of hell, sprinting back to the small crater.  The remaining man was now more aware of what was going on, and was grunting in irritation as he tried to sit up, only to be held down by one of his buddies, who was whispering something into his ear in French.  One hand was on the wounded man's chest, while the other was holding up a bag of blood that was being fed into the arm of the unfortunate by a tube.  Fluttershy was wrapping the last bandages around his chest when she noticed me.  
"Help me get him onto the stretcher." She said.  I looked beside her, and saw the already prepared stretcher.  I nodded, and grabbed his ankles while Fluttershy got her hands underneath the guys' armpits.
"Ok.  Now." she said, and we lifted as one to shift him over onto the stretcher.  He cried out, but otherwise didn't complain.  We grabbed the handles of the stretcher, and ran towards the Fed trenches.  For the second time, and to the exact same spot I'd dropped off the first guy.  They didn't look any happier to see me now than from the first time, their eyes burrowing into our skulls with absolute hatred.  This time, I didn't have to enter.  I just lowered it down to the hands that were reaching up to accept their comrade.  The man who received the stretcher wore a familiar paint scheme on his helmet.  A red cross over a white circle.  Just like Fluttershy's.  Just like before, I sprinted away just as fast as before, followed quickly by Fluttershy.  
We finally got back to the main group, who'd already redoubled their efforts to gather the dead.  If we'd been quiet before, any surrounding sound was sucked away as we worked with our heads bowed downwards in both respect and out of duty to our task at hand.  By the time the sun began to dip to the horizon, we'd managed to finish getting the dead into the trucks.  We guided the trucks back to their lines, and ran for our lives all the way across No Man's Land to our own trenches.  The barbed wire was lifted for us just in time for us to duck our heads and dive headfirst into the ditch, and likewise soon enough that we didn't both wonder why they were using a different method for getting the wire out of the way.  More bodies followed those of us who'd reached safety first, landing on us.  
We fought back and forth at each other out of irritation of being crushed under what must have been hundreds of pounds.  Granted, we didn't mean any of the insults, and our barbed words held no weight or bearing, but no one else would've been able to tell.  Above us, the guys who'd held the barbed wire up for us were laughing their butts off.  Most, if not all, of us gave some off-handed insults as we untangled ourselves.  
Finally, we were all standing.  It was now that we realized how empty the the trench seemed.  So we asked the guys who were stepping back down into the trench about what was up.
"How do I put this lightly?"  The man asked rhetorically while scratching the back of his head, "We've been, well, surrounded, so we've redistributed our manpower."
Well, f**k me sideways.
My squad started getting nervous themselves.
> Chapter 10: The Thing About Artillery and Family
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Turns out that not only did the Feds manage to dig in their own set of trenches, but they'd successfully surrounded us with the exception of the train tracks.  While we were out working the bodies into the trucks, our own forces had redistributed our forces around the town.  Now, we only had a company's worth of soldiers defending the forward flank, with the promise of reinforcements on the way.  Everyone was pissed with the wit of the Feds, however AJ seemed more so than anyone else.
Applejack punched the wall of our dug out room, screaming out the curse words she'd picked up from us, "F*** THEM!  F*** THEM RIGHT UP THE ASS!"  She punched the wall again.  From outside, Big Mac yelled, "Watch yer language!"
"Applejack, what's wrong?" Rainbow asked, trying to calm the mare down.
"What's wrong?  WHAT'S WRONG?!  My farm!  That's what's wrong!  Those Federation b*****ds burned down my ENTIRE FARM!!  Now Applebloom and Granny have to live as refugees in town!"  She finally turned to us, her eyes red, and tears falling down her cheeks like two rivers.  
"We've lost everything." she almost whispers.  I'd seen enough, and I understood what she needed.  I walked up to her, and gave her a hug.  She bristled, but ultimately squeezed me back with more strength than I had credited her with, cracking the joints in my back loudly.  
She was openly sobbing now, muttering unintelligible words as she mourned the loss of her way of life.  I wracked my mind for something to comfort her with.  Come on!  THINK!  There's gotta be something you remember that can help here.  Thank God for timely miracles, I remembered how there had been a raider attack on a farm out in the midwest a few years ago, and the government had enacted a program to rebuild business's that had been destroyed.
"AJ, yer farm might be burned now, but it can be rebuilt.  There's a program that rebuilds business's when somethin' like this happens."
She broke away, shaking her head angrily, "That ain't it!  That was mah home they raised!  They burned down the barn, the house, the trees even!  I was born on that farm!  We grew trees that only we had!  Zap Apple trees aren't found anywhere's else in all Equestria, it's what gave us the edge we needed to survive in the market.  Now, it's all gone.  Even if the gov'ment gave us the money we need to git the rest of the farm up, it won't replace the memories we lost with that land."
To this, I scowl.  She had the opportunity for a second chance, and at least she HAD memories to remember.  You don't even need things to remember the good times.  "AJ, I don't think you get it, do you?  You have a second chance to git back on yer feet.  Do you know how many people never got that chance?  Huh?  Too many to count.  An' at least you got memories!  You know how I spend my LIFE!?  My whole life?  I work.  Since I was old enough to walk, I been workin'.  I worked the factories from 5 to 8 in the mornin', go to school until 3 in the afternoon, then go back to work til 9 at night!  I did that until I was 13.  THIRTEEN!  That's when I was old enough tuh join the militia, an' git paid fer guardin' the city.  I literally got paid to walk around an' wait to git shot at.  You know why I did this?"  Through my schpeal, I'd gotten back into Applejack's face, a finger now pressed on her collarbone.  She wasn't crying anymore, just staring at me with disbelief. 
"I did this so I could support my brother.  Zlat.  I worked myself to the bone so we could eat, an' sleep under a roof.  I broke nearly every bone in my body workin' through the years.  The few memories I got, I ain't ever gonna forget.  If I can do it, then you sure as hell can remember yer's too."  Ah, hell, I stepped in it didn't I?  
I take several steps back from AJ and the rest of the unit to a corner, "I'm sorry."  I mutter, "I didn' want to come out soundin' angry."  Then, to myself, "F***, I'm really losin' it."  
With no warning at all, a very energetic pink pony practically exploded into the room with the smile of smiles plastered on her face, "PARTY AT MY PLACE!"  Pinkie screamed, "You all need it!" With that, she zipped across the room handing us all invitations before any of us could fully comprehend what was going on.  
And just like that, she made her exit with a fanfare of trumpets from some unknown source.  I look at Applejack with a face that screamed, "What the hell?" and "Is she liked that all the time?"
"Yes, she is like that.  And before you question her physics breaking, don't.  Ya'll be healthier and more sane if ya don't." she says matter of factly, like this had happened before.  Whatever.
The invitation was a yellow page, folded in half, and sealed with a small piece of tape.  The moment I opened the paper up, the strangest of sounds happened.  It was very high pitched, loud, and lasted only a second.  Then there was all the confetti that exploded into my face.  Wiping away the colorful paper out of my eyes, I read the paper.
"You are all invited to the Spirit Raiser Party at the town square!  You're commander has already agreed to this, so be there A S A P!" 
A... party?  Never been to one a those.  Might be fun.  "Who wants to 'ave a good time?"  I ask, with an attempt at a smile.  I guess it worked, 'cause the others smile brightly at the thought of getting out of the trenches.  With an enthusiastic cheer, they filed out of the dugout, and ran off through the trench.  I struggled to keep up as they wove through the maze like they'd dug it themselves.  We came out through the back end of the trench, which looked like one of those subway entrances with the big boxish look to it above the ground, only instead of straight steel or metal, it was dirt, wood, and a bunch of sandbags.  It was ugly as sin, but I'd bet my arm it would hold up under a artillery barrage.  
The town.  Lord Almighty, the town.  The buildings had been hit so many times that they'd collapsed into messy piles of rubble. What was worse, was when you saw the ones that still stood, because it reminded me what the town had looked like before.  When the houses were totally demolished, a small part of the mind just says to you that it was just a dumpyard for when someone needed to rebuild a house or something.  But when you see the still standing buildings, you see through the fallacy.  It was enough to put an ache in my heart, and bring the others to tears.  A few of them recognized the destroyed buildings, murmuring to themselves, or occasionally shedding tears.  They wanted to mourn their losses, but we all knew that it was foolish to stay outside for too long.  
Our nerves were frayed by the time we finally reached the entrance.  This entrance started with a ramp down into the earth, formed a tunnel, and went on for about 10 feet before we came to the massive door.  There wasn't anything extravagant about it.  It was made out of metal, and it was meant to be opened from the inside.  
That is, if it were actually closed.  At the moment, two guards sat against the walls bored out of their minds.  One of them even looked like he was beginning to doze off.  The more awake one nodded to us in acknowledgement, and stared back at the other wall.  We went down the tunnel lit by electric lights connected by thin black cords, which led to an intersection.  Someone had erected a sign that pointed in both directions, saying that the left was for lodgings and entertainment, and the right was where the kitchens and hygiene areas were.  We took the left.
This led us down another long stretch, however it had several 4 way intersections which split off to separate blocks, labeled as "Housing Block A1" and such.  I had to admit it, those Diamond Dogs had outdone themselves with how they made the place.  The walls were unfathomably smooth, and the ground had been churned up to make walking softer for both ponies and humans.  
"Sooooo.  Wolfgang, what do you think those Feds'll try to do?"  Arrow Shaft asked, loud enough for the group to hear.
I shrugged, more to give myself an extra second to think, "Not entirely sure.  In the first World War mankind 'ad, trench warfare was long an' bloody.  The tactics were new, generals freshly promoted, machine guns had been introduced, so they just charged at each other from hundreds of feet away.  If they hadn't surrounded us, they woulda used gas again.  Can't now, it'd float over the hill an' choke their own troops.  I doubt they'd try bombing us, planes haven't gotten better at aiming, artillery sucks.  Hmm.  Best I think they can do with the least casualties would be to dig under our trenches to collapse them, but that's a lot of digging, more than they can handle.  Ya know, surrounding us may have been an attempt at tryin' to starve us out, but they couldn' take the station.  Bet they blew up the rails though.  Still, our guys could airdrop supplies.  Now our planes, they could really do some damage.  Planes."  IDEA!
"Boy Wolf, you sure do know a lot about your war machines."  Smokey muses.
I grunted, "Yeah, an' I got an idea to how we could make a breakthrough on their lines an' take out their artillery."
"Care to elaborate?"  Mac asks.
"In due time.  In due time.  First, we got ourselves a party to enjoy!"  We were close, seeing that we'd entered a massive cavern.  Filling it to the brim were dozens of streets, all of which stopped abruptly at a red line, labeled, "Do not build on or past this line."  Of course, some buildings did cross the line, but there wasn't anyone to care.  The buildings themselves were almost entirely stores, bars, arcades, and other entertainment venues.  The ponies leaving the streets were smiling and giggling as if nothing was wrong, while those who were entering or were still there wore fake smiles, or seemed outright depressed.  
No matter how they were feeling though, when they took a look at me, they had that look of recognition that someone gets when they see a movie star or celebrity out on the streets.  That look would shift to those of solemn sympathies as they looked at the damage the Mustard gas had wrought to my body, other times nausea, disgust, but most satisfying and heartwarming, patriotic pride.  These were mostly larger, muscular earth ponies, but nonetheless, it made me feel... good.  I couldn't place a name on that feeling.  
I looked away from the crowds to the invitation again.  It had an address.  192 Oak Street, Sugar Cube Corner.  It wasn't very hard to find the place.  I mean, it was build like a GINGERBREAD HOUSE!  Hard to miss.  I was oddly relieved to find that the building wasn't actually made of sweets, but of painstakingly well detailed housing material and paint.  The inside of the store took on a much more normal aesthetic.  It was still sweet themed, but down to earth.  
That is, without all the party decorations.  Streamers, balloons, and way, WAY to much color.  It hurt my eyes to look at it too long.  In the center of it all, was Pinkie Pie, smiling like a lunatic.  Know what, Pinkie doesn't cover her.  Nah, Ponkers, that'll be what I call her. 
"Hey everypony!  Welcome!"  Faster than the eye could follow, she sped across the room, shoving glasses of punch into our hands.  "ENJOY!"  With that, ponies seemed to materialize from the air, all talking to each other loudly.  Just like the city.
The ponies swarmed us, whether to talk to us or they'd just wandered here, I didn't really care.  Them being to close, made me feel a part of me I hadn't felt in a good long while.  Unnerved.  They were just too damn close.  My skin itched for some air, so I gently made my way out from the crowd, and got myself to the table, where alcoholic cider was being served.  Ditching the punch, I grabbed a mug, and leaned against the wall.  Finally able to breathe.  Pulling out a box of cigarettes from a pocket, I lit it up, and enjoyed several drags.
I can't remember the last time I had a smoke.  I took a gulp of cider, and sighed contently as another month of pain and tiredness seeped out of my worn bones and strained muscles, while the simple, yet ever present stress in my mind was forgotten, even if only for a moment.  
I enjoyed myself, drinking and smoking off a few more cigarettes, before I noticed a mint green unicorn slowly sidling up to me while trying to look as innocent as possible writing things down on a small notebook.  
I tried as hard as I could to not sound angry, "Can I help you?"  That sounded 'bout right.
I heard an, "Eeep!" And saw the pony flinch, "Um, yeah.  You don't mind me taking some notes on you, do you?" 
I shrugged, "Not really.  Knock yerself out."  I took another gulp of cider.
"Literally or figuratively?"  The tone she used was one of a fanatically curious person.
"Figurative."
I heard the scratching of a pencil once again, followed by the muttering of, "Understands the concept of figurativity."
"That ain't a word."
"Has exceptionally good hearing."
"No, yer just a loud whisperer."
"Likes to argue."  She sounded like she was getting annoyed.
"Unfortunately true."  With that, I drained the meager amount of cider still left in my mug, and went to get a refill, the unicorn following.  There wasn't a single second in which she didn't stop scribbling in that notebook of hers while I got the cider and headed back to my spot.
I took a sip, and wondered what she was writing, and my curiosity got the better of me, "What're you writin' in there?"
"Notes about humans.  More specifically, you."
"Why?  I ain't all that interestin'."
"Prefers to be humble over boastful.  Actually, you are!  You're a human after all!"
"So?"
"SOooooooo, this means I was right to say that humans existed!  Well, before our worlds merged I mean."
"Who's to say we did?"
"Your long history for one.  And I'm not looking at a baby human am I?  Am I? Does this mean that you're government sends babies to fight wars!?"  She sounded like she was on the verge of a mental break down.
"No we don't!  And that's not what I meant.  What I meant was we might not existed in the same dimension, therefore we couldn' or hadn't existed in the same dimension until the world bindin' thing happened."
"Oh.  So what's the age that a human becomes an adult?"  She asked, having completely shifted off topic.
"Kinda depends.  The government sees us as adults when we turn 16, but as a society we see ourselves as adults when we're 18, or act like an adult."
The green unicorn jotted down some more words, "So what are you drinking?"
"Cider."  I say flatly, drinking some more.
"Hard?" I nod, another drink.
"What's that thing you were smoking?"
"A cigarette, gives me a small nicotine high an' suppresses my appetite a 'lil."
"Why does it stink?"
"Tobacco product."
"Are you going to answer this flatly to every question?"I nod as I chug down the last of the cider, and get a refill.  
Just as I'm starting to take another gulp of cider, a spastic pink pony jumped on my back, surprising me enough to cough up what little I'd managed to get down, "How's the party going?"  She cheerfully yelled.
I coughed a few more times, pounding my chest, "Not too bad.  Mind not doing that again?"
"Not do what silly?" she asks innocently in her hyperactive way.
"Jumpin' me when I ain't expectin' it."
"Okie-Dokie-Lokie!" She says cheerfully, and bounces away to talk to one of the other pony guests.
"Pinkie Pie don't cover her.  I'mma gonna call her Ponkers."  I muttered to myself, again.
"Yeah, she's like that.  She's harmless though, as long as she thinks you like her parties."  The unicorn looked over at Ponkers with a touch of wariness.  That last part caught my attention particularly.
"An' if she gets the wrong impression?"
She chuckled nervously, "Well, she'll keep trying to make you like her parties.  Mind you, she's a one track party planner, which means she can only come up with one type of party to make, and thinks that everypony would like this kind of party because to her, parties are everything, and she doesn't know any better.  So she'll keep making the same party over and over with greater intensity and less finesse until she breaks down.  Thinking she's failed.  A while back, she went completely nuts because she thought her friends didn't like her parties and didn't want to be her friend."
Oi, how bad did she get?  I started nervously following the energetic time bomb bouncing across the room as if she could blow any moment, "How bad?"
"She made her own party with a bag of flour, stack of rocks, and a pile of dust as guests.  Dash said she ended up making entire conversations through them."
I shuddered.  I'd known how bad people could get, but making entire personalities out of inanimate objects?  If one instance made her that bad, then what would two do?  Hell, I was surprised she was still functioning, much less sane.  
"Remind me to avoid pissin' her off."  I say, and finally dared to take a careful sip of cider.  

The rest of the party droned on without me really caring about what happened, as I was lulled into a hard buzz from the cider.  When the vague recognition brushed across my mind that I was drunk, the memory of the last time I'd been drunk reared it's ugly head as a warning.  Taking the hint way too late, I left my tankard unattended on the table with the cider barrels, and did my best to maintain balance as I walked slowly out of the building.  
And just like that, I made it all the way back to the trenches.  Drunk, stumbling about, and not giving a crap about the people trying to keep me from going up top.  I pushed past them with the sole objective to reach my position, and go to sleep in my little corner of the dug out.  
When I finally hit the fresh air of the surface world, I tried my best to run without falling with varying degrees of success.  If the ground was flat, and it rarely was, I could manage just fine.  When the ground had stuff littered about, I slowed to a crawl.
Eventually, somehow, I arrived at my safe haven.  "Ah, home sweet home, HOW I'VE MISSED YA!" I bellowed.  I brought my hands up to my mouth, and hushed myself with a long, drunk, "Shshshshhhh, quiet.  You'll wake da neighbors!"  I giggled at that.  Hope they never sleep again for the trouble they're given us.
"Mister, what's wrong with ya?" A very young voice asked me.
I turned around, lost my balance, and fell over onto the ground.  I laughed again, "I'mmmmmmm drUNK!  Drunk drunk drunk.  Where's my boots? Oh, there they are."
"Mister, will you be alright?"
"Be... right?  Ha, nope.  Cuz then I won't be... uh... now what will I not be?  Oh, that's right!  DRUNK!  I won't be drunk!  Oh, I won't be drunk!  DA- shshshhh.  There's a little girl here!  Watch yer language!  Wait...."  The gears were turning, if not slowly.  I looked over, and a small, yellow pony stood in the corner of the room with a red bow on her head.  I rubbed my eyes, trying to be sure I was seeing right.  Yep, she was still there.  
"What... what are ya doing here?  This is a war zone ya know."
"I'm here to see mah sister.  Do you know where she is?"
Sister?  You know, she kinda looks like Applejack, only, younger. 
"What's 'er name?"
"Applejack."
......
......
Oh f**k.  My mind snapped into shape, or at least close enough.  APPLEJACK's little sister was here.
In a trench,
With an army ready to attack at any moment.
With how she was right now, if anything were to happen to her sister, she'd kill me.
"You need to leave now!"
"But my sister-!"
"She's fine, an' you can see her after all this is done an' over with!  Seriously, you need to leave now!  It ain't safe 'ere!"  As the last syllable left my lips, I heard the sound that terrorized every soldier.  
The harsh, incoming shriek of an artillery round and all it's death promising payload.  Without a second of hesitation, I tackled the small pony.  On the ground, I covered her up best I could as the artillery landed.  Rounds closer to us heaved the ground below us, shaking dirt and dust from the ceiling down upon us.  One frighteningly close round collapsed part of the ceiling.  Those further awake could still be felt as vibrations through the earth, and we could barely hear the individual explosions.   Below me, the yellow pony screamed in terror.
The moment the barrage ended, I grabbed my machine gun up from the ground and dashed out into the trench, yelling over my shoulder, "Get the f**k outta 'ere!"  
I slammed into the wall of the trench, my gun over the edge, and pointing down range at the waves of enemy soldiers that were charging across No-Man's-Land.  Time to earn my paycheck I guess.
I opened fire, the relatively slow rate of fire from my DB machine gun pounded against my shoulder.  Other guns, larger ones joined into the chorus roar that slaughter the encroaching enemy soldiers.  They desperately sought cover behind their dead comrades to return fire.  But they were still out in the open, and they were panicking.  Their fire was wild and frantic.  It couldn't have been more than a few minutes of our machine guns slaughtering them that they turned tail, and ran back to the relative safety of their trenches.  Unfortunately for them, very few made it.  Our guns, one by one, silenced themselves, and we looked out at the battlefield.  It was littered, no, covered with the dead bodies of what could've been thousands of dead bodies in blue uniforms.  The snow was painted red, if it hadn't melted already, and the stench of death and gunpowder overwhelmed all others.  
"Hell on earth eh?"
> Letters Home 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

11/17/2120																			Ponyville, Equestria
NYC Militia Bt. 3, 54th Infantry

Dear  O'Brian,
You wanted to know what it's like here?  Well, to tell you the truth, it kinda sucks right now.  We arrived in a town called Ponyville (and no, I'm not joking) by parachute.  The ride wasn't too bad, except we had our packs tied to our ankles, which dislocated them when our chutes opened up.  I ended up getting stuck on a tower, and broke my arm when I freed myself and fell.  I had to get my ankle put back in place twice.  Thankfully, the doctors here have a very quick solution for broken bones.  Magic.  And no I'm not kidding you.  They call it magic, and it really exists with some of them.  The same doctor that healed my arm actually healed my brother Zlat's eyes, so he can see.  
Day after, we start digging trenches to defend the town.  Two days of hard labor, and we learn that we have to build concrete pillboxes and bunkers.  Imagine 650 guys complaining would ya?  We get this done just in time for one of their princesses (one of three I guess) to look at our work.  Her name is Celestia, apparently.  She's got a set of wings and a horn, which I've been told is called an Alicorn.  She seemed both pleased and displeased at us and our defenses, if that's possible.  
The enemy (whoever it was) seemed to take this exact time to bomb us.  We managed to get to our trenches safely enough, but they still scared the crap out of everyone, and drop a mustard gas canister.  This got me a fair bit of pain and wounded.  I ended up giving the princess my gas mask, and pulled the damn thing out of range of the gas.  Died for a little bit until they restarted my heart.  I at least got a few medals out of it.  One from Equestria (a pink heart with wings on it) and two from our own military (Purple Heart and Medal of Valor).  
We got hit with some artillery when we got back, and an entire army showed up and dug themselves in.  Now, it's so cold that I can't believe I haven't frozen my fingers off writing this.  Still waiting for the stove to be installed in my dug out.  
The people (or should I say ponies?) are pretty nice.  While we were digging, some of them got us some apple cider.  They were all from the same family, but they still made a good impression.  
However, they haven't seen war in a very long time.  In fact, their entire culture seems to reflect that violence is almost unheard of.  Not even boxing or wrestling, which I can't really see them doing with their being four legged an' all.  I'm worried how they'll cope with so much bloodshed and death, that I can't help but be glad that the 19 volunteers from town haven't all broken apart at the few skirmishes we've gotten into.  So far, only one of them has come down with terror, which isn't as bad a number it could, and honestly should've been.  This brings me to another topic.  Canterlot, Equestria's capitol.  
Canterlot is East of here, which means that the Feds (the army that's here), must've surrounded, or worse, taken it.  We haven't gotten any news on how the war is going, so we can only hope for the best that Canterlot and the other Eastern cities are holding their own.  Sure hope they didn't get their hands on one of the princesses here.  That would make the war end quickly.  The only good news we've heard, is that the Yaks from Yakyakistan (again, no, I'm being serious... stop laughing) and the Griffonia have entered the war.  So, we have some more troops to even out the fight.  The yaks don't have hands, so they need this sort of "enchanted" necklace that changes the wearer into a human.  The guys in the cities had enough time (hopefully) to adequately arm and train local civilians into decent militia to help fight.  The largest groups will be from Manehatten (play on words, only serious) and Cloudsdale.  Forget about Canterlot, the Royal Guard and our formal military had to guard that place.  Those people ponies are so pompous and weak that they wouldn't last long with even the best of training.  
Cloudsdale.  The city quite literally built in the clouds.  Did you know that Pegasi can walk on clouds?  I didn't until one of 'em, Rainbow Dash (a pegasus herself) told me, and then showed me when I laughed at the notion.  So what I hear that they do is grab bombs, and bomb enemy troops, or strafe them with special harness mounts so when they bite down on this stick or something, the gun attached to the harness will fire the gun.  Pretty cool if you ask me.   It's like we have our own fleet of airborn infantry.  We've already seen some action from them.  About 50 or so pegasi bombed and strafed those asshats, and came away scott-free.
Well, now it's just freeze our fingers off and wait for spring, when we know that they'll try to attack again.  I don't know whether or not you're an anthropomorph or not, but I envy those guys and their natural fur coats, cuz the trench coats and Ushanka's we got issued don't really help much.  You think I'm kidding?  We found ourselves a thermometer, and guess what?  -2o F!  I don't know the conversion to Celsius, but just know that it's really cold!  If we can get the firewood, me and my unit all huddle around this stove we have.  It helps tremendously, but we can rarely get enough wood to make it worthwhile.  Still, our dugouts are still much warmer than going outside.


Hope this get's to you,
Wolfgang Piatek
> Chapter 11: The Diarchy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Celestia
Canterlot was in ruins.  This once great city, had been utterly devastated by the war that had been brought to our doorstep.  The great parks I commissioned once held unparalleled pony-made beauty in plant life and water.  Couples would go through them on romantic picnics, walks, and even some of their more leud acts, where they thought nopony could see them.  The grass and earth was uprooted in ugly piles, now dominated by small pockets of friendly soldiers waiting for the enemy to come, hiding behind their pitiful cover in craters and behind dirt hills, further protected by dirt smudged sandbags to reinforce their position, if only slightly.  
The great buildings built through the ages had been the pinnacle of our knowledge in magic and technology, stretching to the sky in wondrous shapes and sizes.  Even the cramped, less impressive buildings that made up the residential and business sectors were still colorful and widely varied, until you came to the snobbishly rich ponies that made up the "elite".  They made their homes exactly the same, prepared their food the same.  Never mind that they had they had the money to get access to the most imaginative ponies in the country, they had to have the EXACT SAME THING built right next to each other.  Before the war, it had looked like a blight to my old eyes, the sameness of everything the cause of it.  To be honest now, though?  It didn't sway me to think of it as beauty, or ugly.  But the rest, where the common pony lived and did business?  A complete and utter travesty.  The first day of the bombings had caught half of the buildings on fire.  The rest had been thoroughly reduced to rubble, which my army, freshly trained in this new warfare, and the Chestian army managed to rebuild into tough defenses.  
Not before the evacuations, however.  The moment the first bomber was spotted from the East, the civilians were hurriedly rushed to the trains, and sent to the other side of the continent to be brought into refugee camps, and Chestian volunteer "Haven" houses, which took in families of ponies into their own homes.  I knew that they all made it safely, and that was all I really needed to know.  My little ponies were safe from danger.  Well, at least most of them.
I still had my Royal Guard, Day Guard, and Lulu's Night Guard here, ready to fight with weapons I wish they'd had more time to gain proficiency in.  They numbered at exactly 31,402 stallions and mares, and were evenly distributed to accompany at least one Chestian unit.  The Chestians were playing multiple roles, which made my head spin to think of how they managed to accomplish this feat. Namely, they pretty much baby-sat our units through urban warfare, took the forefront of the front lines, and provided all of our intelligence without fail, without mistake, and I had no idea how they managed it.  
-
I looked at my city from one of the few still intact highrise balconies.  Fires still smoldered in some of the furthest reaches, but I could feel at least a little at ease knowing that we'd managed to repel another one of the Federation attacks, and that thanks to the Europeans largely fighting between each other over the "rights" to our land, that only one faction actually managed to land it's soldiers.  I could only imagine the devastation that several armies would do to us.
I also took solace knowing that our unicorns were easily making their ways around the city to extinguish such blazes, and that the snow gave some protection against the fires.  However, it was most unexpected when they came.  The human soldiers were not at all surprised with seeing such weather occur all on it's own.  I asked one of the human generals and officers about this, and they all were in agreement.  Weather, to them, was controlled by itself.  One of them testified that weather was a result of uneven heating and cooling of the Earth, forming Cool and Warm air fronts.  When I had asked him about this, he explained that he had aspired to be a meteorologist (somep-...someone who studies weather) when he was a kid.  At my request, they had even airdropped weather towers that would help show us where clouds were, and other weather machines to help predict the coming weather.   To my disappointment, to  provide a wider, and thus more accurate prediction of weather to come, it would require many more stations, which was obviously impossible at the moment.  
I was brought out of my reflection as a sharp *zip* sound came buzzing to my ears, and a bullet halting itself right in front of my face, pointing ever so slightly upwards.  Good thing I have my protective barrier for such things.  Having been given a demonstration of how human weapons work, and how deadly they were, I decided to strengthen my defensive spells to absolve these threats to me.  Unfortunately, such as the spell was now, it takes a very intelligent, and very powerful spellcaster to use it.  Therefore, it was limited to me, Lulu, and Cadence.  Though I suspect Twilight could decipher the intricacies of it.  All she needed was time to do it.
I sighed, and took the now misshapen piece of copper and lead into the holds of my magic, and went back inside the castle.  The castle itself was mostly intact, seeing as much of the castle was practically as ancient as I was, and was thus layered thickly with protective spells of many different strengths and calibers.  It was only the open areas and newly added sections that were devoid of the matrix of spells.  Somehow, it had slipped my mind to add these spells to them.  Thus, only a few of the towers, and their balconies, remained.  Mostly due to my haste to provide the structural defense spells to them after the first tower had collapsed from a direct hit from a bomb.  Fortunately, nobody died from it, but it took a very long time to add the necessary spells, thus I couldn't save very many towers.  
I passed by the threshold into the tower, and past the two soldiers standing by waiting for me.  One of them was dressed in the Equestrian combat uniform, a sort of ugly uniform consisting of a smooth mixture of dark brown and green under what the humans called a trench coat, which was an even duller grey.  Though, if I thought about it, would help hide my pony-now-human guard when he had to venture into the horrors of war in the city.  He was also wearing a metal helmet provided by our Chestian allies, which had, as all others, been given a mild protection against incoming projectiles.  It was just strong enough to, working with the helmet itself, deflect the standard bullet caliber used by the enemy.  This was Private Valiant Heart, a fresh addition, yet just as dedicated, to the royal guard.  So fresh, his training existed mostly in the foreign and rushed training for the modern military.  He'd been picked to guard me purely out of random.
The other guard was undoubtedly a human.  All ponies in human forms had one trait in common, their wide ranges of skin and hair color.  Humans always had the same white, black, or mix thereof, skin and a mix of blond, red, brown and black hair.  This man was white, and had a shaved head of ginger red hair.  The other telltale sign he was human, was his uniform of the Chestian Marine Corps.
This uniform was designed quite oddly.  It was no different than any other normal uniform (i.e normal pants and jacket) They looked much like the patterns used for our own camouflage for the forestry, however the edges of said camo colors were given many small 90o angles that worked like steps until they came together with the opposing side of the line that had looped around the other way to join the other end.  When I'd asked him about this, he'd simply said it had something to do with making it easier to hide at a distance from other eyes, but other than that, he didn't really care. 
Said man's name was Matteo [Mah-t-eh-oh] McBride.  He was a Private, though he had an impressive service record, having survived through countless missions against well armed pirates and criminal gangs.  
At first, I thought that his track record had been the reason he had been assigned to protect me.  But that was only a part of it.  Back on the continent of America, inside of Chestia, he had been gathered with many other candidates for the task, and had been given a test during PT, or Physical Training.  Said test startled me.  The observing officer had tossed a dummy grenade into the fray of soldiers,  trying to see if how many of them would dive for the grenade to "save" the men near them.  Only a two of the few dozen had gone after it.  The other soldier, Frank Fitzsimmons, was now guarding my sister with her hoofpicked Night Guard, whose name I couldn't remember.  
I'd been given a demonstration of what a grenade could do, and it scared the daylights out of me!  It had been tossed inside what a sandbag machine gun position would be in the field, and had watched as the straw soldiers inside had been thrown into the air in pieces, and the sandbags violently shoved outwards, though not as quickly as the straw men.  Truly, Private McBride and Private Fitzsimmons were truly selfless people.  
I tossed the mangled bit of bullet into the small cup across the room, bouncing off the inside wall of the cup, and walked over towards the stairs.
"That sniper took a shot at you again?" Matteo asked with a knowing look.
"Indeed he did."  Every day I looked over the city, and every day, I'd be shot at from the exact same location, without fail.
"He's lucky that we don't have any counter-snipers, or he'd be dead by now." He continued.
I wonder what makes him think so highly of his own snipers skill, and how they might find the sniper so quickly.  However, I didn't need to ask him.  Valiant did for me.
"What makes you say that?"
Matteo tapped his metal helmet, the weak thuds echoing down the stairs, "Think about it.  He shoots from the exact same location.  Day after day.  That means, our snipers would be able see the muzzle flash from the shot, and the reflection of the light off of his scope."
"Wouldn't your guys get spotted too?"  I asked, "From the muzzle flash, and before that from the light reflection?"
By now, I'd passed him by, and was slowly walking down another set of stairs, "Nope.  Our lens are polarized, which prevents a glare.  So unless they make themselves easy and plain to see, it would practically be impossible to find them.  The muzzle flash would only be enough to catch the eye momentarily to an eye that isn't particularly paying attention.   All the sniper would have to worry about is retreating from the scene without being to obvious."
He certainly knows a lot about this topic.  I wonder how?  Could he have been wanting to be a sniper himself? I voiced my curiosity, but he managed to surprise me by laughing.  
"What's so funny?  She asked you a serious question."  Valiant demanded to know.  I will never get over how highly my ponies held me in their hearts.  At times, it was endearing. However, at times it was annoying.  They often demanded respect towards me from foreigners, where none was expected from me, or even wanted.  
This didn't phase Matteo, as he tried to reel in his laughter, "I don't have nearly the amount of patience that a sniper needs!  Hehe, no.  It's just that when I had been stuck on the truck ride over here, the guy next to me wouldn't shut up about anything to do with being a sniper.  Guy's a kind of endearing a**hole, if you ask me."
His little explanation made me smile.  I too, understood how you tend to remember things from ponies who don't know how to be quiet about a particular subject.  I just never had the heart to tell the other pony that I either didn't care or that they were being annoying, and just smiled back at them.  He must've had a similar reaction with this sniper.  
"So what did you want to be?  In the military, I mean."  Valiant asked.
"Well, I kinda wanted to be a tanker.  But no one has known how to build them since the first half of the 21st century.  So the next best choice was infantry, since there's such a need for them."
I had already been given the rundown of how the humans measured years in their time structure, to know that they first separated the years into 2 groups.  All on the approximate date of birth of a religious figure.  The larger the number, the further in time from either direction of this figures' birth.  They counted the century of his birth the First century, and this one, the 22nd.  Somehow, it still surprised me when Valiant asked him what century this one was.  I swear, he was in the room at the time.  Maybe I'm thinking of another guard.  Oh age, how you play with me.  Matteo gave the expected answer, and we continued along in relative silence, only broken by the cloppings from my hooves, and the thuds of boots slapping across the stone floor.  Hmm, I would've expected Valiant to ask further to how humans came that number.  I guess he came to his own conclusion.	
The silence continued until we made it downstairs to one of the many hallways, and followed the path that would take us to the Planning Room, where Lulu was still drawing up battle plans for the future.  We came to the great doors of dark, old oak wood.  My guards kindly muscled them open for me, something which they did every time, without me asking.  Private McBride always led Valiant into pushing it open.  This never ceased to puzzle me.  My ponies lived such a peaceful, and kind livelihood compared to Matteo's peoples' violent, and deadly one.  In every human and humanoid anthropomorphic I had seen,  they had seemed driven by an unstoppable compulsion to be kind in small ways as if it was by nature, such as holding open doors for others.  However, this compulsion was only seen in those small ways.  They would rarely go out of their way to sacrifice of themselves. 
Compare them to how many of the ponies would act, the kindness that my ponies would apply seemed nearly fake, stuttered, or an afterthought.  However, I did see that personal sacrifices seemed to be more common among us.  I'd observed this for quite some time, but I wouldn't dare ask this to Matteo, or any other Chestian.  I feared I would insult them, which is the last thing I would ever want to do.  
Inside the Planning room was a table about the size of a standard door with many maps sprawled across it, Luna, and most of the generals and high ranking officers of the Chestian military.  They were all arguing over where to put Luna's Guard.
"For the last time, get over your superiority complex, and actually put your troops to some use!  My side can't front enough soldiers to cover everything!  We need your troops to help bolster the perimeter, or when they attack, they WILL manage to get into the city!"  That was Colonel Whitehall.  He was an old, but very respectable man.  His specific race was Catsian.  So naturally he was covered in fur, which made it difficult to know his age if you weren't used to the anthropomorphic people.  In the military, it was and is quite common for the leaders to stay to the rear, where little fighting actually occurred, but Colonel Whitehall went straight into the thick of every fight he could, opting to sleep in the cold, filthy, and unpleasant outside with his men, than stay inside with where he could stay warm and comfortable.
I knew this argument.  The Chestians have been getting more and more insistent about Luna fielding her troops by the day.  Every morning, I would hear them bicker about it.  I'd already fielded both the Day and the Royal Guard as well as I could with the cooperation in integrating our units from the Chestians.  In fact, I'd say that they'd learned exceptionally well considering how little time they had to learn.  But Luna always resisted.  She always wanted her troops to stay well away from the front lines and more centered around the castle.  In one of her arguments, she even tried to say that with the Royal and Day Guard on the lines, that somepony needed to stay and patrol the streets and guard the castle.  Everypony and everyone knew how much of a lie that had been.  The streets and city was deserted when the enemy soldiers came in sight, fleeing overseas.  And the castle?  There was an entire army doing that.  The Chestians had brought this up, only to largely ignored. 
"Then pray tell, what have thou down so far?!  Every attack the enemy has launched, thy men repelled."  Luna said defensively.  But I knew her.  I knew that tone of voice.  She was deflecting from the real reason she wanted to keep her soldiers back.
"Yes, but only just so.  OUR troops are extremely tired, and the casualties exist only of OUR men.  The troops will start feeling as though you don't really appreciate us fighting and dying for your people.  In fact, I believe they might already.  You might see us as great warriors who may be impossible to defeat, but we are beginning to break.  It is only a matter of time."  This was from Brigadier General Mark Hallen, a human with dark black skin.  
A younger man, a Lieutenant I didn't know the name of, spoke up, "And when we do break without your help, one way or the other, you'll be left with STILL inexperienced troops, who will be fighting against hardened troops.  Those Europeans have been fighting a lot over the past few decades, so they know their way around a fight.  Your troops don't.  If they get in, it'll be a slaughter for anyone who provides any resistance."  
I can visibly see Luna begin to worry, and debate the touchy reasoning in her mind.  I knew what it was about, and why.  She was trying to figure out which option was the least costly to pony lives.  On one hoof, ponies would be entering combat and dying while fighting to repel the invaders for an unknown amount of time.  On the other hoof, in her hopes was a bad chance at occurring, when the break of Chestian troops came, her troops would be outright slaughtered.  She remembered when she had been Nightmare Moon, and how she regretted hurting so many ponies.  
Time for some sisterly advice. I bolstered up my breath to speak, "Luna, I know you still remember Nightmare Moon, and what happened.  But you truly need to let go.  That was over a thousand years ago.  It is at this point that we don't adjust ourselves to the new world we inhabit, someponies will die in the process to make sure that we are all able to live happily in the future.  Luna, please?"
Luna looked as though she was about to cry, "I just... don't want to get anypony else killed."  Her voice wavered, teetering on the brink of crying.  The Chestians no doubt could hear it, in fact they all seemed to visibly look confused and concerned.
Colonel Whitehall broke the ensuing silence, "Unfortunately, we have all found ourselves in the position of telling where our troops go to die.  That is the nature of our job.  Us," he beckoned to his fellow Chestians, "from our ranks as officers, and you, as a ruler of your kingdom.  For the rest of time, our goal is to find victory with the fewest casualties.  All we can do afterwords, is honor our dead, and further our attempts at being better commanders."  Philosophical are we now?
Luna's face broke from her near fit of tears, to one of solemn acceptance, "I see."  She took in a deep breath, and for the first time, truly evaluated the map for where she should place her soldiers.  She took particular interest towards the North Eastern side of the city walls, where we knew that the enemy was building their mass of troops behind.  
"I believe it would be wise to reinforce this section of the city.  While we may have positioned our troops more densely here, we should add more in the case that they attack en mass."  Not exactly what I would-, "However, only a portion shall do this.  The rest should be positioned around the other gates, our most vulnerable points in the city."  ... I stand corrected.  
The Chestian officers all let go pent up breaths that I didn't know that they had been holding, weak smiles abound.  One of them even muttered, "Thank God."  I'd heard the men say this many times before, but I could never get a straight answer about who God was.  As far as I could gather from the brief utterances, I would say that this God was a deity of theirs.  
Our revelry was interrupted  by a small burst of dark green flames, which delivered to us a scroll bound by a purple ribbon, the sign that the changeling hierarchy employed.  I had been in contact with Thorax, the changeling King, for a while now, discussing the many intricacies of his difficulties involving training an extremely reluctant nation that had just surrendered its' violent past to the past.  

Dear Princess Celestia,
I have wonderful news!  We have now trained a full Division of Infantry, Engineers, Snipers, and Infiltration units, which are now currently on route to aid the soldiers stationed at Ponyville, and once they have repelled the enemy, they shall continue further to help relieve you in Canterlot.  I would ask of you to please convince the Chestian Militia stationed there to aid us in your relief.  
Furthermore, we have another two Divisions nearly ready, with another beginning to develop.

Sincerely,
King Thorax

I had read this aloud, and when I looked up from the fresh parchment, I saw smiles all around, especially among the guards in the room.  Now how large was a Division again?  I wish that we had the same names for our unit sizes as we shared the same language.
I looked to General Hallen, "How large was a Division again?  I'm afraid that I am not well versed in the military's linguistics."
He didn't even look at me as he smiled at his fellow officers, "A whole 15,000 men!  That will be more than enough to turn the tide of the battle.  With the Battalion of New York City and Texan Militia, we are sure to see Equestria free, and the war across the sea ended."
"Truly?"  Luna asked, with all the hope in the world gathered into that one word.
"As sure as the grass is green."
> Chapter 12:  Christmas in the Trench's
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wolfgang
December 25th, Christmas.  Wouldn't you know it, but these Equestrians had something nearly identical called Hearth's Warming.  A lot of the same traditions, a very similar message, and on the exact same day.  This was one hell of a freaky coincidence.  Applejack, who was actually pretty grateful for me protecting her sister, had explained Heath's Warming for me, and I explained Christmas to them.  Their ancient tribes hadn't gotten along with each other, so they ended up bringing Windigo's (ice demons I guess) to Equestria, which froze them over.  It wasn't until they finally started showing love to one another, did it all end.  
My explanation was as long winded as hers was.  It all boiled down to me saying that Christmas was the celebration of the Christian savoir being born (although we didn't know the actual date of birth), a gift from God.  The thought behind the gift giving was that God's gift was so great, that we should continuously give each other gifts to show our love.  At least, that's how I understood it, and I made sure to tell them that I wasn't too sure of how accurate that was since there were people who were better versed in Christian teachings than me.  Their reactions were, as expected, confused and they had a lot of questions, which I tried to answer.  But seeing as I don't know much myself, I couldn't answer pretty much any of them.  
That was yesterday.  Today had started with the best news I'd heard in weeks.  The Feds had agreed, hell, pursued a Christmas Truce.  The real kicker was, they were giving us free soup!  You see, having been nearly totally surrounded for a few months tends to wear down any populace's, and therefore our, food stores.  The Air Force had been doing their best to air drop food and water to us, however much of the parachuted supplies had either drifted off course into No-Man's-Land, or the chutes had been riddled with holes, letting the vital supplies fall to their destruction.  It was rare that we could salvage any usable supplies from these, but every so often, we'd get a massive crate full of food, water, and ammunition, but never mail.  All we could do was assume that there wasn't enough room, or that it wasn't a priority.  
These supplies mostly went to feed the ponies we were protecting, only small portions being reserved for our consumption.  The rations were collected into the underground kitchens that was connected strictly to the trenches, and used to make soup.  Cause why would you use a ration on it's own, which could feed maybe two soldiers, when it can be made into soup and feed a dozen?  
Once the soup was prepared, it would be kept warm long enough for all of us to go to the many kitchen stations, and fill up our canteen bowls.  It never tasted good enough to get people to want it, but not bad enough that we wouldn't eat it.  The worst came from Rainbow and Ace, who, I swear, acted as though they were about to chuck their precious, life giving meal, to the floor.  I was greatly appreciative of Mac and Aj, who regularly reminded everyone how lucky they really were to have any food at all.  Well, mostly from Applejack.  Mac would just give that angry glare at anyone who dared complain, which got most of them to shut up and eat.  
Today was actually a great way to get our new recruits to integrate themselves into the unit.   Rarity and, to my stupor, Spike had joined the unit.  Rarity came armed with an old US Army Squad Designated Marksmen Rifle.  It was basically a AR-15 modified for a mid-range gunfight, with a dual sight system for aiming.  Said "system" was a rack to hold the mid-range scope above the view of the iron sights, which would be used for close range.  Her back up side arm was a MP5.  Oddly enough, she had decided to muddy herself up so well in an attempt to camouflage herself, I couldn't recognize her as the same pony I'd been at dinner with.  
Spike was another matter.  He was much shorter and younger than the rest of us, and had Rarity do the same for him.  He brought with him an M16, and no other arms.  When we'd all made our own objections to him being here, he had told us to be quiet, and he would prove to us why he would be alright.  He had then taken the too large helmet off his head, and fired a round against his temple before we could even flinch.  Said round RICOCHETED OFF HIS HEAD!- and into the ceiling.  
"Dragon scales.  Makes me pretty much immune to pretty much all attacks, except from other dragons."  He said proudly.  I had asked him what Twilight thought of this, and he gave me her letter of approval, which asked me to keep him safe anyhow despite his nearly unkillableness.  That may not be an actual word, but I'd say it's close enough.  
-
So, with great trepidation, we sauntered up and out of our trenches without a single weapon between us, and we met our enemy for Christmas.  Some of us, like Applejack bringing her family alcohol (at the prodding of Mac), brought gifts for the Fed soldiers, and the Feds did pretty much the same, bringing over sweets and wines from their country.  But when we finally came face to face with each other, we had to stop in our tracks.  They were so... filthy.  They were caked in mud through their usual blue uniforms, and you couldn't make up your mind if any of them were black, or just covered in fertile mud.  Their nation had very few anthropomorphic people, so I only saw one or two of them, but they too had been painted black and brown from the mud.
But their reaction to us, made me feel almost... embarrassed?  No, self-conscious about my own appearance.  We, as a whole, were a very skinny lot.  I didn't exactly have much spare weight on me when I came here to start out with.  My uniform had almost been tight on me.  But now, everything just hanged off as if it would fall at any moment, my trench coat seeming like a giant blanket.  Not to mention that there wasn't a patch of clean skin on me, and I'd long shaved off any hair to keep it from matting and so it wouldn't grow stuff in it.  I looked over to Arrow, and for the first time, I really saw how thin he was now.  He literally looked like skin and bones, his skin pulled taught, eyes sunk into his skull and dull.  
For the first time in months, we ate food that didn't taste terribly bland, and our stomachs were filled.  The Fed soldiers looked like they were on the verge of tears as they, annoyingly, helped us in nearly everything.  If they touched us, it was gently, as though they were afraid we would collapse and die if they were too rough.  They made sure that we ate enough, and had us guide a few of their trucks through the field to deliver food.  There wasn't a single Fed soldier that didn't receive a hug.
After our little touching moments, those of us who could speak French (so about 10 guys) would get into groups with the Feds and tell them stories, and tell them about the people, or ponies, that lived the town.  I even stuck a story in about this one idiot raider I captured.  The story ended with, "and he was stupid enough to ask for his weapon back!"  The Feds suffered even worse than Chestia, and treated criminals even more strictly.  So this bit of levity pulled at their lips, forcing smiles and convincing laughs  to peel out.  But as we reveled, the day started to come to a close.  
Just as the sun began to hide itself underneath the horizon, we were all told to go back to our own trenches.  I can't tell you how much we all wanted to just flip them off, tell them to shove it, and keep celebrating.  We bit our tongues, and obeyed our orders anyways.  My side obeyed because we didn't want to risk our next meal being taken away from us.  But it was anybody's guess as to why the Feds did.  
As we left though, I noticed Smokey talking with one of the enemy troops... handing them something.  It shined a dull yellow, but I couldn't really see what it was.  It made me curious enough to hold back a bit for him to catch up and ask him.
"What was that 'Christmas' gift of yours Smokey?  Ain't something that'll bite us in the ass, is it?"
His face scrunched up in confusion, "What?  No, it was just something to pick the guy's spirits up.  This was the first time he'd been away from his family on Hearth-er, CHRISTMAS day.  So, I figured I'd give him something I'd been working on.  You know that model blimp I was making out of scrap metal and spent shells?"
I did.  Damn thing was disturbingly realistic to one those monstrosities from the first world war, just a hell of a lot smaller, "You gave 'im that?  You spent a long on that, an' I thought you were savin' it fer yer girlfriend Redheart?"
He looked away blushing, "Well, I haven't asked her out yet, but I can still make another.  The guy just looked so... down."
I playfully punched his shoulder, "Truly, you 'ave the heart of a saint.  Damn shame you volunteered to fight in hell."  He took my banter with dignity, and walked on with a smile.  
Back in our dugout, everyone seemed to be in high spirit, "So, you think tomorrow the truce'll continue?"  Applejack asks.
Before I can answer, Spike enthusiastically fields, "Maybe this truce is the beginning of the end of the war!"
"I highly doubt either one a those'll happen.  In nearly every war to date, the only times that truces were held were to reclaim the wounded.  Once, in the first World War a couple hundred years ago, the German an' I think English soldiers held a truce on Christmas, but they were shootin' at each other the next day."
My words didn't seem to dull their moods though, which was a good thing.  They had full stomachs, and one by one, we all fell asleep.
-
I woke up first, big surprise, so I took on the arduous task of waking the others up.  The biggest danger came from Rainbow, who reflexively thrashed at whoever tried to wake her.  If it were warmer, I'd just dump some water on her.  But I'd heard that it was as low as -2o out, and I didn't want to give her hypothermia.  So, I kicked her boot, and jumped away when it flailed at me.  Still asleep.  I kicked her foot again, same result and still asleep.  Seeing as how this wasn't working, I moved to the back up plan.  I ripped her rifle out of her hugged grip.  Since her body didn't let go of it immediately, I ended up pulling her straight up, and she fell down just as her mind started waking up.
"Agh!  Wha- did you just drop me?!"  She yelled, waking the others up.
"Nope, jus' used your stubborn grip on yer rifle against yer less stubborn deep sleep."  I dropped her rifle into her hands, "Now come on, let's git ourselves somethin' to eat!"
Hearing the mention of "eat", they all got up, and we all went to the "Soup Kitchen" to get our breakfast.  I got to say, seeing the line of soldiers in trench coats with their weapons hanging by their shoulder straps was a peculiar, but comforting sight.  Peculiar because we were in a relatively safe spot (for the moment) and yet we all had our weapons on us.  Comforting, because our weapons gave us that sense of "we can protect ourselves" and "we're safe" feelings.  This served to reinforce the fact that I knew with absolute certainty that we'd all fight to the death to protect each other.  That is why we called each other brothers in arms.  We were family, and we loved each other purely on the fact.
Our breakfast, was Fed beef stew.  The broth was practically a thick, dark brown gravy, the beef was tender and in supple supply, and there were cut potatoes and baby carrots added.  It didn't taste too bad, but it could use a little Tabasco sauce.  I easily, and quickly downed it all to satiate my hunger, which had grown with the ample amount of food my stomach had gotten from the day before.   The others mimicked my quick attack on the food, and soon, they were all patting their stomachs in satisfaction.
"So Wolfgang, what were those soft brown things?  They tasted really good, and I'd like to know what it is so I can get more after this later."  Wild Ace asked.
"Yeah!  It was delicious!"  Declared Spike, who was voicing the common, positive opinion that was reaffirmed by happy murmmers.
My mind ground to a near stop as I realized something.  These guys were vegetarians if not by force of diet, then by choice.  I think I even heard one of them hold a conversation with a cow before.  They are not going to like this.
"Before I tell you what it is, I need to reaffirm some things with you.  Firstly, know that none of our food, Chestian or otherwise, comes from Equestria."
Rainbow rolled her eyes, "Well that's kind of easy to tell when all our food comes in marked plastic bags and cardboard boxes."
"Just humor me RD," I continued, "Second, before our worlds merged, the only intelligent and slash or sapient beings on my world, were humans.  Everything else was dummer than the grounds of this war.  They had no real mind or identity."
Everyone looked pretty concerned now, even AJ and Mac, "Ya ain't sayin' what I think yer sayin', are ya?" asked Applejack with a sense of uneasiness.
"What I'm sayin' is this.  That brown stuff was beef.  Cow meat.  Let me re-emphasis what I said.  1: Not Equestrian cows.  2: They weren't intelligent like us or your animals."  I was met with stunned silence, and a few sick faces.  AJ and Rarity especially.  
The silence was broken by none other than Rainbow Dash, "Well, I know where I'm going once this stupid war is over!  Chestia, where I can get more of that meat!"  ... Well at least one of them isn't disturbed.  Let's see how the rest are fairing.
Ace, Smokey and Bouncer were nodding their heads in reluctant agreement, but AJ, Rarity and Shaft looked over at them horrified, "How can you say that?!  Those were living creatures!"
"What do ya think carnivores eat?  Meat, that's what.  AJ, I think I've told you this once before, but humans are omnivores, an' those anthro guys swing largely towards whatever group they look like.  If they look like a carnivorous animal, they 'ave meat eatin' tendencies.  If they look like a herbivore, well, they usually lead purely vegetable diets.  Neither humans or the anthro's from the carnivore side 'ave much choice when it comes to what we need to eat.  Our digestive tracts just can't work off of just plants.  It ain't healthy."
"Couldn't we have had something else though?"  Rarity asked, still looking a bit ill.
I sighed, "The rest of our food goes to the town.  All our vegetarian MRE's already went down there too.  I'm sorry you three, but at this point, you don't really have a choice.  Eat meat an' live, or die hungry.  And I really don't want you to die."  They didn't like it, but they resigned their opinions for the moment.
It was at this point that Smokey left the dug out, which had just started to get warmed up by our collective body heat.  Something in the back of my head said there was something up with him, so I got up and followed him out.  He didn't have his rifle with him, so I thought he might be trying to grab an extra serving of soup, but he passed all the entryways to the kitchens.  Maybe he's going to the underground Ponyville?  Nope, he was going the wrong way.  
He was going down to the first trench line.
Without his rifle.
I came to this conclusion just as he climbed up the trench wall, and lifted up the wire with the stick we used to raise it high enough to under.
"Damn it Smokey, no!  What're you doin'!?"  I yelled at him, desperately grabbing at him in vain to bring him back into the safety of the trench.
"Don't worry Sarge, I think they want the truce to continue!"  He said optimistically.  I had no such feelings.  Just my heart pounding as he started walking away from me and the trench.  I stared, drilling my eyes into the back of his head, hoping he'd come back.  A bit of me even hoped that the Feds would come out to greet him or something stupid like that.  
But no.  This wasn't some fairy tale.  Shots rang out.  The first struck Smokey in the shoulder, forcing his body to twist left.  The second made my back crawl purely by the sound of it.  The screaming ping of a bullet hitting a helmet.  Smokey's head shot backwards, leading the rest of the body to fall to the ground.  
"NOOO!  F**K!"  My body started running on autopilot, charging out of the trench, machine gun in hand.  As soon as I crossed the wire, I returned fire of my own, screaming bloody murder and curses at them.  I reached Smokey, and pulled him into a crater just as Fed machine guns started peppering the ground.  
I looking down at Smokey, and he was both the luckiest, and stupid man I'd known.  His helmet shell had barely been punctured by the bullet, but the liner had stopped it from actually entering his thick skull.  In fact, you could still see the coppery end of the bullet sticking out.  Worst come to worst with this injury, he'd have a concussion, maybe a small fracture.  The other wound was another matter.  
The bullet had gone into his shoulder from the front, but hadn't come back out the other side.  The entry wound was actually pretty bad, to the point where I doubt he could be effectively be brought back to combat duty.  I took off my pack, and ripped out a First Aid kit.  I powdered the wound with sulfa, and bound it tightly with some clean cloth.  
It was now that I heard the 50's and .30 machine guns starting to fire downrange.  That could only be for one reason.  
Cover fire.  
A body crashed into the ground beside us.  I looked over to see someone I didn't recognize.  It was a white lady with pink hair drawn into a bud, and wore a nurse's apparel, only the red cross had red hearts in each corner.  
She quickly ran her eyes over him, reached over, and looked at his dog tags.  She gasped, "Smokey?"  
Smokey was waking up, moaning in pain, and clutching his shoulder, "It's alright man, yer gonna be alright!  Here comes the morphine!"  I took out a morphine needle, and jabbed him with it, pressing the tube until it was empty, and then threw it away.
"Help me get him out of here!"  the mystery woman ordered.  
I shouldered my pack, grabbed his wrists, and held them up a bit, "Took the words outta my mouth!"
She grabbed his legs, and together, we lifted, and charged back to our lines.  Bullets zipped past us and struck the ground, encouraging us to run faster.  All the while, I was thinking, F**K!  F**K!  F**K!  F**K!  F**K!  The luckiest bullet pinged off the side of my helmet harmlessly, and somehow leaving my helmet on my head.  
We finally reached the trench, where there were two stretcher bearers waiting to receive Smokey into their hands.  We passed him off to them, and off they went up the trench line.  Inside the trenches at last, I fell on my ass, and breathed deeply.  The lady followed.  It was awkward, the way it was.  One of my guys just got shot, and this was how we met.  Over him being hurt.  
We met, but she knew Smokey already.  Or at least heard his name before.
"So, how'd you know him?"  I asked, trying not to sound heartless or insensitive.
She's quiet for a few seconds, but eventually she takes in a deep breath, "I kinda have a crush on him.  He's my neighbor, and a real nice guy.  I think he had one on me too, so I hoped he might ask me out.  Celestia knows I don't have the courage to do that.  How about you, how do you know him?"  She kinda sounded like that nurse from the hospital.
I didn't let that hang me up from answering, "He's one of the guys my unit.  Trained him too."  I stretched over a hand to her. "Sargeant Piatek ma'am."
She grasped my filthy hand with her own clean one, "Nurse Redheart."
> Chapter 13: Fixed Bayonets
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The room was lit by a single light hanging from the ceiling, giving the room a dark, and even more depressing feeling to it than it already had.  This was a viewing of Smokey's body.  The enchanted necklace had long been removed, so we were staring at a horribly emaciated black earth pony.  Even without the wounds, looking at him made me want to cry at how disfigured he was.  If only he had been better fed, then he most likely would've survived the blood loss, and the brain damage he suffered from the bullet hitting him would instead be a concussion.  
In the room with me were my fellow squad mates, staring sadly in silence between Smokey's body, and his family.  Plus nurse Redheart, who was just as torn up about it as the rest of us.  
Smokey's parents weren't all that old.   His father, Coal Dust, was an earth pony with a grey coat and white mane, without any impressive build like his son had before the siege.  His mother, Wing Glider, wasn't an earth pony like her husband and son.  Just as her name implied, she was a pegasus.  She was thin, but it was natural, a part of her frame.  Her coat was white, and her mane was grey.  
I'd been the one who had to tell them how he died, WHY he died.  I had thought It was because he was too innocent and hopeful to realize the stupidity of what he was doing, but what I told them was, "He had hoped to meet them again with friendship, but he was met by hatred."  
The viewing lasted forever, but when it finally ended so his body would be frozen in a brick of ice until he could be given a proper burial when the conflict shifted away from Ponyville.  We filed out of the room, and went our various separate ways.  My unit went back to the trenches, Redheart went to the hospital to care for the wounded and sick ponies, and Smokey's grieving parents went back to the underground shelter.  
As we made our way, the mood shifted from depressed, to filled with rage with one line from a certain cyan mare, "F**K!  I can't wait to ram my fists into those ugly faces of theirs!"  She growled.
Oh, thank you Rainbow Dash and your quick temper!  I'll take pissed off over sad any day.
But that feeling of hope that her anger would spread was nullified by Spike, "But how many of us will make it out?  How many of us are going to die?"  It seemed like he was asking more to himself than to us, but it still sent unnerving chills through our bodies.  
"Spike."  I said with a tone that let it known I was on the edge of losing my temper.
"Yes?"
"We ain't goin' tuh die, so stop it."  Spike does shut up, but the damage is done.  Everyone's mood has dropped back to where were at in the viewing room.  Even Rainbow Dash looked glum.

Tym
When King Thorax announced that we were going to war, I was confused.  We'd just dethroned Queen Chrysalis, a war lover, and revolutionized our whole society and industry towards peace, just for us to go to war again?  Then, he told us what had happened, which was hard to believe, but it sure made us going to war seem more reasonable.  Our world had merged with another.  Half of that other world was invading Equestria (and therefore, later us), and the other was taking great lengths to defend it.  So it did make sense that we'd mobilize for war.  Why wait for the enemy to conquer your neighbors and fight alone, when you can join your neighbors and fight together?
Every changeling saw the sense in this, and we were all eager to join the war effort.  However, we were all flummoxed as to the new weapons and equipment that we were being given.  It was then, that we were given a crash course into the extremely new modern warfare.  We were given guns of many kinds, and taught how to navigate trenches, towns and cities while at the same time taking as few casualties as possible.  We were taught to adopt a new form, one that looked much too ridiculous to fight, much less stand on those two gangly legs.  However, as hard as we tried, not even the changelings from Queen Chrysalis's command hive could imitate the form.  We called them the Color changelings, because they don't have the regular black coloring of most other changelings, but they bore dozens of different, bright colors.  All because they had made a magical event through breaking that foreign magic barrier chair.  
No longer was combat and the survival of it determined by ones' skill and prowess, but now it was luck, accuracy of gunfire, and how much lead you could throw down range.  It was infuriating, demeaning... and made sense.  By removing the need for such skills opened up the available use of an unskilled populace, increasing the potential size of one's military, but not necessary the quality.  
When they changed into this strange new form, their new skin was colored as they had been.  But when everyling else tried that wasn't from that hive tried, we were black with many holes in our legs and "arms".  Our skin was hard, and refused to move unless we moved our limbs, and even so, just enough to bend to our will.  
So now, we were marching.   Thousands of us.  And we were headed for Ponyville, which had been besieged by the Federation of Trade.  From what our scouts had surmised, they'd entrenched nearly 5,250 soldiers around the town.  Ponyville was being defended by a much smaller force of under a thousand.  We didn't need to be told what the goal was, we knew as soon as we heard they were surrounded.  We were going to liberate them.

Wolfgang
We'd all hidden when the plane went over our heads, but the sound of papers flapping in the air drew our attention, and lured us out of the safe haven that was our dugouts.  Sheets of paper were floating down to us slowly, tumbling over and over.  I snatched one out of the air, and read the simple text that it bore-

This isn't your war.  Surrender, and you'll be treated well.

I spat on the ground, and threw the page onto the ground.  Not our war?  Yeah right.  You're gonna be in for a big surprise a**holes!
The screeching of the speakers coming online startled me out my anger, and started playing a song.  And a smile crept across my face, for I knew it well.  It was a rendition of Five Finger Death Punch's "This is My War" that was modified slightly for the military.  The changes were small, only editing the parts where they sang, "This isn't my fight, this is my war!"  into, "This is my fight, this is my war!".  Small, but greatly appreciated.  
As soon as Ivan Moody's voice started up, I sang with him with all my heart and soul.

As the song goes on, more and more voices join into an angry, roaring chorus that shook the hill, and swept and out to the enemy trenches.  Even the Equestrians joined the roar with a vengeful smile plastered on their faces.  
We sang (or yelled, take your pick) on for hours, eventually flowing through all the militia favourites, many of which, were Five Finger Death Punch songs that managed to fit pretty well to our situation.  It was a giant middle finger f**-you combo to the enemy, and it was glorious.   That night, we went to sleep with high spirits, despite eating practically nothing.

"Come on Wolfgang, wake up!"  My eyes opened up slowly, and I instantly became aware of the soreness of my throat.  Ok, note to self, don't yell so loud next time.  Now, let's deal with... who was it, Spike? Yep, Spike.
"Ugh, what the hell is it Spike?"  My voice is a weak rasp that could barely be heard, even by my own ears.
"Lieutenant Alexander wants all his sergeants to come to a meeting in the dugout three holes down."  
I groaned miserably, "Ugh, right.  Thanks Spike."  I pushed myself up to my feet, my eyes barely cracked open to allow thin slivers of vision to my eyes.  I tripped over RD, who didn't even grunt, or roll over in her sleep.  The air outside of the trench reminded me of the severe contrast between the body odor stink of the dug out, to the fresh air that had faint undertones of gunpowder.  The trench itself looked the same as always, lightly dusted with snow and mush on the wooden ground.  I took a right, towards where the Lt. bunked in.  Inside, are two other sergeants.  My old one, and another guy I don't know.  
"Finally made it.  I thought I trained you to be faster!"  Sarge says in his jovial tone.
I smile, knowing the joke, "What training?"  We snicker a bit until the Lieutenant clears his throat poignantly to politely tell us to shut up.  
"Boys, I've got good news, and bad news.  The bad news is, we'll be launching an attack against the Feds tomorrow.  The good news is, we'll be getting A LOT, of help.  We're getting several thousand troops of relief forces, and they're called Changelings.  This is what they look like."  He dug out two polaroid photos.  You know, the kind of printed out photo's on that weird, plasticy paper.  On them, was a single figure that bore striking resemblance and difference at the same time.  One was a black insect-pony hybrid, with holes in their legs, a fin and a mutilated horn on the head, plus wings.  The other was a basically a compounded hybrid between the pony-insect and a human.  Tall, lanky, no clothes to hide the arms and legs with holes in them, and a dull horn.  No wings though.  Actually, it kind of looked like a burned zombie.  Either version actually looked kinda cool.
"So they'll be around by tomorrow?"  Sarge asked.  A nod.
We were going to be surrounding them then?  Wonderful.  I smiled menacingly.  Any force that's being attacked from the front and the back is doomed to be overrun, or they'd be forced to surrender in sheer panic.  Either way, we win.  
"They'll be hard to spot.  These things are shape-shifters, so they'll be changing their coloring to match the environment.  The only thing they'll allow to be seen is their blue eyes.  Once the battle is over, they'll likely revert to the bipedal form in the picture.  Now, the battleplan."
He pulled out a map from one of his many pocket, unfolded it, and held it out for us to look at.  Now, I might not be very smart, but it would be extremely hard to f**k up the interpritation.  Our hill, which marked in blue, the no-man's-land was in white and red arrows outlined in black, and the enemy trenches in red.  In the bottom right, was a direction marked.  North pointing towards the top of the paper.  The enemy trenches had black dots, all over the place, which the key labeled as machine gun emplacements.  
Alexander tapped on the Easternmost part of friendly lines, "This is where we are, and will be launching from.  Overnight, we'll be sending out several mobile machine gun squads out into the field, and into shell craters.  This means all of your gunners need to be fielded by sunrise.  At around 1130 hours, the Changeling army will engage the enemy from all sides.  At exactly 1200 hours, they'll cease their attack just long enough for us to launch our own attack and advance our troops closer to the enemy trenches.  At 1230 hours, we'll dig in long enough for the Changelings attack again.  I think you get the idea."
"Yeah, it's a bait 'n switch, so we don' get any friendly fire."  I guess.
"Exactly.  Don't forget to remind your troops to carry extra grenades.  They'll be our best friends tomorrow.  Dismissed."  
We give each other halfhearted salutes, and leave for our squads.  We were finally going to get off of this damn death trap, and I was absolutely ecstatic.  However, it made me curious as to how the Equestrians would take an offensive attack, leaving the safety of the trenches.  
I entered the trench to a sea of curious eyes, awaiting the news they knew I was bringing, "Well, you obviously know somethin's up, so I'll be straightforward.  Tomorrow, we're leavin' the trenches.  The Higher-Ups somehow organized a coordinated attack agains' the Fed lines with the "Changelin's", whatever those are supposed to be."  
Spike's eyes lit up with some odd sense of joy, a smile spreading over his face immediately, "The Changelings are coming to help us?!  I wonder if I'll get to see Thorax again?"
?  Who the hell is Thorax?  One of their soldiers?  Doesn't matter, read your men.  I cast my gaze on the rest of the soldiers, and I saw an entire array of emotions.  A lot of fear and nervousness, but thankfully, I saw that form of angry eagerness for revenge, especially from Applejack, but absolutely nothing from Mac.  I don't think I'd ever seen this guy actually make an expression before, besides his neutral stare.
"First, we need to go o'er the battle plan.  AJ, Mac, once it's dark out, you two are goin' out there an' establish a firin' position in one of the craters."  And it hit me.  In every war, the machine gunner was always the target of the infantry, and being so valuable, they needed to be as alive as long as possible.  I really hated the idea of losing it, but THIS, this was important to the success of the mission,  "Mac, since you've got the .50, you'll be specially targeted by the enemy, so as much I really, REALLY don' wanna do it, I'm giving you some armor."  
I braced myself, and took off my coat, letting the freezing wind to set in on my body.  I shuddered, hating the contact.  I tossed it to the ground, and pulled the armor off over my head, exposing my torso ever further.  For the first time in months, I saw my own body.  It was thin, practically emaciated, and the cold had made all my scars turn into a prominent brown.  I recognized every one of them.  The one's that I got from being shot a year ago, the long scar from being sliced at with a long knife, and others that I didn't really want to think about.  
I tossed the armor at Mac, who catches it with his same neutral demeanor, Does nothing faze this guy?  "Go on, put it on.  You're gonna need it."  I say as I rush to cover myself again, shivering madly.  For f**k's sake!  Does it have to be so damn cold?
"Now, tomorrow, the Changelings attack at 1130 hours-"
"Hours?"  Spike interrupted.
"Yeah, hours.  It's so we're able to tell the time without sayin' AM 'r PM by countin' 'em out.  It used to be on a 24 hour basis, but now it's lengthened to 36 hours cuz the days 'r longer.  Now, at 1130 hours, the Changelings will attack from the rear, an' we'll advance slowly out to the offensive line that our machine gunners will establish.  Then, the Changelings will cease their attack, an' we'll launch our own, allowing them to advance.  The cycle continues until we overwhelm their forces, or they surrender.  If need be, the Changelings will surround 'em, an' we starve into surrender.  I think our artillery got resupplied, so if I had to guess, we'll be gettin' artillery support at some point between now an' then."
It was at that moment that I was proven correct, as the distant booms of artillery firing from our mountain rolled over the land.  We rushed outside, expecting the enemy trench lines to erupt in plume of fire and smoke.  We spotted the trailing white smoke from the artillery shells, soaring through the air peacefully, misrepresenting their intent in an odd sense of majesty, in the wrong direction.  They were sailing towards the forest.  Had those guys forgotten where the enemy was?  Had they just horribly screwed up the sights?  
Imagine our surprise that once the shells disappeared over the treetops, when a repeating thunder erupted from the trees, a violent tear of fire reaching for the sky.  That was... their artillery.  They got them.  The enemy artillery had actually been hit, and we knew that they had been from the stockpile of shells detonating from either the newly generated heat, or from neighboring shells blowing up in quick succession.  Now, they couldn't threaten to collapse our trenches.  Now, we had an even more clean shot at the enemy trenches tomorrow.  
The guns fired again.  Our eyes locked onto the shell trails, soaring in a new direction, in the direction we wanted them to go in.  The shells came in so close that we could see the coppery bronze color of the shells just before they landed in the enemy trenches in front of us, or just before they disappear out of sight from the other side of the hill.  Words cannot express how we felt, how f**king awesome it felt to know that tomorrow wasn't going to be a hailstorm of bullets and the uncertainty of survival, but more like that we would come out on top with ensured victory.
As the shells landed, we got the call to lumber off for breakfast.  That, in and of itself, was new.  Usually, we wouldn't eat until after night fell, since it didn't make sense to attack when you couldn't see well, and we couldn't eat very often, via the lack of food supply.  
So eating during daylight hours, AND having the insinuation that there were more meals to come left us feeling strange.  That kind of "this, in no way, feels right.  My anxiety over this is going to rip apart my mind" kind of strange.  I mean, we weren't getting anything as luxurious as pancakes, but it was still twice as magical to us.  We hurried back to our holes in the ground, and ate greedily.  Except for Rarity, she still tried to act dainty about eating what basically amounted to gruel, taking spoonfuls of it at a time.  
We ate our fill, and sat content as we waited for night to come again.  Like every other day, we played cards, tried some chess with homemade pieces, and told stories, most of which we'd already told.  Those of us who don't do anything just stare blankly outside or at the walls, probably daydreaming.  Spike was sneaking looks at Rarity when she's not facing him, and Rarity talked mostly to Bouncer or Ace.  After a few glances at Spike, I realized that the little guy had a crush on her, a much older girl.  If I had to guess, she was probably almost 20 or something.  Poor guy didn't stand a chance.  
The day crawled on longer and longer, letting sleep overcome nearly everyone in the dug out, except for me, RD, and AJ.  We sat staring at the small fire inside the tiny stove.  None of us spoke, prefering to just soak up the atmosphere of comrades in dirt.  I'd spent countless hours with this unit, and now that I finally had the silence to hear myself think, I felt how my heart seemed to latch to them protectively.  It was with this that I understood that I loved them to the point that I was willing to die for them.  We were a family.  We ate together, slept together, fought together, and we were likely going to die together.  I wouldn't have it any other way, except live instead of dying.

The twilight hours had come, where the sun cast wonderous colors from pink to a light orange, across the sky.  The artillery was silent, but we weren't.   I was passing out grenades to everyone.  We stored them in pouches that hanged off of our clothing, and attached them loosely to our belts.  Applejack and Mac both looked nervous, anxiously tapping a foot or a finger.  They would stand up for a few seconds, pace, then sit down again.  I'd tell them to cool it, but I wasn't much better.  I was leading them out them out there, and LEAVING them in the middle of a hell hole!  It felt like I was knowingly abandoning them to death, even though I knew and kept reassuring myself that I wasn't.  
The sun finally dipped over the horizon, and the stars came out.  It was time.  Mac and AJ bound their machine guns to special rigs to carry the guns on their backs while they crawled.  I stuck to the tried and true method that generations of soldiers before me had done before me.  I would be cradling my rifle in the crook of my elbows, which would assume most of my forward movement.  
I led my gunners to the front trench, and my heart felt like it was twisting inside its' boney cage.  Move, damn it.  Don't let your feet stop moving, or you'll never move again.  
I turned to stare into the faces of my comrades, who, like me, had painted their faces and any other exposed skin black, to make it ever more difficult to see during the night.  White would've been preferable, but black was still better than their natural orange and red coats.  
In a hushed whisper, "Let's go."  We hefted ourselves over the edge.  I lifted the wire for them, using my rifle to grasp the sharp wire instead of my hands.  Without a sound, they crawled under, and disappear into the dark.  I followed after them with an equal silence.  I eased myself down the slope of the ditch, and caught up to the two.  We crawled through the packed snow, which hardly crunched underneath us, only loud enough for our own ears.  
Every second, every movement, I thought we might be discovered, thought that we might be alone in the field.  But we weren't shot, and I knew that there had to be dozens of other soldiers doing exactly as we were doing.  Crawling.  Going up small slopes, and going down again, trying to get to that perfect position for a machine gun to be placed.  Far away enough for a decent range of spread for minimal turning, but not to far as to not mitigate the effect of our advance to a mere few yards, or few dozens of yards.  No, we needed to gain a good distance before we could stop and bed down.  We kept crawling, on and on.  Further than I wanted, or felt comfortable with.  Our fronts were wet within minutes, our elbows sore.  But we eventually came to the perfect spot.  Two nearly impossible to see highrises, spread about 20 feet from each other, provided perfect positions for AJ and Mac to shoot from, while also be protected from wild incoming fire that somehow had the accuracy to find their position.  
"Ok, pick yer poison, an' git to it.  Try to reinforce yer position in any way you can.  I'll see you two at daybreak.  God be with you."  God be with you.  In war, even atheists find themselves saying this.  Because when hell has opened up around you, you can only hope that there's some being watching over you, and has some form of influence over the course of events.  If there was even the slimmest of chances that God might be real and be able to help you, then you take it.  You want to live, and see your loved ones again, which includes family, friends, and comrades.  Therefore, you take any chance there is.  Providence, luck, skill, and strength.  Every soldier relies on each of these four statutes, though depending on who you talk to, Providence and luck could be separate or one entity.  I'd long given up, and just went along for the ride.  
I crawled my way back, lifted up the wire, and awkwardly maneuvered myself underneath the wire while holding the rifle in the same position.  On the right side of the wire, I eased the rifle down, and drew it back to me.  I was stuck in place.  Now that I was back in the trench, I couldn't move.  I'd left them.  Alone.  Out there.  ALONE.  I felt guilty, enormously guilty that I wasn't out there with them.  They were shouldering a burden, and I wasn't easing it.  
It took every fiber of my being to keep myself from turning around, and sprinting my way back to them.  I trembled, and took a step forwards, away from the edge, and a pang of guilt sent a spike of pain through my head.  I took another, and it became a dull throb, each heartbeat giving a painful spike.  Another step, and I was feeling dizzy, and the throb was becoming a little more painful.  
By the time I'd reached my trench, I couldn't even attempt thinking, and I was audibly growling in pain.  I heard the others say something, but the pain overwhelmed my understanding, and I just flopped onto the ground, curled into the fetal position, and passed out.

Rainbow Dash
I was about to slip into today's 3rd, and final nap, when I heard a growling.  It was weird, it didn't sound like an animal, but not human either.  Then, in came Wolfgang, clutching his helmeted head, face contorted in pain, teeth bared, and growling in pain.  
"What's up Wolfgang?" I asked hesitantly.  
He didn't respond.  Instead, he went over to his sleeping spot, and dropped into a ball, his back facing away from us.  Then, nothing.  Complete silence, and his only movement was his breathing.  
We all looked at each other, "Humans are weird."  we collectively stated.

Applejack
I was all alone, in the middle of a field, and I was left conflicted.  On the one hand, this feeling of solitude wasn't dissimular to being out in the applefields, but then again, the absence of trees and the ugly terrain was incredibly concerning.  I felt small, almost insignificant in the void of the field.  This had started since the moment Wolfgang had crawled away.  In fact, I had to stop myself from grabbing his leg, and begging him to stay.  I think he might've even agreed, his face seemed so pained.  My comfort was that I wasn't truly alone, that there were many others out in this field with me, and that by morning, my family, my unit, would be coming to me, surrounding me, protecting me, fighting with me.  
Well, might as well try and get some sleep.

Wolfgang
My sleep was very upsetting.  Nightmare's over my abandonment plagued me through the night, oftentimes waking me in a screaming fit, only for me to be overwhelmed by my headache and pass out again.  Mostly, they concerned AJ and Mac angrily confronting me in various ways, or by me being abandoned by my unit in the middle of combat, to be slaughtered brutally by Fed soldiers.  
Mercifully, morning came.  Once I woke up, and saw the light shining through the opening, illuminating dust particles hanging in the air.  I bolted up onto my feet, gathered up all my gear, and sprinted out of the trench.  I've got to get to them!  My entire being was on fire, forcing me into action.  The spires supporting the sides of the trench whizzed by as I made my way to the front trench, and violently crashed into the wall to keep myself from leaping onto level ground, and bounding over the barbed wire to go to my brother and sister in the field.  But nothing good would come of me breaking cover for them now.  I'd be gunned down within probably 30 seconds.  That would leave my own unit alone, and even if I survived, I'd still be abandoning them without leadership.  But as long as I remained in this trench, they wouldn't be without me, and I wouldn't be betraying them.  
After a minute, the unit joined me on either side, along with countless others.  It was almost time, "Alright boys 'n girls, attach bayonets if you got 'em.  Rarity, I want you to be on overwatch.  Find a good spot out there to shoot from when we charge, an' hold your fire until everyone else starts shootin', then pick yer targets.  Machine gunners are the more important targets, but it doesn' really matter.  Just don' waste bullets."
Even as I was talking, we collectively dug out the thick bayonet blades that hang off our packs.  The black blade was 8 inches long, single edged with the unsharpened side being a thick four millimeters thick, and a four inch long hilt of stacked leather washers that had been dyed black.  It looked very similar to a morphed version of a Ka-BAR knife.  I attached mine to the end of my M-16, and marveled at how much more deadly the knife made the rifle look.  
And my mind fell to the environment, years of combat experience coalescing together to dominate my thoughts.  What emotions I let myself feel died, fallen to wayside as the cold came over me.  My face turned into a scowl as I stared at the lip of the trench, the edges of my vision turning red.  The Changelings attack was the cue to attack, like a whistle in the first World War telling the soldiers to attack.  I found myself wanting them to attack already, and stop all this waiting, to get it over with already!  

Spike
We were going to be charging over the edge of the trench, and we were going to... to... to kill people.  
Everypony here looked nervous or scared, with few exceptions.  Rainbow Dash looked more consumed by brash anticipation, and Rarity had that beautiful calm that she always had, but Wolfgang looked... ugh.  He looked absolutely terrifying, like he was ready to murder somepony at the drop of the hat. He may have been staring upwards, but his helmet cast a dark shadow over his eyes, completely hiding them from anypony else's view.  He was scowling angrily, bearing those sharp teeth.  He gripped his rifle so tightly, that his thin fingers' knuckles turned white.  He tipped his head up a little further, and the light touched his eye sockets, revealing eyes consumed by dead emptiness.  
I shuffled a few steps away from him, and closer to Rarity.  

Rainbow Dash
For the first time since training, I pulled back the bolt on my rifle, chambering a round.  We were finally going to strike back against those filthy Feds, who destroyed AJ's farm and my town.  Come on Thorax, don't keep us waiting!  
Finally, the sounds of heavy gunfire from all around erupted, the tell-tale sound of 5.56 NATO rounds firing clueing us in on the owners of the gunfire.  It was the Changelings, firing the M-16's that the Chestians had given to the Changelings.  All at once, we grabbed wooden poles connected to the wire supports, and hefted them up above our heads, and tossed the wire onto the other side of the trench.  Once it touched the dirt, we burst out of the trench, beating the dirt in a roar of thunder as we rushed forwards.  
No bullets whistled or whizzed or cracked past us, no artillery shells erupted next to, or on top of us.  No grenades blew up between us.  Just us running forwards.  And we kept running.  We ran past AJ and Big Mac's positions, and still, no shots rang out.  
We're we supposed to stop at some point or something?
At that moment, the Changeling army silenced itself, like flipping a lightswitch, and the Fed soldiers turned their guns in panic at the other force attacking them.  
A *zzzzip* later, and the sickening squelch of a bullet piercing flesh, and someone collapsed to the ground.  Everyone hit the dirt as machine gun fire erupted from in front of us.
"S**T!  We were almost at the trenches!"  Wolfgang growled.  I looked towards his voice, ahead of all of us.  Wow, for such a beanpole, he sure runs fast.  He was looking over his shoulder at us, a look of an angry emptiness in his eyes, and that same scowl I'd seen earlier.  I followed his gaze, and looked back.  
It was Arrow Shaft.  He was lying face first in the mud, his helmet having fallen off, and his rifle resting loosely in his fingers.
He wasn't moving.  
"S**t."  
I looked back at Wolfgang.  He was crawling forwards, up the mound of dirt, his gun cradled in his hands, ready to be put to use.  He reached the peak, took quick aim, and fired a short burst of fire over the other side before ducking back under.  
It came to me that I should be doing the same.  I started crawling too, but I didn't have that feeling of bravery or courage like I imagined I'd feel.  No, I felt scared, terrified I'd be shot.  I getting worried that somepony else in our squad would die.  Die.  Shaft was dead, wasn't he?  Damn it.  I'll kill them, every last one of them!  

Wolfgang
"Get yer asses in gear an' git up 'ere!" I yelled over the gunfire.  I looked back at Mac and AJ's positions.  Bright flashes of light were blinking in and out of existence too fast to count.  That was good, we were getting at least some cover fire and support.  
My unit slowly complied.  Spike ran hunched over, one claw holding his rifle, the other forcing his helmet to stay on his head.  Not that it would do much good to have a helmet anyways, kid was f**king bulletproof.  RD was already crawling forwards, getting close to a small highrise in a crater.  Shaft was... dead, Rarity was somewhere (hopefully taking potshots), and the other guys were hugging the ground.  
For f**k's sake, if you don't move, you'll die anyways!
I peeked over the edge again for a quick estimate of how close we'd gotten.  A quick assessment, and I'd say we were about 20 yards away from the first muddy trench.  Let's get a grenade out there.
I ripped off a grenade from my belt, got to a stooped kneeling position, and tensed to jump up.
Aaaannd, NOW! I sprang up, pulling the pin out of the grenade, and chucking it as far as I could.  
A force punched into my stomach, and I stumbled back a few steps.  Another punch hit me in the shoulder, turning my whole body. I tried to keep my balance by taking a few more steps, and was about to right myself, when a third shot hit me in the head, throwing my head backwards suddenly, throwing any semblance of balance out the window.  I hit the ground heavily, and I came to the notion that I felt oddly wet and sticky at the same time.  
I looked down, and saw red splotches growing from my stomach and shoulder.  I looked up a bit, and saw my helmet, a foot away from me with a big dent on the very top of it.  A hand reached out to it, grabbed it, and it was on my head again.  Everything went into autopilot as I got up again, found my rifle, and started running forwards.  I heard my wailing scream as I charged, rifle above my head. I saw the terrified faces of Fed troops as they looked up to see the bloody soldier charging them like a madman.  I felt more impacts, like strong punches, hit me time and time again.  But I didn't stop.  I rammed my bayonet into one man, removed it, and started firing at anyone unlucky enough to be near me.  When there wasn't anyone left, I looked for more, and killed them too.  

Twilight
Call it being over protective, but I wanted to make sure that Spike would be alright, so I watched his unit from the upper balconies of my castle as they charged across the battlefield.  But it soon came to my attention, that it wasn't Spike I should be REALLY worried about.  Arrow Shaft took a bullet straight to the chest, and went head first into the dirt.  He didn't get back up.  When Fluttershy finally made her way to him, all she did was lift his head up long enough to close his eyes.  
Then, Wolfgang, who may have been intimidating before, now seemed demonic.  After chucking a grenade into the enemy trench, he'd been shot in the stomach, a red mist spraying out behind him.  Then in the shoulder, and then the head, which threw his helmet off, and knocked him to the ground.  I had already come to the conclusion that he must've died, when he grabbed his helmet, put it on, and rushed back into battle, charging straight into enemy fire, being shot several more times, before landing in the enemy trench, and unleashed... what was the word he used?  Oh right!- and unleashed hell.  
Most of him was hidden inside the trench, but the flash of gunfire could still be seen from here.  And there was a lot.  It went on and on and on, slowing and speeding up.  It paused, then started up again even more furious a few trenches deeper.  Friendly troops charged into the trenches from both sides, then spread like wildfire through the trench in either direction, wiping out any resistance.  
Federation troops could be see being forced out of the trenches with their hands held high, waving tiny white flags and completely unarmed.  The battle, was won.
> Chapter 14:  Willpower
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zlat
I hadn't actually thought that battle had been particularly difficult or long.  Now I knew why.  My brother had led the swift charge, and was STILL in the operating room for it, and it had already been a day since the battle.  I hadn't seen him myself, but I'd heard the story.  Chucked a grenade, and bum-rushed the enemy position.  Dumbass got shot multiple times, but no one told me how many.  Rumors had already started spreading.  They ranged from him simply tripping into the trench and being impaled on a bayonet, to fighting dead.  The craziest, was that he'd been shot through and through by a .50 caliber machine gun several times, got a leg and an arm shot off, as well as half his head blown away.  Seeing as how I WASN'T an idiot, and Wolfgang was still alive (barely), my guess was that he had been shot in the lungs or something.  
Now, I was waiting for ANY good news.  The Changelings were handling most of the prisoner management crap, and our forces were trying to gain our weight back.  And we had a lot of ground to cover.  The average weight between us all was a measly 115 pounds.  Even though Wolfgang was an outlier at 145 pounds, he was still almost six feet tall.  
So me, and his unit were all waiting outside of the makeshift hospital that we'd pitched up in the open.  Hell, we must've been one weird-ass sight.  A Red Fox anthro, 9 multi-colored ponies and a baby dragon pacing in circles outside a medical tent?  I think my point stands.  Seven of them were from his squad, but there was an extra three.  Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Twilight Sparkle.  
Now, we were a depressed looking bunch, but there were some serious "verge of a panic" vibes from some of these ponies.  Spike and Fluttershy were chewing their hoof/claw like now tomorrow, Pinkie was straight haired, dull shaded, and looked to be nearing a cry session (which honestly scared the ever-loving s**t out of me), RD and AJ looked stunned like a deer caught in headlights, Rarity was going all drama queen (which I have the feeling she does a lot), Twilight is muttering to herself and had literally paced SO MUCH she left a rut in the dirt, and the others had this dark look on their faces.  They looked like they'd completely disconnected from reality, their eyes glazing over as they stared into the far distance.  
Besides the nail biting and Twilight's muttering, we were actually pretty quite.  Barely a sound between us.  That is, until Spike broke it.
"So you think he'll be ok?"  This snapped everyone out of it.  First to recover though, was Rainbow Dash.
"You kidding?  He endured a gas attack for nearly two full minutes, FULLY EXPOSED!  I think he can handle a few bullet wounds."  Rainbow trailed off, and finally shuddered.  Thankfully, it was only me who seemed to notice.
"Yeah!" Applejack continued, "You remember how much of my cider he guzzled?  That could've killed an elephant, and he hardly had a hangover!"
"Not to mention when he first got here.  He dislocated his ankle twice, and broke his arm, but hardly even noticed."  Added Fluttershy, though quite meekly.
I sighed, remembering all the other times something like this had happened, "And unfortunately, this isn't the first time this has happened.  He's had the crap beaten out of him before the war started."
"YEAH!  Wait, what?" The question they asked hanged in the air.  I didn't know how much Wolfgang wanted people to know, since he never talked about them, but I think that we all needed some confidence boosters.
"Yeah, this isn't the first time.  He's been shot and stabbed quite a few times.  Wouldn't surprise me if he kicked this too."


Many hours later

The field was empty of wounded and dead alike.  The wounded had been taken inside of the field hospital for treatment, and cycled through to the recovery rooms, while the dead had all been trucked off somewhere's else.  And still, no word on Wolfgang.  His fate remained a mystery.  Hours later, and we were still waiting for news outside of the operating tent.
That's when it hit me, "Ah, hell.  I'm such an idiot!"
We hadn't spoken for nearly an hour, so my sudden outburst startled everybody.
Hesitantly, Spike asked, "What?"
"We're waiting in the wrong place.  If we're to find him anywhere, then he'd be in the recovery units. Come on!"  I take off running to the recovery units, which was on the other side of the main hospital tents.  They had been built just in case one of the patients happened to have an emergency and need another surgery, they wouldn't have to go far to get them into surgery.
Footsteps pounded behind me, desperately trying to keep up with me.  Oh brother, please be alright.  I rounded the corner to see the entrance, a few thin, filthy men leaving it.  They looked dead inside, as if taken by grief.  I slowed down just enough that the nurses inside wouldn't force me to leave once I entered. I brushed by the flimsy "doors", and entered.  
And the smell.  My goodness, the smell.  Piss, blood, crap, puss, and death.  Those were just the smells that humans could smell.  Being of part canine decent, I could smell emotions too, and what I smelled didn't smell good either.  It reeked of pain, misery, sadness, hopelessness, and despair.  Men were moaning in pain, with not enough pain medication to take them out of their misery, but enough to where they weren't feeling all of it.  
I scanned the three rows of beds, two being put up against the wall and the third being two beds put head to head in the middle of the room, for my brother.  Some men were too bandaged up to identify, but most you could see their faces at least.  There was even a pony on one of the beds, having somehow found sleep even though he/she had been bound heavily in bloody bandages.  
I couldn't find him purely off of looking at these guys, so the only way we were going to find out if he was here would be by reading the charts and finding his name that way, "Spread out, and look at the clipboards for his name.  If you find him, call us over."  And we went at it.
Hatfield, Morris, Jackson, Henderson, Bundy, Weisland, Wendle, Anderson, Zi-Xen, another Henderson, Enfield, Sorlo, Tequil, Golli, McMarra, and more and more and more.  But no Wolfgang Piatek.  We all combed over the room several times, looking for his name and trying to stay out of the nurses' way.  However well I may, or may not since I can't see my own face, have hid my emotions, but after each and every failure to find my brother, my frustration built up more and more until it started to boil.  WHERE IS HE!??!
"Can I help you?"  The sudden, soft voice, was so unexpected, that my frustration was swept under the rug in exchange for wondering who it was that had asked me a question.  I turned to face the voice, and was met with an older human woman.  She had fine, dark brown skin, curly black hair, and piercing black eyes.  Her face was quite pretty, slender and full of a caring drive.  
"Eh, yes ma'am.  I'm looking for my brother.  Sergeant Wolfgang Piatek.  He doesn't appear to be here.  Would you happen to have any information about him?"  I was trying keep my tone even, and calm.  That was proving to be difficult, as the moment I mentioned his first name, the nurses' face fell from the soft, kind expression, to one I could only describe as horror.
"M-May I ask your relationship to Sergeant Piatek?"  Her voice was more high pitched now, worry laced in every word.
I didn't like where this was going.  I took in a breath, and as calmly as I could, answered, "I'm his brother."  Whenever a doctor asks you what your relationship is with a patient, especially in a situation like this, they're inadvertently hinting that the situation was really bad.  
My heart suddenly seemed to be beating fast and hard, like it wanted to claw it's way out of my chest, as I waited for her to come up with a way to tell me the situation, "I'm sorry sir, but he's been in surgery for hours.  In fact he was one of the first patients admitted.  The doctors have been fighting with him nonstop, and the doctors have had to switch out at least twice last I checked."
"How bad is it?"  My voice was starting to get infected with worry, a little shaky even.
She hesitated, obviously not sure if she really should tell me, "He's fought this long, I think he'll live."  She said, trying to sound reassuring.
"How bad is it?" I repeated, sounding more anxious, even borderlining panic.
She sighed, and I could see that she didn't want to tell me, "Very."
Very.  Very bad shape.  This betrayed her statement of him thinking he'd make it, but showed how she didn't want me to worry, didn't want me to start breaking.  Even as my heart fell, I knew she'd tried to do well by me.  My shoulders slumped as if the weight of the world was dropped on them.  I came to my own realization.  He probably isn't going to make it.
The doors on the other side of the room opened up, and in came a wheeled stretcher and a few nurses.  On the stretcher was a single humanoid lump.  Not moving, and how could he?  His three remaining limbs were covered in plaster, and the rest of his body, including most of his face, were hidden underneath bloody bandages.  Then there were all the tubes and injections going into him, performing unknown purposes and connected to unknown machines.  However, I did know the purpose of one, which fed directly down his throat and nose.  An artificial lung forcefully feeding his body air.  By far, he looked far worse than anyone else in here.
*GULP*  
That was the nurse.  A feeling of dread and relief battled each other.  I hoped beyond hope that this meant Wolfgang was alive. But I also hoped against hope that this wasn't him.  This man was just so... broken.  
All sound died, as I walked towards the bound man as he was gently transferred onto the bed.  The way the nurses were being so gentle and slow, you would've figured that they were afraid that even a breeze would kill him.  My heart slowed from dread.  Please don't be him.  Please don't be him.  The nurses attached a clipboard to the metal frame that hanged at chest height from a hook, and left in a hurry to get back into operating room.
I stared at the man.  He looked to be the right size for Wolfgang, the right height, and a sniff brought dread and horror to my soul, confirming that he indeed smelled like Wolfgang.  No, he just smells like Wolf.  I must be mistaken.  The clipboard will say it's someone else!  Right?  My shaky hand lifted the clipboard to my face, and found the name, and what was wrong with him.

Name:  Piatek, Wolfgang~~~~~~~Age: 18~~~~~~~Blood Type: H(Human)O+~~~~~~~Gender: Male
Race:  Human~~~~~~Height:  6'2"~~~~~~~Eye Color: Brown~~~~~~~Hair Color: Black~~~~~~~Weight: 145 lbs.
Afflictions:  Mild dehydration, severe malnutrition, signs of dysentery, body lice, signs of rat bites (full effects to be determined)and early signs of bacterial infection of the foot (Trench Foot).
Injuries:  Severe lacerations on arms, hands, chest and face; mild concussion (source unknown); three GSWs* to the stomach affecting both large and small intestines, four GSWs to upper torso (both lungs are punctured, left lung threatening to collapse), minor GSW to left arm, major GSW to left thigh (damage to the Femoral Artery), severe damage to lower left leg (amputated just below the knee), and a stab wound to his right side, underneath the ribs (intestinal punctures).

I'd finally come to the end of the page, where the doctors notes resides, and immediately, my eyes zone in on one partial sentence, "it would be a miracle if he manages to survive, much less have a fulfilling and productive life."
"A miracle?  Pff, Wolfgang is a miracle himself!"  A raspy voice startled me out of my reading.
"Wha?  Rainbow, what do you mean he's a miracle?"  I stared into her magenta eyes.  Those big, confident eyes.
"Didn't you see him?  He ran headlong into the enemy trenches after he got shot.  He could've just laid on the ground and wait for someone to help him.  Heck, today, I've seen weaker people and ponies break down and moan.  Not him.  Not Wolfgang.  He wiped out entire positions of machine guns, and opened a path for the rest of us to get in.  When we found him, he was literally torn apart, and STILL wrestling with one of their soldiers.  He may be... like this, but there is NO WAY that he's going to roll over and give up!"  
From what little I knew about Rainbow, she didn't strike me as one for uplifting speeches, but she still managed to make me feel better about this.  She was right, Wolfgang would never let himself die from something like this.  He was too stubborn and thick headed for that.  No, he'd live just to laugh at the world for making a fuss over him.  
I just hoped he would live to see another day.

After a few days, Wolfgang finally woke up.  Initially, he panicked when he discovered the breathing tube going down his throat.  But once we got him to relax, he REALLY relaxed.  I mean, he barely managed to keep his eyes cracked open, just enough for him to see us.  The doctors themselves were surprised, but after their own reevaluations, they became flabbergasted.  Wolfgang was making a recovery, fast enough to be noticeable, but too slow to do us any real good.  His lung were still incredibly weak, and needed the assistance of the artificial lung, but he was able to stay conscious, and even write responses to our questions.  
But it wasn't to last.  He was being shipped back Stateside to continue healing and go through a therapy program, and the militia was moving out to relieve the Equestrian forces in Canterlot.  
"Don't worry man, I'll write to you, keep you some company."  Wolfgang is in an ambulance that was just about ready to leave.  Even though he still can't talk, he does smile at me, and grasps my shoulder in his stony grip.  He gives me a firm shake, looking dead into my eyes.  The meaning is clear.  
"I love you brother, stay safe."
"I love you too man, get well soon."  The driver brushes past me, separates us gently, and closes the doors.  And the ambulance takes off, kicking up mud as it goes.  This war was going to be long, but I knew in my heart that I'd be fine.  Wolfgang was my brother, and if he could do it, then so can I.  
Watch out world, here we come.