Hopeful trotted with a fire in his eyes. A burning, hypnotic sensation of revenge pulsed through him. Hopeful was never a violent pony, but after everything he had been through, everything he had been told, he now wanted to put an end to the Pegasi more than ever.
From them causing the blizzard that destroyed his crops, to the murders of his wife and his young, innocent daughter. For the time he had spent grieving, to find somepony who finally broke through to him, somepony he loved and just to have her taken away again. He knew that what they always said about Pegasi was true. That they were heartless, greedy dimwits with no morals, with only a lust for blood and war.
That was of course why they started this, the war. They changed the weather to make it snow, then raided towns for food. All to get rid of Earth ponies, to starve them to death. And the Unicorns, they attacked the Earth ponies too, trying to take the opportunity to take them out as well, like they almost worked together.
Hopeful’s head had never been clearer. The Pegasi deserved to die.
These thoughts showered his brain as he stomped forward, following the scarlet trail like a viscous bloodhound. Nearly quarter an hour had passed since he sent out Glisten and Spring. After they left, he packed up and stayed on watch for a while, until he couldn't sit there anymore and decided to slowly follow the trail.
His ears perked up as he heard a shouting from behind him. “HOPEFUL! OVER HERE!”
He twirled around and saw Glisten and Spring with Quick, Fury, Sharp, and Basalt behind them, Fury and Quick hauling a Bucker Machine Gun each on their backs and Basalt and Sharp carrying separate parts of a mortar in their saddlebags.
Hopeful limply sprinted up to them, delighted.
“Got everything you asked for, Hopeful,” Spring said then saluted Hopeful as he reached them.
“Brilliant! Now we just have to follow the trail.” Hopeful glanced over his shoulder back at the speckles of blood leading away.
Sharp lifted up a hoof sheepishly and waited to be noticed by Hopeful.
Hopeful turned back. “Yes, Sharp?”
“Umm, sir... not to interrupt you, but... agh but...” As Sharp stuttered, trying to formulate his question, he was interrupted by Basalt, who finished Sharp's sentence for him. “But we haven't been told exactly what we're doing out here. Glisten just grabbed me out of the town hall and said something about shooting a Pegasus before we ran here.”
“We're doing what we’ve been trained for. We're gonna take out a Pegasus military base.” He spun around to face away from them and pointed in the direction of the trail. “A Pegasus was watching us, I put a bullet in him and he flew back to where he came from, leaving a blood trail. We're gonna follow it and once we reach the end of it we'll know the base is above us. Then it's a matter of shooting it out of the sky.” He gestured his hoof towards the looming clouds.
Quick raised his hoof in excitement, “Finally we get to dish out some justice!”
The rest of them nodded and smiled in agreement except Sharp Eye, who shifted his eyes around at the rest before joining in and Fury, who stood there with a cold deadpan stare at Hopeful.
Hopeful turned back to them and spotted Fury acting as the odd one out, “There ain't gonna be no problems from you, are there, Fury?”
Fury turned his head outward to the clouds. “No sir there ain't. I'll follow orders. Even though I know what you think of me, I'm here to do my duty to fight for The Nation of Great Bridleton, not make friends.”
“Glad to hear it.” Hopeful turned to Glisten. “You still have those camouflage sheets? Everypony is gonna have to use one if we don't want to be spotted.”
“Of course!” She bit open her saddlebag and yanked out a few thin, snow-white cloth sheets.
They gathered around to each get one. Spring took out some of his own, and as Hopeful went to get his own out of his bag, Basalt walk up to him.
She spoke to him quietly. “Sir, I reported to command, just like you asked.” Hopeful looked up at her and listened intuitively as she kept speaking. “It went fine and all, they're very glad that we managed to get here so quickly after our train crashed, but they weren't very happy that they couldn't speak with the captain. Said they didn't want to talk about ''classified'' information to a low-class private. They did tell me that they recaptured Furford with minimum casualties, but that's about all I got out of them.”
“Don't worry, Basalt, you did your best. After this I'll be sticking to home base. Thanks for doing that for me though.” Hopeful then pulled his sheet around his body and inspected the others as they put on theirs.
Basalt spun around to Spring, “Hey, pass me one of-” She was cut off as Spring flung a sheet at her. It landed on her head and covered her face.
She slowly lifted up the front to reveal her one raised eyebrow directed at Spring.
He replied with a simple “What?” and a smile.
Everypony eventually wrapped themselves in the cloaks and fitted the built-in hoods above their helmets. The edges of the cloaks fell and touched the snow at their hooves to prevent obvious shadows. The cloaks were loose and covered all of their gear, blending them into the blank landscape.
Hopeful briefed them before their excursion. “Okay, everypony, remember your training and stay low. Stick close to me and don't make any noise. Last thing we want to do is get spotted with a Thunder Cannon above our heads. Speaking of, keep an eye on the sky. Watch out for any pony-made thing poking out like a periscope.” Hopeful lifted his hood above his head, a tight fit with his helmet. “Once we find them and get close enough, we're gonna blow them out of the sky. Lets teach them how to really make it rain.” Hopeful smirked. “Are you ready?!”
“Sir, yes, Sir!”
The march was slow.
The crawl was painful.
The watching of the skies became tiresome.
But every step Hopeful took was a step towards doing the right thing.
They had been following the blood for seemingly ages at this point, so long that the gentle snowfall was beginning to cover up the tracks. Early on in the journey they found a spot where the Pegasus must have landed and bandaged himself, evident from the hoof prints, the hole in the snow and the large amount of blood, after which the trail became much harder to follow, with only a few drops of blood every couple meters. The snow kept growing, the red splashes fading into a light pink.
This just led to Hopeful concentrating harder, as he refused to give up. He was on the prowl, watching for any trace, like a hawk. His soldiers, behind him in the triangle formation, similar to a flock of birds, following to what might have been the end of the world if he hadn't stopped.
Which he did, eventually. Once he couldn't see the blood anymore, he turned back and he couldn't see the blood there either, the snow had become too thick. Hopeful felt the rage build up in his gut. He stomped his hoof into the snow angrily, cussing under his breath.
The wind began picking up, pushing the cold breeze into them.
His soldiers laid down onto the ground, the snow making a satisfying crushing noise as it collapsed, cupping around their bodies. They were tired, especially those hauling the heavy weaponry, which weighed a ton, irritating their backs.
They were almost at the point of shivering, their winter coats and camouflage blankets held out the snow and kept in the heat decently, but they wouldn't keep hypothermia at bay forever.
Hopeful raised his head and wandered forward, then in a circle trying to find anything he could. The rest watched him stomp around for a while, then frustratingly give up.
“Shit! Fuck...” Hopeful trotted up to the rest, head hung low. “I shoulda went sooner, dammit... How far do these fucks live!?” He fell to his knees and let himself fall onto his side. “I should have just killed that Pegasus, instead of letting him get away... fucking hell.”
The clouds began shifting as a blizzard began forming. The soldiers got to their hooves and watched the winds in the distance get more violent.
Spring went and sat down beside Hopeful, “Hopeful, can we go back now?”
“That's probably best, yeah.” Hopeful sighed, defeated, and pulled himself up to stand. “Come on, everypony, let's hurry. Weather is picking up.”
As a group, they turned around to go back the way they came, re stepping into their own hoofprints.
All of them were disappointed as they walked dishearteningly back. Quick Draw swore under his breath, being livid alongside Hopeful, who went between them to get to the front of the pack. On his way, he asked Glisten a question. “Do you have your map? We're gonna need to follow it when the snow covers up our steps.”
“Let me get it out, one moment.” She sat down and the rest of them waited, she lifted up her camo blanket to open her bag, once she did she reached down to bite onto the map sticking out of her saddlebag.
She brought the map out and was surprised by the wind smashing into her, as it sped up instantly and without warning. Glisten shut her eyes and tried to block the winds with her hoof, she collapsed into the snow and the map flew out from between her teeth. She reached out a hoof trying to grab it as it flew upwards. “No! Aw, shoot.”
“Fuck! What are we gonna do now?!” Spring, wide-eyed, watched the map float up into the clouds.
“Calm down, Darling, I have another. But let's get out of the wind before I take it out, agreed?” Glistens voice was nearly drowned out by the weather.
Hopeful said, now shouting. “Actually we might have to start running; this looks like it’s gonna be a big one. Everyone ready-y-y... What the fuck?” He glanced a look at the floating map getting thrown about in the air and behind it noticed something quite peculiar. An almost glowing, white substance that blended in with the clouds with shining blue eyes. It moved upward into the skies, blowing the clouds with a powerful gust of wind. It flew strangely gracefully and majestically and looked as if it had ghostly legs and body. Hopeful could have sworn it was galloping.
Everypony spun around and watched in awe as the creature blew a massive barrage of wind into the clouds, separating them. Then it disappeared, just like that. The sun beamed light down the gaping hole, the snow lit up to be almost blindingly bright. While the rest rubbed their eyes in both shock and the shift in light, Hopeful stared up into the crater in the cloud. He reached down for the binoculars hanging around his neck and lifted them up to his eyes.
There he saw, standing on top of the clouds, holding a pair of their own binoculars, staring right back at him.
A Pegasus, in full steel battle armor.
Behind them were buildings made from steel, flags of the Pegasi nation of Pegassia and a clear-as-day Thunder Cannon at their side.
For a very brief moment in time, the Pegasus and Hopeful stared at each other.
Hopeful could feel in his heart a gentle build up of realization.
He blinked, shook his head and saw that the Pegasus did the same.
Hopeful bellowed. “FIGHTING POSITIONS!”
He jumped onto his stomach, kicking back snow with his legs, digging into it for cover. Glisten and Spring did the same, practically synchronized.
“GET THOSE MACHINE GUNS UP! BASALT, SHARP, SET UP THAT MORTAR!”
Fury and Quick ripped off their camouflage sheets and threw the guns down into the snow, landing with a sudden indent and crunch into the snow, but then turning into a gentle descent down further. They jumped into the snow beside the guns and hurried in setting them up, raising them onto their bipods and loading them.
In the same moments, Basalt and Sharp struggled with the mortar, fumbling pieces and dropping them into the snow, before frantically scooping them up. Together, they began assembly, standing it up and trying to get it ready to shoot. Basalt threw down her saddlebag down onto the ground, it was filled to the brim with mortar shells, some spilling out into the snow.
Hopeful, now aiming his rifle, watched as the Pegasi did the same. Desperately trying to prepare for attack before their enemies did. He watched as the Pegasi shouted out orders and his soldiers ran around, some preparing for a fly-by, some arming and steering the Thunder Cannons, all in the span of a few seconds.
Hopeful transitioned into a state of deep concentration and took his first shot, aiming at the Pegasus General. The distance was too great to see where the bullet had landed, he could only barely make out the Pegasi's shock of a bullet whizzing by as they ducked for cover. He instinctively counted the shot by saying “One...” to himself.
Hopeful glanced at the Thunder Cannon, a monstrous death-machine. It consisted of a driver's seat connected to a humongous metal cylinder with shiny steel containers attached for cooling and reloading. A thick steel ring ran around the chamber, slowly rising up it. Once it had reached the top it would be armed, ready to fire. Once it would fire, the ring would crash down, creating the iconic thunder clashing noise. A periscope was dropped through the clouds for aiming as the cannon was flown into other clouds using razor sharp propellers that spun at hundreds of revolutions a second.
A platoon of Pegasi flew threw the hole, prepared to fire their droppers onto Hopeful and his soldiers once they had gotten above them. Some of the Pegasi looked terrified, flapping their wings ferociously in a nervous breakdown to pure instinct. They could taste the cold cancer of death in the back of their throats as they knew they could be shot down at any moment.
For one instant in time, Hopeful felt an exuberant rush of adrenaline, mixed with the malice joy of being feared. Then it quickly turned to a strange sympathy, as he felt the cool chill of a possible death run down his own spine, the grasp of ''What if'' had filled his mind like the ongoing storm. What if this is where he dies? What if any of his friends die? What if this was all a massive mistake? A thousand questions blinked through his mind.
He pulled back the bolt of his rifle.
He set those thoughts aside, realizing his situation and how his only option was to fight. He pushed the bolt back, readying his gun and aiming at one of the six Pegasi flying toward them.
He heard two shots go off, from either side of him. One of the fleet stopped flapping, nosedived and smashed into the snow, leaving a gory mush of a corpse in a tiny crater in the dirt. Spring, who was to Hopeful’s right, was in a rush cocking his rifle, angrily shouting to himself after he missed. “Fuck, Fuck!”
Hopeful fired his round, yet again counting, “Two...” He hit the center flier as they zigzagged in the sky, trying to dodge the bullets. The Pegasus fell and crashed into the ground similarly to the last, only much closer this time. The stench of death hit them all as the wind blew the scent of the desecrated Pegasi corpse towards them.
The four remaining fliers pushed against the tormenting winds, nearly above their targets they armed their Droppers seconds away from Hopeful's regiment.
As they grew closer, Hopeful, Glisten, and Spring managed to fire their shots once more. They were all shaking from the chilling fear and nerves.
They missed all their shots.
Hopeful braced for an impact, waiting for the screech as the Pegasi reached them.
Instead he heard a rattle from directly behind him causing his shoulders to jolt up in surprise as Quick Draw managed to ready his Machine gun. Hopeful twisted his head back to see Quick with a stomach-curling calmness on his face, leading up to a grin as he kept firmly holding the trigger. Pointing the gun practically directly upward, each of the Pegasi hadn't the chance to drop their grenades before they were shot down. Blood stained the bottom of the cloud-cover as the Pegasi dived to the earth, barely overshooting Hopefuls group.
Once they landed, their grenades triggered, one by one as they hit the dirt.
Each of their bodies went down with a focused explosion, devastating the ground along with each carcass of the Pegasi as the impact of the explosion shredded their bodies, launching blood and guts into the air.
The stench was toxic to Hopeful’s Troop. Holding their breaths was a slim mercy as eventually their lungs demanded air and their mouths fell to their demands. They opened their mouths, inhaling the vile, polluted air. Most of them held back the need to vomit as their throats clogged with the infectious, dreadful taste of the air.
Hopeful willed through, looking back up, realizing the snow around him had been splattered red, and without-a-doubt so was he. He could not feel it though, as the dampness of his sweat washed out the feeling of anything else that grazed him.
The hole in the sky that had once been there was now gone, covered by the propelled clouds. The Thunder Cannon could be anywhere.
He turned back to Basalt and Sharp, just now finishing the mortar, focused on its assembly like their lives depended on it, because they did.
“FIRE A C.C. SHELL ABOVE US NOW!” Hopeful barked the order at Basalt.
“CLOUD CLEARER COMING UP!” she shouted back as she found a mortar shell with the two letters ''C.C.'' imprinted on.
She nodded to Sharp, who nervously nodded back, holding the mortar in position, then dropped the shell into the tube and leaned back, covering her ears.
The C-C shell ripped through the sky. With its uniquely carved tip, it was designed to spin through the air while creating a wide cone of air that would burst through and separate the clouds, finishing off with an incendiary detonation, burning as much of the clouds as possible.
The eruption of flame came from the newly opened hole above them, hitting a group of Pegasi by surprise. One directly under the blast got set aflame, his mane and coat coated with napalm.
They caught fire and this Pegasus panicked, jumping into and rolling in the clouds, screaming his lungs out before deciding to jump down to the cool snow below.
Halfway through his descent he was mowed down by Quicks machine gun. A burning, bullet-riddled body lay in the snow a short distance away from them.
Fury cocked his now assembled machine gun, noisily racking the first round.
He looked up at the unsuspecting Pegasi running out of their dormitories, lunch halls and armories, trying to prepare a defense.
He held down the trigger, firing round after round into the sky. Pegasi collapsed left and right.
Fury began shooting through the clouds themselves, no-longer aiming through the hole as the ponies standing around it had ran away or been shot.
Hopeful, Glisten and Spring joined into the bombardment, firing their rifles into the sky.
Sharp and Basalt took initiative and armed their mortar again, this time with a H.E. round.
Sharp looked down the sights of the mortar, a tiny angled scope that pointed upward with distance markings embedded into the sight.
He waited to spot the Thunder Cannon, adjusting the sights around the cloud breach until he saw the tip of the Cannon peak out from behind a building. Aiming the mortar in the Thunder Cannon’s path, he gave the go ahead to Basalt and she launched the round.
It screeched through the air, barely grazing its barrel. It scratched the paint before knocking against the ring at the very top.
It erupted and instantly killed the pilot. The Cannon was bent and disfigured, the seat on its side blown off. only a short second passed before another explosion was heard, this one much larger as the chain reaction of the Mortar round set off the primed Lightning shell in the Cannon itself.
The explosion blew away everything in its path. The shockwave nearly erupted Hopeful’s eardrums as the air flung him down into the snow. His vision blurred and he felt both a migraine and a fuzzy tickle in his muscles. Several massive buildings were flattened around the blast, nothing more than smoldering scrap. The tremendous boom, in an aftershock, emitted lightning. The Pegasi that had been outside of its large blast radius, and the ones that were not disintegrated instantly, got hit by bolts of lightning, killing most, if not, paralyzing them for what short amount of life they had left.
Hopeful stared at the ravaging destruction they had just caused. He watched as the incredibly tall Thunder Cannon blew away the cloud it had been held up on. The smoldering metal chucks of the death machine began falling through the sky, along with scraps of other buildings all around them.
Hopeful shouted out.
“BRACE FOR IMPACT!”
Slags of steel collapsed around them, still sparking with electricity.
They all tried to dig themselves into the snow, as far as possible, as fast as possible.
But it seemed like the winds were on their side, as chunk after chunk fell and missed them by a hair’s breadth.
They waited until it became relatively quiet, the wind had calmed and the blizzard came to an abrupt ending.
Once the snow had settled, they popped their heads out of the ground. Hopeful watched as shadows coming from above the clouds flew away, retreating.
Quick swiftly shouted up at them. “RUN YOU COWARDS! WOO!”
Sharp stared upward, looking at the vast crater in the clouds left after the explosion. He scanned from side to side until he looked directly above him. He saw red hot metal slag, stuck into the cloud over his head, melting through it slowly. “AHHH!” He screamed louder than he ever had in his life as he fumbled up out of the snow, trying to jump out from its path.
The chunk fell, its razor-sharp, jagged edges flying toward him. Everypony scrambled away, Sharp only making it so far before it landed on top of his hind-leg, slicing it into two clean halves.
“AGHHH, AGHHHHHH” His screams deteriorated into sobbing. “Aghhhh... agh... ahhh...”
Spring jumped to his hooves, taking out medical supplies. He jumped in and pulled Sharp away from the slag and began patching up his leg.
“SHARP! Are you ok, buddy?” Hopeful kept switching from watching the Pegasi escape and Sharp bleeding, unsure of what to do next.
Basalt and Glisten gathered around Sharp.
“It’s ok, darling, deep breaths. You're going to live.” Glisten sat beside him, holding his hoof. She glanced up at Spring. “He is going to live, right?”
Spring took out disinfectant, simply a bottle of rubbing alcohol and poured some onto his own hoof before applying it to his stump of a leg. Spring waited for Sharp’s ear piercing scream to end before answering. “Yeah, he'll live. Might have to get him a pegleg after, but he'll live.”
Basalt looked up from the ongoing field-surgery and at Hopeful. “We have to go back. Sharp needs to get into a bed and shelter fast.”
Sharp pleaded threw the pain. “Please-eeees....”
Quick, who had been watching the Pegasi retreat also turned to Hopeful. “We have them on the run. If we go after them now, we could finish them all off for good.”
Hopeful shook his head between them before shutting his eyes. He thought for a moment before opening them again. “Alright, Spring. Can you carry Sharp back to base?”
“I can help him walk, yeah,” he said, and returned to stitching up the wound.
“Great. The rest of you, we gotta pack this stuff up and then go finish the job.”
Basalt looked, questioningly, “Are you sure Hopeful, wouldn't it be best to go again another day?”
Glisten stood up. “And what if somepony else gets hurt and Spring isn't be with us?”
“Don’t worry about getting hurt. This happened way too suddenly and we're lucky as shit to not all be dead. We'll keep our distance this go around, take our time. Also if we wait till tomorrow, then they’ll have time to prepare for us, it will be much harder to fight them then. We should go while we have the advantage.”
Quick began packing up his machine gun away. “Yeah! Let's do this! Come on, Glisten, I know you wanna.”
She let out a sigh. “Not particularly... but if you all think it's what's best, then I’ll come.”
Spring began lifting a nerve-shot Sharp Eye from the ground and put his hoof around his shoulder to help him walk, “Don't worry, Hopeful. I'll be getting him home safe. Just make sure no one else dies, especially you. Promise?”
“I promise, nopony is going to die. Do you have a map to get back?”
“Of course. We packed like five.”
“Great... Everyone else ready?”
As Glisten and Basalt began packing the Mortar, Basalt replied, “Yes, Sir, one minute.”
Hopeful watched as Spring and Sharp hobbled away.
He eventually turned to face the direction the Pegasi flew. He pulled out his binoculars and could spot the shadows. He counted about twenty, all flying in the same direction.
Hopeful was snuck up on by Fury from the side. “Well, Sir, what's your brilliant plan this time to find where those Pegasi went?” he asked mockingly, meaning it to be a rhetorical question.
“They’re going to be going to some smaller base or scout camp, or just set up temporary shelter on a cloud. Which should be easy to spot their shadows as they don't have time to camouflage the clouds, so building foundations would be easily seen. But to be completely honest with you...” He paused as he stared at another glowing white substance gliding away, same as the one from earlier, flying the same direction as the Pegasi.
He set down his binoculars. “...I’ve got a gut feeling.”