A Change Of Heart: Luna’s Gaze

by The Royal Equestrian

Chapter 2 Through Smoke And Fire

May 27th, 2038 Austin Texas

Douny awoke with a pit in his stomach, he can’t believe the day came when he would have to do this.`If only there was another way, but sadly there isn’t, this must be done for the betterment of the nation's people as a whole.` he thought to himself as he got up he felt like he was making a mistake doing this. Why had he been the one that had to shoulder this burden? It wasn’t like there weren’t other people more suited to the job he does. Eventually, he fully raised from his bed to get dressed and ready for the day to come.

After putting on his brown sports coat and red waistcoat he was off to his study to fill out the papers from yesterday picking up the first letter from the stack of papers.

Dear King Douny Kornely O’Whelan of Bradenton.

It has come to my attention that there has been no action on the plan that was made to move the Orcs, Goblins, Wood Elves, and Dark Elves out of the major areas of the region of Canada.
I must urge you to commit to action as soon as possible
We have been having an increase in riots and we are even getting word that there may soon be a rebellion on our hands.
I pray that we don’t have any bloodshed and to resolve this peacefully.

Sincerely the Bailiff of Quebec Jock Lamar Levesque

`So it really has gotten that bad, shit now there is no way out of this.` Douny hissed at himself trying to get through the papers but just before he got to the next paper Hal and one of Douny’s top generals came into the study.
Hal was the one to speak up first about what was going on.

“Sir things are getting chaotic there is a massive rebellion going on in the next province we normally could handle it ourselves but they are properly equipped and are extremely well organized!” Hal exclaimed in a panic, almost unable to control his breathing

“Try to calm down Hal, General what’s going on exactly, is what Hal saying true?” Douny asked, keeping a strong stone look on his face.

“I’m afraid it is sir, we have a suspicion that the Russians have been supplying them for months under our noses.” The General stated as he snapped to attention, keeping his cool much better than Hal.

“I see. Rally the men, we will show these traitors what happens when they try to bring chaos and disorder to this Kingdom!” Douny exclaimed, slamming his hand on his desk.

“Your majesty… from what we have seen this is not an isolated group, they have men not only here but in the regions of Mexico and Canada not to mention they have enough men to make a small army.” The General replied with a bit more shakiness in his voice

“Well… I see. Then we shall treat this as a proper war then. Get all the men you can make sure that they are ready to start this civil war before the end of the week until then rally me some men we are taking the fight to those bastards near the capital. I shall be leading from the front.” Douny stated looking down at the papers and then back at the two in front of him.

“Hal I want you to come with me, I’m going to need someone who can help with the logistics of this ground operation and you're the best person I can think of to help with this,” Douny stated grabbing his colt single action from his desk and handing it over to Hal. “Take this, if things go wrong on the way to the capital for you, use it. Now… let’s get this show on the road.” Douny demanded, grabbing his M1911 from the cabinet behind him.

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May 28th, 2038, Santa Fe New Mexico,

Douny stood in front of the men he was going to lead into battle. A unit of 32 troops had been rallied for the fight to take back Santa Fe from the rebels and push them back into Arizona.

“Alright men!” Douny exclaimed to the unit. “This is where we hold them, with their numbers we can’t afford to give up any square of land, we must hold them here or New Mexico is surely going to be theirs! If we don’t hold this city, they will take Las Vegas and push to Colorado! We can’t allow that to happen, are you with me!” Douny shouted, rallying the men behind the fight. They all shouted back yes sir in reply “Alright then men let’s move, we should be getting tank support within the hour.” Douny said, looking at his watch.

As Douny and the troops moved forward Douny felt slightly uneasy about how quiet it was around them. He shook it off as just paranoia but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched. They kept moving down the road until they came across a T section Douny looked around for suitable positions for what he thought were going to be advancing troops from the front of the T section.

Almost as if God himself had damned them, the Orc and Elf troops came from below the T section giving Douny and his men very little in means of cover against the attackers.

“We need to get inside to get cover, we aren't going to last long out here!” Douny demanded one of his troops over his shoulder. The soldier gave Douny a quick nod and attempted to kick the door to the building open, it took the trooper a few strong kicks but the door eventually gave in to the punishment. “Everyone get into the building quickly!” Douny didn’t have to tell them twice before all the soldiers flooded in.

“We need anyone with a sniper and MGs to take positions on the windows, riflemen should cover the doorways and any extra windows!” Douny ordered looking at all of his troops, the looks on their faces said it all. They all felt as if today was going to be their last. All the men took their positions as ordered and started firing on the enemy combatants.

Just as Douny was going to give out more orders a round from one of the Orcs went through the skull of one of the machine gunners that was positioned by the window and hit Douny right in the chest. Douny got lucky however for the round lost a good bit of energy going through the trooper and bounced off Douny’s plate carrier knocking him to the ground with a loud thud. When Douny hit the ground he lost his pistol for a brief moment until one of his soldiers got him back up on his feet and handed him his M1911 back.

“Are you alright sir, do you need a medic!” The young soldier asked looking up and down Douny for any blood or any other signs of injury but finding nothing of the sort.

“I’m fine Corporal, my plate carrier took the worst of the hit. I’ll live.” Douny said in a shaky voice trying to keep his calm. “Though I’m more concerned with the soldier who died, may God grant him peace.”

“Sir a dark elf is preparing a spell, and by the looks of it, it could wipe us out in two hits. What are your orders?” A soldier by the leftmost window shouted as he reloaded his MG5.

“Focus fire on that dark elf if he is charging up a spell like that then we can’t afford to let him finish the damned spell!” Douny barked, looking around at all of his men. He would be damned if he was going to let any more of them die today.

As the soldiers opened fire on the dark elf they eventually killed him, but they were a bit late and the dark elf got off one of the spells and hit the middle of the building. Causing a physical divide between the soldiers splitting them up into two groups. Douny, noticing the problem, fixed it by splitting the command. Though the ambushing side wasn't faring much better they had been nearly cut down by half over the engagement.

“Master Sergeant Jackson, you are in command for the time being for your side of the building, I’ll take the riflemen on my side to find a back door to the building to get around behind them.” Douny ordered looking at the crater the dark elf had made. He then looked up to the 10 men he had in his command and waved them to follow him. “Come on men, this day isn’t done yet let's move.”

Douny and his men eventually found a door leading to the back of the building, they went down a couple of alleyways to try to get to the flanks of the ambushers, they had almost done so without being spotted but a few dark elves had managed to spot them from behind a few of the alleyways.

After that Douny and his men were on the defensive again but luckily still had a good bit of cover.

“Those bastards got us pinned sir, we can’t take much more of this!” One of the soldiers behind Douny exclaimed, but Douny ignored him trying to find a way to overwhelm his opponents.

“Soldier I don’t need to hear your bitching right now we need to stay focused otherwise we aren’t getting out of this ali” Douny was cut off when a fireball from one of the dark elves went right past him hitting one of the soldiers to his right, the soldier was dead on contact. “Or something like that will happen. Now give us covering fire me and a few men are going to try to run to the other side of this alleyway.” Douny ordered peaking over the side of the wall. The soldier looked like he was going to protest but held his tongue and followed Douny’s orders.

As Douny and a few of his men were getting ready to book it to the other side of the alleyway one of the dark elves charged up a massive spell to take out the building. This time Douny was too slow to stop it and the building came down killing anyone who was still left in there.

“We need to go right now, we need to retreat!” Douny bellowed as he ran to what is supposed to be their excretion zone, hopefully, they could make it and get everyone out of there unharmed. “Make sure you grab that soldier's body, we can’t get the ones in the building but we are taking anyone we can back, we aren’t leaving anyone behind. Douny said with finality and fire in his eyes.

“We need someone to cover our retreat sir, me and Fae Fawn will cover you all, it’s been an honor, sir.” One of the soldiers said saluting Douny for the last time. “Are you sure, we can try to find another way without sacrificing you both,” Douny said, hoping for another way to save everyone.

“The way I see it, sir, if we try to retreat without anyone covering our rear we are all going to die, better it be the two of us than anyone else, we don’t have anything worth coming back to sir.” The soldier said at attention with his voice lacking any emotion.

“You speak the truth, I only wish there was another way, you both have been great men serving at my side,” Douny said, matching the soldier's demeanor. “Alright everyone these two will be guarding our retreat everyone else on me we are getting the hell out of here right now!” Douny exclaimed looking at all of his troopers as he said it.

“You heard the King Fae Fawn, let’s show these low lives how humans and high elves fight!” The soldier shouted, racking the bolt on his MG5.

“With pleasure, these low lives will wish they never tried to rebel against us, we shall make them pay.” Fae Fawn answered, preparing a spell that would trap their enemies in electric current.

“Alright everyone double time, let's move!” Douny motioned forward with his M1911. Without any more instructions, the rest of the 9 men ran forward, dodging gunfire and bullets as they went.

After a while, the gunfire ceased and they were in the clear but just in case they just kept running to their extract zone, they still had quite a few miles to go until they made it.

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May 28th, 2038. Helicopter ride out of Santa Fe.

“With respect sir, what the FUCK was that mission.” One of the high ranking officers in the helicopter ride back let out, barely holding back his anger at the failure of a mission they had just barely survived.

“Watch your tongue your speaking to King Douny O’Whelan the King of the American Empire you should kn.” One of the soldiers tried to give the officer a tongue lashing but was cut off by Douny himself.

“I want him to speak his mind, and frankly, Sargent, you are out of place giving your higher up a tongue lashing like that, hope to God that I don’t punish you when we get back for such blatant disrespect to a higher up.” Douny shot at the soldier who seemed to shrink at Douny’s words. “Now Lieutenant, continue with what you were saying. I truly want to hear your feedback after what has happened.”

“Well sir, I just don’t get what you were thinking, I mean trying to flank an enemy force twice our full unit size, that just seems like suicide to me, and don’t get me started on our unit size, for what we were trying to do 32 men were never going to be enough.” The Lieutenant replied, keeping his cool a lot better than he had before.

“I agree with the flanking part of your argument Lieutenant, but the unit size wasn\t my fault, that was as many men as we could get on a mission like this on such short notice, trust me if I could have gotten more men for this I would have.

“Alright, I’ll give you that, this kingdom is relatively new so we don’t have much in the forms of a standing army, but still the flanking maneuver, I thought you fought in the revolution for this kingdom to be born in the first place and to see such a sloppy tactical error puts that into questioning sir.” The Lieutenant stated looking at the roof of the helicopter, just for a moment he realized what he had said but before he could correct the mistake Douny shot him a glare and began to speak.

“Lieutenant I will not be questioned about that war, and my part in it, and if you want your head to remain on your shoulders I suggest you never speak of it again am I understood.” Douny said with an almost unnatural calmness to his voice.

“Y..Y...Yes sir I shall never speak a word of it again.” The Lieutenant said sweating bullets and having a mental panic attack.

“Good, then I hope we will never have this chat again. Now all of you get some sleep. It's a long way back to the capital and I want you all to be on your A-game in case we come across any more enemy soldiers along the way.” Douny ordered them all to go to sleep.

They didn’t need any more convincing than that to get to bed after a while they were all asleep leaving Douny alone with his thoughts, all centering around the events of the day. He did find it to be a bit suspicious that the enemy knew exactly where they would be to mount an ambush like that. But Douny just waved those off as terrible luck and didn’t give it any more thought.

After a while Douny too went to sleep, it had been a long day and if he wanted to give or take any reports from the goings-on today he would need to get his energy back up. After a few moments, Douny eventually went to sleep uncertain of what tomorrow may bring.

Comments

[f0st3r21]

“Well sir, I just don’t get what you were thinking, I mean trying to flank an enemy force twice our full unit size, that just seems like suicide to me, and don’t get me started on our unit size, for what we were trying to do 32 men were never going to be enough.” The Lieutenant replied, keeping his cool a lot better than he had before.

I disagree. Taking on a force double your size head on is suicidal. Flanking and attempting to shift the flow into a rout with a smaller and more maneuverable unit is sound tactics when long range guerilla whittling is unavailable.