Chapter 5 (Old)
Chapter 5
Jackson looked around the room as Fancy Pants’ crew got setup. Fancy pants and another unicorn sat next to me. Fancy Pants seemed to empty-handed, while the other one had a notepad and pen.
“So, what is this uniform you’re wearing?” Fancy Pants asked. The pony next to him seemed to copy down the question. Jackson looked down at the black and blue uniform he’d seen a million times in his life.
“It’s my uniform for the United States Marine Corps.” He stated. He looked back up. “The division of my home country’s military I was a part of.”
Fancy Pants nodded. “What is the name of that rank on your shoulder?” He gestured to the emblem pinned to his shoulder.
“Colonel. An O-6 Level Rank.” He recited as he had many times before. Fancy Pants then gestured to his chest.
“I see you have many ribbons and medals on your uniform. How did you get them?” Fancy Pants asked.
“Various ways. A couple came from combat and others not. I’ll tell you some other day.” Jackson said. He looked around again. There was a photographer setting up a white backdrop behind him and another setting up a camera pointed at him. A sound crew set up a microphone system in front of him to record for Fancy’s radio show.
“Very well. I believe we can get started now, can we?” He said looking around at all the crews. The photographer flipped on two very bright lights pointed at Jackson and then nodded. The rest followed suit. He turned to Jackson and nodded before beginning. He turned the microphone near him to point at his face and began.
“So, Jackson. You’ve been in Equestria for awhile now, is that correct?” Fancy asked. Jackson nodded.
“I’ve been here for about three years now.”
“How did you get here, if don’t mind me asking.” Jackson turned solemn as he thought back.
“Ready!” A commanding voice ordered. “Aim... Fire!” Three simultaneous shots rang throughout the field, bouncing of the marble stones.
“Ready! Aim… Fire!” Three more shots rang out. The four marines stood at attention around the casket as the shots filled the air.
“Ready! Aim… Fire!” The final shots rang out through the field as the smoke blew in the wind. “Present arms!”
The three marines held their rifles vertically above them. A trumpeter marched forward and began to play his solemn song.
Jackson held his head high at his spot to the side of the casket. His black and red uniform crisp with starch, he stood guard at the final resting place of his best friend. As the song ended the trumpeter brought his trumpet down and marched back to his position behind the casket.
“Order arms!” The guns of the marines in line shifted as the officer barked orders. “Port arms! Right face!” The three marines rotated on their heels to their right. “Forward march!” They marched forward, the officer falling in step beside them.
“We are solemnly gathered here today to mourn the loss of a brother…”
“Jackson, I just… I wanted to say… thank you.” A grey-haired women said. The dried tears on her face broke Jackson’s heart. “You helped him in his times of need and was there for him… when…” She began to cry again. “When we weren’t able to be.”
Tears blurred Jackson’s vision. He hugged the woman in front of him.
“I’m sorry.” He said. “I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t-”
The sobs took over his body as he hugged the mother of the dead man he just lowered into the ground. She comforted the ten year marine as he cried into her shoulder.
“Colonel Douglas, I know you two were close. And I know that you did everything to help him. But towards the end, he told me give you this.” The Major General handed Jackson an elaborate wooden box with his last name engraved on top. “He said inside is all the things he wants you to have of his. I believe it’s his uniform and some other personal belongings.”
“Thank you, sir.” Jackson said. He stood at attention with the box in his hands. The General placed a hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye.
"He was a good man. Many of our officers and enlisted idolized him. He will live on in the minds of our fellow corpsmen." The General saw the slight shaking in Jackson's hands. He looked back at Jackson and nodded as he removed his hand from his shoulder. "I hope to see you again someday, Douglas. Hopefully under better circumstances."
Jackson nodded as he turned and walked out of the General's office.
The door swung open as Jackson set the box down. He sat down on the couch and began to sob. No tears came out, there were none left. After ten minutes he began to pull himself together.
It's been almost a year, Jack. You can't do this anymore. No more crying. He wouldn’t want you to cry.
Jackson looked up to the picture on wall. It was him and his best friend, Zachary Akins, just after they returned from their first tour of duty. Zach loved the formal uniforms and always looked for an excuse to wear his. He’d convinced Jackson to go to a Jazz concert after they’d signed for a second tour of duty. They both wore their blues and Zach’s mom took a picture of them in full dress. Jackson closed his eyes and looked away from the picture. He stood from the couch and grabbed the box to put in his room.
As he was walking, he fell to his knee as a piercing pain erupted in his chest. The rest of his body felt the pain, as if his blood cells were changed to razors. He held in his screams as the pain worsened. As the burning crescendoed into a cry of pain erupting from his mouth, it rapidly faded away.
He looked up, sweat dripping down his face as he looked around. He jumped to his feet as he looked around in a panicked state as realized his surroundings were not the same as they were. His heart rate skyrocketed as his training came back. He rapidly looked around and assessed his surroundings.
He seemed to be in a study with lots of very old looking books. There were tall, elegant windows over looking a beautiful valley and small portion of a skyline. There were elegant couches and rugs all over the small room. Lastly, there was also a pair of very suprised magenta eyes looking at him.
“Gah!” Jackson jumped back as he saw another creature in the room. It was a horse. A large, white horse with a very long, slightly opaque, multi-colored mane. Jackson stared at it in wonder before it stood and began slowly trotting over.
“Easy there, girl.” He said, holding a hand up. The creature’s eyes lit up as he spoke.
“What the fuck... “ Jackson muttered.
“I assumed you were intelligent from the nature of your clothing. It looked military, if I’m not mistaken?” The creature asked. From its voice, Jackson guessed it was female. He nodded, still not quite believing reality as he stared ahead. The creature smiled as she saw his weariness.
“What is your name?” She asked. Jackson stared a minute in bewilderment before answering.
“Jackson…” he said. She nodded. The aura of calm she seemed to emanate calmed down the anxious marine. He stood a little straighter as he began to calm down. “My name is Colonel Richard Jackson Douglas of the United States Marine Corps.” He said officially. She laughed a bit at his formality. She composed herself before introducing herself.
“I am Princess Celestia, Ruler of Equestria.” She said, standing tall like him. His eyes widened at the implications. He quickly snapped a crisp salute to the royalty in an attempt to show respect to the leader of a country. She laughed again at his formality. She waved at him, telling him to relax. He did so, but still conducted with in an awkward sense of formality. She rolled her eyes.
“Look, I understand I am royalty, but I do not wish for you to be formal. I simply want you to act as a friend.” She explained. Jackson seemed to reluctantly relax at her statement. It all felt… wrong. She nodded at his change in demeanor. An awkward silence hung for a moment.
“So, you’re maj-” She held up a hoof. “Right, sorry, Celestia.” He amended. “Where am I? You said ‘Ruler of Equestria’ a minute ago. Where is Equestria, exactly?”
She explained to him the location of Equestria, and when he didn’t know what she was talking about, they both explained their worlds. After much discussion, they decided he was not on the same planet anymore. He hung his head in sadness, sitting down on one of the couched.
“Damnit... “ he muttered. He took off his hat and ran a hand over his newly-buzzed hair. “Well, now what the fuck do I do?”
“You can stay in the castle until we figure out what is going on.” Celestia offered. Jackson looked up with a skeptical look.
“I don’t mean to offend your people, but if they are anything like mine, they will not take kindly to an alien creature living in their ruler’s home.”
“Well then we won’t tell them. Only the ponies who need to know will know.” She explained.
“Well, I don’t seem to have any other option. So, if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to take you up on that offer.” Jackson said with a defeated smile. Celestia just beamed.
“And that's an overly detailed explanation of how my few belongings and I got here.” Jackson said with a laugh. Fancy pants only smiled in return.
“It was an amazing story. And while I know it was many years ago, I’m very sorry for your loss.”
Jackson waved it off. “It’s fine. I’ve mostly gotten over it anyway.”
“I do have a few questions, though, that I would like to ask about your story.” Fancy proposed. Jackson gestured for him to go on. “What is the ‘gun’ that you mentioned? I assume it is some kind of weapon.”
Jackson grew apprehensive about answering that question.
“W-Well, it’s a weapon. Let’s just leave it at that.” He said cryptically. Fancy didn’t seem to mind, as he just moved on to his next question.
“Why did you act confused at the princess’s ability to speak?”
“Well back on my home planet, humans are the only sentient species. We aren’t like Equestria where there’s ponies, griffons, minotaurs, and so on. So when I see a creature that, where I’m from, is only capable of various noises that do not resemble speech suddenly start talking to me normally, I got a bit confused.”
Fancy nodded. “So onto our next set of questions, I think everyone is wondering the answer to this one: Why did you stay in hiding for so many years?”
“Well, I think it was a mix between me not wanting to incite panic in the populous, and the fact that I was fighting a lot of unknown wars for the people of Equestria. If they populous had known of me, it would have made fighting for them a lot harder. They’d want to do interviews, press conferences, and all that media stuff. I just wouldn’t have been able to do both. Mainly, though, I think it was me just not ready for everyone to know of me. I wasn’t really ready to face that kind of attention.”
Fancy looked over to his companion, making sure she was keeping up. When he confirmed she was, he continued. The rest of the interview consisted of the usual questions like, “What do you like most about Equestria?” or “What do you plan to do next?”. At the end of it all, everyone was noticeably tired. Jackson tried his best to yawn quietly and discreetly, but didn’t make it all the time.
Thankfully, it ended after many questions covering a wide range of topics.
“Well, that’s it. Thank you very much Colonel for letting us interview you before anyone else. We’ll send you the very first copy of the interview once we get it.” Fancy Pants stood and Jackson followed suite. They shook hooves/hands before Jackson departed to Celestia’s chambers.
“How the hell do you do that all the time?” Jackson asked as he opened the door. Celestia was sitting by the window reading as the sun set when Jackson walked in. She had her glasses on and her mane tied back with a yellow ribbon. She just smiled knowingly.
“Years of practice. You’ll get it eventually.” She said. Jackson sighed.
“I don’t want to ever do that again.” He said.
“Was it bad?” Celestia asked.
“Well, no, not really. It went great. It was just tiring. You really have to think about what you say.” Celestia laughed at his response.
“Maybe you should do that more outside of interviews.” She joked. He chuckled in spite of himself. “Oh by the way, that composer, Vito Philharmonica, sent over a recording of that song you and him worked on last year. It was played by our Armed Forces Band.”
She floated over a 45 LP disc to Jackson, who excitedly took it in his hands.
“Awesome!” He ran over to the record player and set it to 45 RPM before setting the record on it and dropping the needle. He began to change along as the music played. Celestia just smiled at him as the two watched sunset together. In just a week, both of their lives had changed wildly. Almost too much to handle. But the two had each other to lean on, and would be able to make it through anything.
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Why is there a picture of Luna when she is not in story?
6171057 If you're referring to the character tags, I fixed that. In any case, I was going to have this be a long story where they got to the Summer Sun Celebration. I ended up not doing that, but it was the original plan.
Glad I got a chance to read this, sorry things didn't go as planned. Life just got in the way...
Officers dont have rank on their shoulders in the marines and no marine would be caught dead calling themselves army but other than that nice on the knowing th 0-6 and its rank some shit marines dont even know that so props loving the story to
8077074 Thanks, sorry for the screw ups. Knew someone was gonna call me out on something eventually. I'll try to change that here soon. As for the ranks, I found these charts a little while back that help me a ton for rank stuff.uscglightshipsailors.org/rank/Enlisted_Ranks_1.jpg
camo.derpicdn.net/53d4ecc66f8c3051a84f289940ffe3e68ad1089d?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uscglightshipsailors.org%2Frank%2FOfficer_Ranks_2.jpg
Marine Corps? I thought he was Army?
8612641
That one is my bad. It has been fixed.
9152742
Amen*salutes*