Delta Squad
The inhabitants of Ponyville were bustling, enjoying the summer sky, and unaware of the two ponies living in harmony together. Lyra was sitting on her couch, while Bon Bon was making an omelet. Lyra was pondering her life at that moment. She had been ridiculed all of her life for her human obsession. Saying she had a human obsession though would be an understatement. It had been her life-long dream to walk amongst humans and to have hands like them. How she would do it however, she was still working on. She wanted to find a spell to take her to them, but everytime she tried she usually put herself in some seriously dangerous situations; whether it be near an Ursa Minor, Cockatrice, a crumbling cliff, etc. Her magic was also more powerful when she played her Lyre, if she wanted to do a spell she would need to play a specific song. She had taken a break a good week now, but she thought maybe today was the day she might be able to do it.
Lyra's pondering was cut short however when Bon Bon called her. "Lyra, your breakfast is ready! You coming or what?"
"Hmm? Wha... oh right sure Bon Bon."
"Lyra, do you always sit like that? Doesn't that hurt your back?"
"Nah, this is my thinking pose, it helps me think about stuff."
"Ya know, we may be marefriends, but I will never truly understand you."
"Heh heh, oh well, I guess I am pretty hungry." As she rubbed her stomach. "Yep a rumbly in the tumbly means I need food.
Bon Bon shook her head and giggled at her antics. "Oh Lyra..." She quietly whispered to herself.
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After she finished her breakfast, she went to the basement where she kept all of her articles of info on humans including novels and studies of humans written by human lovers like herself. She was working on her next song she thought might be the one. She finished the last set of notes she wanted to put in, took a double take of looking over the notes, and decided she was satisfied with her work. She decided to call her piece "Stairway to Human Heaven." She took a few deep breaths, then she started to play.
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Bon Bon was up in her room about to take a nap when she heard a faint sound coming downstairs. It was unmistakeable, it was Lyra Heartstrings. "Aw hayseed she's at it again!" She said aloud as she snapped to attention, ears perked. She then rushed down to her crazy friend, about to attempt to stop her shenanigans before she could potentially kill herself.
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Lyra was about to complete her song when she heard some frantic galloping coming from upstairs. "Crap! This could be my one chance! I just need to finish this song..." She thought aloud.
Just then Bon Bon burst through the basement door just then. "LYRA DON'T YOU DARE FINISH THAT SONG!!!" As she frantically raced down the stairs.
Unfortunately, the song was already taking effect as she started to glow and spark a bit. Lyra could only catch a glimpse at Bon Bon's panic-struck face as she winked at her, disappearing in one bright flash.
Bon Bon could only stare in awe as magic dust faded away from where Lyra Heartstrings was playing her lyre just a second. "NO! Great gates of Tartarus, where did she teleport herself to this time!? LYRA!"
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With a flash of light, Lyra appeared in what seemed like a small town of poorly built buildings in the middle of a smoldering, dry desert.
She had just realized that her lyre did not make the trip as she did. "Oh horse apples!" She thought as her heart raced. Her only way of escape was gone and she was possibly stranded in the middle of nowhere. She, however, regained her composure as she gathered her thoughts. "Might as well try to find out where in the hay I am at the very least." She thought trying to reassure herself.
The light was blinding but Lyra could see as much as she could around her. She saw holes in the medium-tall buildings around her, like something had blasted through them, as well as little tiny holes in them. She had to admit, if her spell did work, Humanville was not all that it was cracked up to be. She was still anxiously waiting a life-form of some sort so she could get some info on where she was. Her hopes grew high, however, as, what appeared to be humans, were rushing towards her.
Excitement, confusion, and wonder rushed as she saw the group of humans. They were huddled together as a group and had strange brown and black objects in their hands. She wasn't completely sure what those were yet, and it did give her a lurking, uneasy feeling to some degree, but she put her worries aside for now. They wore robes with hoods, which covered everything except for their eyes. Their clothes reminded her of the ones in Hoofghanistan, remembering now the situation they were with them, but shrugged off the thought.
When the humans saw Lyra, they appeared perplexed. Unsure of what action to take, they pointed the objects at Lyra in fear and confusion. The creeping, uneasy feeling of the objects in their hands returned as they were pointed directly at her. They spouted incomprehensible gibberish at her as if commanding something from her.
"کیا جہنم کہ بات ہے؟"* It spoke is it aimed it's weapon it Lyra.
She was at a loss for words as she tried to figure out a way to communicate with these humans. Nervously, she begun to try to speak with them.
"Um, h... hello, my name is Lyra Heartstrings, and I mean no harm. Can we be friends maybe?"
They all fell back, "!جو کچھ اس میں اب اسے گولی مار ہے"** They shouted as all of the hairless apes pointed their weapons toward Lyra.
Panicking as they shot their now noticeable weapons all around Lyra. "WOAH!" Is all Lyra could muster as she stumbled to gallop away. Whatever they were, they weren't exactly friendly. Luckily they were too shocked to get a clear shot and gave her the chance to flee unharmed.
"!اللہ کی قسم، ہمارے رہنما یہ خیال ہے کہ 'میں نہیں سمجھتی"***
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About a minute of sprinting later, Lyra heard some chatter from a building across the street. Her heart jolted and she immediately took shelter in another building near her and observed the source of the noise.
She noticed that the voices also came from another batch of humans, however these humans didn't look the same as the other bad ones. They outfitted themselves with a round helmet, a smeared sort of design on both their top and pants, and boots, all with the same desert-like color to them. They also, held weapons like the hooded ones had but had the same color as their uniform. They also had a small weapon holstered on their side, as a backup most likely.
"Fuckin' Taliban man, I'm so sick of these bastards..." She overheard the youngest one say. "I swear to God these bastards just never quit. First, they kill Franky, now they got us trapped in this building. It just never ends man."
"Private, shut the hell up." She heard the one on lookout say. "If a Taliban happen to show their fuckin' faces, I'll make sure to pop the fucker in the face just for you alright?"
"Thanks Sarge, I appreciate it."
"Both of you need to quiet the fuck down!" The third one whispered quietly snapping at the two. This one was noticeably older the other two. "If you guys keep flirting with each other over there, we'll be fuckin' spotted!"
Lyra cringed at their crude language, she had never heard so many curse words in one sentence before; not since Bon Bon fell down the stairs once. At least these humans could speak english. She was afraid to convey them, as she was afraid she might get the same reaction as the other humans as well. She had a gut feeling that talking ponies were not a common thing around here.
Slowly and nervously, she left the building she hid in and approached the uniformed men. One of men spotted her and blurted "Tan- wha-what the fuck is that!?" Lyra cautiously stood on both hind-legs and put her forelegs above her head. She couldn't really think of anything else at the moment.
The uniformed men just stared at her mouth agape. Sarge blurted "is it me, or am I seeing a damn green technicolor horse over there!?"
The younger one punched himself in the face. He regained his composure and took a second glance. "Yea, fuckin' thing is still there."
Lyra decided that she might as well identify herself. "Hello, sirs, I'm Lyra. I'm kinda hiding from the hooded men that just attacked me with their weapon... thingies. Can you help me please?"
"AaaAAAnd it talks too!? Did you guys drug me or something!??" Sarge commanded.
The other two soldiers just stared with their mouths and eyes even wider than before. "No we're seeing it too trust me." Replied the older one.
They seemed to stare at each for a solid minute before Lyra had the courage to try to speak some sense into them.
"Well if you gentlemen don't mind, I'm being cha-" It was then that Lyra was cut off by the same jibberish she confronted just a few minutes.
"Shit! It's the Taliban! Fuck it! YOU um... GREEN HORSE! Go hide somewhere now!"
Lyra wanted to object to the name "Green Horse", but was too panicked to care at the moment. So she decided to hide behind the nearest car near the soldiers. After that, one of soldiers yelled "TANGO IN THE OPEN!" and then she heard ear-piercing gunfire everywhere, some bullets even hitting the car she was hiding behind. She had really wished that Bon Bon were there to comfort her, but all she could do was close her eyes and wish for this to turn out well.
After what seemed like an eternity, but in reality only to thirty seconds, the gunfire ceased. Then the older soldier yelled "All Tangos neutralized!" There were a couple "Hell yeahs!" and "Fuckin' A's!" chanted afterwards. Lyra decided to give it a few more seconds before she moved, first to let them finish their cheering, and second to regain her sanity from that experience. She could only imagine what the turnabout from the situation was. After her few seconds was up, she decided to look in the direction of where the Taliban were. She could only gasp at what were now bloody pools of dead bodies.
"Sweet Celestia..." was all she could muster and forced herself to get out from her hiding place. Slowly she approached the dead bodies with her mouth agape from the scene that unraveled before her. Is this what humans did to each other? Just kill each other? What was the point? Was their even friendship in this world?
"Hey Green Horse! Get the fuck over here before you get spotted!" Snapped Lyra out of her racing mind. She snapped her eyes at the soldiers who just murdered the Taliban.
"What in the hay was that about!? You didn't have to kill them! You could have worked it out somehow! Better than this anyways." As she closed in on the soldiers still staring at the bloody bodies.
"Oh trust me," Sarge replied, "if it were that easy, we wouldn't have been in this war for more than six years. So what's your name Green Horse?"
"The name is Lyra, Lyra Heartstrings. And I'm not a 'Horse', I'm a 'Pony' thank you very much."
"Well excuse me 'ma'am', but we don't get talking ponies around here, especially not unicorns."
"Well you're all 'good' humans then?"
"Sure, I guess you could say we're the good guys. I'm Sergeant Ramirez, the young one over there is Private First Class Travis, and then our squad leader over there is Staff Sergeant Douglas. Our squad is Delta Squad. The squad that kicks the most ass at our base!"
"Nice to meet all of you! Well I'm kinda stuck here, you think you can help a mare out?"
"That really isn't up to me, you'll have to talk to Sgt. Douglas. He's the one I take orders from. What do you think sir?"
Sgt. Douglas seemed to be deep in thought about the whole ordeal. Lyra was a bit nervous as she thought maybe he wouldn't accept her in their squad. He finally got his hand off his chin and seemed like he came to a decision.
"In any normal situation with an animal," he begun to explain, "we would just let you run free and fend for yourself. But since you can talk, think, and act like a human (more or less), we can count you as an innocent civilian. So you can join us as long as you stay close and don't try anything suspicious."
"Oh thank you sir! I promise I'll be good sir!" Lyra cheered.
"Wow, so now we have our own talking unicorn then?" Private Travis interrupted. "That's so awesome! Can you do magic too?"
"Yeah well cut the excitement Private." Sgt. Douglas responded. "She's now a civilian we gotta protect and that means a little more work for us."
"But can't I help you guys out somehow?" Lyra questioned. "Like, can't I get a weapon too?"
"Absolutely not!" Answered Sgt. Douglas. "You are considered a civilian and you're not properly trained. So I can't have you carrying a weapon when you could jeopardize the whole mission. No offense, even though you look peaceful and possibly haven't experienced war before, I can't let you have a weapon."
"I completely understand sir."
It was then that she looked back at dead bodies and frowned. So they fought each other for a really long time then? Hard to believe, they most likely did something really, really bad to make the soldiers mad, or whatever country they lived in.
"I'm sorry," Sgt. Ramirez commented, "but it couldn't be helped. This is how war works, we have to kill them if perceived a threat."
"Yea I got it." It was then Lyra got an idea. "Hold on... be right back!" Maybe since they were dead, they wouldn't mind if she 'borrowed' something from them. She trotted on over to their bloody corpses, and spotted a knife on one of them.
"The hell is she doing?" Private Travis asked.
"I dunno Private, maybe she's still devastated that we killed them. That must have been the first killing she's witnessed since she got here God knows how. Just give her some time."
Lyra then levitated the knife near her face. She spotted her target, hesitated for a moment, then stabbed at one of the men's left wrist.
"JESUS CHRIST! Or not... HOLY SHIT WHAT ARE YOU DOING LADY!?"
"JUST GIVE ME A FEW!"
She was trying to focus onto her prized items she had awaited so long for: The Hands. Maybe if she could put them around her fore hooves, she could control them and use her hands like the humans do. She finally finished cutting off the hands for herself and fitted them snug-like around her hooves by cutting holes from inside the hand. There was blood everywhere, and some on her, but it was worth it to finally have hands, if they worked that is. She tried to manipulate the fingers like the humans would. It was tricky at first, but she was excited when she finally got the hang of it.
She also blushed a bit when she realized she was also naked. She wanted clothes, so she ripped the hood and pants from the Taliban and made a makeshift costume for herself. It wasn't much, but it would do for now.
She trotted back over to the soldiers who were now awestruck at her sudden, violent, and barbaric acts towards their fallen enemies. Lyra had to admit she sure wasn't too proud of it either, but to have hands was her one dream, and she couldn't just pass it up.
"Well shit, our little pony isn't so innocent after all." Sgt. Ramirez commented after regaining his thoughts.
"Well, let's just say it's always been a little fetish of mine to have hands instead of hooves."
"Alright then, if this shit's over with, we should really get the hell outta here so we can scout the place some more." Sgt. Ramirez said as he stood with his weapon at the ready.
"Well I still don't understand why you hate these guys so much. What did they really do?"
Sgt. Ramirez let a long sigh. "Ah hell." Then he looked over to Sgt. Douglas. "Sir you think we have enough time to give her a history lesson of this fucking retarded war we're in?"
Sgt. Douglas thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Well shit, I suppose we could have a moment to rest. But let's find another spot to rest, I'm sure if there were any other Taliban around, they sure would've heard the gunshots."
"Understood sir. Then let's move out squad!" They all nodded and marched out.
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*(What the hell is that thing?)
**(Whatever it is, shoot it now!)
***(By Allah, I don't think our leader would believe this!)
Spoken language by the terrorists is Urdu.