The Guardian

by NYChris824

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Author's Note:

I decided to skip officer school since it was mostly a class setting along with some outdoor training.

I got no response on whether or not to change the story. I'll wait and see what the feedback is.

I did some fixing in the first scene and the second as well, so let me know if it's off or sounds weird.

Four months later

"Now arriving in Ponyville." The automated voice said. Our train was approaching Ponyville where our new assignment was. We were all second lieutenants, but promotions were coming soon.

"So why are we out in a division ourselves?" Michael asked, "There's, what, eighteen thousand troops in a division? Roster only had us, in an unarmed division."

"We're second leftenants, we can't find our way out of a paper bag." Jae's responded. "Someone will be there to meet us, probably got fixed this morning."

I stood up and collected my bags. "Being a second lieu mean nothing. Any bad skills I should have, I don't. That is because I have cheated Death himself back on Earth and the Fates sent me to face down another Death."

"Aren't Marines supposed to be cavemen? Because that was actually deep." Michael pointed out.

"Mattis studies military history all the time. He's not even married. In the Marines he isn't known has Mad Dog; as much at least, like a bunch of high schoolers who want to join. He's Chaos. He's the Warrior Monk. He has a personal with thousands of books and other stuff. I kinda took after him and got into history, mostly twentieth century." I ranted about the stereotypes of Marines.

"Have I ever told you that story?" I said in a quiet voice. "The one time I really, really cheated death."

"Nein, I remember you mentioning once in basic." Michael answered

"It was towards the end of my first deployment. This lieutenant, Zummer or some weird last name. Anyway he came up to me and asked me to suit up and join him for a patrol. I never liked him, he never liked me. I knew if I told him to fuck off that he would order me. So I cracked a joke that his driver was bad and if he voided my insurance policy, he laughed and walked off. Hour later his convoy was attacked and everyone died."

"Bloody Christ." James whispered while David and Michael said something else in their native tongues.

"Indeed." Was all I said as we disembarked the train and walked through town, our second time here in eight months, our first during our one week furlough. We waved to everyone as we walked to Twilight's castle.

I knocked on the main door of Twilight's castle. "Parade rest." I ordered, I was the senior officer due to age.

Instead of Twilight, Spike answered the door. While his growth spurt began a week before we went shipped off. Now he a few inches taller than me, despite that, he was still a young dragon.

"Guys!" He nearly shouted, "You're back!" He grabbed David and hugged him. "It's feels like forever. Come in."

We followed him into the castle, a voice called out.

"Spike? Who was at the door?" Twilight asked

"Just some old friends." He replied, her footsteps closing in. She rounded the corner and let out a gasp.

"Attention!" I said as we all saluted. Twilight stumbled over her words before getting her words in order. I immediately planned to be formal as possible around her when I'm in uniform to mess with her.

"You guys don't have to salute me, we're friends. Um, at ease." We all stood at parade rest. "Knock it off."

I loosened up and she gave me a hug. "Good to see. Princess."

"You too. How much do you guys know?"

"Literally nothing, but we guessed we'll be in a new division."

"Basically. Follow me, I'll show you to the War Room, it was added a while back." We followed her into the center of the castle.

"So how's the town?" Michael asked.

"Eventful as usual. Rainbow Dash kept pranking the whole town and so we all pranked her by pretending that eating cookies turned us into zombies. We found a changeling in the Crystal Empire, who wanted to have friends despite how many ponies hate them. Some other stuff here and there."

"Sounds about right." We walked into a room, with only a table and two windows. Twilight lit up her horn and made a projection pop up on the table.

"Welcome to the War Room. So here's what the plan is, Princess Luna decided that southern Equestria needed extra divisions." We waited for her continue. "That's all I know."

"So we're in one of those new ones?" David guessed.

"Only part that makes sense, I'm sure not what you're roles would be. Most likely lieutenants, Dan might be captain. Promotions and new assignments will be out sometime this week. Until then, you all will be here."

"It'll be nice to sleep in and see everyone again, at least." I added.

"Absolutely! I'll get the girls together and we can go out tonight." Twilight agreed, shutting off the magic map. We walked out of the War Room and into the main hallway.

Canterlot

Princess Luna would normally be asleep, but she could easily wake up a little earlier than usual for such an important meeting.

"Hello, Luna." Her sister greeted her.

"Evening, Tia. How was the court?"

"Quiet, thankfully.

They walked into the War Room, a large room with walls covered in maps. On the center table, a magic projection of Equestria in focus. The only pony in the room was the Head of the Army, General of Their Majesties' Army Powder Charge.

"Your majesties." He said.

"General Charge, good to see you." Princess Luna answered.

"You as well you majesty. I have good news. I've heard from the engineers, the bases were completely finished earlier today and the new generals will be informed tonight."

"Excellent. Who are they?" Princess Celestia asked.

Ponyville, later that night

"I still don't understand why of all places we could've gone, you all chose a pancake place." Rarity said. We were at Equestrian House of Pancakes, or EHOP.

"It's cheap, casual and reminds me of a place I would go with some friends while hammered." I replied. "It empty, so there's no wait."

"And besides," Applejack added, "what's not to like about pancakes."

"Exactly! They're like cupcakes, but for breakfast! There's all sorts of ways to make them unique! Like adding chocolate chips or chocolate to the dough and chocolate chips. Or adding chocolate syrup instead of maple. And then adding itty bitty pieces of chocolate to it. Or -" Pinke rambled.

"So how's the business Rarity?" I asked the fashion loving mare.

"Quite fine, thank you dear." She answered, "Spring was fairly uneventful, except for some camouflage patterns being used by Hoity Toity, reminded me of you. The Manehatten Fashion Week is coming up soon and I would hate to go alone again, I may just have to borrow one of you for that."

"You better ask that general when he rolls into town."

"-on top of chocolate pancakes! That's like octo-chocolate pancakes." Pinkie concluded.

"What was she talking about?" Rarity asked.

"Don't know, I wasn't paying attention, something with chocolate and pancakes."

"Sounds like her."

Twilight cleared her throat to grab everyone's attention. "I just wanted to say a few things. First, once again, welcome back you guys. Second, there was a reason I wanted to go out." She reached into her purse and pulled out four black boxes. She floated them to us with her magic. "Congrats on your promotions."

"Captain here I come." I said as I opened the box. Inside were two crescent moons and a pair of wings at the bottom of insignia.

Major fucking general.

"Congratulations Major General Kroger and Colonels Fuch, Carpenter and Magomedov." She said, as she stood and saluted us. Everyone else clapped for us.

"I guess you're the General to ask, Dan." Rarity noted.

"There must be a mistake. No one goes from second lieutenant to a general. Staff Sargent to lieutenant, possible along with a Silver Star. At most I should be a major." I replied.

"But isn't that what you wanted dear? You mentioned wanting to be a general."

"Yea, but in 20 years. I imagine I'll be in charge of a new division."

"Correct." Twilight responded.

"Eighteen thousand men under my command. All just a few years younger than me, maybe a few my age or older. I never led more than a fireteam. God help me. Who thought this was a good idea?"

"Princess Luna suggested it the Head of the Army Charge, he looked into your history and said yes."

"Christ. A twenty four year old general and a two star at that. Must be a new record." James added. "Also I'm eighteen, in command of thousands who are my age. There's not way this'll work well."

"Youngest American general was twenty in the Civil War. Youngest four star general was fifty six. I'm half his age and two stars away. Jesus." I leaned back in my chair. "We obviously can't argue with them on this, let's make the best of it. Where's the base?"

"A few miles west of town. Do you want to head over?"

"No. It'll be there in the morning, unless this is a weird dream. This is insane."

"Ya'll pull through." Applejack said.

"Guess we will." Michael answered as we stood up. "Hasn't been a war in a century. Plenty of time to get comfy doing this."

I stood still and threw my hands out. "You cursed us. Murphy himself is traveling through space to prove you wrong."

"You don't actually believe that do you?"

"Who is Murphy?" Twilight asked.

"Of course I believe it. I don't know his full name but Murphy's Law is basically what can go wrong, will go wrong. There are different versions people have made. War is one of them. Soldiers are superstitious. As such, no one want to curse a mission, easy missions go wrong and hard missions are simple. We don't question it. I knew a guy, Jacob, who had a nude picture of his girlfriend, one mission he had it out and dropped it. While he was bent over, sniper took a shot, bullet zipped over him. He taped her picture to his gun as luck. I knew a guy would use the same bathroom before each mission. I was that man." I explained as we walked outside.

Dash looked at me like I had three heads. "You're go-to luck thing was using the same toilet?"

"I had to go a few minutes before my first mission, no one got hurt. Sure I obviously got hurt and whatnot. I bet the Wonderbolts have a special thing they do before they fly. I don't know, Spitfire ties her left shoe the wrong way because she did once and set a best time or something."

Later that night

I went for a walk to clear my mind. I had a target in mind, the site of my new base. I headed west like Twilight said, the same direction as the Everfree, obviously done on purpose. I looked back to back sure I was far away from town that no one would hear me, I began to belt out the Marine Corps Hymn.

Old habits die hard.

I arrived at the camp, it had the standard entrance of some wooden planks covering the way in and out. I was used to concrete blocks and steel bollards to throw off VBEDs.

"When in Rome." I muttered and walked around

I stumbled around the base or at least most of it. Housing twenty thousand, along with support staff, was no easy task. I stumbled until I found administration, which I had a feeling I may be in. Generals shouldn't be within a hundred miles of combat, but there is no rules saying that. Anthony McAuliffe famously fought during the Siege of Bastogne in World War Two and Mattis was known to talk to privates and NCOs during the Invasion of Iraq.

I entered the building and turned the flashlight on my phone on and searched for the lights. I found them and walked through hallways and offices looking for mine. My room was all the way in the back. I rubbed my hand over the name card on the door, I still felt like I was dreaming.

The room only had a desk and a few chairs, something I would change. On the desk were two pieces of paper. I took my seat behind the desk and ran my hands over my desk. A small laugh escaped my mouth as I did. I looked over the two papers, the first was a letter from someone, probably congratulating me on my promotions. The second reminded of a form of some sort, I started with the letter.

Dear Major General Kroger,

Congratulations on your promotion, I'm sure that you know very few have held your rank at your age. You have both my confidence and my sister's with you in your new role. While our world is more peaceful than yours, I have the feeling that should the need arise for those with your skill set that you will be a force on the battlefield. We wish you the best of luck to you and your division. Speaking of it, the first few thousand will be arriving on the following days and the rest in three months after they finish basic.

Sincerely,
Princess Celestia

I slid the letter off to the side. "I'll frame it and keep it. Hold on to the big things about me or something." I said. I looked over the other paper. It was my first taste of paperwork, something I would probably be dealing with often. It was a form for the 'traditions' of the division, mottos, a song and nicknames, which to me should be earned. But it would certainly allow me to make this unique. I grabbed the pen out of my jacket, something I learned to always carry on me.

I stood up and paced the room. "Motto, motto, motto. Has to be Latin, which I don't speak. Couple songs uses it." I suddenly remembered one instead. Si vis pacem, para bellum; if you wat peace prepare for war.

"Now a song." I don't have anything from the 1800s so nothing old and I have almost nothing from Equestria, which will certainly make it even more unique. I'd have to sit down and listen to a few hundred songs for that to one.

My call sign and by default the call sign of the whole division was next. I immediately chose 'Sandman' which I used in basic, a slight homage to Metallica. I had left was the anthem or whatever it's called, a emblem and a nickname, which I certainly wouldn't give for at least a year, if not longer. Of course knowing the number of my division would be help. First Marine and First Infantry both had a one on there patch.

Hopefully I'll have more information tomorrow.

I stood up and left the building to explore the base some more. I passed several mess halls and the central armory, all locked. I passed rows of barracks, both enlisted and officer. One building, near a small armory, caught my eye. It was made of cement and had zero windows, must the jail. I walked around the building and stumbled across a massive find.

A motorpool made up easily hundreds, if not a few thousand trucks. I remember months ago when Princess Luna said they were buying trucks for the army, these must be mine. Although most of the army still relied on their own feet or a train to move. We must have the trucks since we were new, I assumed. They were all a dark gray wth canvas covers over the back, which does nothing for protection from fire.

I called it a night and walked back to the castle, ahead with a plan to return tomorrow.

Comments

[Profesionalac]

damn. launch a coup

[Amethyst Blade]

Hope you remember that there is magic for Equestrians...
I've read another war fic and the author kinda forgot that magic is a thing for the first half of the story...

[Tedious_Blizzard]

8656832

We were doing Forest Gump quotes

[NYChris824]

8657018

I know

[RobertLuller_Bass]

When the next chappy coming

[NYChris824]

8669355

I was SUPPOSED to upload it last night but forgot. I like to post after midnight, so I see how many people view it. So if I remember to upload tonight, it'll be around 12:30ish

[Fireflight startrottor]

I loosened up and she gave me a hug. "Good to see (you) Princess."