The Night Of Days

by Poodicus

Chapter 2: The First Night

Before I forget, I’d like to add that I had screwed something up in the last chapter. The callout ‘signal’s if you will, ‘Thunder’ and ‘Crash’ as I said, is actually incorrect. It went ‘Flash’, then another soldier would call back ‘Thunder’. That is all.

Chapter 2: The First Night

Capps, along with Privates Henderson and Sanders, began to quietly walk around the edge of town, doing their best not to be spotted by more ponies, when all three suddenly heard a shout in English that got their attention. “Hey! We got one of them over here!” A pony yelled out, warning the other ponies.

“Shit, seems one of us has already gotten captured.” Henderson said quietly. “What should we do Cap’n?”

Capps sighed before answering his Private. “You two wait here, I’m going to see if I can get closer to see what’s happening.”

The two Privates nodded, staying behind in the tall grass while Capps began to walk in the shadows as he got up next to a barrel that was nearby and hid behind it. He then peeked over to see what was happening. He saw that indeed, one of his comrades had been captured, but he wasn’t able to make out who, all he could tell is that so far the ponies weren’t acting violent towards the soldier as he gave up his arms, not wanting to be hostile towards these strange creatures. It was then that Capps noticed that not too far in the distance, he could see what he could only guess was the town hall, and saw that it wasn’t just the soldier that was captured, but others as well who were sitting on the steps of the building, under the watchful eye of their pony captors.

After he saw enough, Capps slumped back down, getting behind the barrel again, and began to quickly walk away, back to where the other two were. “So what’s up Cap’n?” Henderson asked as Capps approached them.

“It seems that he wasn’t only one captured. Saw a bunch of us over by some large building. Luckily, none of us have been acting violent, so the captors haven’t either. Guessing there’s no point in wasting ammo on these creatures if they can’t defend themselves, so might as well play along for now.”

“Should we give ourselves up?” Sanders asked.

Capps shook his head. “No. Just because they’re not acting hostile yet, doesn’t mean they can’t be hostile if need be. For all we know, they could be acting with the Krauts.” Capps then began to look around if there was a way for him to watch the captured soldiers without being caught in the open. It was then that he saw a house nearby with two floors that hadn’t been destroyed from the chaos going on, a door slightly lower than a human door in the back facing them. He pointed in its direction and spoke. “There. We can get inside, go upstairs, and watch our brothers from the second floor.”

“What if there are more of those things inside?” Henderson asked.

Capps sighed once more before answering. “Then we barge in and hold them captive upstairs.”

“Are you sure sir?” Sanders asked.

“Look, from what I can tell, we’re in a strange world right now where multicolored horses are speaking English. For all I know, they could end up attacking at any moment, so it’s best to keep an eye on them from a safe distance in case they decide to do something. But until then, until we absolutely know that it’s safe, we might have to act like the bad guys.”

The Privates nodded, which made Capps nod back. The three then began to walk over to the house and get up against the wall before barging in. Capps slowly grabbed hold of the door handle (He had no idea why horses would need handles, but he needed to concentrate on other things at that moment), and began to slowly turn it. As the door slowly opened, all Capps could see was darkness, but he still kept his guard up as he continued to open the door with one hand, and in the other, his Thompson sub-machine gun raised, pointing inside the house.

When the door finally opened completely, all was silent inside the house. Capps began to slowly step inside, careful of his surroundings, when he spotted the stairs. He motioned for the other two to come inside before heading for the stairs. The creaking of the floorboards underneath them made them more aware, when the same sound could suddenly be heard above them. The next thing they knew, the heard someone call out for them from the second floor. “Flash.”

A smile grew on the soldiers face, happy to find friendly’s inside the house. Capps replied without hesitation. “Thunder.” He answered as he poked his head into the staircase, seeing a friendly face.

The face smiled back as he too poked his head from the staircase. “It just you?”

Capps shook his head. “Got two more with me.” Capps replied as he began to climb the stairs. “By the way, Sergeant Major Michael Capps of D Company. Got Private Sanders of C Company and Private Henderson of D Company with me.”

“Private Halls of A Company sir.”

“Just you?” Capps asked.

Halls shook his head. “Got Lieutenant Winters of E Company upstairs as well sir.”

Capps nodded his head. “Alright, got it.”

When the four soldiers reached the room where the Lieutenant was, they saw that he was holding a M1 Garand, pointed at the ground, but in the direction of a couple of foals who were being quiet. “Good to see you boys alive.” The Lieutenant said as the four entered the room.

“Sergeant M-“

“No need Sergeant, heard your names in the hallway.” The Lieutenant cut off Capps. He then handed the M1 Garand over to Halls. “Here’s your gun back soldier.”

“Thank you sir.” Halls answered as he sat down next to the window that was facing the town hall.

As the other three got comfortable, Capps noticed the children, and noticed how scared they were. He tried to put the best non-threatening smile he could and spoke. “We won’t harm you, we just want to watch how our friends are doing, that’s all.”

One of the foals nodded, indicating they understood, but didn’t speak. “Seems the parents are outside putting out the fires.” Winters said as he looked over at Capps.

“Permission to speak sir?” Henderson said to Winters.

“Permission granted soldier.”

“Where’s your equipment sir?”

Winters sighed and answered. “Lost it in the jump.” He then pointed to Halls. “Luckily I found Halls nearby. Took us maybe ten minutes to walk here without being caught by Germans, unfortunately we didn’t find any of our comrades along the way.”

“Do you think they’re still lost in the forest?” Capps asked.

“No idea, but it’s likely. Just hope they don’t get spotted.”

The five soldiers and the two foals continued to be silent for several minutes, listening to the sound of ponies running around the town, rounding up any soldiers they could find, and even hearing the faint sound of gunfire that was coming from the forest. Finally, Capps broke the silence. “What do you think will happen if the Krauts are really in league with these… horses?”

“U-Um, w-we’re p-p-ponies.” One of the foals finally spoke, getting Capps attention.

Capps smiled at the foal and replied. “Sorry, ponies.”

Winters answered Capps question. “I really don’t know Sergeant, I really don’t. To tell you the truth though, I don’t think the Germans could have pulled something as weird as this off, so most likely they’re in the same boat as us.”

“Speaking of which sir-“ Henderson started. “What do you think will happen to the boys on the beaches?”

Again, Winters shook his head. “Best case scenario, I think, is that they’re able to complete their objectives without too many casualties.”

“Worst case is that they don’t even get passed the first line of barbed wire then?” Capps asked, and Winters nodded. “So the scenario is exactly the same from before then.”

“Minus the fact that we can’t knock out the roads or tracks for reinforcements.” Henderson added.

“Not to mention any artillery the Krauts might have.” Sanders also added.

Winters chuckled some and smirked before speaking some more. “Amazing how much of a difference we could have made had this not happened.”

“Perhaps this isn’t real. Perhaps this is all just a dream one of us is having.” Capps said.

The others began to quietly chuckle to themselves, trying their best to relieve themselves of any stress they were accumulating from not being able to complete their objectives, knowing that even the smallest of differences could have the biggest of outcomes.

As the soldiers became quiet once more, Halls kept an eye on the outside while the others sat on the ground, when Halls saw something outside. “Seems some of our boys are coming out of the forest and are being rounded up.”

“Anything else Halls?” Winters asked.

“Well, seems there’s a few Krauts with them, quite possibly got overrun by our boys.”

Henderson smirked a bit. “A bit of good news I guess.” The rest nodded in agreement.

A few minutes had passed as nothing happened, when one of the two foals spoke. “U-Um….”

Winters turned his head to the foal and spoke. “Yes?”

“W-Why… W-Why a-a-are y-you h-h-here?” The foal asked, completely terrified at the same time.

Winters sighed and answered. “To tell you the truth, we have no idea.”

“One minute we’re on our way to France, crossing the English Channel in our planes, the next, we end up jumping into a completely strange new world.” Capps added.

Once again, the room became quiet, when the soldiers and foals heard a noise from the floor below. It was the same creaking noise from the floorboards that Capps and the others had made when they walked inside the house. “Someone’s downstairs.” Capps said quietly.

As Capps was about to get up to check it out, Winters spoke. “Don’t.”

“Sir?”

“For all we know, it could be a burglar, might even be the parents coming back. The last thing we need is though is to draw attention to ourselves by going downstairs.”

“But what if it’s one of us?” Sanders asked.

Winters sighed once more, when he looked at Halls. “Sergeant.”

“Yes sir?”

“Do you still have your Cricket (clicker)?”

Capps nodded. “Yes Lieutenant.” He answered as he understood what Winters wanted him to do. He slowly opened the door, trying his best not to make any noise as the footsteps continued to linger downstairs. He then reached his arm outside after he had searched his uniform for his clicker and used it, hoping for a response.

*Click*

They all waited for a response, but none came. Capps tried again.

*Click*

Again, no response. Right as Capps was going to try it a third time, he heard that whatever was downstairs, had begun to climb upstairs, as he heard the creaking of the floorboards change. He looked over at Winters, who motioned him to close the door, and did so. Whatever was climbing the stairs, was doing it slowly, as it took a full minute for it to reach the top of the steps. The soldiers heard it slowly creeping to the door, in response, they readied their weapons for whatever was coming.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Twilight had lost sight of the new beings as she tried to follow them. She sighed and began to walk back out onto the main roads, where ponies were still running around trying to put out the fires. The pegasi were flying in the sky with rain clouds, kicking the water out and pouring it onto the fires, while the unicorns and earth ponies ran with buckets of well water either in their mouths or hovering above them with their magic.

Soon after she had walked out into the open though, Twilight immediately noticed two things. Whatever those mechanical birds were, the last of them had finally flown over Ponyville and were continuing to fly in the direction of Manehatten. The other thing Twilight noticed though, was that even though she had lost the creatures she was following, more of them were being rounded-up by some of the townsfolk whose job it was to find them.

Just then, the lightly-brown pony who Twilight had spoken to earlier, Caramel, had come up running to her. “Twilight! We were able to find some of the creatures that were falling from the sky!”

“I can see that Caramel.” Twilight responded. “Did they say anything though?”

Caramel nodded his head. “It’s amazing! They’re able to speak Equestrian!”

“I know, did they say anything useful though?”

“Oh, um, all they said was that they surrender, then they put their hooves behind what we guess is their head.”

Twilight became confused. “They surrendered? Just like that?”

“Um, yes?”

“Don’t you think that’s a little odd though?”

“… No?”

Twilight sighed. “Of course you wouldn’t Caramel…. Alright, you mind taking me to them? I’m sure the Princess will want to hear about these new beings and what their plan is right away.”

Caramel nodded and began to show Twilight the way. Even though she really didn’t need to be shown, it was still nice to have an escort in case one of the beings that was hiding decided to attack them. Minutes later, the two ponies had reached the Ponyville town hall, where there were at least 20 beings and more coming, sitting on the stairs while being watched by the townsponies. Right as they got there, Twilight had seen her friend Rarity waiting there, either keeping guard, which was unlikely, or seeing what ways she could convince the new beings to get out of something so ‘hideous’.

“Rarity.” Twilight called out.

The white unicorn turned and smiled once she saw her friend. “Twilight! I’m so glad you’re safe.”

“I am too, but what are you doing?”

“Me? Oh, it’s simply awful darling! These… creatures, are in such horrible clothing that I tried convincing them to change, but instead they only blew me off!”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Perhaps you should leave the talking to me Rarity.” She then began to walk up to the beings, noticing that the ones in green were the only ones speaking, while the ones in grey seemed to sit nearby, but were completely silent, and spoke in her best authoritative voice, but it really didn’t seem to do much. “Ahem, who is your leader?”

They all seemed to ignore her, talking to one another while some of them blew smoke out from the little sticks they seemed to put in their mouths.

Twilight tried again. “Who is your leader?”

Finally, she seemed to have gotten the attention of one of the beings as he turned to his friends. “Hey! The purple one is asking who our leader is! Anybody got their CO here?” He got various answers.

“Our CO’s plane got shot down!”

“We lost ours in the forest!”

“Ours got shot by a Kraut in the forest!”

Finally the being that initially asked the question turned to another one of his friends. “Hey Johnson! You see what happened to Briggs?”

Whoever ‘Johnson’ was, answered. “He was still in the plane when it went down. Wouldn’t that make you the CO now Franklin?”

“You sure? I thought West was next?”

Another being answered ‘Franklin’. “West got hit in the ass by Krauts. He’s inside behind me.”

“We didn’t do anything! I saw what happened to your precious CO and saw he landed on a stick!” One of the beings in grey protested, but got retaliation almost immediately.

“Shut up you stupid Kraut!”

The one in grey stood up. “I’m German you filthy American!”

The one who seemed to ‘insult’ the one in grey also stood up, while at the same time seemed to pull out a L-shaped metal device. “What did you say Kraut?!” He yelled when one of his own also stood up and began to try to calm him down.

“Hey John! Calm down damnit! Now’s not the time!”

“Get out my way George! Let me kill this bastard!”

“Sit down Young.” ‘Franklin’ said calmly. “You’re only making the situation worse with your stupidity.”

“Same goes for you Lutz.” Another one in grey said, seeming to speak to the one standing up.

Both of the beings glared at each other harshly before being forced to sit down by their comrades. ‘Franklin’ turned to Twilight and apologized. “Sorry about that, I guess the role of CO comes down to me then.”

“CO?” Twilight asked.

‘Franklin’ smirked a bit before answering. “It stands for Commanding Officer, means I’m the one in charge.”

“Oh…. Um, then perhaps you can tell me what you… things are?”

“Only if you tell us why some of you have horns, while others have wings, and why all of you are different colors.”

“Well, I have a horn because I’m a unicorn of course.” Twilight answered.

“I’m guessing that makes your friends with wings Pegasuses?”

“Actually, it’s Pegasi, but yes.”

“Alright then, then perhaps you can answer as to why you guys are able to speak English, or why we’re suddenly able to understand the Germans?” ‘Franklin’ asked as he pointed his ‘hoof’ towards the ones in grey.

“Um, I don’t know what ‘English’, or ‘German’ are, but what I do know is that you’re speaking Equestrian, as for how or why, I don’t know.”

“Equestrian huh…. Well then perhaps you can tell us why we’re here?”

Twilight shook her head. “I was hoping you knew. All I know is that usually if I found a new intelligent species, that I would either be excited or scared, yet you all seem…”

“Calm?” ‘Franklin’ guessed, and Twilight nodded. “Well that’s because we’ve been trained to keep calm in even the most extreme situations. Finding a new intelligent life form would probably fall under that, don’t you think?”

“Well, I suppose that would-“ Twilight started, but was cut off as a new pony came flying up to her, calling out her name.

“Twilight! Twilight!”

“Rainbow? What’s the matter?”

Indeed, it was Twilight’s pegasus friend, Rainbow Dash. “We got a problem Twilight.”

“What? What is it?”

“We think we’ve gotten all of these guys, but some of us have seen some-“ She pointed to the new beings. “Going into SugarCube Corner to hide, but nopony has any idea if the Cake’s kids are still inside or not!”

“What about Carrot and Cup Cake? Where are they?”

“Right now they’re at Sweet Apple Acres helping, but like I said, nopony knows about their foals!”

“Alright, I’ll-“ Twilight began, when multiple loud popping noises coming from the second floor window of SugarCube Corner, something making it burst and break open. Twilight turned to see what it was. “What was that?” She asked when she suddenly heard somepony screaming for help.

“Medic!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Winters was on the ground holding his neck as blood seeped out of it, and Halls on the ground next to him, dropped dead from being shot in the chest. “Medic!” Henderson called out again as he helped Winters put pressure on the bullet wound. “We need a fucking medic here!”

Capps had already begun to go downstairs, running and leaping over the dead German body that laid on the second floor right outside the door of the foal’s room, his MP40 freshly discharged of bullets that were no lodged in either the walls, or in the bodies of the American soldiers who were on the ground.

“Medic!” Henderson called out again as Sanders tried calming the foals down, who were crying in fear. Henderson looked down at the Lieutenant and began to see that he was choking on his own blood. “Fuck! Don’t you dare die on me Lieutenant! Don’t you dare fucking die!” He looked up out of the window. “We need a god damn medic!”

Capps was already halfway to the town hall when the other soldiers who were there had heard their allies plea and had gotten a medic who met him in the street. “What happened?” The medic asked as he met Capps.

Capps tried his best to speak, despite the fact of seeing his fellow men just being shot. “U-Uh, um, t-two of us got shot, one dead, t-the other in the neck, still alive.”

“Alright, come on, he won’t have much time.” The medic responded as he began to run towards the building that Capps had come out of. The medic and Capps ran upstairs and into the room that the others were in. The medic moved Henderson out of the way and began to get to work on Winters, while Henderson and the others were only able to watch.

Minutes later though, after everything the medic could do, Winters had stopped moving. The medic sighed and looked at the others. “He’s gone. The bullet hit a major artery. There was nothing I could do to save him.”

The soldiers who had just met the two felt despair. They knew almost nothing about them, but to them it was still gut-wrenching to see some of their fellow brothers fall in battle. Despite all of this though, they still had a job they needed to do. Capps had ordered Henderson to help him move the bodies outside, while Sanders would calm the children down.

After the bodies had moved out of the building, the medic had told Capps of the situation at the town hall, and he, along with Henderson and Sanders, agreed to comply with the orders. With the help of some of the local ponies, they were able to move the bodies to the town hall, where they were to be identified and tagged in case the humans had found a way back to Earth.

The sun was rising, indicating that the night was finally coming to an end. It had been several hours since Capps and his men had given up, and the soldiers were allowed to walk around with the help of Franklin explaining the situation to the mayor of Ponyville. Some men were ordered to go out on patrols and try to scavenge anything from any empty German positions they had come across.

Capps sat down on the steps of the town hall and sighed, when he heard his name get called out. “Hey Cap’n, sorry to hear what just happened.”

Capps turned to look who called him out and saw that it was his friend Franklin, who was a Sergeant just below him. “Hey Franklin.”

“Nobody in my company is really able to command, since West seems to be out of service right now.” Franklin said as he sat down next to Capps.

“Hmm, is that right.”

“Seems you’re the only ranking officer in your company who’s here as well.”

“Is that right.”

Franklin sighed. “Yeah, it is. We should also be setting up a perimeter around the town.”

“They okay with that?” Capps asked, talking about the ponies.

“Okay or not, it’s only a matter of time that the Krauts begin coming out of the forest.”

“I suppose that’s right.” Capps replied. “… How many MG’s we got?”

“Ehh, I think from all of the positions that our boys took out, we ended up taking I think five Kraut MG’s? I think they were only able to bring in probably one or two belts for each. I think one of our boys was also able to find a Kraut mortar in one of the positions near the edge of the forest.”

“Hmm…. We should probably get to work then, huh?”

“I suppose we should. Get the Krauts working on trenches while our men set up MG positions in the windows of the buildings facing the forest?”

Capps nodded. “Sounds good…. One question though.”

“Shoot.”

“There any way we can get our remaining boys out of the forest? The only reason why the ones who are here now got out of the forest is because they were close to the edge of the forest and walked out. Same goes for the Kraut who killed Halls and Lieutenant Winters.”

Franklin breathed through his nose and sighed. “If there is a way, we might be tipping off the Krauts as well.”

“Suppose it’ll have to do then….” Capps said as he got up. “Alright, get Jerry to working, we don’t know when the rest of them are going to come out, so it’s best to get set up as soon as possible.”

Franklin nodded. “Alright, I’ll go tell them right now then.”

After Franklin had left, Capps spoke softly to himself. “God help us all.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alright, after two months of no chapters, here’s chapter 2 finally. Just a quick note, all characters in this story are fictional (for the most part), the only non-fictional characters in this chapter are Private Halls and Lieutenant Winters, who, by the end of the war, was a Major. Halls died in battle on June 6th, 1944, at the battle of Brecourt Manor. Major Winters died last year, on January 2nd, 2011. That is all.

Comments

[RandomPerson]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!!!!!

[kararnos]

damn you beat to first!

[Treat Tyrant]

third

[mcb893]

YOU KILLED WINTERS? FROM BAND OF BROTHERS?

FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[kittybones]

winters died last year????how did i not hear about this!?!? Anyways i like this story so far...i thought this would be funny when i first saw it, but i actually like it and i think the fact that i constantly study ww2 makes this even better.