The next day had started out pretty calm, all things considered, and after a brief march we had made it to the edge of the woods next to Cottonwood, a small deserted village that had been so close to the front that, after 8 weeks of war, honestly looked more like a small fort then a village, with small earthen ramparts about three feet tall along the edge of the outermost buildings with about a ten foot gap between the two objects, though surprisingly, we couldn’t any see cannons. It was here at the edge of the tree line about 500 yards out from the fortifications that we met up with 5th Company and formulated a plan as to how exactly we would take the town.

“Alright, so the plan is for us (1st Co) to march up to a distance of 50 yards from the rebel fortifications on the eastern edge of the town and engage them with musket fire. Simultaneously, 5th Co will flank the town from the north, at which point we are to then advance on the rebels to form a pincer maneuver and drive them out of Cottonwood for good. Does anypony have questions?” I said to the ponies under my command, getting no response I continued, “Alright then. Company, move out!” I finished. Forming into a two pony deep group, 20 ponies wide with a one pony gap in between each pony, myself on the right end of the front row, and my 2IC; SGM Clover Field, on the left end of that same row, the drummer and flag bearer in the middle of our row, 1LT Ice Box being behind Clover and her 2IC; a grey-coated, hot pink maned unicorn mare named Bubblegum, behind me. We then went ahead and marched out from the tree line towards the town, the rebels pointing their muskets at us. Reaching the distance ordered, I proceeded to give out the orders that would start this engagement;

“Company, halt!” The drummer relaying these orders, we halted, staring down the rebels.

“Platoon, ready!” The sounds of muskets being lowered and cocked as yet again, the bugler relayed the orders given.

“Platoon, fire!”
*CRACK*
*CRACK*

The sounds of both our, and rebel, musket fire filled the air as ponies on both sides, including our drummer rather unfortunately, dropped, having taken hits.

“Platoon, reload!” I ordered as my line (1st PLT) shifted to the right and began to reload.

“Platoon, fire!” Ice Box shouted as her line (2nd PLT), which now conveniently had direct line-of-sight of the rebels, fired at said line of still reloading rebels, cutting a few down, with the rest of the shots going wide and missing their marks’.

“Platoon, reload!” Ice Box ordered, as her line began to reload and mine returned to their original positions.
*CRACK*

As I was about to give the order to fire, the rebels decided that right then and there would be a good time to return fire and, while most of their shots unsurprisingly went wide, a few hit some of my ponies… and my left foreleg.

“Buck!” I swore as my wounded leg buckled, because funny enough, despite having been fighting for eight weeks and getting shot at repeatedly, I had never actually been hit, until now that is. Struggling back up, I spared a glance at some of the ponies around me long enough to see some looks of surprise and concern before returning my attention to the target. Fighting through the pain that I was feeling from the shot that was now soaking the sleeve of my uniform with my blood, I gave the order to fire.
*CRACK*
*CRACK*

After firing our volley, I was a bit surprised to finally hear a volley off in the distance come from 5th Co which meant that they were finally flanking.
*CRACK*

As I was about to give the order to reload, a single shot rang out from the rebel line catching the poor corporal next to me in the face, however this surprisingly accurate shot seemed a little too accurate for the guns everypony was using… Then, looking back at the rebel line I saw something that made my blood run cold.

“Shit, Shit, no that can’t be,” I mentally swore at the sight of a rebel captain wearing the same grey uniform as the other rebels, but this one so bad, was the two distinctive jet black collar patches reading SS, which stood for Special Services, an elite unit of soldiers that, if the rumors were true, were trained on how to kill alicorns on their own, however, one thing that was true about them though was that they gave our Royal Guard based Special Forces a run for their money. “What in tartarus is a SS pony doing here alone? And a captain nonetheless, why, what sense does that make?” Ignoring those questions for the time being, I decided that I should get back to what I was supposed to do, so I finally gave the order to reload and then fire with Ice Box repeating this as well.

We continued this back and forth with the rebels for another 15 or so minutes, with myself having caught a few rounds aimed at me in magic shields from the suspiciously accurate gun of the SS Captain. However, I noticed at this point rebel troops inside the town were starting to retreat and I realized that the 5th Co had managed to start pushing into the town. The rebels we were engaging seemed to realize this too, because they began to retreat as well. Seeing this as an opportunity, I decided to press forward.

“Company, fix bayonets!” The clicking of triangular bayonets locking in rang out.

“Company, forward!” I ordered as we advanced at a trot, bayoneted muskets pointed straight ahead like fancy spears (which that’s all they were honestly), myself limping thanks to the musket ball embedded in my left foreleg that was burning like the fires of tartarus itself. Looking ahead, I saw that the SS captain was now leading the rebels in a retreat out of the village, with 5th Co coming into view, some of their ponies, including their Comdr; a 2LT and his 2IC; a CSM, engaging the rebels in CQC.

The push into and through the village had been pretty uneventful, what with most of the rebels having fled further west. After that, we went back through the village and made sure that there were no rebels left, we then went ahead and dealt with the wounded (on both sides) and got a casualty report together.

“Here’s the casualty report, LT,” Clover said with a salute (which I returned), as she approached me and the 2LT, who was a strong, green earth pony stallion from 5th Co. We were currently in what was the town hall, where I had gone ahead and, very painfully, removed the ball from my leg with my telekinesis and then wrapped the wound with some of the bandages that I kept in my bags to wrap my hooves (and lower legs) for protection in combat. Currently, I was at work patching the hole on my coat as Clover continued.

“Out of the 80 ponies we started with, we have 23 dead, 11 wounded and 0 missing. As for the rebels, out of an estimated 100 ponies, 53 are dead, 10 are wounded but that number is probably bigger thanks to them retreating however, there were too many variables to calculate their missing,” She finished, handing me the actual report which I teleported back to the FOB after double checking it.

“So, how’s the leg?” Clover asked after a brief pause in the conversation, a hint of concern in her voice.

“It hurts like a bitch,” I responded flatly.

“Are you sure you don’t want the medics to look at it?” The 2LT asked.

“No, as I said, I don’t want to waste the medics time and resources on something so minor,” I responded.

“Are y-,” Clover started, before getting cut off by the arrival of an exhausted looking messenger, one that I surprisingly recognized as having been from 3rd PLT

“Or-Orders from the Captain,” he said, panting as he hoofed over the report which I took in my magic.

“Thank you,” I said, a bit surprised, as he and Clover left the room. “It’s only been three hours, why would he send orders out this early?”

“So what do they say?” the 2LT asked.

“Well, they read as follows LT; Your company (5th) is to head north to back up 2nd Bn at the town they just captured ASAP, and my company is to stay here and wait for 2nd Co to rejoin us before receiving further instruction,” I responded to the 2LT, as I went ahead and placed the orders down.

“Alright, I’ll leave our wounded here until they can be moved back safely, as for the rest of our troops, I’ll get them ready and out in half an hour tops,” The 2LT stated as he turned to leave. Putting my coat, cyane (infantry blue) hat and combat bags on, I followed him out as well.

“Well, things are sure starting to get exciting,” I thought to myself as I walked toward the center of town, ready to share the news with my company and get us ready for what was sure to come…

New Chapter! Sorry if it took a little bit, I had to rework this a little bit, also if you were wondering, yes, the Special Services are based off the Waffen SS. Finally, critiques and suggestions are greatly appreciated as they help me to improve this story and make it even better.

*The collar patches:

(If this shows up as a 404 error, DM me about it and I'll try and fix it ASAP)

**Edit; Okay so, I know it's been a while, but, all I did was fix a few things so that the story can flow better later on.

Chapter has been left here for those who wish to see an older version of this story.