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// Saving Private Bloom: The Battle Preparations 
// Story: Saving Private Bloom 
// by Tiedye3000 
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Later, I found that Sparkle and her squad were still there, and gathering up all our equipment. I rushed over to the squad’s sniper, Rainbow Dash, to see what was going on.
“We’re staying, and helping you guys hold your spot, of course!” said the Pegasus, and I lighted up like a light bulb. If they were going to stay, that meant that we had a stronger resistance! I followed Rainbow to where the rest of her squad was. They were on the ground level of one of the buildings, and in the middle of the room was all our weapons and ammo.
“Is that all of it, Dash?” Sparkle asked as we entered.
“Yup!” Rainbow replied, “All the weapons I could find!”
“Hey, Bloom,” said Sparkle, seeing me come in behind Rainbow, “Sorry about all this, we’re just getting ready for the defense!”
“This is fantastic!” I said excitedly, “Now we might be able to hold off the Germanes!”
“Exactly!” said Sparkle, “Now we just need to be filled in on what the weapons are. Spike, wanna fill us in?”
“Naw, not me,” said the baby dragon, “I don’t even know what weapon I use! Ask Rainbow, she’s the one who got it all together.”
“OK! Good thing I’m awesome with weapons!” said Rainbow, and she looked at all the weapons in the pile. “Looks like we’ve got Tooth-Hurty caliber machine gun, seventeen grenades, eleven Hawkens mines, and two bazookas! Only eight rounds left, though… Oh! And assorted small arms!”
“Might as well be spit-wads if they bring any tanks,” said Spike.
“Which they’d surely do,” said Sparkle. She had a thinking look on her face.
“Whatcha thinking, ma’am?” I asked.
“Well,” she said,” I’m thinking about how we’re gonna take their flanks, unless we can draw them up the main road in between these buildings where all the rubble makes a bit of a bottle-neck.”
“Disable ‘em?” I asked.
“Yea, if we can. Make that tank a sixty ton road block? Sure, we can do that if we had a fighting chance at their flanks.”
“Yes, ma’am, that’ll split them up,” said a yellow Pegasus. She blushed and turned away when everyone looked at her.
“Exactly, Fluttershy! We hit them as hard as we can!” Sparkle said, “One on one and then fall back to the bridge. Dash, if we can, we’ll get you up into that bell tower.”
“What do you mean ‘if we can’?” asked Rainbow, and she fluttered her wings. Sparkle looked at her sternly. “I mean, yes, ma’am!” And Dash grabbed her sniper rifle and flew up to the bell tower.
“Well this will be a piece of cake!” said Spike sarcastically, “All we have to do is get the huge tank over to the main road, and blow it up! But how, ma’am? How the hay do you intend to get the tank over there? And blow it up?”
“We get a rabbit to chase it!” said Sparkle, “And then we stop it in its tracks,”
“Yea, but with what?” I asked.
“Well, we could try a sticky bomb…” Sparkle suggested.
“A sticky bomb, ma’am? Are you making that up?”
“No, it’s in the field manual. Check it out if you want too!”
“Well, we seem to be out of field manuals, ma’am,” Spike said.
“Ok, ok, I’ll tell you how to make them. You take some TNT, stick it in a sock, rig up a simple fuse, cover the whole thing in Axel grease, and when you throw, it should stick onto anything you throw it at!”
“Um, well,” Fluttershy stammered, “I don’t mean to be rude, Twilight, but, um, we don’t really wear socks…”
“Lucky for us, I’ve always wanted to make a sticky bomb! So I asked Rarity, before she died, to make some socks in case I ever got the chance! And one more thing. One of the Germanes is extremely dangerous. Look out for a pink pony bouncing around the battlefield, and though she may look harmless, she’ll kill you in the blink of an eye! We should’ve killed her when she was our hostage… Well, enough chit-chat! Let’s get to it!”
Some of the ponies went to the bridge to rig it with TNT. Others took the socks that Sparkle brought and made the sticky bombs as best they could. Some ponies were placing self-detonating mines where the tank should appear. Rainbow Dash and a pony named Berry Punch were already in the bell tower, checking the surrounding boundaries for the Germanes with binoculars. Apple Jack and a pony, Carrot Top, went into a small house that was facing the street. They were hidden behind a window so they could shoot any Germans that got past the boundaries. Crossing the bridge, Sparkle and I were making our way to the Nueville side of the battlefield. With us was a pony named Whooves, a sergeant in Sparkle's platoon.
“That building there,” said Sparkle, pointing to the building near the edge of the river,” We’ll call that the Alamo. And if they push us back too far, the last pony alive will blow the bridge.”
“And there’s a thirty second delay on that explosion from the charges, so tell everyone that the last man alive better hurry up or he or she won’t be alive long.” Whooves told her.
“Captain,” I asked suddenly aware of something, “where am I during all this?”
“No more than two hoofs away from me,” she replied, “Let’s not negotiate.”
I remember Apple Jack walking around the place, seeing how everything was going and looking for Fluttershy, when she spotted her helping Dash getting extra explosives into the tower. “Hey there, Fluttershy!” She called.
Fluttershy nearly dropped the explosives out of surprise. “Oh, hi Apple Jack,” she said, still a bit shaken.
“Listen, I need to tell you something,” Apple Jack said, “You listening? Good. I need you to be the Ammo Supplier this time, ok? You run around the battle field, finding your friends and seeing if they need ammo. Don’t worry about Dash, she brought up extra rounds into the tower. So be on the lookout for anyone who needs ammo, ‘cause if we’ve got no ammo, we’re dead. Understand?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Apple Jack, seems a bit sca-“
“Excellent!” said Apple Jack, slinging an ammo belt over Fluttershy’s neck, “I knew I could count on you!” Fluttershy let out a little whimper and checked if Spike had enough ammo.

When all the preparations were set, Fluttershy, Apple Jack, Spike and I were on the doorstep of one of the ruined houses, listening to a French pony singing on a record.
“Mon petit poney! Mon petit poney!”
“Say, Fluttershy, don’t you speak a little French?” Spike asked.
“Oh, yes, but I don’t want to sing it out loud, Spike,” Fluttershy said softly.
“Well, I wish we could listen to something that we can actually understand!” I cried.
“Now, listen here, little sis,” Apple Jack said, “The singer doesn’t have to sing in English for the magic of her voice to fill our mind!”
This was true enough. The song was very calming, even though we were on the brink of a big battle.
"So, you gonna tell us about this Big Mac, or are we gonna be left too guess?" said Spike to me.
"Well," I was trying hard to remember the last time I saw Big Macintosh, and I rememebred a night back in '42 that made me crack up at just the thought of it, "One night, a long time ago, I was sleepin' in my bedroom, when Apple Jack here shook me awake and told me there was something hilarious I needed to see. So she took me outside the barn. The front door was open, so we could hear eveything that was going on in there. Big Mac had brought a girl over, named Derpy, I think, she wasn't the best lookin' gal, looked like she fell from the top of the Ugly Tree and hit every branch coming down! And she was darin' him to swear at the top of his lungs for some reason I can't recollect, but just as he was about to do it, Apple Jack shouted, 'Big Maccy, you're a young colt! Don't do it!' which cracked me up, freaked out Macintosh, and startled Derpy so much she was flyin' in all directions. At one point she hit her head on a ledge and knocked herself out.
"Now, Big Macintosh was angry at Apple Jack for doin' that, so he grabbed a shovel and rushed at Apple Jack and chased her all over the barn, but at the same time tryin' to get Derpy too come to, so he was draggin' her by her back hoofs while chasin' Apple Jack, and Apple Jack was screaming, 'What are you goin' for me for? I just did you a favor!' Now, this made Macintosh madder, and he was swingin' that shovel like a mad horse, and at one point it flew at out his hoof and hit a lantern, which ignited into flames! The whole barn almost went up because of this!"
Everyone was laughing, but Apple Jack was just killing herself, her being in the story. And then the laughter died down.
"That was the last I ever saw of him," I continued, "That was the last time the three of us were together, he was shipped off to Boot Camp the next day. That was nearly two years ago."
"I have a word to discribe that," Spike said, "FUBAR."

Sparkle was getting coffee in one of the tents pitched around the city. She was desperately trying to get the last bits out of the machine and not tip it over, because every time she shifted position, it would shake uncontrollably.  When she finally got the last bits out, she made sure that the machine was carefully placed so it wouldn’t fall off the table. She then began to walk out of the tent, when a crash behind her made her whip around, startled. The coffee machine had still fallen over. Sparkle stood stone still. She was trembling not out of fear, but because the ground underneath her was! She lopped out of the tent and found me under the bell tower. I, too, had felt the tremor.
Looking to the top of the bell tower, we saw Rainbow Dash waving frantically at us. She was doing hoof signals as well. Sparkle translated them: (Dash tilted her rifle forward, then to her right) “Coming from the east,” (she pointed to her eyes, hit the air twice, and made a T with her hoofs) “Two Tiger tanks,” (she did the same thing, but made a P this time) “Two Panther tanks,” (she pointed down, hit her hoof on air five times, and made a circle) “Infantry 50.”
We all gathered ‘round, waiting for Sparkle to give the order, and then, after a few seconds of thinking, she said “Disperse, you know what to do! Private, get on the rabbit,” she added to one of the ponies.
“Yes, ma’am!” Said the pony, and dashed off to the east to try and get the tank into the bottle-neck.
“Lock and load, Bon-Bon!” called Sparkle, “Everypony check your ammo!”
Carrot Top and Apple Jack went into the house and planted the Tooth-Hurty caliber so that it pointed through the window. Rainbow and Berry were loading their rifles and checking the charges. Fluttershy was running around frantically, both checking if anyone had all their ammo and if she could find a place to hide. Sparkle, Whooves and I were hiding behind a fox-hole, our guns pointed towards the main road.