//------------------------------// // Magic > Guns & Bullets // Story: My Little Midway // by Kitsune_Kenshi //------------------------------// COMMANDER DICK BEST (3rd POV) Dick slid into his cockpit, with Twilight in the red gunner's seat. Dick saw Twilight studying the twin .30 cals curiously, "Hey Twi!" he asked, "ya know how to use that thing?" "How?" Twilight asked. Dick sighed, "All right, so the belt are fed already, now all you do is to pull that lever back, to load it up. Then you pull the trigger under the handle, after that, you kill." But he was cut short by Twilights outburst of fear, "YOU WHAT?!" "You kill, any problem?" Dick frowned, "I suppose killing is forbidden where you're from?" "Not really, but we don't usually get into war or kill anypony." Twilight said. "Welp, you'll have to get use to it," Dick said, "cuz we do that A LOT." Twilight shivered just thinking using this .30 cal to take away life from a living thing, but war is war; you don't kill your enemy, he'll kill you. "I prefer magic than this killing machine," Twilight said, levering the .30 cals away, "I know a few attack spell." Now Dick is really intersected, can magic even do damage to the Japs' Zeros? Or at least scratch it? Guess have to find out in combat. But Twilight's attack spell us even madder than Dick thought, just see how she used it on Tirek, it nearly wiped out the entire battlefield. Though that's when she combined the Princesses's magic, but do not EVER underestimate her power. "Just do what you can, and hang on, cuz we're going now." Dick said as he increased the airspeed. The propeller is spinning faster and faster as the air pulled the SBD forward. An instructor raised a small red flag and pointed towards the end of the deck, signaling Dick to go. Dick gave a thumbs-up and pointed his hand forward, then the plane began to move. "What are you doing?!" Twilight cried, "Your plane is going to fall into the water!" Dick smirked, "Then GRAB ONTO SOMETHING!!!" "YOU'RE CRAZY!!!" Twilight shouted. "THAT'S MY NICKNAME!" The landing gears of the dive-bomber sank the moment the plane reached the end of the deck. Twilight covered her eyes with her hooves. But cold feeling of water did not came, she opened her eyes and was shocked to see that SBD Dauntless is flying away from the carrier, instead of drowning, it flew upward. "We're airborne." Dick said. "Wha... How?" Is all Twilight could say. "Well, Aircraft carrier's deck isn't that long, so the carrier itself have to travel in the right speed to help a SBD to take off. Or it'll just splash into the water. As for landing, we have a landing hook attached on our plane's tail, an arresting wire in also on the carrier's landing deck, once we're ready to land we'll drop the landing hook, then the arresting wire would catch it and force our plane into a stop. Speaking o which, your friends are having a little trouble." Dick said as he pointed his left hand at few SBDs struggling to take off behind them. Calaeno's SBD nearly crashed, but she pulled it up in time. Though Dick couldn't see the expression on Calaeno's face, he's pretty sure the captain just came from hell back to the living. Skystar is in Wade's SBD, instead of nervous she looked excited, must be an adventure type. Tempest is on Jackson's SBD, with a slightly amused expression while studying her twin .30 cals. Capper is behind Calaeno, same plane, playing around with the machine guns while enjoying the view. Dick sighed, knowing that the battle coming next would be beyond their imagination, PTSD is coming for them. But Dick's mind drifted away when he received an order from the admiral. "Enterprise to Commander Dick, stay in formation until you have visual on the enemy fleet, and also, keep an eye on our new guests." The admiral's voice came from the radio, "The Corsairs will be with your squadron any minute now." "The Corsairs?" Twilight asked, confused. "Ah yes, the F4U Corsairs," Dick explained, "those Naval fighters never miss a chance to escort us. You'll see later, they've a pair of slightly tipped wings. And huge heads." He then looked to his right, "Speaking of the devil, look to your 4 o'clock." Everyone (Except for the humans) gazed at their 4 o'clock, immediately they spotted more than 10 navy blue aircrafts flying along side of them. They're much smaller than the SBD, their wings bended in a slightly upper angle, each wings has three holes in front of it, must be the .50 cals the humans been talking about. The Corsair looked '20% cooler' than the SBD, as Rainbow Dash would say, and their maneuverability is also, obviously greater than the SBDs. Though they have the Corsairs as shields, none of them want to encounter and deal with the Zeros. (~) The journey towards the Japanese fleet is dead silence and tense, especially the fact that the Japs also send a bunch of bombers to them, not wanting to encounter with them is nearly impossible... Maybe possible if Twilight casts a invisibility spell. But one of their objective is to intercept the Japanese bombers, that'll be the job for the Corsairs. Suddenly, one of the Corsair shouted, "CONTACT! 11 O' CLOCK! DEFENSIVE FORMATION! SQUADRON ONE GO WITH JIGSAW 1 AND 2 TO INTERCEPT THE JAPS! SQUADRON TWO STAY WITH THE DAUNTLESS!!!" Then, half of the Corsairs immediately broke and lunged towards the incoming Zeros and the bombers, while the rest of the Corsairs formed a defensive formation around the SBDs. Soon, gunfires was heard from the other side. "All right, the rear gunners! Pay close attention to the Zeros, for the newcomers!" Dick glanced at Twilight, "You see a plane with bright red dots on them, shoot' em like your life depends on it, with you do!" Twilight nervously glanced around for the Zeros while everybody else loaded their .30 cals. Dick saw Twilight without the .30 cals out. "Twi, ya sure ya don't need the MGs?" he asked. "I'm not going to touch them," Twilight said, charging up her horn with bright purple aura, "my magic can do the work." "Just make sure you hit' em." Dick said before switching his attention back to flying. To be honest he don't trust those peaceful creatures that much, this is an actual gun fight, people die from it. One small mistake can lead to their unfortunate deaths. But little does he know, what happens next really cleared his doubts. Without warning, six Zeros suddenly flew out from the clouds and lunged at them, probably escaped from the Corsairs. "SHIT! BANDITS! 9 O'CLOCK! REAR GUNNERS GET READY!!!" Dick shouted into the radio, Twilight had her horn focused on the incoming Zeros, she shot blasts of laser-like magic beams, but only a few reached their destination, most of them missed. "Twilight! Wait till they reach the distance for firing!" Dick reminded her. PAPAPAPA!!! PAM! PAM! PAM! PAM! 7.7 millimeter and 20 millimeter guns were fired upon them, Twilight could even see the widened-eyed Japanese pilots staring at her, but that expression turned into an evil grin as he continued to fire at her. A few shots nearly got Twilight as she let out a frightened screams. "TWILIGHT!!!" Dick yelled. "I'm all right!" Twilight shouted back. Dick managed to dodge a few Zeros coming their way, send three of them in flames with the .50 cals and his amazing piloting skills, unfortunately for Twilight, she missed almost every singe shots with her magic beam. "UGH!!! I'VE ENOUGH!!!" she growled. She charged up a HUGE, BRIGHT, PURPLE aura on her horn. Dick heard the humming noise made by the charge of massive amount of energy and turned back. "Twilight! What are you----" his question is cut off when Twilight let out an ear-piercing battle cry. Her horn went bright as the sun, the tip o her horn shot out the biggest, longest, brightest, hottest plasma beam she could make. It swiped across the sky, wing out every singe flying Zeros, she casted the spell to do zero-damage to the friendly planes, so no need to worry about friendly-fires. Dick's jaw dropped, "DAMN! You never told me you could do that!" "It used up most of my energy, so don't expect me to do use this every-so-often." Twilight said, panting. Dick had learned the most important lesson for the day: Magic is ALWAYS greater than guns and bullets.