Poster found within City of Calten, Author Unknown

War has come to our great city my fellow citizens, and while for years our city has been a battle ground between the Federal Army and the rebels known as the Peoples Free Democratic Republic it had rarely ever spilled into the daily lives of the people of this great city.

That has changed my fellow citizens, one month ago we learned of the lies our own government had been telling us for years, of the despicable acts they have taken against the people of this nation. I know some of you don’t believe it and see it as rebel propaganda and that is your right to do so while it is others right to choose to believe and take up arms or flee.

And that is what has happened in our city, we have taken up arms to fight weather for or against the government and it has turned this once peaceful city into a battle field for which none are spared as it is no longer just a war between the government and the rebels, there is no longer just one group of rebels, there are many now, all across this land fighting bother each other and the government they oppose in a cycle of bloodshed and violence that will not cease till one side either surrenders or is obliterated.

We fight for everything from ideals, to religious beliefs, to just the sake of fighting while other choose to avoid the fighting by fleeing the areas that are most dangerous if they can, risking their lives in the hope of escaping the violence that consumes all before it.

I am not one of the latter; I choose to fight for what I believe is right. I do not know what I can do but I know that I will do whatever I can because every fiber of my being tells me it is the right thing to do and it drives me to take up arms while those around me flee because I want to look at this country’s flag and be proud once more instead of be sickened.

And so I ask you my fellow Citizen, what drives you?

Twilight Sparkle lay prone on the roof of a small café looking down the scope of her sniper rifle as she watched as two squads of PFDR as they carefully approached a group at the end of the street with a large truck. Both groups were lightly armed with the rebels only having their sidearm and two SMGs between them while the other group wore no armor and each had an SMG or machine pistol.

It was one of the requirements the other group had made when dealing with the varicose factions in the city and the PFDR agreed as they needed the other group to keep up their fight. “Were you followed?” Came the voice of the leader of the second group.
Who was in charge of the meeting on the ground, he had his radio open so Twilight could listen in
“No, it’s just us here as we agreed.” Came the voice of Staff Sargent Gretel who was leading the rebel squads.

“Good, good, you bring the credits?” The second group leader said and Sergeant Gretel gestured to his second who lifted a brief case, the Rebels found it easier to get Credits these days as entire banks had been abandoned with the vaults still full as well as security not being what is used to be else were.

“Show us what we asked for and we will complete this and be on our way.” Sergeant Gretel said and the second group’s leader nodded to one of his men who opened the back of the small truck reveling the boxes of ammo the PFDR needed.

“Armor Piercing, just like you requested.” The leader said then held out his hand. “Hand over the credits and it’s all yours.”

“Let one of my people make sure there isn’t just one layer of ammo boxes.” Gretel said and the leader looked annoyed before nodding. Gretel gestured for his fellow sergeant to make the inspection. After a few minutes he came out and gave the thumbs up. “Alright looks like we are good.’ Gretel said and his second handed over the case of Credits.

The leader nodded. “Pleasure doing business with you.” He said and all at once things went to shit as Feds burst out of the surrounding building as the second group raised their weapons.

“Fed Ambush!” One of the Rebel soldier yelled as they scrambled for cover. Twilight wasted no time putting a round through the heart of the fake arms dealer leader before looking for a new target. From the looks of it the Feds wanted the rebels alive as they were avoiding kill shots as best as they could.

Twilight took down her second Fed solder when things got far worse in the form of two armored jeeps painted a deep red rolled up and soldier wearing Fed armor splattered with red manned the turrets as more of the red armored soldier climbed out of the jeeps. The Coalition had decided to stage their own surprise attack on the meeting to take out both Feds and PFDR.

The Coalition swung their turrets around prioritizing the more heavily armed Feds to fire on as the foot soldiers attacked both parties, quickly plunging the street into a three-way fire fight as both groups wanted each other dead or captured.

Twilight quickly took aim at one of the gunners and sent a .308 round through his forehead before doing the same to the second gunner. With the heavy fire lessened and the Feds having to focus on the red armored soldiers who got the drop on them the PFDR grabbed their wounded and began to rabidly retreat to the truck as it was their only shot as there was no cover in either direction of the street.

As the truck started to roll down the street Twilight made sure to drop any soldiers that began to fire on the fleeing truck till it was out of range. The mare stayed to take down a few more enemy soldiers before she stood up and retreated from the roof to meet up with the truck as they would need to empty it quickly incase the truck or the ammo had a tracking device and so they would need her storage locker.

Twilight was just glad they had gotten away with the truck even if they did have to check each bullet for a tracking device as with so much fighting in the city ammo was hard to come by as simply raiding Fed compounds was harder do to them either being on high alert, or having been taken over by other groups who either sat there or emptied them out.

Life for the Rebels had gotten very complicated with them.

Twilight entered the Armor and stopped for a moment as she saw the dark skinned human who stood inside of the Cage before her brain reminded her that Dupo was gone, eve after all this time she still expected to see the Armory Officer inside the cage he had built himself as it was like nothing would ever harm the old man.

Shaking her head she cleared it of the memories and ignored the fact her mind told her she smelled cigarette smoke despite the fact the new Armory Officer wasn’t a smoker. She approached the Cage not letting her eyes linger on the damage and scorching on the wall beside it or the fact that the cage wall on that side did not match the rest of the design.

Once she was in front of the Cage she lifted a hoof and knocked on the metal bars to get the humans attention. “Staff Sergeant Duncan you awake in there?” She asked before switching to being bipedal so she could see over the counter.

The Staff Sergeant was hastily stuffing a rather inappropriate magazine under the counter in the hopes she wouldn’t see. Duncan was ok at his job but he was far from Dupo’s level as the man was always ready before someone entered the room while Duncan had to have his attention drawn to you.

“Got an ammo delivery for you and we need to go through it to check the boxes for trackers.” She said and the man looked around as if expecting there to be boxes of ammo. Twilight rolled her eyes and looked at him flatly, no matter how many times she explained it to him the Armory Officer just didn’t get the concept of her pocket dimension. “Get your ass out here and help me check for bugs.” She said moving to a table at the side of the room as she listed for the Cage door to open and close before Duncan was beside her. “Lock the damn Cage up.” She said with annoyance and the man quickly went and did so. If not for the fact the man used to work in an in a gun shop so knew his way around guns Twilight would have thrown him out on his ass and gotten a recruit to take his place.

Once he returned she pulled out two ammo boxes and set one in front of him as she began to inspect hers from every angle before moving on to opening it and dumping the ammo out, once she was sure the inside was empty she moved on to checking the bullet while Duncan did the same. She had gotten about eight hundred and fifty boxes of ammo and with her having to make sure Duncan actually checked every inch of the ammo it was going to be a long time before they were done.

Twilight walked into her quarters and tossed her armor into her footlocker before scrubbing her fingers through her mane and flopping onto her bed. It had taken her and Duncan about eight hours to go through all the ammo and it was tedious to say the least and she was happy to have escaped with what remained of her sanity.

She rolled onto her back and rested her head on her hooves as she stared at the ceiling, what had happened at the ammo buy ran through her head, the Feds were stepping up their game to try and get information on the rebels and it also concerned her that the Coalition had shown up at the same time ad it meant either the Feds had a spy or the PFDR did and she did not like the possibility of another spy in their midst.

Sighing she rolled up to sitting on the bed and looked around. She didn’t really have much she needed to do right this moment and had no real motivation to do so if she did. There was only one thing to do. She got to her hooves and walked over to her work bench and climbed onto the stool. Once she was seated comfortable she pulled out her rifle and began to take it apart.

She idly began to clean the individual parts and smiled as she heard Dupo walking her through the process. “Don’t use to much or it could damage the parts.” He always told her. She nodded her head. “I know I know Old Man, I know how to clean my damn guns.” She said as if he was actually there to hear her. She knew he wasn’t but it helped her relax to pretend he was there over her shoulder to make sure she did it right even though she had been cleaning her own guns for weeks before….

She shook her head to clear it of the thoughts, thinking of that was counterproductive to relaxing. She pulled out her Datapad and opened the music file, reading over the tracks she settled one she didn’t normally listen to but it matched her mood as she sat with her lost friend.

She set the Datapad to the side and listened as the soft PIANO started to play and she smiled as she worked. Even though the song had a few parts that were normal for the band she still found it to be very gentle and appropriate to her mood. Once the rife was clean she put it back in her storage locker and pulled out the two revolvers she got a couple days ago. “You didn’t get a chance to see these did you Old Man? You’d have loved them.” She said as she began to unload the large .357 bullets before taking them apart to be cleaned. “You’d have loved them probably as much as I do, they’re real beauties huh?” She smiled at the empty space beside her before wiping her eyes and going back to cleaning the duel Pythons as the music played on a loop.

“Bet you didn’t have any trouble finding your way to the other side did you?” She chuckled sadly. “knowing you, you probably built a Cage as soon as you arrived after getting anyone you met to do your work eh Old Man?” She said.

She smiled at the thought of the Armory Officer getting other souls to do his work while he sat to the side smoking one of his trademarked cigarettes watching them do the work he was fully capable of doing. She had to wipe her eyes as it was getting hard to see what she was doing and she didn’t want to make a mistake, she was taught better than that.

“We got a new shipment of ammo today, the arms dealers turned out to be Feds and it was an ambush, ironically our soldiers made it out as the Coalition showed up with armored jeeps and so the Feds had to deal with them and it took enough fore off of our soldier for them to escape with the ammo.” She shook her head at how absurd it all was that because of the Coalition they got ammo. “I had to help your replacement check the ammo for tracking bugs and believe me keeping him from zoning out on the task was a chore, he defiantly isn’t you.” She laughed as she reassembled the Pythons.

She brought out her Mossberg to clean next. “I get why we put him in the position of Armory Officer but frankly he barely passes in my opinion what with how he doesn’t notice when people enter the room and can zone out when I try to talk to him about gear, he knows guns but has no interest in them.” She chuckled. “So I have no one to really talk guns with anymore. “ She said and rubbed her eyes to clear them. It wasn’t working, everything was still blurry. She sat staring at the work bench as the music continued to play from her Datapad.

The unicorn mare didn’t move from that spot, just staring at the shotgun the Armory Officer had given her hours before his death do to a hidden bomb. “You weren’t supposed to die….you were never in the field so out of all my friends I thought you’d be the safest.” She looked to the empty space beside her. “And yet you were the first one White Rabbit attacked just to hurt me.” She said. The mare had dealt with the loss of the Reapers; it had always been a possibility as they were in the field so she had been as prepared as she could be.

But Dupo rarely was seen outside of his Armory; she actually suspected he slept there as no matter the time she went she always found the man standing in his Cage. She looked back at the shotgun before her. “Why do I have to keep losing friends? IS it some sort of punishment for what I am? The universe punishing me for being a monster?” She asked the empty room. “I can’t help what I am, I….just am.” She said. “I still value my Friends above all else, it’s why I’m fighting in the first place.” She said as she wiped her eyes. “So why does the universe see fit to take my friends from me?”

The empty room gave no answers. After a long while of staring at the gun on the work bench Twilight pushed away from it and walked over to her bed. It was late and if she was going to be able to function she needed sleep. Using her magic to shut off her Datapad the mare climbed into bed and closed her eyes, burying her face into the pillow to drown out the silence of the ghosts.

Author's Notes:

I did not intend for the title of this chapter to end up having a double meaning as it does as I did not plan for this chapter to take an emotion turn by showing Twilight deal with Dupo's death as best as she can.

And the song I linked in this chapter I had playing on a loop as I wrote the section with Twilight talking to Dupo as I felt it fit both her and the scene.