The Raiders and The Princess

by FIRE FLASH 3

Chapter III: Finding her a home

Chapter III

Weightlessness was all that Twilight could feel. She tried to grasp at the space around her, her hooves were moving in all directions. She was scared, she was lost in the Shadows void. Twilight knew what would happen everytime she ended up in this strange place. The haunting images of Equestria lost in Tartarus. She could only close her eyes and await the arrival of The Shadow.

So she just layed there, her body floating through the void, and awaited her torment. The sound of echoing voices filled the void, quite faint but still audible. Twilight closed her eyes firmly. The voices got louder, but they were not unknown to her. But as the voices got louder, she soon realised that she was hearing not multiple voices but one and it kept on repeating one thing.

" ...Twilight..."

That voice, it was so familiar, but Twilight could not put her hoof on it. but the voive was cut off by a sudden BANG! She almost jumped out of her fur. The sudden loud laughter of the Shadow, echoed around Twilight.

"Hello, princess." He laughed as his invisible body worked its way around her. She clenched her eyes shut and prayed to Celestia that somepony would save her.

XXXXXXXXX

The amount of attention I was getting from the fact I had an unconscious girl in my arms was incredible. Everyone out doing their duties stopped to look at me with "Twilight" in my arms.

'Je paris qu'ils n'arrivent pas à y croire qu'il y a une fille dans mes bras' I thought to myself. A few thoughts were going through my head as I approached my tent. One of them was the fact that I had to go and talk to Colonel Sanders about this..... phenomenon.

It was about three in the afternoon, and the heat was getting hotter than anyone could bare. I, myself had taken the opportunity to unbutton my jacket and shirt, hoping to get a bit of coolness onto my body. Now that I thought about it, there was an awful smell and I had an idea of where it was coming from. I lowered my head to sniff my arms, the stench was revolting, the smell of an uncleaned uniform and the body of the soldier who was wearing it.

As I parted the flaps to the entrance of my tent, to find the colonel sitting there, on my bed, looking at the ground. I just stood in the 'doorway' holding the girl in my arms. After a few seconds, he turned his attention from the floor to me. He looked me over, slowly getting up he looked at the girl in my grasp.

"I've been searching the entire camp for you Lou." He said

"Sorry sir, I've had to get her looked at, you know, medical reasons." I replied, he nodded then looked back at Twilight.

"So..." He said, rubbing his nose. "This is the girl you were talking about on the radio?"

"Yes sir"

There was a pause for a brief moment, when the colonel broke it.

"You know, when my radio operator told me what you told him, I thought he'd lost it." He chuckled. I didn't say anything. "And now..." He sighed, inhalling sharply. "I've asked the head surgeon to come and talk about this with us in the CP."

"Shall I wake her sir, or...?" I left my question hanging, I don't really want to ask to many questions, especialy to the Colonel.

"Nah, leave her here, I'm not going to wake someone who's getting a bit of shut eye for once." He said, heading towards the door. I put down some of my pack but I took my Johnson with me, and some water.

The walk back through the camp was quiet, neither me or the colonel said a word during the entire walk, around us, marines from every division and every rank were running past us, some of them would were grabbing their gear, some heading towards the shelters and others just.... sitting there playing, reading, writting.... and later, these men would scream. These were the shell shocked ones. Talking to them selves all day. But the only time they would ever stop, was at night fall, they would just sit there....... and scream. Not like any sort of screaming you could hear from a movie of someone hurting them selves. These screams... they were unique. To me, they actualy sounded like the sreetches from the incomming naval rounds.

If they were lucky, some of the fleeing troops would drag some of them into the shelters. Well... some of them, I don't know if I should say that the others were unlucky or lucky? To me, a quick death is a lot more merciful than a life in an Assylum. If I think that, does that make me a coward? a traitor?

In the end it makes no difference. We're all going to die anyway, our navy has abandoned us on this island. And soon, an overwhealming japanese assault will eventualy overun us, and no one from the outside will ever know.

Opening the tent flap, the colonel gestured for me to enter. I entered to find Lieutenant James McCarter, the doc from the MASH, waiting by the table in the center of the tent. When he saw us enter, he got up but the colonel waved it off, so the lieutenant sat back down. The colonel walked past me and gestured for me to sit down. So I sat down next to Lieutenant McCarter, he was busy reading through some files of the division. As the colonel sat down, he sighed and looked both at me and the doc, then placed his head on his finger tips.

"Alright, now that we are all here, let us talk about what I called you here for." He said, turning his attention to the doc "For starters, what are you doing Lieutenant?"

"Hum? What?... Oh sorry sir, just looking through the divisions files. Just trying to find out who this girl is." He replied, lowering the file he had in his hands.

"Well, that ain't a bad idea." He said then turning his attention to me. "I suggest you do the same thing Lou. Who knows she may be from one of the other divisions. But we'll talk about this later, for now, what do we know about this... girl."

"Well, for the moment, we only know a few physical aspects about our guest." I said

"That is?"

"Well... I do have my medics medical report. If you would like me to read what we have found out?" I suggested. He just gestured for me to read, doing a small movement with his hands. "Mhhpph... Subject is a female aproximately 5 foot 3 or 4. Age as for the moment remains unknown. Subject claims that her name is 'Twilight Sparkle' but her real name is still unknown." I stopped, to see the reaction of the colonel. He just starred at me with his normal look of expectation. "Now we come to the report on the subjects condition when we found her: Female appears to have suffured only minor injuries when first encountered, injuries most concerning were those on her feet. This may have been caused by the fact that she wasn't wearing any clothes, footwear, or anything for that matter."

"No clothing? I hope you didn't do more than look after her out there Lou." He said causing McCarter to laugh his head off.

"W-W-WHAT?! N-No of course not sir! You know that I---" But I was cut off in mid fear.

"Calm down Sargeant! It was just a tease, I know what happens to you at the mere mention of sex" He said, trying to calm me down. I could only shudder at his last word. I'm one of the sort of guys who, when at the mere mention of S.E...X, would immidiatly shudder. Not I don't know anything about it, its just that... It gets to me, you know?

"God! It still hilarious, the way you panic like that" McCarter said, still chuckling to himself. "I can only imagine what will happen when we get home and you finaly find a girlfriend." He burst out laughing banging his hand on the table. 'J'vais t'étrangler. JE VAIS T'ETRANGLER!!' My mind was yelling out to me, but I kept myself from doing it. The colonel intervened at that moment.

"Calm down Lieutenant! I would like to get this whole thing over with." He paused for a moment, to give McCarter time to calm his laughter. "Now Lou, please continue."

"Yeah, anyway, like I was saying, the subject had no form of Identification, no dogtags or papers. She does have a perculiar tatoo on both outer thighs. Both tatoos are simetricaly identical both in shape and emplacement." I paused for colonel Sanders to catch up. "We're not sure if it is or isn't, but her hair is way to long and to colorful to be within Military régulations. Her hair does almost reach her... behind" The Doc snorted. But I continued. "The last strange thing that this girl has to offer us is her iris color."

"Meaning?" Sanders asked.

"Meaning sir, that, this... girl has violet irises."

"Unlike the Lieutenant here, I'm not here for laughs Lou." He said his eyes narrowing down on me. Luckily for me, McCarter came to my aid for once.

"He isn't lying sir. I admit, that when I found out, I was quitte shocked aswell. But I can confirm that she has purple eyes." He explained, the colonel was now rubbing his head into his hands.

"Finding out who she realy is may proove more difficult than I thought" He mumbled to himself, loud enough for us to hear. "Are you sure she isn't wearing some sort of colorant on her eyes?" He asked McCarter.

"A colorant? Sir I'm no optician , but even I know that there ain't such things as stuff that allows you to color your eyes without loosing your sight. And even if there were, the effects wouldn't last this long, and where would she get the colorant from? I mean, we aren't exactly beeing resuplied anytime soon. Sir" He added at the end of his sentence.

"Good point, well gentlemen, this is obviously something that we will have to look into this evening. But for the moment, I would loke it Lou if you and your squad could go and check out the other divisions to see if they're missing someone resembling, this err... Twilight Sparkle?"

"Yes sir."

"As of now, we will continue this discution on who this girl this evening. If you find out who she is and from what division, regiment, company, platoon, squad she's from, you will tell me this evening. We'll meet back here at 2100hrs. Got it?" He explained to us.

"Yes sir" Me and McCarter said at the same time. McCarter exited the CP but I stopped in my tracks and turned back to the colonel. "Sir?"

"Hum?" putting his head into his arms.

"When am I gonna get the extra recruits? I am pretty low on men." I asked.

"I don't know for the moment, but if I get some spares I'll let you know."He replied. I nodded and left the tent.

XXXXXXXXX

Twilights eyes shot open, her heavy breathing, the sweat Rolling down her forhead was proof of how terrifying and scary the reencounter with the Shadow had been. This time, she was taken to Manehattan. The city was plunged in smoke, almost every building was on fire. The royal state building was a true towering inferno. It towered of all the other fires that were raging throughout one of Equestrias greatest cities.

She wipped a few tears of saddness, before slowly sitting up and taking a look at her surroundings. At first she was taken aback by her entourage. Her heart beat, that had only just slowed down, was now racing like mad. Where was she? Was this another one of the Shadows games? These thoughts were racing throughout her head. She was so terrified. When would she ever escape this nightmare?

The ruffling sound that was coming outside made her even more scared, she pulled the covers that were under her and hid herself behind them. She heard whatever it was from outside, come in.

"SOMEPONY HEEEELLLP!!" She yelled from within the covers, she was trembling like mad, and began to cry. Her tears were streaming down her face, she was way to scared to look when the covers were pulled away. She waited for the Shadow to start talking to her, filling her with fear and pain. But the feeling of a pair of forlegs wrapping around her, was something she wasn't expecting. Then a voice she had heard before began to "Shh" her in a soothing tone.

"Shh... Shh... Hey, there's no need to worry, it's me. It's Lou"

XXXXXXXXX

"Its me. Its Lou" I was saying, trying to calm Twilight down.

I had just come back from talking with the guys, telling them what I wanted them to do. I had asked them to go and check with the other divisions and make sure Twilight didn't belong to one of them. Just as I walk into my home, I hear Twilight yell something about a pony. I rushed in, only to find her hidding under my covers. When I pulled them off, she was all curled up in defence as if I was going to hit her or someting.

"S-S-Sorry... I thought you were... someone else..." She trailed off.

"Well whoever it is, he or she must be terrifying to scare you to the point that you have to hide under my sheets." I said, she only starred off into space, or at the ground. I actualy felt kinda sad for her. "Hey listen, I'm going back to the CP to find your file and findout which company you belong to." I said hopping to get her spirits up.

"Well, I know you won't find a file on me" She replied in a sad tone.

"And I'm not prepared to believe that you're a pony until logic says otherwise." I replied, giving her a smile. She didn't look up, she just starred down at the ground in intense thought. "Look... if there's something scaring you so badly, please tell me about it, you shouldn't keep it hidden or it'll tare you apart, but please don't leave this tent. I'd hate to find you missing again." I said, exiting my tent.

XXXXXXXXX

I had no idea how the others were getting on, but I was certain that they were doing better than me at finding the file of this so called "Twilight Sparkle". For the moment, I was at divisional Headquaters, looking through the deployment files of the 2nd division. But I was now four hours into my search. I was having to read through each file, since there could be a probability that she could have passed herself off as a male, though I higly doubted it. As I approached the last files of Item Company, I was soon begining to wonder 'Et si ce qu'elle disait était vrai? Qu'elle est vraiment une princesse?' My mind pondered on that thought.

As I read the last file of the ENTIRE division, I sat myself down and hung my head back as a headache was slowly working its way up. While I was trying to relax my mind, the sound of someone clearing their throat made me stand imidiatly at attention. Only to find Mark, smirking at me.

"What?" I asked

"You look tired." He replied

"Tired or not, I've still got a long day a head of me."

"Well, you may have an even longer one now" He sighed, looking at me with a concerned face.

"What do you mean?" I asked, hopping he wasn't about to say what I thought he was about to say.

"Lou, I have searched, asked, even interogated everyone in the 1st Marines. Nothing. Absolutly nothing." He said with a dissapointed tone.

"And the others?"

"Jack and Tomy went to check with the other divisions, but I haven't heard from them yet--" He was cut off as Jack and Tomy came stumbling in through the entrance.

"Lou, we've got something!" Jack said. Finalement! I thought to myself. they've found who she is and where she's from.

"Oh thank god! Alright then, who is she and where is she from?" I asked, awaiting the answers that I've been wanting all day.

"Yeah, we've got nothing" At that my head came into contact with the filing cabinet. "They had no files on any females, we read them all but we've found nothing. I'm sorry Lou" At that precise moment, my mind was begining to work as fast as possible to try and find an explanation but nothing was adding up.

"Guys, we need to have a little talk about this before the Colonel arrives with Doc McCarter." They nodded and grabbed themselves each a chair. "Alright, from what we know, this 'Twilight Sparkle isn't in the records of the divisions present on this island." I said, earning nods from everyone. "And from what you guys have told me, no one knows of any girls on this island." They nodded again. "Is there a possibility that what she says is true?" I asked, they just stared at me in disbelief.

"What you're saying is that we should believe her?" Mark asked.

"Well... yeah, you know--" I replied but was cut off by Mark.

"Well where's your evidence, Lou? You can't seriously think that you can make us think that without proof."

"Well err..." I began to tap my cheek in thought. "Her eyes and hair! Both are strange to be the color that they are."

"Freak of nature." Mark said looking bored.

"Well here's one: how come her feet weren't that bad when we found her and yet she had supposedly walked through this dense jungle?" I asked.

"Well--" Mark was about to reply but Jack cut him off.

"I'm sorry to say this, but Lou's right. By my medical opinion, she had only been walking for about an hour maybe two. And yet, to get from where we found her to the camp, her feet would have to be in a lot worse condition than they are in now."

"Then she came from somewhere else." Mark sighed in defeat.

"But where?" Tomy asked, the tent was now completly silent as we all began to think.

"Well all the hopes of the conclusion beeing that she was a nurse, secretary or even soldier have gone. The only conclusion that is very improbable,but still the only conclusion where the evidence points in the same direction is that she is who she says she is."

"Well we'll have to wait and see, but what do we do with her in the meantime?" Tomy asked.

"That doesn't matter for the moment, I still need to tell the colonel and the doc that we haven't found anything. And they should be coming back in a few minutes so I'll wait here." I sighed and rubbed my face. "You guys can go while I stay here, check on Twilight when you get back, tell her that I'll be right back. You can also prepare yourselves for tonight. Don't worry about Twilight, I'll get her to the shelter before the firework display." I got nods and grunts from everyone and watched as they all left, but as they were leaving, I saw that they were saluting someone, I was quite surprised to see that it was the colonel and the doc.

"This is going to be a long talk..." I said silently to myself.

XXXXXXXXX

For the rest of the afternoon, the three of us talked more about this now unexplainable person who was now in my tent. When I gave them the information that was given to me by my squad mates, they were both getting headaches. The fact I so much wnted to tell them about my beliefs on who she realy is, but they'd think I was a nut. So I decided to let it out slowly through the conversation.

"So we can defenetly confirm that she doesn't belong to any division on the island. So... where does that leave us?" Asked Sanders. I nodded and McCarter sighed.

"Then who is she?" He asked.

"Well... we had thought she could be a stowaway, but that isn't possible since whoever smuggled her here would be looking for her and would have asked his HQ about it." I said, before continuing. "We then thought that she could be from a settlement on the island before the war. But, without beeing racist, her skin color doesn't match that of the indiginous populations on the island and she has a perfect american accent."

"And it isn't possible that she could be part of an exploration groop who was studying the population of the island?" Colonel Sanders asked.

"I guess, but its strange that she doesn't seem to know who she really is and she is really from." I replied, the colonel getting a look of satisfaction on his face. "But when we were in that cave and we were asking all those questions, she still said that she was a pony and she's still telling the same story, not as if she memorised it but as if what she says... is... true." I finished in a small voice, awaiting their reaction.

"WHAT!! You think what she says is true?! You've gotta be crazy to believe that--" McCarter was yelling before Sanders cut him off.

"Quiet Lieutenant!" He said, then turning his attention to me and asking. "What makes you think that sargeant?"

"Well sir, when we were walking back through the jungle, she told me a story about when she was just a young girl or filly as she put it. And for the entire duration of the story, she always used 'pony' terms. Not once did she slip up and yet she was telling me her story with such passion that it was... real." I said, getting an odd look from the doc.

"Not once?" asked the colonel.

"Not once, I mean I'm no doctor but even I know that after a while she should have slipped up by using a human word. And went back to my tent after our earlier chat, she was scared from a nightmare she had had. And when I pulled the covers that she had covered herself in, she yelled: Somepony help." There was a long moment of silence before the doc spoke.

"Well that's a nice story but we need to get back to the subject at hand. What are we supposed to do with her?"

"... I had the idea of enlisting her in one of the divisions. Sir" I answered to him.

"And with who were thinking of pairing her with?" Sanders asked.

"Well... since she's a female, I thought we could enlisted her with the MASH, as a nurse." Getting a glare from doc McCarter. The colonel didn't say anything, he just sat there, a pen and paper in hand, and began to writte something. After a minute of silence the colonel slid a piece of paper over to the McCarter.

"W-What's this, sir?" He asked.

"An enlistment form, just sign right here and then she's all yours." But to both my and the colonels suprise, McCarter pushed the sheet of paper back to the colonel.

"I'm sorry sir, but I won't sign that."

"And why not?"

"Because sir, the hospital is a much larger target for the night shelling. And frankly sir, I won't sign on a unknown female, no matter how gorgeous she is." McCarter answered.

"Fair point." The colonel said taking back the piece of paper. "Then what do we do with her?" He asked himself. We were now all in thought, aside the hospital, there was no other place that we could send her to without the serious danger. "What we need is to find someone who isn't part of the division. Or maybe someone who is only attached to... the... division." Coming to a slow halt as he came to the end of his sentence. His kind, warm, fake smile soon landed on me.

"Oh non" I said to myself as he slid the paper over to me "But sir I'm only a squad leader, and I don't think my commander would be happy if he finds out that--" I began to whine but Sanders cut me off.

"No one's gonna find out, not even the general or Carlson. We are all going to keep this a secret." He said handing me a pen.

"But sir, it's way more dangerous with me than at the hospital." I said, trying to work my way out of the mess I was slowly beeing dropped in.

"Lou, no one is going to find out, we will send her back once we get relieved but until then" he said pushing the paper and pen closer to me. "she will be Under your protection." I slowly picked up the pen and my shaky hand began to sign the paper. As I finished, I pushed the paper back to the colonel. He took it and stood up, we followed suit and the doc walked towards the entrance. I was about to follow him, just when the colonel called to me. "Oh and Lou!"

"Yes sir?"

"No one must know who she realy is, she has to be kept a secret from the generals and other high ranking officers. I'm not worried about the enlisted men, since many of them have already seen her. But if the press find out we had an unauthorised civilian here and she was discovered, we might loose this war because of it. The course of this war now depends on how you work this out." He said in a 'matter of fact' tone. I understood what he was getting at, if the press found out about Twilight not being in the military. The public would think that the USMC was up to no good and stop funding the war effort. After the crash of 1929, funding is crucial at this point in the war.

I sighed and continued my way out, I realy didn't want Twilight on my squad but I guess I have no choice. "You asked me earlier when you would get some more people on your squad." Sanders said behind me. "Look at it this way, you've got one more now." He said, looking back down a the piece of paper I had signed and scrunched it and then tared it up into shreds. I held my head high and headed back into the bright light of the setting sun. As I walked, the sreetchers, as we have come to call them, started to clear up their stuff and, sat down.

Awaiting the oncoming bombardement.

Author's Note:

When I write the parts for the so called "Shadow" I always think his voice would sound something like this: https://youtu.be/bV8YbLvGrb0?t=59 (This is one of my favorite shows from the 1960's)

Also, I won't be posting as many chapters as during the hollidays. But I promise to keep trying to correct my mistakes with a lot of help from my proofreader.

Comments

[mr xlu]

I think I sprained my tow I'm in pain will proofread s soon

[FIRE FLASH 3]

7557012 No rush

[bronyclone1497]

That’s not how recruitment works you can’t arbitrarily pick up a civilian you sign them up yourself and make them part of the military without her knowing.

[FIRE FLASH 3]

11785669
It was more of a fantasy thing at the time, inspired by the 9 year old boy who served in the Serbian army during WW1. The idea wasn't to have her as a soldier or a Marine but to have her help around the camp. Joining this squad of Raiders who are at rest while they are waiting for ABDACOM to come and save them from the Japanese fleet.

Be in mind that I wrote this when I was 15 so I was pretty much going off of Hollywood style Military themes when deciding what to do for the story. Either way thanks for the comment!