//------------------------------//
// The Storm. 
// Story: The Valley of Death. [EaW] 
// by Sillything 
//------------------------------//

Before anypony could speak up, they were all corralled into their trenches like livestock and told by a stallion dressed in a dirty officer's uniform to get down. Snowy was more than happy to oblige, covering her head with her hooves as she dived into the trench like it was a pool, she didn't even hear the sound of her helmet hitting the ground over the incoming roar rolling ever closer to her.

Snowy, along with a few other soldiers she trained alongside, peeked up over the trench they had dug the night before. It was quiet again, nopony wanted to do as much as breathe to loudly and give themselves away.

Then a loud crack rang out, and the stallion to her left fell to the ground. Snowy instinctively looked down to ask if he was okay, but when she did what she saw made her sick. One of his eyes was entirely gone, popped like a water balloon from where a bullet had gone in one end of his face and out the other. She wanted to cry, to beg for someone to hold her and tell her she would be okay, anything to get her through this nightmare. 

But before she could finish screaming, the roaring started all over again. She looked up, and in the distance saw the last thing any pony wanted to, a black box of death-on-treads moving faster than anypony could gallop towards the trenchline. Behind it multiple groups of changelings were climbing out of trucks and running behind trees. Only Celestia knew how many there were. The only good news was that they looked worse for wear themselves, and seemingly only had one tank to hide behind.

Unfortunately, that tank knew where Snowy and her division were, and it didn't look friendly.

Not a full minute passed before an order spread like wildfire through the trench, "Hold this line at all costs!" was the only thing Snowy heard before the cacophony of artillery begin raining on them. 

It was loud, too loud. She couldn't see anything either, smoke and debris scattered everywhere and by the time the barrage ended the officer she had put her faith in was left as a red smear in the trench, along with countless other ponies.

So she did the one thing she knew to do, she raised her rifle, and shot at the first bit of movement she saw.

That was the last thing she heard for a while. Machine guns began blaring all across the trench, she watched helplessly as advancing soldiers were torn to shreds by the raining fire from above, and before long she raised her bolt action rifle and fired another round. Then another, then another. By the end of the first hour she wasn't able to think, just do what she knew she had to.

Every few minutes a pony beside her would fall over. Some were lucky and went out right away, but she wouldn't ever forget the sight of stallions and mares twice or thrice her age holding their chests and curling up I'm the dirt crying for their family. It was too much to bear, she caught sight of a colt that couldn't be older than 16, who had presumably lied about his age to be a hero, ans tried to comfort him as he panicked and cried alone. Before he could even finish crying, he stood up, and she was forced to watch as his chest burst three times in the span of a second from a short burst of enemy fire.

She wanted to cry, to scream, beg for mercy, and more, yet she could barely even bring herself to look at him as he bled out in her arms. 

It wasn't long before the brutal combat got worse, changelings dropping into the trench, or hiding among nearby trees and tossing grenades left and right. One insect fell into the trench and charged Snowy with a bayonet. She acted on instinct, pushing him over and standing over him, using a rock to cave the defenseless bug's skull in as hard as she could. She was angry, scared, confused, she didn't know what to feel.

Once she had dropped the rock from her magic grasp, she immediately collapsed on top of the black and green corpse and began to sib between whispers.

"Why? Why do we have to fight? In another life we could have been friends probably, but I just killed you without even knowing your name..."

Then, she got up, shrugged off her sorrow, and shouldered her rifle.

She was doing what she knew to do, shutting off her emotions and letting her muscle memory take over.

Then, It came. 

The rolling thunder shook her to her very core, and before she could steady herself a Panzer III stood far too close for comfort to her trench.

Then, everything went quiet. A bright flash went out, and a deafening boom left Snowy floored in the trench again. When she got back up and looked, nearly half the trench had been reduced to rubble by a singe HE round. The only pony carrying explosives strong enough to get rid of the vehicle was reduced to a torso.

All she couldn't find her rifle anywhere. She tried moving to look for it and immediately collapsed, when she looked back at her hind legs, she could only see one.

Bleeding fast and full of adrenaline, Snowy did the only thing she could. She crawled towards the remains of her comrades, grabbed the slightly bent anti-tank rifle, and forced herself up on the trench.

Her magic was faltering, or was it her head trembling? Either way, she didn't have long before the blood loss knocked her out. In a final breath, she leaned forwards and shot at the tank.

Another boom, this time from the base of the hill.

The Panzer III was annihilated, and the crew was desperately climbing out the top as they burned to death inside the charred black metal coffin.

With a faint smile, Snowy Breeze collapsed, the last thing she heard was scared changelings yelling and a barrage of machine gun fire, accompanied by the sound of hooves trotting up from the distance.