Michael hit the ground, his arm still a silvery mess, only starting to reform itself into a hand. The flames off the wreckage of the Humvee, overturned just a few yards short of the ridge line, blasted at his face. Looking at it, he knew they’d be lucky to find enough of the Lieutenant to bury, much less hope he’d survived. A few moments later, a loud rip sounded as the Javelin rockets smashed into their targets, turning the tanks into scrap in rapid succession, warming the back of his neck with a series of explosions. His arm reformed itself slowly, pistol and all. He holstered it once more, eyes closing against the sight.

“Bit slow on the draw there, daddy dearest.” A voice cackled.

Michael’s eyes opened. His teeth grit as he slowly turned, rising to his feet. Mars was a silhouette against the wall of flames that was once one of his own tank formations, a grin on his face. Glaring, Michael unzipped his jacket, shrugging it off slowly to reveal the white undershirt over his muscular frame. Chen nodded, his form morphing into something more aerodynamic, the chrome surface of his body rippling to handle incredible winds.

“Not one more soul, Mars, you hear me? Not one more.” Michael hissed, drawing his pistols. “Kid gloves are comin’ off now.”

“Oh?” Mars grinned, lifting his officer’s hat and shrugging his trench coat off, allowing both to fall to the ground. “Goody, I was wondering when you were gonna get tired of-“

He was interrupted as Michael appeared right in front of him and hammered a right hook against the side of his face, plowing him into the ground. The demigod dove to finish his fallen son with a pile-driver to the stomach, only to miss, his elbow digging a crater into the ground. Mars flipped back to his feet and blinked, and suddenly the rest of the world stopped, falling into an eerie sort of silence. Of course, it wasn’t the world falling silent. The demigod was simply moving too quickly for sound to reach his ears in time, his perception racing forward with his body moving near the speed of light. A few pitiful little bullets crawled lazily through the air, shockwaves rippling out behind them as if they were moving through Jell-O. Behind him, Chen was suspended in mid-air, his appendages ready to strike the moment he landed, which, to Mars, would probably be in an hour or so. Like this, it was almost child’s play to stroll over to his father’s side at around Mach Six. The man in the white undershirt was still elbow-deep in the ground, clods of dirt sailing from the impact at a snail’s past. Mars brushed them aside to gaze into his father’s eyes with a sort of longing. The calm, placid cool he saw there shook him to his core. How could one hold so much power and yet be so calm?

“Look at you: you’re magnificent,” he sighed, his voice an ultra-fast little squeak, indiscernible to human ears. The hand-cannon reappeared in his fingers. “Just glorious. So much power, so much rage. You could’ve ruled at my side. Hell, you could’ve surpassed me! Such a waste.”

He pressed the weapon against Michael’s temple. “Such a pitiful waste.”

Suddenly, something clenched his ankle. Mars’ eyes widened at the sight of Chen’s spire-like appendages clamped firmly around his leg. His jaw dropped. The bastard was moving as fast as he was! Come now, young one, Chen’s voice cooed. Did you really think you were the only one who could play this game?

Like I said, son, Michael’s voice added in their heads as his hand wrapped around Mars’s other leg. Kid gloves are comin’ off.

Acting simultaneously, the pair flipped Mars over onto his back. The fallen son roared with fury as he skid across the ground, small blades of grass and dirt clods drifting slowly into the air by his head. The brothers followed up with a dual gut-stomp that formed yet another crater in the ground beneath Mars’ body. Any other being would have been killed instantly by the pain alone, Mars just got angry. He would have loved to quip some sort of back-handed insult to his fathers, but at the speed they were all working at, it would take five minutes for the sound of his voice just to reach its target’s ears. As it was, he settled for reaching up, clenching the brothers by their inner thighs and slamming their bodies against one another. The crack of the impact emanated through the air, slowly blossoming out as a visible ripple while the brothers replied with a pair of kicks from their free legs, using the momentum from the blow to backflip out of Mars’ reach. Mars simply leapt back to his feet, immediately staring down the barrel of Michael’s Peacemaker.

Oh please, he grumbled telepathically. At this speed, even a human could dodge a bullet easily. You’ll just be wasting…

Michael replied with a trio of shots that impacted against Mars’ frame, sending him reeling back. The fallen son looked in shock at the three holes in his chest, glistening with silver, but not from his own healing process kicking in. This was a different glisten, and it felt…sinister. Wrong. As if something had been implanted into his body.

Not these bullets, Marsy, Michael said, loading a few fresh rounds into the revolver’s chambers. There’s a little of me inside of ‘em. Nothing can dodge these.

You see, young one: we have spent years honing and refining our abilities to utilize them in ways you cannot even imagine, Chen added, scooping up the hand cannon from where Mars had dropped it and crushing it between the nubs of his appendages. We are masters of our craft, not wayward children with a few toys.

Wayward child, am I? Mars stood and cracked his neck, healing the remainder of his wounds with a single thought. Alright, if that’s the way you wanna play it…

The spikes rocketed out of his wrists, shimmering in the moonlight with a new, darker sheen. The brothers took one look at it and glowered, readying themselves. Though he knew they’d never hear him, Mars couldn’t resist screaming: “COME ON!” before the trio rushed at each other. And thus, the Battle for Coltton, and for all of Equestria, entered its final phase.

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

Miller tried to keep his eyes off the field. Looking at the three demigods fight there was like staring too long at a rollercoaster from right underneath it. The three shapes darted and moved and danced about each other so quickly his mind couldn’t even take it. The SEAL closed his eyes, trying to regain his focus and fight back the vomit rising in his throat.

“Aw God,” one of the SEALs off to his side grumbled before turning and puking into the dirt. “Aw God, they’re so fast! How can anything be that fast?”

“Just don’t look at it, boys, you’ll get motion sickness,” Miller sighed. For a man that had just scored a major victory against the enemy, he sure felt tiny. Sure, he had turned back a few hordes of gun-slinging, screaming, elite Nazi shocktroopers, but compared to the madness going on in the middle of the field, what was that, really? Looking at that flashing, impossible sight, he suddenly felt aware of the huge show going on all around him, and of the very tiny part he played in it. Just look at where he was! A land of magical, talking ponies that up until a few days ago he thought only existed in a cartoon for little girls and creepy older guys? And it was all to fight Nazis from an alternate Earth where they LOST World War Two!? He didn’t dare look up at the night sky, now fading away with the rising sun. He could just imagine seeing all those stars and all those planets and realizing that, for all its sheer immenseness, the sky here AND the sky back home were still just tiny parts of a massive whole that spanned billions of realities existing as the result of an infinite amount of possibilities where all the worlds that could’ve-been and should’ve-been and never-should’ve-been-but-oh-well-here-they-are-anyway existed and everything he knew, EVERYTHING he loved and was just beginning to understand a tiny fraction of, was all just a teensy tiny part of that massive picture which made the mind reel just to…

“Miller, glad t’see you survived.” Vance said as he climbed up to the SEAL’s position.

Miller turned and saluted, grateful for the distraction from his thoughts. “Glad to see you holding up so well, Captain.”

The SEAL smiled, but the Captain’s frown only seemed to deepen. “Now, we both know what happened back there. We both know what I had to do to keep the battle in our favor.”

“What-oh!” Miller replied, a grin appearing high on his cheeks. “Yes sir, yes we do.”

“The point is, none of that matters now. The past is the past. What’s done in war should never be bought to the light of day, no matter how…strange it may look in retrospect.”

“And what if it just happens to surface, sir? Maybe as a rumor among the men?”

The frown was now so dark it seemed to swallow the light around Vance’s face. “Well, then I would be very displeased, and you should know that people who displease me have an unfortunate tendency to disappear. I would never endanger my cause by attacking one of my own in the middle of a battle, no, but just know that I have a few free weekends coming up, a sedan with a lot of trunk space, and five places I could name right off the bat where I could hide something and it would never, EVER, be found. Am I being clear?”

The smile never left Miller’s face. “Crystal, sir.”

“Good,” the Marine chanced a peek over the ridge line at the show Miller was trying so hard to ignore. “So that’s how he fights, huh?”

“Yeah,” the smile faded from Miller’s face. “It’s…it’s really something, isn’t it?”

“Kinda makes you feel small, doesn’t it?” Vance added, pulling himself back down from the ridge.

“Yeah, yeah it kinda does.”

That mischievous grin crossed Vance’s face again. “Gosh, I certainly hope something doesn’t happen while…”

Once again, Miller clamped a hand down on his Captain’s face, his grin returning. “Captain,” he said patiently, a finger raised. “If you were pushing our luck before, you’re just flicking off God now.”

“Just making sure your reflexes are still workin’, old-timer,” Vance replied, shoving the SEAL away. “Besides, I think we’ve faced down enough bullshit tonight to say we should be all set from this point on.”

Of course, the moment those words left his mouth, a massive cry rang up from the forest. All eyes left the display in the field for the pink-colored tree line before them. The cry was soon joined by a chorus, the war-sounds of a thousand tired men, not yet beaten, readying for the final push. In an instant, a half-dozen red banners appeared in the darkness of the forest, accenting the swastika at each and every one of their centers. Miller glared at his comrade.

“I really gotta learn when to shut my damn mouth and leave well enough alone,” Vance sighed, reaching for one of the M4’s lying in the mud and cleaning out the firing mechanism as best as he could.

“When we’re back stateside, I’m arranging for someone to put duct tape over the entire lower half of your face.”

“Miller, if we survive this you can just stitch the damn thing shut.”

“Deal.”

The cries of the men in the woods drew closer, a thousand boots marching to war, a thousand boots traipsing through the brush, flattening all in their path to the tone of an invisible drummer, the red banner raised before them growing clearer and clearer to the enemy arrayed against them. Vance grimaced. “God, if we just had some reinforcements…”

“Howzabout a magical death cannon?” Miller asked, grinning as he watched the bottom of their canyon.

“Huh…” Vance drifted off as he looked over his shoulder to see the one thing in the entirety of the metaverse that could put a smile on his face just then: his son, limping along at the bottom of the ridge with the Elements of Harmony and a missing SEAL in tow. The aging Marine rocketed out of his position and rushed to the bottom of the ridge with a surprising amount of speed, the rifle only remaining in his hands as an afterthought. The pilot smiled and saluted as his father approached and paused just a few short feet away. For a second, the Captain seemed lost for words, eventually starting with: “Uh-well done, gentlemen. Knew you could do it.”

“Thanks, Captain,” Uris said, the confident smile still on his face.

“Princess!” The ponies gasped, rushing around the humans’ feet to their rulers, still lying in the mud in an attempt to recover.

“Girls, just wait a-“ Uris started. He shut up at Ramirez’s hand on his shoulder.

“Let ‘em have this,” the SEAL whispered. “Lord knows they probly need it after a night like this.”

“Well, they ain’t the Rangers all holding carry-out bags from The Olive Garden,” Miller said, smiling as he casually strode towards the trio. “But I guess they’ll hafta do.”

“Ugh, The Olive Garden?” Uris groaned, his nose wrinkling. “Seriously? That place is a glorified, Italian-themed McDonalds.”

“Much as I’d like to stand here and talk ‘bout our favorite whitey food stops,” Ramirez interrupted. “We’ve got somethin’ more pressing goin’ on. Y’know, a crazy bastard in a stolen Humvee?”

“Shit! Right!” Uris gasped, smacking himself in the forehead. “Dad- sorry, Captain -Parker swiped our Humvee when he saw the shit you guys were in. We kinda lost track of him, but we were hoping you could help us stop him and maybe talk some sense into him. Couldja?”

The smiles on Vance and Miller’s faces evaporated like an ice cube in the deepest pit of hell. “No son, no we can’t,” Vance replied solemnly.

“Now why in the hell no – oh,” the SEAL’s eyes widened as he pieced together what the look on his father’s face meant. He took a seat in the mud, shock overtaking his body. “Oh my God.”

“We just met the guy,” Uris gasped, hobbling a step back. “He was just right next to us…”

“It was a good death: a real hero’s death,” Vance said, successfully disguising the pain leaking into his voice. “If it wasn’t for him, a lot more men would be lying dead in the mud up there. He’ll be buried with full honors back stateside.”

“Yeah, I’m sure his whole family’ll appreciate that.” Uris sneered. “A medal’s a great substitute for a son, or a husband, or a dad.”

Vance and Miller both leveled dirty looks on the pilot. “We came here to do a job, and we are gonna finish it,” Vance barked. “Parker understood how much was at stake here, and for his memory’s sake I hope you figure it out for yourself. Understood?”

“Yes sir,” the pilot grumbled, a defiant look still in his eye.

“Excellent,” Miller added, placing himself between the pair. “And hey, it ain’t all bad: we’ve got the Elements of Harmony now! Those Nazi fucks try anything, we just magic death-ray ‘em, right?”

Uris and Miller exchanged uneasy glances. “Well, see,” the pilot started, suddenly becoming intensely interested in a rock by his foot. “It’s not really gonna be that easy.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

“Well,” Ramirez started. “Right now it looks like…they’re…charging.”

Vance gave them a deadpan look. “Charging.”

“Yeah.”

“The ultimate embodiment of magic on this plane, and it needs to charge.”

“And we don’t…really know…when they’ll be ready.” Uris added sheepishly.

The Captain’s jaw dropped. It took all his strength not to crumple to his knees and pound his fists into the mud, cursing every deity he could think of. “Gettin’ my hopes up just to send them crashing back down again,” he grumbled, face-palming himself over and over again.

“SIR! They’re almost here!” A frantic voice cried from the top of the ridge. Vance’s eyes widened. He grabbed his rifle and ensured there was a fresh round in the chamber. At the same time, Ramirez whipped out the M4 he’d managed to grab from the Humvee while Uris pulled out his M1911. Nodding, they silently began slogging their way to the top of the ridge.