//------------------------------//
// Arnhem All Over Again 
// Story: Broken Wings 
// by Lt_Voss 
//------------------------------//

	We had almost crossed the Ponyville city limits before Luna stopped us. "Bill," she said, turning to the man in question. "Here, take this." She handed him a strip of dark grey cloth.

He took it and looked at it for a few seconds. "What is it?"

"It's a blindfold," she replied. "Your eyes need to be hidden. Much like human culture, featureless eyes, and completely black eyes, for that matter, are not... socially acceptable, and you may even be attacked because of it. Nothing personal."

Bill nodded. "I understand." He tied it around his eyes. He did look like a blind man. "Strange."

"What?" I asked.

"I can still see. Perfectly clear."

Luna shook her head. "Will, your Oracle continues to amaze me. I wonder what power or ability he'll show off next."

With that, the four of us laughed and continued on our way. We had a job to do. We walked past the first few houses of the town before we met with a pegasus pony. She was grey with a dull blond mane. She crashed into the ground in front of us, which caused everyone in our group to rush to her aid. Surprisingly, she got up without help and seemed to be perfectly fine. Regardless, Luna, who was now in alicorn form, asked, "Are you alright, miss?"

The mare nodded. "Yup! It happens a lot, but it's okay." It was then I noticed her eyes. At first, they looked perfectly normal. However, every now and then one of them, her left eye, would roll around. Apparently, she could feel this, and said, "You must be looking at my eyes. Sorry, I can't help it."

I held up my hands defensively. "No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare."

"Hey!" She exclaimed. "You're really polite! A lot of ponies just think I'm dumb or broken." She hung her head sadly.

"Hey, now," I said comfortingly. I also knelt down beside her. "I can already tell you're a fine pony, and I can safely assume that you're pretty intelligent as well, based on what I've heard from you in the past," I looked at my watch. "Three minutes." I grinned at her to solidify my claim.

She returned it, her mood brightening instantly. "Thank you! Oh, but I had something for you!" She dug around in her saddlebags, which were labeled "PEMS." "I brought you a letter!" She handed... hoofed?... me a simple letter.

"Thank you, miss... I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

"Oh, how silly of me! My name is Ditzy. Ditzy Doo. But the mean ponies call me Derpy."

"Well, thank you, miss Ditzy. And pay no mind to those mean ponies. They don't know what they're talking about. It was nice meeting you, and have a good day!"

"Thank you, and you're welcome, Will!"

"Wait," I said. "How did you know my name?"

She laughed. "It's on the letter, silly."

I looked at the letter, and what do you know. It was. I felt my cheeks turn bright red. "So it is," I said in embarrassment. Ditzy flew off after saying goodbye to everyone else. I opened the letter to read the contents.

Sergeant Will,

I trust you are alright. In your absence, we have posted several troops in Ponyville. Our satellites showed monsters far north, and we decided a military presence in Ponyville was necessary. Should you revisit Ponyville, it would be suggested that you link up to the commander of the forces there, one 2nd Lieutenant John Frost. I'm sure he'll have a few things to say to you. We'll keep Frost informed about what our satellites are seeing.

Signed,
Staff Sergeant Mason Valeral

P.S. By the way, I would suggest you stay in Ponyville as long as you can. I understand if duties and circumstances call you away, but try not to leave Ponyville if you can help it. It'd be nice to reliably know where you are sometimes.

I folded the letter in proper military fashion right after I finished it, despite it having a more personal feel to it. "Okay. So there's a contingent of soldiers in Ponyville. Not really anything to worry about. They've just seen monsters up north on their satellites, so they're being cautious. Perfectly normal."

Bill dipped his newly-blindfolded head. "I wonder whose side the commander is on."

I half turned my head so I was looking slightly to the left and a bit downward. "What do you mean?"

"Is he one of Mason's group, or is he one of Henderson's lackeys?"

"Why do you think there are two 'factions?'"

"Mason is torn. I glimpsed his mind. He is your friend, and trusts you. He sees Henderson's treatment of you and I as unjust and unfair. But he is under Henderson's command, and must follow his orders. That is why I believe there are two factions; the seeds of doubt have been sown."

I turned to face him in time for Luna to shake her head in my view. "So Bill now shows incredible insight and wisdom. Well, at least he didn't keep me waiting."

I sighed, and beckoned to Fluttershy. She came over, and I spoke softly. "How are you doing, Fluttershy?"

"Um," she started, keeping with personal tradition. "I'm... a bit nervous..."

I cocked my head to the side like a dog in confusion. "Why?"

"Well... those other soldiers seemed a bit mean... mean to you... I'm nervous because... what if these soldiers are mean as well?"

I gave her a half smile. "You don't need to worry about that. I can handle it. You just worry about staying beautiful."

She blushed deeply. "Oh... okay..." She scraped her hoof on the ground.

I laughed. "Trust me." With that, I turned around and continued on towards Ponyville. I apparently had a date with Lieutenant Frost. Not that I minded. My original plans weren't far from this anyways. Nothing much was said as we tore on. However, there was a point raised when we passed Sugarcube Corner.

"Ugh," Luna grunted. "I'm hungry. It seems I haven't eaten in quite a while. Will," she said, addressing me. "Let's stop for a bite."

I considered this. "We do need to make haste," I weighed the one option, but then my stomach grumbled. "On the other hand, I'm hungry too. Yeah, let's."

We walked inside and up to the counter. Mr. Cake was there, again, restocking the shelves. Beside him was a light blue mare with a red and very light pink mane. She was the one to address the party. "Oh, welcome to Sugarcube Corner! How may we help you?"

Mr. Cake looked up from his duty and spotted me. "Hello, there, Will." He continued working.

The mare looked on. "You know my husband? How wonderful! I'm Mrs. Cake, pleased to meet you!" She stuck out her hoof. I took in my right hand and shook.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Cake. Yeah, he was running shop when I visited here last, which was also my first. I-" Bill elbowed me, causing me to give out an "ow" involuntarily. "We thought we'd stop by for a bite to eat. We're pretty hungry."

To emphasize my point, all of our stomachs more or less rumbled simultaneously, give or take half a second. My eyes widened at the convenience and coincidence of it all. Mrs. Cake thought it was funny, because she chuckled. "I can tell," she said when she was finished. "What'll you have?"

Fluttershy immediately ordered the apple danish with cream, but ruined the action with, "Um, if that's okay with you..."

I laughed, saying, "It's alright, Fluttershy. Whatever you want, I'm okay with."

Bill ordered a rainbow cupcake. We couldn't see what kind of cupcake it was, since the icing and the paper covered it all. The paper was cyan, and the icing was essentially every colour of the rainbow. I ordered a doughnut that looked a lot like a Bavarian crème Bismarck, but was labeled as a "Super Sweetie Creamy Treaty." I could only guess as to who came up with the name, and I had a pretty good idea. Luna herself ordered half a chocolate cake. The description on the menu described it as "a three layer chocolate cake with chocolate icing gluing them together. Also comes with a single scoop of chocolate ice cream in the center."

After she finished her order, and as I was about to pull out the necessary credits, she stopped me. "I've got this, Will." She turned to Mrs. Cake and told her, "Please, dear, put it on the royal tab. Thank you."

Mrs. Cake nodded, and rung it up on the register. "Thank you for stopping by!" She said cheerfully. With that, we went over to sit at a table by the door. As soon as we finished, we needed to get going. Fluttershy and I sat side-by-side again, while Luna and Bill sat together. Bill was on the outside.

While Fluttershy tore into the danish, Bill unwrapped his cupcake. He looked at it from all angles from behind his blindfold. It looked pretty strange, to be honest, and those who didn't know he could see would wonder why a blind man was trying to look at something. He sniffed it once, before taking a lick of the icing. He then took a whole bite out of it, trying his best to get some of the actual cupcake in as well. He was only moderately successful. "This is..." he said through a mouth full of icing. He swallowed, then continued. "This is actually quite delicious."

"Thanks!" Pinkie Pie, out of nowhere. "It's my own super secret recipe! I'm glad you like it!" She even batted her eyes at Bill, which made him shrink away a bit. Unfortunately for him, this made him bump into Luna, who had not even started on the cake, by accident.

She simply looked at Bill who was only sort of leaning into her, when she looked up at Pinkie and said, "Sorry, Pinkie. He's taken."

Bill did an acrobatic flip into the booth behind him, which, thankfully, was empty. Before he did, however, I saw that his cheeks were red as an apple. "I don't have to deal with this!" He said defiantly. He even took his cupcake with him.

Unfortunately, now that he was in an empty booth, Pinkie could have her way with him. She bumped him to the inside, and scooted in herself. "How do you like the cupcake? Is it delicious? I know it's delicious because I MADE it! It's a secret recipe that I came up with myself! I even had Rainbow Dash help me make it! It was so... sweet of her!" Bill shrunk into the wall as far as he could, whimpering. It was kind of saddening. The badass who completely owned a monster raiding party with little to no help at all couldn't handle Pinkie Pie.

Luna came to his sort-of rescue, then. "Pinkie," she said softly. "I mean it."

Pinkie faced the ground in sadness, then pouted. She said, sadly, "I just thought that I could get somepony special like Fluttershy did. I mean, look at Will! He's a great man! He's nice, sweet, has wings!" She pointed to the objects in question. "I thought that since Fluttershy and Princess Luna were really cool, so this guy must be cool to hang out with Will! I thought... this was my chance."

"It's okay," I said, trying to comfort her. "But... I think you might want to take this a bit slower."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Bill isn't exactly the most outward of people."

"Like Fluttershy?" She asked, trying to make a connection.

"Kind of, but for a different reason. Fluttershy's just nervous around people. Bill... he's different."

"Different how?"

"Well, he's-" was all I could get out before I was interrupted before the door slammed open. I turned to see who it was.

It was that mailmare, Ditzy Doo, and alongside her was Rainbow Dash. They looked around and saw us, which was when they trotted, or rather galloped, to us. Ditzy had another letter. "Here you go Will! It's from the same person, that Mason, and he said it was pretty urgent."

I took it and opened it. My eyes widened in shock. I opened my mouth to speak, but Pinkie interrupted me. "Thanks for helping me with those cupcakes, Rainbow!"

"Yeah, no problem." She replied, managing to make her tone both sheepish and boastful at the same time.

"Guys," I said, to Bill in particular. "We gotta go." Bill hopped over Pinkie to follow me out. "Their satellites have picked up a huge force of monsters coming here, right the hell now. We gotta link up with Frost."

Bill nodded. "Right. Form a game plan." Luna got up and followed us out, Fluttershy in tow. The two pegasi tailed us as well, and I began to wonder if the whole town would follow next.

We tore through the town towards the town hall, where I saw a few soldiers standing. Panting, I asked them, "Frost inside?"

They nodded fiercely. It was then I noticed they weren't just standing around. They were in a combat stance, as if they expected monsters to jump out at them this very instant. They probably weren't far off. We dashed inside, and hung a left, where I saw MP's guarding a door. Due to my uniform, I got in pretty easily, but everyone but Luna had a harder time. "Lieutenant Frost, Sergeant Will reporting!" I announced.

The LT turned to face me. I'd already had a salute going, so he returned it and dropped it almost as fast as I could blink. "Glad you showed up. We need everyone we can get. Apparently, the satellites have picked up a force of one hundred and fifty monsters." He shook his head. "Our twenty men should hold them off, no problem." The sarcasm was evident in his voice.

"Has the mayor-"

"Taken care of. We've already patrolled every street and alley in Ponyville telling everyone to get inside the town hall. It'll be crowded in here, but it's better than having to rush all over town to protect individual houses."

"Understood. So... do we have a game plan?"

"Well," he said, pointing to a map on the center table. "Ponyville has the great advantage of being next to a river. This river flows out to form two sides of Ponyville's borders. That would leave two sides undefended, but there is a mountain range on the west side. Regardless, the monsters are coming from the north. Even with reports of intelligent and organised monster groups, I don't think these will be capable of strategising. I think they may be a brutish raiding party."

I nodded. "Good, good."

"There is a large stream on the north side of Ponyville, here." He pointed to it. "It's about twenty feet across and about ten feet deep along its width; it's more of a canal than anything else, but it leads nowhere. There's only one way to cross it: this bridge, here." He tapped the bridge symbol. "We'll hold there and wait for help from our buddies down south."

"Sounds good to me. Of course, if we concentrate all our forces there, regardless of the competence of this group, we'd be begging for an attack elsewhere."

"Naturally. That's why I'll only place fifteen at the bridge. The last five will patrol throughout the city to make sure all will be quiet on every front."

"Got it. How long do we have until they get here?"

Two booms of artillery guns were heard in the room before Frost could answer. With this, he said, "I guess that would be now. Get to it, soldier. I'm giving you command of Alfa squad."

I flashed a quick salute, then headed out. "Alfa squad!" I half boomed. I saw five men stand and snap to attention. "None of that," I said. "We haven't got time to waste. Let's roll."

Frost's voice came in through the radio. "Will, you're with Bravo and Charlie squads at the bridge. I have Delta out patrolling. Good luck, over."

I pressed the activation button and replied, "Hooah!" There was an MP at the door passing out rifles and ammunition, so I gladly took a rifle and several spare magazines, as I did not have my own anymore. I noticed the ammunition was all flechettes, an ammo type that was, apparently until recently, supposed to only be used on larger monsters. I looked behind me and saw that Bill had taken a weapon as well.

He sprinted to catch up to me, then matched my pace. "This is it." He said, cryptically.

"What do you mean?" I didn't follow.

"I just feel this is the turning point. One hundred fifty monsters for a, until recently, undefended village? Either they have so many troops at their disposal that there's no chance of our victory, or this is their last desperate push to get a foothold."

I didn't see any obvious or large flaws in that logic; it seemed pretty intelligible, actually. "You may be right."

His only response was to grunt. I let him lead us to the bridge, as I'd already forgotten its placement on the map. See? There were uses for his photographic memory. "We're here," he said when we arrived at a bridge.

If he hadn't said that, I still could have realised it was the right one. For starters, there were ten soldiers in combat positions. Next off, there were machine gun emplacements, and even a mortar. Granted, with two for each, it would bring our standard force to eleven, counting myself and Bill. I noticed there was a sniper camping out at the top of a bell tower, so I had to discount one more. The soldiers that would be doing the actual gritty fighting were mostly to my left, either behind sandbags or inside the building under the tower. "Alfa," I ordered. "Set up sandbags on the right. We gotta make sure both sides are covered."

"Roger," Alfa squad's leader spoke. He was a corporal. How he became the leader of a squad, I wasn't sure, but then again, it may have been that his sergeant had been killed. "Alfa, let's go do as the Sarge says. Sandbags, on the double!" They moved fairly quickly and set up a position in under ten minutes.

It was then I heard the sniper call down, "I see them coming! I see..." I could tell he was looking through the scope, ready to fire if he needed to. "Diamond dogs at the front... wait, there are a few hellhounds... I count maybe fifteen manticores, twenty minotaurs. Holy hell, I see some hydras in there!" I saw several soldiers ready their weapons with unease, obviously less optimistic with the thought of facing hydras.

"Gunners," I heard the lead gunnery sergeant call out. "Load explosive ammo! Dunlock! Get those weapons loaded!" An MG operator detached the boxes of both MGs and replaced them with ones labeled with "WARNING: EXPLOSIVE." "Get ready to fire on those hydras!"

The sniper called out ranges. "They are approaching one thousand yards! Nine fifty! Nine!" When he yelled nine, he fired. Through a pair of binoculars an Alfa soldier had handed me, I saw a manticore's head explode. The monsters behind it, minotaurs and a hydra, stumbled over the tumbling body. A minotaur lost its footing, causing another manticore to be taken down with it. The hydra at the rear of the column trampled over them. Whether it was because it simply couldn't stop in time or if it didn't care it trampled supposed allies, its reasons were unknown.

The sniper took another shot, taking out a minotaur this time. Unfortunately, this one seemed to be one of the march callers, and there were no monsters behind it to disengage. "Eight!" The sniper yelled, signifying that the monsters were eight hundred yards away. Easy range for the mortar and MGs.

The mortar was the first to let loose. "Hang!" The mortar officer yelled.

An operator, a private, placed a shell over the opening of the mortar, and yelled, "Hanging!"

A second later, the officer screamed, "Drop!" The private did so. Both the officer and the private ducked away from the mortar as the shell was launched. I looked through the binoculars and saw that the shell had fallen right on top of the diamond dog section, causing destruction and discord among the entire column. The MGs, heartened by the mortar's success, began pouring fire on the advancing monsters as well.

The sniper radioed in the next distance, as he could not be heard over the cacophony of the machine gun fire. "Seven!"

Within range of our rifles. "Ready!" I heard the other squad leaders shout to their men, so I did the same. I, however, was the first to give the order to fire.

"Fire!" Alfa squad, reinforced with Bill and me, raised themselves to look over the sandbag wall they'd built. After a moment's hesitation, everyone began unloading their steel presents on the hungry monsters.

The problem with automatic weapons at range wasn't recoil. It was the fact that so much ammo went into a single monster, effectively wasting ammunition. About ten rounds of a fifty round magazine would be spent on a single hellhound, another twenty to go into another hellhound or diamond dog behind it. With us using flechettes, it made using up all that ammo much more taxing. I radioed this concern. "Single fire, guys! Don't waste so many rounds on one monster! We don't have much as it is!"

Taking heed of my command, the rate of fire of the rifles slowed dramatically. Now, each soldier was picking off monsters using just the right amount of steel he needed. I found that hellhounds went down after two or three rounds, a few more for diamond dogs. Every soldier simply left the larger monsters for the MGs and the sniper.

Make that just the MGs. I saw a glint in the distance, and it seemed a minotaur was holding something in its hands. Seconds later, a bright flash and a smoke trail led from it to the bell tower. It erupted, raining debris on everyone. It was no challenge to guess what happened to the sniper who was until recently sitting up there.

Looking through the binoculars, I pinpointed the coordinates of the minotaur. I radioed them to the mortar crew, saying, "One of those minotaurs has a missile launcher! Coordinates Two, Three, Seven, Four, Six, Five, over!"

"Roger, Sergeant. Two, Three, Seven, Four, Six, Five, confirm."

"Confirmed!"

"Roger, over and out." I heard a very dim "Hanging... Drop!" I took another peek through the binoculars to see the effectiveness of the shell. It hit dead on, which elicited a radio-borne whoop of thanks from me.

But the fun was over by then. Angered by our continued attacks, the monsters had picked up the pace. They were but three hundred yards out when I set down the 'nocs and picked up my rifle. This, apparently, was close enough for the diamond dogs' rock-throwers, as I noticed quite a few sail overhead. "Look out!" I yelled over the radio. "Rock-throwers! We're in range!"

To my surprise, everyone got down before their head got taken off. At least, that's what I thought before my face erupted in pain. I dropped my rifle and clutched my face, screaming in agony. I looked over at Bill, whose head was snapped back as far as it could go before a normal body would have separated. A few seconds of remaining still was good enough for him, apparently, as he rolled his neck and shoulders before resuming his fire. The pain in my face also dulled much, signifying that he was dosing himself with a lot of mental pain killers.

Over the din of fire, I heard a bark that sounded more like a yelp. Yelps usually sound when surprise or fear is present. I deduced that the dog who made the noise was the attacker. This attacker probably saw that his rock had, from his perspective, no effect on his target, Bill. Several more yips sounded along the lines, but it mattered little right now. They had begun crossing the bridge in rows of five.

"Mortar crew!" I shouted over the radio. "When I give the signal, drop the piece and help us out! They're already on the bridge, and I'm not sure we're cleared for infrastructural damage!"

"Roger, Sergeant!" The officer responded. He proceeded to bring in his mortar incredibly close, just so that the bridge would remain undamaged.

Seeing that the first wave of hellhounds was already on our side of the bridge, I yelled out another order to the foot soldiers. "Switch to burst! Repeat, switch to burst! They're on top of us!" I followed my own order and proceeded to kill the hounds closest to me. I managed to down several, for all the good it did me. By now, many diamond dogs, all armed with rock-throwers, were halfway across the bridge, and they had increased their output of deadly flying minerals.

"Everybody, into the houses! Get into cover! Mortar crew, to me!" I shouted, then ran backwards into the house behind Alfa squad. I saw the mortar operator fold up the mortar while the officer readied a carbine rifle. The C13 carbine was designed and made for gun teams, whether they were MG teams, mortar teams, or artillery and anti-vehicle crews. It was compact but was more accurate and had a longer effective range than a sidearm. The two men began running towards the house Alfa and I recently began occupying, with the officer firing off one or two shots every now and then to try and suppress the enemy.

They hopped through an open window. The operator tossed aside the now useless mortar and readied his own carbine. The officer asked me, "What now, Sergeant?"

Thinking frantically, I grabbed my radio and called Frost. "Sir, we're kind of getting overrun! Where is our support?!"

He came back immediately. "I don't know! They should have been here by now! I've been trying to raise them for twenty minutes now and haven't gotten an answer!"

"Good God," I muttered, the leaned out an open window and took down two diamond dogs that had gotten confident. "We better have that support five minutes ago, or we aren't gonna last much longer." I ducked back into cover when several rocks flew towards where my head was moments earlier.





Luna landed by Applejack's farm. She looked from side to side, remembering where the tent was. She strolled confidently towards her target, but was stopped by Staff Sergeant Mason. "Ma'am," he said politely. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave; we're trying to conduct a war."

"Staff Sergeant," Luna retorted calmly but firmly. "I am here to request additional troops and support for Ponyville."

"Yes, Ma'am, I know it's under attack. I've tried to get the Captain to send more, but he refuses to. Says he isn't going to help if Ponyville is where Will is."

"So he would let a town die because of a grudge against one of his own men?"

Mason nodded grimly. "That seems to be it."

Luna pondered this for a moment. "What rank is that man you sent to Ponyville? The commander?"

"Frost? He's a Second Lieutenant, why?"

Luna nodded. "Come with me." She continued on towards the command pavilion, Mason in tow. She swept aside the tent flap and strode up to the sand table. "Captain Henderson," she said with slight, almost unnoticeable disdain. "I'm here to request additional military aid in Ponyville."

"What? You again?" He harrumphed. "Will's there. He can handle himself."

"He is losing ground every minute. He needs help."

"Not going to happen, princess. Now leave me be."

"You would let a whole town die because of an animosity?"

"I thought I told you to get out!"

'Okay,' Luna thought. 'Personal appeal is out, the formal request is out. Any ideas?' Helen answered, I only have the one that you planned on before coming here. Luna mentally sighed. She was afraid it would have to come to this. "Captain-"

But Henderson interrupted her. "God dammit, out! MP's, get her out of here!"

They moved to escort her out, but she held up her hand. "Not so fast." She lowered it. "Captain Henderson. You are shirking your duties in protecting an Equestrian town from monsters." Henderson made to make another, more hostile, remark, but Luna kept going. "In doing so, you have left me no choice." She looked at both MP's purposefully. "MP's, arrest Captain Henderson. He is unfit for leadership. Aggressively refusing to perform his duties because of one man is inexcusable."

The MP's stood there, dumbfounded. Had Luna really asked them to do that, or was it a joke? "I said," Luna repeated. "To arrest him. Now." She'd said it in a tone that clearly told them not to disobey. She turned to Mason. "First Lieutenant Mason, as a Princess of Equestria, I place you in command."

Mason had to work to pick his jaw up off the ground. "What?"

"I'm giving you command of this company. Now, what is your first order of business?"

Mason tried to form words, but none came out. After a while, though, he managed a few. "Well... Ponyville still needs help..."

"So what will you do?"

"I guess... send a Raven to pin down the monsters and a Stork for some more ground troops."

"Good, I expect nothing less."

Mason looked at her for a few seconds before shouting, "Okay! Echo, Fox, Golf squads! I want you in a Stork and in Ponyville five minutes ago!" Luna heard several soldiers scramble around outside the tent for a while. "Comms," Mason said to the radioman. "I want at least one Raven over Ponyville to provide air support for our guys there."

Luna nodded. "I must go now; I must see to it that everything goes as planned."

"I believe," Mason said, as Luna began to walk out of the tent. "It was an American general that said 'No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.'"

Luna stopped just at the exit, and replied with, "I believe that same general said 'A good plan today is better than a great plan tomorrow.'" With that, she left. Mason felt a little down about being outsmarted by Luna, but then he perked up. He could have been wrong; the generals who said that may not have been American, and they may not have been the same person to have said that. Although, whatever elation he felt out of gaining the upper hand was lost when he realized that that meant he had slipped up in his military history.

Being the commander of Able Company might also have had a hand in that loss, but who could tell, right?