"...so, you got all that?"
Eff Stop and Long Shot nodded at Flash Sentry, all three walking a dozen meters away from marching platoons in their battalion shaking the land with their steps and muddying the dirt with their set of hoofprints, moving onward through the valley.
A valley with no grass, no trees. Only dirt and rocks.
"Good," Flash said, opening his wings. "I gotta fly. Some errands to do before I return to Canterlot."
And, he did fly, leaving the press ponies on their own with the soldiers.
Those two marched along with them, silent and not asking a single question.
Lighthoof had been a respectable city. Its brooks and rivers winded through many streets, which made bridges an abundant resource here. Hills overlooking residential areas were not uncommon, and the variety of trees was more than enough to make a botanist gush over the hidden treasures in this urban field. Many parking lots, parks with lots of benches and trees and ponds—these provided wide open spaces where ponies could have played and talked and relaxed.
Of coruse, the key phrase here was "had been".
What once was a respectable city now was a ruin. Wreckage. Buildings torn apart, debris littered about the streets, those very same streets cracked and damaged. Streetlights and trees uprooted from their seemingly fixed positions, now lying down across some frontyard or backyard—and that, too, had only smidges of green, for the plants had been smashed or made desolate already.
Ravens and crows perched on the broken rooftops of a library. They cawed and abandoned their posts as the sounds of hoofsteps became louder.
Five ponies. Three guards wearing their armor, two press ponies holding on to their hats—well, at least Eff Stop could while hovering.
Long Shot looked upon the birds flying, set against the dark and cloudy sky. Her hooves touched upon the rough and bumpy road, sidestepping fallen debris like concrete chunks and toppled trees.
Stepped on a sharp rock.
"Ow!"
Held her hoof up and tightly covered the wound up with a bandage from her saddle bag.
"Hey, slowpoke!" Spanner yelled at her, standing atop a pile of concrete pieces. "You better get moving! Their scouts are quick to spot us, and we best get to suitable cover."
Long Shot trotted faster, wincing at each step with her cut hoof, trying to catch up with a flying Eff Stop.
The three-floor restaurant was deserted, in a great disarray.
Tables and chairs overturned, fridges and storage containers empty and void of anything edible. Trash and garbage strewn about, emitting a horrible stench. A white hat at the first step to the next story.
The second floor was in shambles, too. Potted plants had been knocked over, shelves had collapsed, and the windows at the facade had their glass panes shattered. Plenty of those fragments of glass were still scattered about, giving the ponies there cause to tiphoof their way around them.
Away from the sunlight, they finally rested, sitting on the only couch that was not totally devastated by either civilian panic or by martial weapons—for, over there, by the corner, was another couch but riddled with arrows shot deep into it.
Long Shot whirled her head around, drinking in the display of destruction before her. "Is it safe to talk—"
"Shush!" Macnam glared at her with mad eyes. "How long were you a war reporter, anyway?"
Eff Stop patted her on the head, looking at the Crystal pony with an anxious grin. "We're both doing double time. You see, we're supposed to be three, but Press Release fell into a cold this Monday."
"Nice excuse," Spanner blathered, leaning her head out of another wall's cover and getting a good view of the outside through the broken windows. "Don't use it again."
Eff Stop pursed his lips.
"Why exactly are we hiding out here?" Long Shot asked, nervous. "They said this is the big push that will change the course of the war."
Spanner chuckled without looking at her. "You're so naive, aren't you? How many big pushes did we have before this one? All of them were supposed to end it in two weeks."
"But, this could be the one!"
"Yeah, me, too," muttered Sandbar, sitting on the couch with sad hooves on his cheeks.
"Well, don't set your expectations high," she replied.
Spanner gasped.
"Get your head back!" she whispered, almost at normal volume—her face in fright. "I hear them!"
They pulled their heads back behind the wall.
Incoming gust.
Papers, leaves, rocks swept up outside.
Flaps of wings.
And, all they saw was the marred environment of the restaurant, lit by bleak sunlight.
"Why don't we just move?" Long Shot asked in a hushed voice. "We have lots of numbers."
"We don't know how many numbers they have," Macnam answered. "If they wipe us out, a thousand ponies down and for no good reason."
"Then, why don't we just bomb the city?"
"We've bombed it more than enough times," Spanner said. "We need to maintain as much of the infrastructure as possible while keeping and repairing key structures in the area. If this operation succeeds, this will be our new base where we can replenish our supplies—also, closer to the Crystal Empire and its walls. Fortify it, and we'll have reclaimed Lighthoof."
A sigh.
"It's a shame nopony lives here anymore."
"Yeah, a shame," Sandbar blurted out.
"Be cooperative, and it won't be a shame tomorrow," Spanner replied. "Or next week."
Then, half a minute of waiting on that couch.
Silence, except for the wind.
"I'll go check," Spanner said, hopping out of the couch. "Macnam, watch over the stairs. Sandbar, keep an eye on me and the press."
Macnam leaped to the start of the stairs and Sandbar stood up to take care of the seated civilians.
Spanner stepped carefully, doing her best to avoid snapping a floorboard or hurting herself with the shards of glass sprinkled about.
Finally, she crouched low, hiding under the open window while using a thick rug to shield her hooves from more piles of sharp shards.
She lifted her head up, obtaining a good vantage point of the outside.
Hit in the head by an arrow.
Fell limp to the floor.
Sandbar screamed.
Eff Stop jumped out and covered his mouth. "Get a hold of yourself!"
"It's an ambush!" Macnam whispered to them across the room. "Don't freak out and stay here! If we go outside, we'll be attacked on all sides!"
Long Shot shivered, holding on to her bag with a mean grip. "Tell my family I love them!"
"There won't be anypony to tell your family if we all keep shouting!" Macnam said, raising his voice but controlling his whisper. "Don't say a word, and we might get out of this alive!"
Sandbar shuddered, his armor clanking at his shuddering. He clattered his teeth, peeking at his spear holstered on his torso.
Harsh hoofsteps coming in.
Macnam steeled his stance, getting his spear out. "If it gets too much for me, run out of the windows and get to safety—and Sandbar, get here!"
Sandbar gulped, eyes shivering. "B-But, what if—"
Macnam howled, charging down the stairs.
Clinks of metal. Fighting on the ground floor.
"Y-You heard him, right?!" Sandbar yelled at the two other ponies there. "Lets' get outta' here!"
Three ponies running on the streets.
Dodging arrows.
Then, dodging rocks and arrows.
Catapulted rocks, then bigger stones and boulders.
Hopping sideways, avoiding debris and jumping into husks of what used to be homes, stores, offices, factories. Over tables, through door frames and windows.
Inside, outside, inside, outside.
To an open park of fallen trees.
"Sandbar!" Eff Stop yelled, flying as fast as he could while keeping up the pace with Long Shot. "This isn't a good place to—"
"I'm trying to live!" he yelled back at him, turning his head round to face the contrarian. "I'm a trained soldier, so I should know what to do and where to go and—"
Bumped into a standing tree and fell down.
"No!" Long Shot cried out. "What are we gonna do?! We can't just leave him out here!"
"He left a buddy back in the restaurant," he replied, picking him up with his forehooves while flapping his wings. "But, I have an idea."
"Put me down!" Sandbar screamed, scared while being propped up over huge swaths of land, Long Shot galloping below him on the broken roads. He struggled to get out of the pegasus's grip, wriggling his hooves about but to no avail. "This is embarrassing! Next thing you know, they'll laugh at me for being saved by some random reporter pony!"
"I'm not some random reporter pony, thank you very much!" Eff Stop replied, bothered. "And, would you stop moving around so much? You'll make this so much easier for the both of us!"
Sandbar looked down.
He screamed some more.
Arrows shot by, almost tearing through his mane.
"Whoops!" Eff Stop lowered himself down, still gliding a good distance over the ground. "Got too confident over there."
"You could've killed me!" Sandbar yelled.
"Could've. Now, stop your whining!"
Hiding under a bridge, sitting on the bed of a dried out river, the three of them hobbled close together, staying underneath the shadow of the stone passage overhead.
"I think we'll be safe here," Eff Stop said, feeling the water dripping from his hat. "Nopony gets their heads out in the open, and we'll be fine."
"But, for how long?" Long Shot asked, also wearing a wet hat."We can't possibly hang in here for weeks! I only brought enough food for...ten days!"
"Could I borrow some of that food?" Sandbar asked sheepishly.
Long Shot glared at him.
"Or...not, because I totally have, uh, food, too!"
He laughed nervously.
Eff Stop sighed, taking his hat out and wringing it clean from the soaking water. "The plan is, we stay here until our armies get control over this part of the city or until it's nighttime. Either way, we sneak our way to a friendly soldier, they recognize us, and we're home free."
"You're home free," Sandbar barged in, putting on grave turns of his lips, "but I'll remain here. Spanner's dead and Macnam..."
He looked at his forehooves with those eyes.
Those eyes that stared a million miles.
"Did I...did I just abandon a friend? Left him to die?"
A gaining whistle in the air.
Getting louder.
Sandbar gasped. "We need to get out of—"
Boom.
All buried in dirt and stone.