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Chapter 2

Chapter 2

‘So that’s it huh? That’s the Gun That Killed Three Princesses?’

Summer Lightfall nodded in agreement and took a closer look at the antique revolver behind the case and began to read the plaque on the wall beside it. ‘The Gun That Killed Three Princesses is an Emerald Ordinance No.4 Revolver, Serial Number 109813, manufactured by Emerald Ordinance in South Island for use throughout the Welaran Empire during the World War. This particular revolver, was manufactured in year 15 before the Republic, and was once the side arm used by kangaroo Fusilier Benjamin Willoughby of the Royal Kingsland Fusiliers Regiment of the South Island Army. Eventually gifted to the first Equestrian Prime Minister, Twilight Sparkle, the revolver was used overthrow Princess Celestia and Princess Luna in Year 0 before the Republic, and then used again seven years later at the Battle of the Cave, where then Prime Minster Twilight Sparkle wielded it into combat with the leader of the Royal Guard Holdouts, Shining Armour, and his wife, Princess Cadence, where Twilight Sparkle was forced to kill her brother and sister-in-law, giving the weapon its’ unique name: the Gun That Killed Three Princesses. The weapon went unfired afterwards, and was donated to the Equestrian History Museum in Year 25 of the Republic’.

Summer Lightfall looked down to her younger sister. Aurora Lightfall was more than a couple of years younger than she was. Her coat was a dark yellow, and her mane a milk chocolate rolled into curls. She was bored, Summer could tell. She found it somewhat depressing that her sister did not care for history like she did. This was not how Summer had intended the last day that she had to spend with her little sister for quite some time to go. She was shipping out for recruit training, where she’d be undergoing a rigorous eighty day training course, upon completion of which, she would become a member of the Fillydelphia Regiment of the Equestrian Republican Army.

Once training was over, the rest of her service would be a breeze! Two years, two years of standing around and providing a garrison force for Fillydelphia’s heavy industry centres. The Equestrian Republic had not deployed its’ troops over sixty years. Not since the Great Patriotic War, or so it was called by those bastards in the Præsidium. Their invasion of Bundesrepublik Schäferhund in Year 35 of the Republic had been met with swift counter action by the Equestrian Republic. Despite being meat eaters, the schäferhund and Equestria had long been allies, hell, the dogs had even helped in the fight to overthrow the Princesses. While it had been the first major military engagement for the Equestrian Republican Army, their intervention had been enough to send the commies running back to Petrograd with their tails between their legs, the Fillydelphia Regiment under the brilliant leadership of Field Marshal Trixie had personally led the charge. Summer was proud that she was about to be carrying on that tradition.

Summer looked back down towards Aurora, she was so bored, but she was far too polite to say anything about it. Summer couldn’t help but smirk, when she had been Aurora’s age she was not nearly as well behaved as her little sister was. Aurora had always been a little on the quiet side, preferring to spend her time with her big sister at home rather than be out making friends. Oddly enough, considering that her interests were pretty much the opposite of Summer’s. Aurora was a savant went it came to mathematics and science, while Summer was lucky if she could multiply any two numbers without use of a calculator. ‘What are you thinking about kid?’ she asked, offering her younger sister a small smile.

‘the one hundred thousandth digit of the square root of pi is two’, Aurora said simply.

Summer looked at her kid sister and raised an eyebrow at her, and couldn’t help but smirk. ‘Well, I’m going to have to take your word on that one kid’, she said with a chuckle as she waved for her to follow. ‘I know you’ve got to be hungry, and we’ve hung out here in the museum long enough’.

A whole ten minutes.

‘Are you sure?’ Aurora asked, cocking her head to the side as she looked at her sister. She clearly didn’t want to disappoint her, Summer was her idol.

‘Yeah, we’ll get some lunch, and then afterwards we can head over to the science museum, as long as we can look at the pendulum and the anti-gravity simulator, I always loved those’, Summer said with a smile, nodding her head reassuringly that she was fine with the change of plan.

Aurora nodded her head excitedly and the two sisters headed out to spend the rest of their day. Summer was going to miss her younger sister very, very much while she was gone, she knew that for certain.

...

‘Let me take this opportunity to welcome you to Training Company D of the Fillydelphia Regiment, or as I like to call it, “D-Coy”, why do I like to call it D-Coy you may ask yourselves? it is because you all ARE NOT SOLDIERS! You are decoys! And until you are trained to be a soldier that is all you will ever be good at! I am Warrant Officer Class Two Gunmetal, and I am your drill sergeant, DO NOT be mistaken! My rank may have the word officer in it, but I work for a living! I will make soldiers out of every one of you if it kills me!’

Summer had stopped paying attention to the words coming out of Drill Sergeant Gunmetal’s mouth and stood at attention. She didn’t move a muscle, and struggled to not draw attention to herself. She merely watched as the grey coated earth pony trotted back and forth before them, ranting loudly about how things worked here.

‘You!’ Drill Sergeant Gunmetal said, stopping directly in front of Summer and looking at her with a piercing glance.

‘Sir!’ Summer said in response, making sure that she was still at attention, and that she didn’t slip even a millimetre.

‘What is your name decoy?’ Gunmetal asked.

‘Private Summer Lightfall, sir!’ Summer said, making sure never to forget to address him as such.

‘Tell me something Private Lightfall, have you ever fired a gun before?’ Gunmetal asked.

‘Yes sir! I used to belong to a gun club, sir!’ Summer said, matter of factly, not adding that it had been several years since she had last discharged a firearm.

‘Oh really? Is that a fact?’ Gunmetal asked with a smirk. ‘I bet you think you’re a good shot then?’

‘Yes sir!’ Summer said instinctively, her unicorn telekinesis did offer her a greater sense of precision and control. Summer looked at her drill sergeant and immediately realised that this had been a poor choice of words, the last thing she wanted to do was make herself seem like a hotshot, she had been a fair shot in those days, but those days were long gone, and they did not matter. ‘But certainly not as good a shot as you, sir!’ she added, figuring that the complement couldn’t possibly get her into trouble.

‘Damn right!’ Gunmetal said with pride in his voice, Summer had never seen Drill Sergeant Gunmetal in action, and had no idea just how good he actually was, but to be appointed as a drill sergeant, he couldn’t have been anything but the best, to think otherwise was plain stupid. ‘Tell me something private, in this gun club that you belonged to... what weapon did you shoot?’ Gumetal asked as he continued to look her over, sizing her up to see what she had to offer for the company.

‘Uh... well... I...’ Summer began to say but stopped herself. She found that she was not sure exactly where to begin; she had tried out a number of different weapons ranging to pistols, rifles, and submachine guns.

‘I can’t hear you private!’ Gunmetal shouted at her.

‘Sir! I most commonly used a Bonifacio Policía 11 millimetre, sir!’ Summer said, and braced herself for the expected round of verbal abuse. Bonifacio wasn’t an equestrian company, and she half expected the drill sergeant to be biased towards equestrian made arms.

Much to her surprise, though, Gunmetal merely raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Maybe this one won’t be so useless after all! Alright Private Lightfall, now drop and give me a hundred sit ups for not paying attention to my welcoming speech!’ He shouted at her, and pointed to the spot on the ground where he wanted her to start doing sit ups.

Of course, what could have possibly led her to believe that she had gotten herself off the hook? ‘Sir yes sir!’ Summer cried out and immediately dropped to the ground and did as she was told; groaning inwardly as she preformed the difficult physical task, moving this way wasn’t exactly easy for a pony body. Otherwise, Summer did not complain. She had already known that training was going to be hard, but afterwards, it would be nothing but a cake walk. Two years, two easy years of military service, and the Republic would pay for everything for a four year stint at university. What could be better than that? Once she was finished with training, it was going to be a cakewalk.

...

‘It is important to remember! You are not schäferhund! You do not have sharp teeth! You are not a gryphon; you do not have sharp talons! You are not a kangaroo! You cannot balance on your tail and kick your enemy in the face, and possibly claw their eyes out while doing it! Which means, that if you are forced to fight up close and personal, you are at a disadvantage, which is why, if you are forced to fight in close quarters, you must be the one to initiate combat! Now! Fix bayonets!’ Drill Sergeant Gunmetal cried out.

Summer used her telekinesis to pull her rifle up and held it in front of her face. She pulled her bayonet out from its’ sheathe that had been slung over her shoulder and promptly secured it into the bayonet lug on her training rifle. She was standing besides several other recruits, looking down range at an instruction dummy.

‘At the sound of my whistle, you will charge forward, and you will defeat the training dummy in a close assault! It should be simple, because the dummy is physically unable to fight back!’ Gunmetal cried out at them as he trotted around Summer and her fellow recruits, double checking to make sure that they had not done anything stupid, such as mounting their bayonets on backwards, or anything that was just as ridiculous.

Summer glanced around the training area, the sun was shining over her head, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky if anything it was a perfectly beautiful day out, a perfectly beautiful day to mutilate training dummies with a highly sharp bayonet. Summer almost let out a smirk at the thought, but kept a straight face, lest she wanted Drill Sergeant Gunmetal to chew her out for day dreaming.

Several of the other recruits had not taken their eyes off the dummies, almost as if they expected them to jump up and attack them, a possibility of which, that Drill Sergeant Gunmetal had assured them, was impossible. Out of the corner of her eye, off in the distance Summer could see a mauve coated unicorn mare standing on an observation platform, peering down upon the training exercise through a pair of binoculars.

‘Hey?’ Summer asked, gently prodding the recruit next to her, a cyan coated pegasus stallion going by the nick name of Joker. ‘Who’s that up on the balcony?’

‘That?’ Joker said, tilting his head towards the platform. ‘That’s Lef-tenant Wolsey. She’s supposed to be one of the regiment’s best officers or something’.

Drill Sergeant Gunmetal blew his whistle, and Summer charged forward and slashed at the practice dummy with her bayonet, almost forgetting about this Lieutenant Wolsey completely. By the time she had sufficiently dismembered the practice dummy, the unicorn mare had departed from the platform, and unfortunately for Summer, she had no idea that her fate and the fate of the mare watching her were to be intertwined.

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