The medical tents were filled well beyond their capacity with wounded Marines and ponies. Medical staff rushed from one patient to another to treat the patients suffering from various battle wounds. Even most of the people and ponies carrying the injured in had cuts and bruises on every bit of exposed skin. The smells of blood, death, and sweat filled the air, and soon there would not be enough space for new arrivals.

Trixie watched a pair of Royal Guard unicorns being brought in on stretchers by a group of Marines. The azure unicorn pulled beds up for the injured ponies and helped set the groaning bodies on the mattresses to await treatment. With barely a nod of thanks, the two Marines nearly ran out of the tent to bring in more of the wounded. The magician set to work on removing the armor from the Guards and cleaning their wounds as best she could so a doctor could set straight to work.

The young mare could still hear the sounds of battle in the distance, and she silently prayed that the fighting would end soon. She wanted, needed, to rest, but she could not as long as somepony else needed help. So the pony gritted her teeth and moved on to the next patient, helping with whatever she could. From behind her at the entrance to the tent the white-maned unicorn heard the sounds of hushed voices. When the magician turned to look, she saw Rarity, wearing a pink and white scarf, standing in the doorway whispering to one of the unicorn doctors, a light pink mare in a stark white coat.

“I can help make these poor soldiers more comfortable.” the fashionista breathed, “If you think that would help.”

“That would help a lot!” the medical pony whispered back excitedly, “Even if all you did was pass out medicine that would take some of the pressure off of the rest of the staff.”

“Good, I want to help.” the white unicorn said eagerly.

“Okay, we will get you started right away.” The light pink mare turned and waved to Trixie, “Hey, get over here and show our newest recruit what to do.”

“Yes ma’am.” The azure mare trotted over to her friend and the doctor rushed off to help with another patient.

“Hello dear,” Rarity said quietly, “what shall we do first?”

“I was about to help change the IV bags for some of the more injured soldiers.” Trixie quickly walked the other unicorn through the easiest way to change the IVs. The magician watched her friend out of the corner of her eye as they moved through the wounded, waiting for the white mare to ask for help.

It did not take long for the pair to finish, and soon they set to work making the injured soldiers comfortable. They fluffed pillows, brought water, and administered pre-dosed painkillers to those who needed it.

Rarity was all smiles, a bright ray of light in the darkness of pain. Her white form moved among the groaning bodies; offering a kind word here, a simple touch of the shoulder there, and a happy grin for everyone, regardless of whether they were a pony or a human. One soldier, a middle-aged male Marine missing his right leg below the knee and half the fingers on the hand on the same side, was shivering in his bed when the unicorn mare passed by. The purple-maned pony stopped to speak softly with the man before she pulled off her scarf and carefully wrapped it around his neck.

The young white mare then pulled the sheet up to the Marine’s chin and moved to the bed next to his, this one housing a unicorn with a shattered horn. Trixie watched in silent amazement as her friend moved around, chatting with anyone who wanted to have her ear for a moment. No one was turned away. The magician pony could catch snippets of what was being said, and most seemed to be asking to have a message delivered to relatives. Rarity dutifully listened to each one and made sure she had it right.

The pair of ponies continued to make rounds of their tent for over an hour, helping when they could and staying out of the way when they could not. Trixie was quick to pull her friend away whenever she recognized the signs of a soldier’s last breaths. The azure unicorn wished to spare at least one pony the horror of watching the life drain from another being’s eyes. Thankfully, more unicorn healers from Canterlot had arrived and were helping to treat some of the more seriously wounded warriors and deaths were slowing down.

When the two unicorns had sat down for a short rest, an older man came in strapped to stretcher carried between two earth pony nurses, one stallion and one mare. The Marine struggled against the bindings, yelling for nurses to let go of him. No matter what the two earth ponies tried they could not make the soldier be quiet. The patients who could manage raised themselves up to see what was causing the commotion. His shouting even woke some of the sleeping patients.

Rarity, her face set in a harsh scowl, tromped over to the wounded man with Trixie following close behind. When the fashionista got close, she could see that his legs had been torn up by bullets and required immediate attention if the human wanted to keep the limbs. Upon seeing the two mares not in some type of medical dress, the Marine turned to them with a snarl.

“Now dammit, I don’t need no help from no one!” the older man yelled when the two friends drew level with him, “If ya could jus’ let me stick a band-aid on it I could get back to the fighting and you could treat someone who really needs it!”

The stallion nurse gulped and started hesitantly, “If we don’t tend the wounds you will…”

“Listen here, pony boy,” the Marine growled, “I can tell better than you what is goin’ on in my own body. So if you know what’s good fer you, you’ll jus’ back off!”

Finally, Rarity had heard enough. “How rude!” she chastised the soldier, “These ponies are trying to help you, and you are being nothing short of monstrous!”

“That’s because I don’t need no help!” the man shouted, turning red in the face with anger.

The fashionista bravely held her ground, “I would think that trained medical professionals know more about who needs help than you, Mister…?”

“Just call me Doc.” the older soldier said with a dismissive wave of his hand, “Everyone does. But don’t change the…”

“Well, Doc.” the white mare spoke over him, “Your rude behavior is causing an undue disturbance and is interrupting the other doctors while they try to save lives. I will not stand idly by while you exercise such atrocious manners!”

“Look missy,” Doc started again, “I’ve said it once, and I will say it again. I don’t need help!”

“You listen here,” the purple-maned pony jabbed one manicured hoof on the bound man’s chest threateningly, “you will allow these kind doctors to do their job and put your body right. I do not want to hear another complaint out of you; you are acting like a foal!”

“Wh-what! A, a foal!” the human sputtered.

“Yes, a foal.” Rarity continued, “And your foalishness is hurting others around you.”

“I… I, uh…”

“Now I am going to make you a deal,” the dress-maker removed her hoof and fixed the soldier with a stern glare, “you promise to be quiet and let these ponies do their jobs, and I will undo the restraints. I know you can’t be comfortable; so do we have a deal?”

The fight finally left the Marine and he sighed, “Yes ma’am.”

“Good.” The white mare’s horn glowed a light blue and the bindings fell off from around the human’s wrists and ankles. The pony gave a demure smile and sauntered away, and Trixie could not help but detect a hint of smugness in her friend’s step.

The azure unicorn shook her head as the quarrelsome human was escorted into the tent before he could stop being quiet. The young mare stepped out of the tent and felt a cool breeze ruffle her coat. A shadow fell across the magician, and she looked skyward to see a single, large storm cloud blotting out the sun. Confused, the pony searched for any other signs of a brewing storm but could find none.

The azure mare watched as the cloud settled over the battlefield and unleashed a torrent of rain. After several minutes of hard rain, the sounds of gunfire started to slow and eventually stopped. For the first time in hours, there was complete silence. The unicorn waited with bated breath to her another gunshot, and the longer she went without hearing one made the smile on her grow wider.

“Thank heavens,” she whispered, “it is finally over.” The sound of an aircraft’s engines over head brought her purple eyes to the sky. She watched as one of the human fighters shot by, heading towards Ponyville. The craft soon backed away and turned towards the Everfree Forest, almost like it was following something.

The white-maned pony watched RX-80 made a quick turn and flew towards the landing area in the camp, not too far from where she was standing. Her heart skipped a beat when Jaze came barreling past her a few moments later, his legs and arms pumping as he ran and shouted orders into the communication device in his ear. A mixture of rage and fear filled his blue-silver eyes, and the unicorn mare felt worry grow in her chest.

She just managed to catch the last of the Colonel’s orders before he was finished, “… And I want the rest to position themselves in a ring around Ponyville. Not even a bug is to get by without you running a check, clear? Good.” The assassin’s hand reached up and quickly switched the comm over to another channel, “Princesses, are you still there?” The flustered human paused for a moment, listening for a response, “Good, meet me at town hall, I want to get to the bottom of this. They had to have inside help with this; I don’t think I killed all the traitors before. So don’t let anyone else know, except Twilight, Applejack, Vincent, Shelby, and Dmitri. Oh, and Shining Armor too. Get everyone to town hall, we’ll talk there. Over and out.”

Trixie ran beside the hurried soldier and called out, “What happened?”

Jaze barely spared a glance to the mare, “Ponyville got attacked, and they made off with most of the fillies and colts, and Rainbow Dash too.”

Horror made the unicorn stop for a moment, and she had to work hard to catch back up, “This is terrible!” Her blue chest heaved as she tried to draw enough air into her lungs to run and talk and she was gasping for breath, “Why would they do that, and what do you mean that this was an ‘inside job’?”

“Just come with me,” the assassin replied harshly, “I’d like to explain everything to everyone once.”

The sounds of desperate sobs filled the air outside of Ponyville Town Hall, and ponies watched in shock as a pair of Marine medics loaded two black body bags, one with the pegasus who died above the town and the other housing an earth pony killed by the attackers, onto a gurney to take back to take the bodies to be stored before burial.

An earth mare, bright pink from head to tail, watched the two lifeless bodies being taken away in utter silence, an unnerving sight for those who knew her. Though she could normally not be seen to be in the same place for longer than it took to smile at a friend, she was now sitting next to where the other earth pony had died with a look of stunned horror on her face. She knew everypony in Ponyville, and the loss of one of her friends in such a ruthless fashion made her mind shut down.

The party pony could still see the look on the soldier’s face. He was a man just a little older than Jaze, his face lined with hardship. As hard as she looked the pink mare could see no trace of anger, or hate in the enemy soldier’s eyes. He was completely emotionless as he put a trio of bullets into his victim. More than anything else, it was the lack of hatred or any emotion at all that could drive somepony to hurt that made her want to cry.

The sound of sniffles nearby made her head rise to see a purple-maned, white unicorn sobbing uncontrollably into her hooves. The party mare hauled herself to her hooves and made her way to the stricken fashionista to enfold her in a loving hug. Immediately the unicorn’s head was on a shoulder, tears dampening the pink fur. Hard as she tried, the pink pony could not bring herself to say a word to a friend who desperately needed it, nor could she not help at all. All she could do was embrace her suffering friend and hope it was enough.

“Why, Pinkie?” Rarity cried in anguish, “How could somepony do this? Why would they take my Sweetie Bell?” Pinkie could not answer, could not force a word past her usually smiling lips. So she just hugged her friend a little tighter and let the fashionable pony expend her grief.

Finally, the pink mare could make herself speak, her voice devoid of its usual happy, carefree manner, “Don’t worry, somepony’s going to go after them. Nothing bad’s gonna happen; I know.”

“How?”

The party pony smiled, “I just do.” Rarity nodded and took a deep breath, letting out slowly to try and calm down.

When she was finally under control again, the white unicorn fixed her friend with a watery gaze, “Let us go see what the Princesses and Jaze are planning for this. Maybe we can help, somehow.”

The pair picked their way through the crowd of grieving ponies to the tall Town Hall building. They took heart in the fact that at least their town looked the same, and that at least they had not seen the same destruction as Cloudsdale. The only difference now was the wailing and the pair of haggard, bloodstained Royal Guard unicorns standing watch outside the door for the group inside. And, if the friends strained their vision to the limit, they could just pick out the Marines and Guardsponies standing sentry duty around the edge of town.

The unicorn Guards moved to block the Ponyville locals from entering the Town Hall. One, a teal, younger stallion haltingly called, “Stop. No one is to enter under order of the Princesses and the Knight-General.”

Rarity gave her friend a brief wink and moved a little closer to the unicorn who had spoken and fixed him with her most alluring stare before speaking, “Look darling, I need to speak to the ones in there, and I am a friend of both the Princesses and your Knight-General.”

The teal stallion gulped, looking to his friend with a pleading look before answering, “Even if that is true, I can’t let you in.”

The white unicorn pouted her lip and fixed the nervous Guard with her puppy-dog eyes, “Please let us in; we won’t be any trouble.”

“But I can’t…”

“Surely you can, all you need to do is step aside.” The fashionista put her hoof under the stallion’s chin and looked straight into his eyes, “Please let us in, just this once?

The flustered Guard blushed from the mare’s touch and stammered “I don’t… I guess; if it really is only once.”

“Oh thank you mister…?”

“Gallant. My name’s Gallant.”

“Thank you ever so much Gallant. You truly are a real gentlecolt.” Rarity beamed as she brushed past the pair of Guards and stepped into the Town Hall with Pinkie close behind.

With the two mares safely out of earshot, Gallant turned to his chuckling friend and whispered with a glare, “Why didn’t you help me?”

The other stallion, an older silver pony, managed to get out through his fits of laughter, “It was way too amusing to watch you fumble with a pretty mare to stop it.”

“It has to be a trap.” Sands cried passionately, his hands slapping the table in front of him, “Why else would they take a bunch of kids?”

Jaze nodded from his place next to Luna, and his eyes turned to the ceiling in thought. On Luna’s other side stood a highly agitated Celestia, and across the table stood Applejack, Twilight, and Trixie. The side of the table next to the Solar Princess stood Vincent and Shelby, and across from them Sands stood with his hands spread wide across his side of the table.

Luna cocked her head and asked, “What would it be a trap for?”

“Anyone that was sent to help.” Vincent offered, “What I don’t get is why they did not take the chance to kill more villagers.”

“From what I gathered from the townsponies,” Celestia stated, “the attackers came in and threatened to kill everypony, starting with the foals, if the children were not handed over.”

Jaze leaned forward and put his hands on the table, his gaze now burning a hole in the wood, “I have to agree with Dmitri on this one. This stinks of trap, and anyone who goes in to rescue those kids and Dash will get caught in it.”

“But we can’t just let them beat us like that!” Twilight yelled out. When the Colonel’s eyes fell all her, she turned a bright red and added, “I mean, that would not be the right thing to do, right?”

“Ah’m with Twi on this’un.” Applejack glared towards her human friend, who was now regarding her with a cool gaze, “Them varmits have one a my bes’ friends, an’ my little sis to boot. We have to do sumthin’, an’ Ah will even if Ah have t’ go by myself.”

The assassin gave a wicked grin, “You’re absolutely right. We can’t just let this go; which is why we are sending our best into their little trap.” He turned to Vincent and Shelby and asked, “Do you know if there are any submachine guns in the armory?”

Shelby’s face screwed up with thought while she ran through a checklist of supplies. “There are a few.” the Lieutenant finally replied, “but what do you need them for?”

“The assault rifles are too noisy for a covert op, and our submachine guns are at least suppressed.” the silver-eyed soldier explained quickly, “The less attention we draw while trying to rescue the foals, the better.”

“Then you are going?” a refined voice asked from behind the group at the table, near the door. As one, their eyes flicked to the door to see Rarity and Pinkie staring at them. The normally perfectly groomed unicorn’s eyes were red, and her impeccable make-up had been ruined by tears that had now stopped. Pinkie’s tears on the other hand had only just started. Her blue eyes brimmed and began to send tears streaming down her face to drip to the floor beneath.

The party mare looked to the group near the table and sobbed, “Th-they took Dashie? Is, is she h-hurt?”

Applejack’s face fell when she saw the happiest pony in Ponyville bawling, “Yeah, they took ‘er. But we’re gonna git ‘er back, safe and sound! Don’t ya fret none ‘bout that.” Despite the encouragement, the premier party pony’s wails only became louder. Rarity pulled her distraught friend aside, whispering encouragement into her ears to try and calm her.

“We need to move soon.” Celestia whispered, trying not to upset the crying mare any more, “How many Royal Guards will you be taking, Knight-General?”

“None.” the assassin replied quickly, “I won’t be taking any Marines either.”

Luna’s face contorted with confusion, “Why not? Wouldn’t more soldiers make the fight easier?”

“A little.” Vincent agreed, “But it would also draw more attention to us.”

The orange farmpony’s chest puffed up intimidatingly, “Say what ya want, but RD’s one a my best friends and they got Applebloom, and Ah’m going with y’all whether ya like it er not!”

Jaze fixed his friend with a bemused grin, his voice dripping amusement, “You make it sound like you had a choice in the matter. Of course you’re going with me; I said I was taking the best. Besides, I need someone, or somepony, to make sure that we have everyone.”

The earth mare let the swagger go from her stance to reply, “Well alright then, when do we leave?”

“Soon as we get our things ready, we leave.” The assassin pointed to Twilight, who had been looking more than a little distraught over the whole ordeal, and ordered, “That includes you, Private. Grab an SMG from the armory and get ready to leave!

Sudden resolve lit the young unicorn’s eyes as she saluted and managed to force out, “Yes sir!”

Same for you,” the Colonel pointed to the other humans in the room, “get your guns and mine, then bring them back here. We need to move fast, before they know we’re on our way. So go!”

When everyone save the Princesses, Trixie and the Colonel had left, Celestia nodded her regal head towards the human and whispered, “Why do you really not want to take any other soldiers?”

The dark-haired assassin rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled, “Am I that transparent?”

“Only to somepony with a lot of experience.” the Solar Sister laughed in return.

“But you did not answer the question.” Luna added.

All traces of laughter left the human’s face as he leaned closer to the alicorns to whisper, “Truth is, I don’t trust the Marines right now. Someone gave the enemy intel on where the pony’s were gathering to wait out the fight. There’s a traitor in our midst, and I want him to make a mistake.”

“Are you sure there is a double agent?” the black alicorn whispered, “Maybe the just got lucky.”

“No, dear sister,” replied the taller Princess, “it makes too much sense to not be true.” Celestia’s eyes fixed the Colonel in a steely gaze, and her voice lowered dangerously, “What would you like us to do if your traitor does make a mistake?”

Jaze’s gaze fell on Rarity and Pinkie, both now softly sniffling with the terror set upon them, “Detain him, but don’t kill him. I want to be there when he’s made to pay.”

“Just be careful not to lose yourself in hate, Knight-General.” Celestia cautioned as she and her sister left, leaving Trixie and Jaze alone with the still crying pair of mares in their little corner.

The azure unicorn moved around the table to stand by the human, who was now leaning against the table with a disturbed look on his face, his silver eyes boring into the table. She stood on her hind legs to rub his back with a hoof and laid her head on his shoulder. He glanced to her before wrapping his arm around the middle of her back in a loose hug.

“Jaze,” the unicorn whispered softly, “I am coming with you.”

His head snapped around to fix her with a surprised glare before he answered forcefully, “I don’t think so!”

“Listen to me, you are going to need me.” the young mare retorted, “If you are caught in the fighting, who will watch the foals? I can help with that.”

“But you won’t use your magic.” the soldier protested quietly, “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I won’t with you by my side. But ask yourself this; are you willing to lock me up? Because that is the only way I won’t follow you.”

The assassin heaved a defeated sigh and spoke slowly, “Okay, you win. You can come, but you will do what I say. And you will be wearing some kind of armor at least.”

Trixie beamed, “Deal.”

“Get your stuff ready, we don’t have much time.”