//------------------------------// // Enemy Soldiers Are Not Always Acting with Evil Intentions // Story: If You Want Peace, Prepare For War // by tranhdxrbntd //------------------------------// I am the leader of the Raiders. Unlike the other war chief, my clan has actually survived. Maybe he should have chosen better brethren. These ponies, how have they lasted two years? I have fought in eight battles against them and we've only traded three of our brethren for a couple hundred of theirs. Their heroic sacrifices will be celebrated! Then, something struck me on my chest armor. I started laughing as the gunshot was finally heard. Nothing those ponies were armed with could even hope to mar my armor. "Fellow brethren, their attempts to kill me are worthless!" I said while raising my rifle high in the air. All of my brethren, instead of joining me in my jeers, just stared at me. "Brothers?" Why were they staring at me? "Your chest," one of them said. What? I looked down at my remarkable armor. There it was. Right there, on the center of my chest, was a hole in my armor. Is that my blood coming out that hole? I touched a finger to the blood. Yes, it was my blood. I stared at the blood staining my fingers before finally realizing what this meant. I felt gravity take over as darkness filled my mind. -X-X-X- I ejected the spent round of my rifle before manually inserting a new round into the chamber and closing the bolt. Why couldn't I have gotten something other than a single shot rifle? -X-X-X- Right there! There he was, the one who shot me! He's in the right general direction and four hundred meters away. I straightened my wings and dove. -X-X-X- I folded up the bipod on my rifle. "Let's go" I said, looking at Scootaloo. She started screaming while pointing a hoof at past me. I turned around and found the reason why she was screaming. Diving towards us, was a very large griffon wearing a red scarf. Sighing, I unfolded the bipod on my rifle and gently placed it on the ground. Right as I took up my revolver in my left hand, the griffon tackled me. Ground fighting, not the best way to fight. Even worse, he was on top of me. Immediately, he raised his claws and stabbed them down at my chest. When they clunked against the ESAPI plate in my vest, I threw my right hand up in an attempt to punch him in the chin. When it landed, he recoiled back in pain. I brought up my left hand, trying to get my revolver on him. Unfortunately, he recovered in time and grabbed the barrel of my revolver right before it was pointed at his face. Six quiet gunshots reverberated throughout the room as Scootaloo emptied the cylinder of her Model 92 revolver. Unfortunately, whatever 8mm rounds that landed did absolutely nothing (retardedly anemic indeed). In fact, it looked like he hadn't even noticed getting shot. I continued my attempts to aim my revolver at his face but he was moving it further and further away. Then, I remember something very important about revolvers. Smiling, I pulled the trigger even though it was aimed completely away from his head. Now there is one very special thing about revolvers that make it very dangerous to have your hand past the cylinder when one fires. What's this reason? The cylinder gap! What's the cylinder gap? On a revolver, there is a very small gap between the cylinder and the barrel of the revolver. This small gap expels out an enormous amount of expanding gas when a round is fired. The amount of gas expelled varies between revolvers (but this is a .500 S&W Model 500 we're talking about so I'd say there's a lot). What does this mean? My opponent screamed as several of his talons were ripped free from his hands. Once again, I punched him in the chin before finally throwing him off of me. The griffon stood back up and started to charge me but I quickly lined up a shot and fired. He squawked as he took a .500 S&W magnum round to the gut. Surprisingly, he just stood there. Then he sat down, my finger tense around my revolver's trigger. Despite bleeding to death, he smiled. "No need for that anymore," he said. I kept my revolver trained on him. "Here I was, hoping that I'd see the end of this horrible conflict." Strangely enough, he just started laughing. After he had his laugh, he took off his red scarf. Scootaloo gasped. "You're a Jaegar!" He chuckled. "Not anymore, eh?" he said. He held up the scarf to me. "I want you to have this." I didn't budge. He sighed before tossing the red scarf, to which I caught in my right hand. I took a short glance at the scarf. It was a deep red color and looked like it was made of cotton. Even though the red color was still nice and clean, it was clearly well worn. "Thank you for removing this burden," he said. By now, his breathing started to grow heavier. "Just one last question," he said. I raised an eyebrow. "Why do you have such a cannon for a sidearm?" I blinked. "Why not?" I asked back. He shrugged. "At least it's some form of an answer" he replied before his head dropped down. Shortly afterwards, his chest stopped moving and his body fell forward. I waited a few seconds before lowering my revolver. Scootaloo moved closer to the griffon's body and poked it with a free hoof. "You actually killed a Jaegar," she said. I holstered my revolver and looked at the red scarf. "What's a Jaegar?" I asked her. And then I suddenly found a tiny orange horse in my vision. "You don't know what a Jaegar is?!" she exclaimed. I raised an eyebrow again. "They're the best air to air fighters that the griffons have! How do you not know what a Jaegar is?!" I shrugged and looked back at the scarf. I didn't want to wear it around my neck so I tied it down to the left side of my belt beside my S&W Model 500. It didn't hang too low (the scarf barely reached my knee) so hopefully, it wouldn't get in the way of anything. "Let's go." -X-X-X- Logan watched as the griffon that he had just shot dove towards Tran's position. "Well shit," Logan said. Eric, with his binoculars, was watching the same griffon. "Shoot him again," Eric said. But it was too late. The griffon had crashed through the window and tackled Tran. Both of them disappeared from view. A very tense moment later, Tran reappeared in the window. "Looks like I don't need to," Logan said. Elsewhere Both Applejack and Pinkie Pie sat behind a brick wall. No, they weren't getting shot at and taking cover in response. They were just simply sitting behind a brick wall. Suddenly, Pinkie Pie's dropped her party cannon (mortar) and jumped into the air as her body shook all over. "We've got a doozy!" Pinkie Pie yelled. Applejack's face blanched. "Ah hate those. Yah never know if they're good or bad," Applejack said. Pinkie Pie picked up her party cannon and giggled. "We'll find out later!" Pinkie said before she stuck her hoof into her mane and pulled out a bag of beef jerky. Applejack's stomach churned at the sight of the beef jerky. "Is that what ah think it is?," she asked. Beef was incredibly rare (cows were an intelligent species). This made beef jerky the griffon version of caviar. That was when several hundred griffons landed in front of the two of them. If Applejack's face was any paler, she could have convinced somepony that she had white fur. One of the griffons, an officer judging from his uniform, stepped up to the two of them. "We're surrendering," the griffon said. Applejack turned and look at Pinkie Pie. "Ah guess it's the good kind of doozy." "That wasn't it." -X-X-X- Rarity, with a pair of binoculars, watched as a massive formation of griffons approached Fort Platinum on foot. There were two things about the formation that really puzzled her. For one thing, they were walking. Griffons hated walking in formation, flying was faster. The more important detail regarding the formation was that her two dear friends, Pinkie Pie and Applejack, were leading the formation. "What a rather peculiar sight." -X-X-X- Twilight and Rarity stared at the formation that Pinkie Pie and Applejack brought. "All of you are surrendering?," Twilight asked. The same officer from earlier nodded. This early into the offensive and this many of them are surrendering? That was unheard of! "May I ask why?" Rarity asked, hoping to satiate her curiosity. The officer sighed. "I'm assuming that your scouts have spotted our three special service soldiers?" the officer asked. Rarity remembered the report that Twilight had given her. Even though it was confidential information, half the base had already found out about it. "The two war chiefs and the Jaegar?" Rarity responded. Applejack's eyes widened upon hearing what Rarity had said. "There are what?!" she exclaimed. The griffon officer nodded. "There were two war chiefs and a Jaegar," the officer explained. Twilight's ear twitched upon hearing him. "Were?" she asked. The griffon officer once again nodded. "One of the war chiefs was shot through the chest, the bullet completely ignoring his armor. The Jaegar was found dead from a gunshot wound that went straight through his flight coat. His scarf was missing," explained the officer. "The other war chief is missing." Applejack nearly dropped her shotgun. "All three of them are dead or missing?," Applejack asked. Twilight could have died happy then and there. This was the best news possible! Twilight looked at her friend Rarity and smiled. "Looks like we won't lose that many ponies after all!" Rarity smiled at Twilight's happiness. Applejack looked at Twilight and then back to the griffon officer. "How long do yah think 'fore everypony else finds out about this?" Applejack asked. Rarity looked at her friends and realized something important. "Well that depends, dear. How long ago did Pinkie disappear?" Rarity asked. -X-X-X- Logan ducked down into concealment (there is a difference between cover and concealment) and worked the bolt on his Mosin Nagant. He and Tran had been taking turns taking pot shots. Their targets had been soldiers that appeared to be important. Anyone whose appearance was different from the others were shot, especially those that had an obvious and ostentatious accessory or uniform item. It was only a coincidence that they had shot a Jaegar and war chief. Lucky for Equestria, huh? Logan heard the familiar boom of Tran's .338 Lapua. Standing out of concealment, he took aim again. When a bullet whizzed over his head, he ducked back down. "Time to move," Logan said. Eric, who was at a different window, quickly moved away from his window. They hadn't noticed him yet but waiting for that to happen wasn't necessarily the smartest of ideas. He tucked his binoculars into a small pouch and brought his AK74 to bear. -X-X-X- Five hundred eighty-three. That was how many griffons had surrendered. Before, the highest number of enemy soldiers to have surrendered all at once was a little over two hundred. It was barely noon and an entire battalion's worth of soldiers had surrendered. Twilight sat at her desk and filled out the paperwork (the bane of literally everything's and everyone's existence) to allow someone else to fill out the paperwork (more proof of why paperwork is so horrible) for the paperwork (yep) for the prisoners. As she dipped her quill into an inkwell, she contemplated shooting herself. While she was slightly depressed, it was more because of all of the paperwork that she still had left. Rarity trotted into the room and dropped off more paperwork, forcing a groan from Twilight. Inside her thoughts, Twilight was fighting a mental battle over the option of setting fire to everything. Rarity suppressed a giggle and sat down on a stack of paperwork. "Perhaps we should hire or appoint somepony to a position solely for filling out paperwork," Rarity said. Twilight slammed her face down on the current form she was working on. "I don't think I could ever sentence somepony to that type of Tartarus," Twilight said in response to Rarity's idea. Rarity looked at the stacks of paperwork that Twilight still hadn't finished. "Oh, but I'm sure somepony somewhere has a cutie mark for that," Rarity said. "Anyways, a large section of enemy forces are advancing upon a pair of buildings two kilometers east of us." Twilight, head still slammed down into a paper form, asked, "Who and what are posted in these buildings?" "Nopony knows," Rarity answered. Twilight lifted her head from her desk. "What are the scouts telling us about the building?" Rarity brought a piece of paper out of the stack of paper she dropped off and read it aloud. "Two companies worth of soldiers currently assaulting two buildings two kilos east of home post. Possible enemy reinforcements. One friendly personnel spotted, unidentified EA soldier with arms. No known assets in buildings. Three unidentified soldiers spotted. Species, unknown. Weapons, rifles. Equipment, unknown." Rarity set the paper down on Twilight's desk, who had decided to read the report herself. "Send a mortar team there. Have them shell whatever they're sending to attack the building. Make sure they avoid those three unidentified soldiers." Rarity nodded and walked away.