FoE: Snippet Story

by Windrunner

A Series of Irrelevant Events

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Dear journal,

War. Year..11 I think. I watch the skies for friendlies, and there she is! Her and her elite Shadowbolt squadron. She does not show up on the battlefield lightly. This battle is over, just seeing her with them above means it is or must soon be. She moves so fast even wearing all that strange equipment they come up with, nothing on the ground stands a chance when she is in the fray. The best flier in Equestria indeed, and probably the entire world. Such speed and agility in the air go unmatched and unrivaled. She is a war hero, and I am nopony whatever.

Does she even know grunts like me exist, getting torn to shreds down here on the ground? Her world is probably much too fast to notice us small fry. Yet we all love her. Why?, because when she arrives above the battlefield she is a glorious storm of colorful fiery retribution. Unlike all other times we know we are safe once again, all too briefly. Rainbow is for lack of a more fitting word, awesome. She is truly the real deal. Her only goal seems to be to protect ponies, while being cool as possible. I met her once for a short moment during a mission briefing. Mentioned something about trying out some new gizmo they were calling a radio. Whatever it was she probably took it just because it had the word rad in the name.

At least she genuinely seems to care about the suffering and carnage, even if she is inflicting just as much in return. Stripes do not stand any chance when shes around. I'm surprised they will not surrender. Wishful thinking, we haven't been able to take even a single prisoner as long as I can remember. Fighting them in close is deadly. Even the dead ones are just as dangerous, we dare not get anywhere near them for fear of the traps they set on themselves. I was told she had a stripe friend once, that does not even seem possible. The Zebra war doctrine seems to solely consist of one unrelenting assault after another. There is no chance at negotiation, they will not even speak to us. They excel at fighting dirty.

Casualties are getting higher on both sides of this struggle. How many of them are there, surely they are hurting as much as we are? Somehow they just keep on coming. We beat them back in one place, bloody their noses and they just attack somewhere else. Despite our air superiority Zebra forces are highly mobile. Both sides of this endless carnage seem to be slowly obtaining more and more powerful weapons. Almost 12 years ago I barely knew what a weapon even was. I thought the ceremonial spears of the royal guard looked sharp and dangerous. Now they seem a quaint notion of sentimentality far removed from our bleak lives.

My dear sister.. I am so sorry. Ten years ago I joined the newly forming army out of anger. A blind feeling of rage prompted me to do it. A feeling so foreign to me I almost did not know what it was. I joined to make them all pay for what they did to you. Ever since then I have done ever more terrible things to survive, to take as many of them out as I can. I have felt my heart grow colder, more pained ever since. The day they took you from me festers, burned into my memory like an agonizing coal. Nothing with a heart deserves to die like that. The stripes do not seem to have hearts. Our home is gone with you. I was so young when it happened. I thought I was the bravest pony in the world.

Remember when I almost went into the Everfree just to prove it?, you barely talked me out of it. I never could say no to you. It feels like several lifetimes have passed since then. I thought maybe if I just got one of those responsible for ruining our lives I might feel better. I killed my first Zebra only two weeks out of basic, it felt nothing like that at all. I only got lucky I was not killed as well. I was also afraid. Just like that day, when I cowered in the bushes watching them cut you down. You must have been one of the very first to be hurt in this war. I was so brave, why couldn't I move? I should have done something, anything. I did nothing. Instead you died while I cried helplessly, hoping the horrible monsters would go away.

It would have been better if I died with you. No more cowardice. The anger and guilt that has built in my soul since then is unbearable. I killed a Zebra, but my hatred only deepened as I realized she was just one of the many responsible for your absence. I have killed in your name. Forgive me dear sister, they must know my pain. Oh journal, these pages are all I have left. I almost had no chance to write today. Dash showing up shot down whatever the stripes plan was this time. Glad to have the breather, we do not get many. It has been so many years, and I have helped gun down so many yet with every one I only seem to feel more desire for vengeance.

It seems for every one of them at least two or three of our brethren, our kindred and friends are wiped out alongside them. It never ends. There are more notches on my weapon than I care to count. It will never be enough because you are gone. This blasted war has likely orphaned so many by now it is absolutely horrifying. Why can't we stop them?, we should have the advantage by now. It is whispered that long ago Celestia of all ponies simply left the throne one day and gave all responsibility to her sister, what is going on? Can things really be this bad? One year there was supposed to be this great diplomatic solution to all our troubles, it just turned into another battle.

Nothing we do ever seems to make a dent in their resolve to keep hurling themselves at us. No matter how much firepower we bring to bear on them they just bring in more as well. Surely this cannot go on forever?, it feels like it already has gone on forever. I still feel no better, it seems my bitterness and pain only increase by the day as I watch even more of us fall in ever more brutal combat. Each of my fellow soldiers joined for much the same or similar reasons to my own, maybe a few out of patriotism here and there. Some probably joined out of a misguided desire for glory, hah. There is nothing glorious in this. Only pain.

We will likely be moving out soon, probably to reinforce yet another section of the front lines. In the beginning, there weren't a whole lot of opportunities to actually engage our enemies. It almost felt like a bad joke knowing they had hurt us so badly and nothing to shoot at. Now, there are positively too many targets to choose from. We have learned the hard way that they have snipers which never seem to miss. For some odd reason the stripes tend to favor close-in fighting, getting anywhere near one is a death sentence. Many of them seem to be trained in some weird hoof-to-hoof fighting style that defies description.

Without full combat armor being up close is tantamount to committing suicide unless luck just happens to favor you. Most of the time it does not play favorites. There is simply no way to gauge our enemies strengths or weaknesses, we cannot even get at them in their own territory. We hardly even know what their territory is let alone the best way to hit them there. Even the Shadowbolts dare not venture directly into that domain. We know nothing of the defenses or where the capital is, do they even have a capital? We know so little of them. Only that they have resources we dearly lack. They look so much like us yet so alien at the same time, I cannot fathom their lives.

Do they miss their fallen as we do ours?, are they at all similar? It does not seem so, I only know my hatred for stripes intensifies with every friendly that falls before them. It took me a year to build up enough courage and enough rage to go enlist. I was just old enough by then, barely grown up enough to carry a saddle pack. You should see me now sis, I can lift the heaviest of weapons with ease. That took a while. Would you even recognize me? I stayed with our uncle, the one everybody called Oaf behind his back. You know why. My stay with him was not a pleasant experience in any way. Nearly unbearable.

I am only writing these things down now because I have an increasingly uneasy feeling about the war as it only seems to escalate further. I thought my time under his roof was rough, in comparison to all I have seen and done since then it was practically a vacation. Should anypony ever happen to find this journal on my lifeless body, there is no one to give it to. Read it if you want. I probably will not mind. I have fought hard since joining the army and I only regret it ever had to happen in the first place. There is no end in sight to this suffering, I want them all dead but no matter how many I kill there are always more. It almost feels like some unnatural presence accompanies those striped horrors in the unending battles.

Have they no remorse, no fear? They are every bit as monstrous as I viewed them back then. Every time I finish another one off there is this strange electric thrill in me, I think I actually enjoy this. I only feel a shudder of happiness when they fall, then it is gone and I must seek it again. It is infuriating. The other day I saw something that made me feel even more enveloped by this need to hurt the stripes. One of them threw..something that looked like a grenade but it did not explode. It broke open and melted, spewing this horrible black smoke. I thought it was just a dud explosive then about half of the ponies that were caught in it went absolutely berserk. We could hardly hold them down, what could we do?

One of them bit me. I could not shoot our own. During the confusion one of the buggers strode right in and took out no less than ten of us before we could react. I got that one in the back. If only I had been faster. It felt so good to see another one drop. As far as I am concerned all those deaths mean I owe it back to them ten times over. Maybe more because the ponies that inhaled the smoke had to be sent off someplace for help. Some treatment facility for mental problems in the mountains or something. They just wouldn't stop screaming. I haven't felt so well since that day. The seething disgust I have for all of Zebra kind fuels me to fight on until somehow I find a way to shatter them, grind every last one of them under my hooves into dust.

If it costs my life to do it then so be it. I will have justice whatever it takes. During our next engagement I think I will look for a chance to slip away with all the equipment and ammo I can carry. Somewhere far to the south there must be a town, a city.. something feeding them supplies and troops. I will take the fight to them and break them. Even if only once they will be hit on their own ground, maybe just experiencing one of us reaching that far into their territory will teach them the fear they deserve. Dear sis, I will surely die in the attempt. Will I see you soon in whatever lays beyond the curtain of this life? We are heading out now, my chance must come.

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Caesar, mighty Caesar in Roam this day does sit, and feels his tasks upon the world begin to slip.