She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

by Backslasherton


Chapter 1 (Old)

“My favorite song,” the man with the tattered suit and tie said. He smiled and opened his arms for her. Celestia jumped up from the bed and ran towards him, but as she neared him she stopped. She took a deep breath, and slapped him in the face.

“Gah! Ow. That hu-”

“Shut up,” she said, tearing up. “Who are you, why do you torment me?”

“Celestia, it’s me, Jackson.” The man said with a worried expression.

“No, Jackson is dead. I saw his corpse, and I saw the guard bury his body. Now, who are you, and how do you know Jackson?”

“I am Jackson!” He shouted desperately.

“Prove it!” She shouted angrily. He stepped back a few steps and blinked in surprise. Eventually, he nodded.

“My name is Richard Jackson Douglas, I am thirty seven years old, and I was born in Dallas, Texas. I last went on a mission to a suspected terrorist camp near the town of Ponyville.”

“This proves nothing. You could have easily forced that information out of one of my guards. Tell me something only he and I would know.”

He sighed before beginning again. “Before I left, Celestia, I told you I loved you and then kissed you because I was worried I wouldn’t come back. In my note to you from that box behind you, I wrote, “I will always be smiling in death, and let me tell you, I am terrified of death. So if I can smile while dead, you can sure as hell give a grin or two when you’re still alive.’ In the very last paragraph, I told you not to fall to grief because Twilight still needed a teacher. In my will-”

“Stop” she said, her tone still the same as before. She smiled before embracing her lost love with a passionate kiss. He returned it fully, happy to be home. Eventually, they broke away, gasping for breath.

“How?” She asked. He took a deep breath, and the smile vanished from his face.

“Ah, That.” He sighed before sitting down on the couch by the door. He motioned for her to sit next to him.

Once she had joined him on the couch, he began his story.


I closed the door behind me as I left the throne room, walking down one of the lesser known side exits. I always took those kind of passages so that no guard, staff member, or random pony would see me. As I approached the private runway under the castle, I saw my squad in line with their combat uniforms on. I myself was in my suit, since I forgot to change. I received a few brief looks of confusion from the squad, but they were quickly extinguished when I looked their way.

“Attention!” I shouted. They all snapped to a sharp salute with perfect unison. “Ladies and gentlemen I hope you are ready because as soon as we get clearance from tower we leave. It’s seven o’clock now, so if all goes well we should be in and out by nine. We are only attacking a small camp so we shouldn't be expecting much trouble. Do I make myself clear?” I said quickly and calmly.

“Sir, yes sir!” The squad shouted back.

“Alright then,” I smiled. “Into the carriages, groups of four. Let’s move out!” They quickly moved into the carriages, and I waited for the signal to leave. A unicorn at the end of the runway gave us the go ahead, gesturing with his horn for our convoy to move onto the runway. I looked to my team in the carriage with me and laughed.

“I kissed a princess.”

Sergeant Slipstream laughed, “Looks like I owe Steel twenty bits.”


I climbed out of the carriage and grouped up with the rest of the team. Once we were all set, I waved my hand at the carriage drivers, a signal that they were dismissed. I removed my coat and jacket revealing ashoulder holsterwith a Beretta M9, the only weapon from Earth I owned. I grabbed my sword and the spare magazines from Sergeant Slipstream, and clipped them to my belt before I grabbed my pack off the ground and stuffed my coat and jacket into it. I threw on my pack and signaled the rest of the group to follow.

“Alright, here’s how we’re going to do this. Alpha will head in first, Bravo and Charlie will stay behind until Alpha locates the target. If things go bad, they will fall back to you. Got it?” Everyone nodded. “Alright. Let’s head out.”

The four of us that made up Alpha team drew our weapons and went into the mouth of the cave. It was dark, once we turned the corner, so I turned on the flashlight attached to my pistol and moved to the front of the group.

“Wait,” I said, raising my hand, “Someone’s coming.”

Just ahead of us, a diamond dog walked into the intersection in front of us, surveying the area. I quickly turned off my flashlight and signalled the group to find cover. We sat quietly using a support beam as makeshift cover. As he was about to leave, the dog took a quick sniff of the air and stopped. He sniffed again before turning around. He walked into the corridor we were currently occupying and started glancing around.. Before he could turn our way, however, he suddenly found himself with a throwing knife in his chest. His limp form crumpled to the ground, the only sound was a thump and a slight gurgling.

We made sure there was no one else coming, then stepped out from behind the support beam. “Good work, Bowie.” I said to Sergeant Razor, calling him by his nickname. He nodded before grabbing his knife and cleaning it off.

“Alright guys, we’re getting close now. Soon we’ll be at th-” I was interrupted by a loud shout behind us. I quickly turned and drew my pistol before training it on the speaker. A Diamond Dog was rushing toward us, he had a sword, and a small pouch on his belt. The Diamond Dog was about to shout again before a loud bang rang out and he fell to the floor with a neat hole in his forehead.

“Damn! That is freaking loud in tunnels.” Slipstream shouted, rubbing her ear.

“Let’s get back to Bravo and Charlie, everyone in this compound probably heard that. You guys go first, I’ll cover you.” I said to the rest of Alpha. They all nodded before running back towards the mouth of the cave.

I turned around and saw more various creatures running towards me, most armed with swords, but some had a bow. I started shooting, each shot taking another enemy down.

All the diamond dogs seemed to have a mysterious pouch on their belts, and when one reached into his pouch, I quickly found out why. He pulled out a red stick, and with his lighter in hand, he lit the fuse and flung it towards me. I quickly shot him, but it was too late, the object was already airborne. I turned and ran as fast as I could, but it wasn’t fast enough. The blast threw me forward, knocking me off my feet. Thankfully, that was when the rest of the squad showed up.

There was a lot of shouting and cursing as the two factions fought against each other, with the Equestrians winning.

“Sir! Are you alright?” Sergeant Gamma asked me. He quickly helped me to my feet and handed me my gun.

“I’m fine, dammit! Just get back over there and fight!” I shouted angrily. I wasn’t mad at the young doctor, he was just the unlucky recipient of my anger towards everything else.

“How the hell did they get freaking DYNAMITE?!” I shouted at the air as I started shooting.


We finally reached the center compound of the camp after taking out what had to have been at least thirty enemies. I sat in the back while Slipstream tended my wounds.

“The intel said this was a small camp, but the hallway of corpses back there says otherwise. There’s just way too many for us to take down.” I said.

“We can’t retreat now, they’ll most likely launch whatever attack they have planned early, so we can’t stop them.” Slipstream said with a shrug.

“This is suicide if we continue!” I gestured to the rest of the group. They all looked tired and carried various injuries as they made sure the room we were in was secure.

“Well what do you suggest?” Slipstream said, tying off the last of my bandages.

“I don’t know.” I said, standing up. I looked over as Razor ran up to me.

“Sir! You may want to come see this.” He said nervously. I quickly looked over him and saw that the battle had stopped for now. I looked at him again before nodding and following him.

“We found this crate here in the center of the room and cracked it open. This is what we found.” He said, gesturing inside the box. My jaw dropped slightly as I looked into the crate.

“Holy shit…”


“What was in the box?” Celestia asked attentively, sipping on her tea.

“It was a bomb” Jackson said. “A very large, powerful bomb capable of leveling Manehatten. The crate hadn’t been opened yet, and it looked brand new. From what we could deduce from the various plans we found on the walls, and from some, uh, cooperative enemies, we think it was meant to be held there for two years. Then, it was to be planted in Ponyville’s city hall for the Summer Sun Celebration.”

“Why would they do that?” Celestia asked.

“They’d done their homework. They knew that the Celebration would be held in Ponyville that year. We believe it was an assassination attempt. In a small town like Ponyville, no one would expect it.”

“That’s horrible” Celestia gasped. “But wait, is that all that happened in the caves?”

He nodded.

“Then where were you for the last month?” Celestia asked angrily.

“Hold on now, let me explain. We knew there had to be someone who could make explosives in Equestria, or at least in one of the surrounding countries. They had dynamite, the bomb, and countless other explosives in that cave. So the question was, where did they get it from? That’s where I was. I spent the last month tracking down their supplier and eradicating him.”

“Why you? Why not send a whole squad?” Celestia asked, confused.

“One man would attract a lot less attention. As for why I went, well, I was the least known, therefore the least missed.”

“I missed you! I could have helped you!” Celestia said, crying.

Jackson took a deep breath. “What I did out there wasn’t morally right nor very legal. Equestria would have been sent to war, had the crown been involved. I had to disappear.” He said with a low voice.

“How did you manage the corpse, then?”

“One of the unicorns in my squad knew transformation spells. We made a diamond dog corpse look like me. Then we added some spare clothing they nabbed from the barracks, and we were done.”

“So, you found the supplier?”

“Yup” he said, taking a drink of his coffee. “He was hiding out in a cave near Appleoosa. He and all his buddies are gone now, along with all of his ‘products’.”

“Well I’m glad you’re back.” She said with a nuzzle.

He smiled before giving her a kiss.

“I’m glad to be back.”