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Day One, July 1st 1863, The Republican Perspective1,632 words
Day One, July 1st 1863 The Imperial Perspective1,579 words

Day One, July 1st 1863 The Imperial Perspective

Day One, July 1st 1863
The Imperial Perspective

The field hospital was in a state of emergency. They were not expecting a battle to be waged, but it was. One day of battle, and there was already heavy casualties. And things could only get worse. More troops were coming to the battlefield in order shore up their defenses. But all Medical Officer Fluttershy saw was more potential casualties. The Army of the Ponytomic was on its way north to confront the Republican Army of Northern Haygina. There would be over two hundred thousand ponies, all fighting in armies, arriving the next day.

But that was not their current problem. Right now, the first day of the fighting had resulted in an influx of wounded, all in need of medical care. The corps field hospital was still in a state of non-readiness when the first of the wounded began to trickle in to it, their navy blue uniforms stained with blood from musket, and a few bayonet, wounds. The wounded cried out in pain, and there were only two doctors and three or four nurses on duty to help them.

Fluttershy, a timid yellow pegisus with a pink mane, was one of the doctors. Initially she refused to join the army, citing that she was a pacifist, but that changed nothing when the army found out that she had medical experience. The army drafted her on and threw her into the corps lead by Soarin, the former Wonderbolt, now general in the army, despite her protests that it was veterinary experience.

Fluttershy was shaken out of her stunned stupor by other doctor/surgeon Medical Super Private First Class DuFrain, a purple Earth Pony stallion, who, like her, had refused to fight. But he volunteered to join the Medical Corps. That proved to be a major mistake on the Imperial side. Most of those who he treated had died, most during one of his “alternative treatments”. One such death was when he was giving CPR to a large red stallion that was shot in the head.

“Fluttershy, snap out of it!” he yelled over the moans of the wounded and dying.

“What?” responded Fluttershy, in her soft voice. She looked out over the beds, looking at all the wounded that were there, lamenting that she could do little to ease their suffering.

“A Major General is in the tent. She was shot in the shoulder, and is bleeding out. We need to hurry!” he said as he took off towards the direction of, what she assumed was, the wounded commander. She took off after him, in a hurry to save the general.

As Fluttershy arrived she saw another pegisus, in the uniform of a high officer, stained by the blood pouring from her shoulder. The pegisus was a pure white, where her coat wasn’t stained in blood, with a curly yellow mane. On her jacket was the emblem of the Wonderbolts, showing her as an ex-member of the organization.

To start the surgery, DuFrain ripped of the jacket, to get at the wound. To start with Fluttershy gave the general some morphine, the general by this time was babbling incoherently about commands. After a few moments, giving the painkiller time to do its job, DuFrain grabbed the forceps and slowly began to insert them into the bullet wound. DuFrian was, for the most part, poor as a doctor, but he could close a bullet wound like nopony else could. After extracting the musket ball from the wound he grabbed a needle and thread, and began to sew the wound shut. “Fluttershy, go get a blood bag.” he told her. She left to get the bag, and after getting it, began to ready it for transfusion. When she arrived the general was not doing well. The wound, despite being closed with the stiches, continued to bleed heavily, and DuFrain was nowhere to be found.

The time was critical, as the general was still bleeding, it needed to be stopped, and the treating doctor was nowhere to be found. It couldn’t get any worse, could it? But it did. Major General Soarin entered the tent, a storm cloud of rage following him. “Where is Surprise, I need to know her report!” he bellowed.

“Is this her, sir?” asked Fluttershy as she readied the bandage.

The light blue pegisus walked over to the bleeding general. “Yes, that’s her.” He said much more melancholy than before. “Is there anything I can do to help her?” he then asked.

“You can take this and wrap it around the wound while I ready the transfusion.” said Fluttershy as she tossed several clean rags at the corps commander. He caught them out of the air and walked over to Surprise. He then gingerly lifted up her shoulder and began to wrap the cloth around it.

At that time Fluttershy lifted up the arm and inserted the needle of the transfusion in to her arm. She looked up after putting the blood bag on to a pole in the ground to see the highest officer in the corps struggling to tie the bandages off. “Give that to me.” she said as she took the bandages from him and with a couple deft movements tied it up.

“Sorry, I haven’t had to do that since the Academy.” apologized Soarin.

“It’s not your fault, you just didn’t remember what to do.” responded Fluttershy calmly.

For a moment the only sound was the ragged breathing of the wounded general lying on the operating table. After a short period of time Soarin spoke. “Hey, do you want to get out of here? I have dinner soon and I was wondering if you’d like to eat with me?” he asked awkwardly.

“I would love to,” returned Fluttershy, “but I have to keep up with the wounded here, so I can’t.”

“What if I could find somepony to cover for you?” then asked Soarin.

“Maybe, but there is nopony is available. Everypony is on call right now.” was her response

“Give me an hour.” said the general as he left before Fluttershy could object.

The timid pegisus then walked back into the main body of the tent. As she did so she came within millimeters of bumping into DuFrain. She was about to apologize before she remembered the reason the general had to work with her to save Surprise’s life. “Where were you!” she sternly said to him, which was equivalent to the soft-spoken mare yelling.

“I was needed elsewhere.” he responded to Fluttershy.

His argument was rendered moot when a pegisus when a slate gray coat and a blond mane, and huge earth pony with a white coat and no mane at all spotted him. The earth pony had a huge, ugly, scar on his throat. “There he is! The doctor who botched the operation.” yelled the pegisus, the earth pony growling in approval. The gray pegisus leapt over several stretchers to tackle DuFrian. Fluttershy, startled by the commotion, dove under an unused cot. She heard the sounds of fighting, DuFrain screaming, then silence. When she finally climb out from underneath, the room was in chaos. It looked like Discord himself had landed in the middle of the tent and decided to create as much chaos as possible in as little time. Desks and examination tables were overturned, and a large swath of the floor space was open, where the two stallions had dragged out DuFrain.

Moments after she climbed out several solders rushed into the tent, drawn in by the sounds of fighting. One of them was an officer of some regiment from Mane. She had a lavender coat and a mane of the same color, with a pink stripe in it. Beside her was another officer, probably of the same regiment, a tall stallion with a white coat and a blue mane. “What in Celestia’s beard is going on here!” the lavender unicorn ordered.

“I would like to know that as well.” said General Soarin as he entered the room as well.

As the now highest ranking doctor on call there Fluttershy had to answer. “T-t-there were t-two st-stallions who burst in here. T-they saw DuFrain and dragged him off s-s-saying something about a b-b-botched operation and then d-d-dragged him out, sir.” she addressed the general.

“Where were you when this happened?” probed the lavender unicorn.

“That, my subordinate, is unimportant.” responded Soarin. “What is important is that one of our surgeons was kidnapped, and we need to respond. You two go and dispatch a search team.” he then ordered. The commander then turned to Fluttershy as the other two officers ran out of the pavilion. “Now how are you feeling right now?” he then asked.

“I-I’m fine. I just worried about DuFrain. He’s a jerk, but I don’t want to see anypony hurt.” she said to him.

“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine.” Soarin responded.

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DuFrain had no idea where he was. He could still hear the sounds of camp life, but it was muffled and far away. The pegisus who took him was sitting on a campstool looking out over a road from the woods they were in. The pegisus turned around as DuFrian shifted in place. “Oh you’re up.” He said as he turned toward DuFrain. The last thought that went through DuFrain’s mind that night was that this was going to hurt.

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