Uris tightened his grip on the pistol, his ears perked up. For the past five minutes, the enemy hadn’t done anything, and that worried him. At least with someone shooting at him he knew where the enemy was. Now, with just the artillery rumbling off in the distance and the occasional gunshot, it was just so quiet. Almost too…

The pilot stopped himself before he could complete the ancient cliché. Between his leg, the bullets he’d dodged, and the artillery shells still dropping everywhere, he knew he couldn’t tempt fate any more than he already had. Especially now, when the enemy could be damn near anywhere. He breathed and tried to focus again, like in the Everfree forest. The artillery, the gunfire…all of it had nothing to do with the here and now, and so faded into the background. All that remained was the here. All that remained was the darkness in the hallway behind him, the gentle breeze whistling through the shattered window, the…the…

The crunch of boots on gravel.

The pilot didn’t even have time to duck as an enemy tango burst through the gaping door and fired once from a sidearm. The only thing that saved Uris was his enemy expecting him to be a bit further away from the door, his arm extending right past the pilot’s head before the weapon discharged harmlessly into the wall.

Reacting, his ears ringing and head spinning from the shot going off practically next to his head, Uris smashed himself against his attacker’s arm, twisting the pistol from his grip. The tango replied with a perfectly executed punch to the neck, combined with a grab that nearly tore the sidearm from the American’s fingers. With a grunt, Uris worked the slide, tearing it away from the pistol just as the enemy spun, whipped the weapon out of the pilot’s grip, pressed the now-empty barrel against his face and squeezed the trigger.

Screaming with rage at the sound of the empty click, the tango slammed his fists against the back of the American’s head, attacking with a strength that could only be described as feral. The pilot replied with a few blows of his own to the enemy’s crotch, giving him just the breathing room he needed to ram his body against the wall, knocking the air out of the tango’s lungs. He pulled back and readied a kick, but with the blows to his head his balance was off, a fact that would prove fatal as the enemy easily dodged and allowed the pilot to smash his bad leg against the wall. Howling in pain as his ankle snapped in the few remaining places it hadn’t already, Uris dropped to the ground, his world spinning from the agony screaming up his leg.

Not taking any chances, the enemy tango followed up with an elbow drop against Uris’s face, knocking him unconscious instantly. Breathing deeply, the soldier stood over his fallen foe, mildly irritated that one pilot with a demolished leg had given him so much trouble.

“Mr. Uris?” A sickeningly sweet voice asked from the doorway. Immediately, the soldier tucked and rolled off his shoulder and scooped up his pistol, spinning in place to find two ponies in his crosshairs: a yellow pegasus and a regular pink pony.

“Who’re you calling regular!?” The pink pony growled randomly as her friend held her close, tears in her eyes. Both wore some sort of jewel around their necks. The yellow one, a pegasus, immediately nuzzled deep into her friend’s side, her eyes locked in terror on the unconscious American on the floor. The pink one kept her eyes on the soldier still on his feet, defiantly staring right down the barrel of his weapon. She hugged her friend close, apparently readying herself for something. The soldier heard a crackle in his ear: “{Sturmgewehr One, come in!}”

His eyes remaining on the ponies, he reached with one hand to the walkie on his belt while the other kept the weapon focused on them. “{Roger that, Eagle’s Nest, go ahead.}”

“{Your orders have changed, Sturmgewehr. You are to terminate the Element of Kindness on sight. I repeat: the Element of Kindness is now your primary target. Do you read?}”

The pink one gasped and hugged her friend close, a hint of fear spreading through her eyes. If the soldier didn’t know better, he might have thought she had understood the orders just sent to him. “{Roger that, Eagle’s Nest, orders received loud and clear.}”

The pink one’s eyes glided shut. The yellow one just kept standing there in shock, her lower lip quivering as she looked up at him in fear. In such incredible fear. Fear the man would never have believed. Of course, if he had been declared a “special one” as a boy, he wouldn’t have even registered this fear. His ability to perceive emotions would have been blasted away by years of conditioning and training in those horrid camps he’d heard so much about, training him to be the perfect soldier for his leader’s Special Forces. But he wasn’t Special Forces. He wasn’t a “special one.” He was just a man with a few weeks’ training, some parachuting experience, and a gun in his hand. There was still a small glimmer of humanity in him, glowing like a diamond in the hull of a cold, steel battleship. Oh, but it was so very weak, and he had been taught from the beginning to respect the orders of his superiors and carry them out with every single amount of strength in his body, glorifying the truth and righteousness of the state with every move he made and every word he spoke. And these weren’t just orders from some officer: they were from a man who had promised godhood to his entire race! Compared to that, one little glimmer of humanity was…

POW!

POW!

…more than enough for him to empty two bullets harmlessly into the floor, sparing the lives of the ponies before him. Keeping the talkie on, he pressed it to his lips. “{Eagle’s Nest, this is Sturmgewehr. Did you copy that?}”

It took a few minutes for the voice on the other end to reply, and when it did there was a certain tone of self-satisfaction to it. “{We got that, Sturmgewehr. We take it this means the Element of Kindness is dead?}”

“{Yes,}” the man replied, holstering his weapon as the ponies’ eyes opened in surprise and looked at him quizzically, still suspicious. “{She’s done. I’m done.}”

“{Well done, Sturmgewehr. RTB.}”

The man clipped the walkie back to the belt and stood to the side, clearing the way between the ponies and the door. The pink one still eyed him suspiciously, though the yellow one seemed to understand. She pulled her friend along, tugging her right past the soldier and towards the door, her eyes glancing at the man on the ground every so often. He tried to smile reassuringly and urged them along. After a while, the pink one’s glare softened.

“Danke, schon.” She said as she passed, offering a small smile.

Surprised, the soldier started to reply: “Sie sind herzlich ein…

Suddenly, the American sprang at the tango’s ankles, a blade in his hands. Screaming, the tango dropped to his knees just as the ponies neared, their jaws dropping in surprise. Before anyone knew what was happening, the pilot was on top of the tango, his knife slowly advancing towards his throat while the tango tried desperately to hold him back.

Fluttershy watched in horror, the look on her human friend’s face unlike anything she had ever seen. The rage she saw: the hate in his eyes, the feral noises rumbling from his mouth, all of it looked worse than a dragon in heat. A bestial gleam entered his eye as his blade neared his enemy’s throat, slowly scraping against the jugular…

“St-stop,” she whimpered. “Uris, please…”

The blade met flesh, which yielded only too easily. The first traces of blood began to ooze free.

“No, Uris, stop. WAIT! STOP! HE WAS GONNA LET US GO! HE WAS…”

Fluttershy had found her voice too late. Uris’s blade made one final plunge, and the body beneath him shivered. The soldier on the floor gasped as the air left his body, blood oozing from his mouth, and then his eyes glazed over.

As if he were waking up from a dream, the pilot looked back at the pegasus in shock, his enemy’s blood spreading across his legs to mix with his own. She stared at him, eyes widening in terror. “Fl-Fluttershy?” He asked, the knife dropping from his hand.

She backed away, giving him a wide berth as she headed for the door, eyes on him as if it were a rabid manticore sitting atop the body in the middle of the room, not the friend she had spent the past day or so running, fighting, and crying with.

“Wait, Fluttershy,” he reached towards her, a drop of blood dripping off his hand. She squeaked in fear before taking off as fast as she possibly could, tearing out the door, along the street and swooping into the sky. “Wait, Fluttershy! Wait! I’m…”

She was already gone, a little silhouette against the moon. His head drooped as he limped towards the doorway and braced himself against the frame, gazing out after her. “I’m…sorry…”

“I-I think I should go after her,” Pinkie said, trotting by. “You probably won’t be going anywhere on that leg. Just…try to patch yourself up a bit: we’ll swing around and pick you up later, okay?”

“She…” he mumbled, staring at the ceiling wide-eyed. “She was so scared. Of me. She was terrified of me.”

“Hey,” the pink mare placed a hoof on his shoulder. “She’s been through a lot tonight, okay? We’ll work things out when this is all over. Promise.”

The pilot looked at his hands, still sticky with the blood of the man on the floor. “Yeah,” he muttered, obviously not paying any attention. “Yeah, okay.”

Pinkie sighed and trotted along, somehow assured that no other soldiers would take potshots at her as she followed the streets towards the Everfree forest, searching for a place she figured her friend might have fled to. The pilot continued to stare at the sticky red pool spreading on the floor. After a while, he noticed an odd crackling sound, followed by a voice: “{Sturmgewehr One, come in!}”

He recognized the enemy’s language and slowly walked towards the body. After rummaging around a bit, he found the small walkie clipped to the man’s belt. “{Sturmgewehr One, come in! Dammit all man, we just detected the Element of Kindness leaving the area! What the hell is going on down there!? She’s supposed to be dead, you worthless pile of shit!}”

The pilot may not have known the language, but he recognized a call-sign when he heard it, and the enemy had used the plain English term for the Elements. He figured he knew what to do next. He pressed the walkie up to his mouth: “Sturmgewehr One won’t be reporting,” he said plainly. “Instead, this is Airman Peter Uris with the United States Armed Forces, and I just wanted to report that the Elements of Harmony are coming. And they’re gonna kick your ass.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mars blinked, immediately switching to the satellite feed of the little house in Coltton. Switching the view to the front hallway, he watched a distinctly humanoid form standing over another, smashing a little something in its hands against a wall. “No,” he gasped, surprise filling his face, quickly followed with blinding rage.

“NO!” He howled, smashing his wine glass against the ground before standing up, tearing the massive, oaken chair out of the ground and smashing it to splinters against the grass. “NO! NO! NO! NO!”

The chair destroyed, he turned his glare upon the village and pounded the ground like a child in the middle of a temper tantrum, ending with his middle fingers extended upwards in the direction of the village. “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOUUUUUUU!”

“{Sir?}” His second asked, walking up to him. The demigod turned on the man, his face filled with the kind of rage that could (and in fact, had) burn planets whole. The man cringed, but remembered where a show of cowardice had landed his predecessor. “{Sir, is something the matter?}”

Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the rage vanished from Mars’s face. He straightened up, smoothing a few creases in his officer’s coat. “{Of course not, Stevens. Just having a candid chat with somebody that I…}” his fists shook mildly from rage, “{…am looking forward to seeing soon.}”

“{What are your orders?}”

The demigod looked out over the forest. Blinking once, he was able to gain a full satellite view of the village of Coltton, a few flares rising up along its northern edge to symbolize a firefight brewing. “{We are going to go down there,}” he replied. “{We are going to go down there, and we are going to do unspeakable things to every mare, stallion, and foal we can lay our hands on. We are going to sodomize the foals with broom handles, slice off the stallion’s penises, and brand the mares with torches after we have had our way with each and every single one of them. And we are going to make the Americans watch. We will make them watch before we put out their eyes and ears, leaving only their tongues so they may speak with their superiors about the consequences of interfering. And then, we are going to burn everything until all that is left is dust and the haunted memories of what we did here to serve as a warning to everyone who dares stand in our way!}”

Stevens shivered, sweat gathering against the grip of his weapon. “{Is that understood?}” The demigod asked.

“{Yes, sir,}” the human replied.

“{Good: now gather the men,}” Mars said, his hands crossing behind his back as he surveyed the town. “{I wish to address them before the main assault.}”