The next several days, Graphite and the group of children spent on practicing how to fire and take care of their weapons. Each of them got their own pistol or submachine gun, depending on their abilities to handle them - and if they were strong enough to hold it up. Hot-Sauce even got her cutie mark while they were making improvised explosives. She was very keen at creating a basic fire-bomb from some left over beer bottles, a cloth, and a good spark to get a fire going. Her cutie mark matched this ability, a small bottle with a flaming rag tucked in the spout.

The group also scouted the surrounding neighborhood for added training. By the end of the week, they knew every place to lay an ambush, hide supplies, or travel unnoticed. They even set up some traps on the ways which lead to the Pharmacy that wasn’t in their field of view.

All of this time, Rotten was watching them and following them around. When Mayflower asked him why was he doing that, he replied that he did it for the safety of the children. Yet, something else said that it seemed like he was trying to learn a thing or two from Graphite himself.

One evening, after another sweep of the surrounding area, they gathered in the back room of the Pharmacy. Rotten, like always, was on the rooftop looking out for any enemies that might come their way.

Inside the room, they lit up a small lantern and had spent some time talking and telling tales to each other. It was late at night, so all of the foals were asleep under their blankets. Olive slept next to Mayflower, curled up in a little ball pressed next to her.

The room was quiet for a while. They both let the foals fall asleep and, only then, began their conversation again.

“So, um... you never really told me where you learnt all of this stuff about weapons and tactics,” Mayflower stated in a quiet voice, almost whispering.

“Well, believe it or not, but I was in the army,” Graphite answered in an equally quiet tone.

“What army? You mean the Talon Company?”

“No, I mean an actual army - The Equestrian Marines.”

“That’s impossible. You’d have to be more than two hundred years old by now to do that. Only ponies who can do that are-”

“-Here,” Graphite interrupted Mayflower and took out the folded newspaper article from the inside of his duster. He handed it over to Mayflower who picked it up with her spell. She used the glow of her horn to help her read in the night.

After Mayflower read over the newspaper article and a compared the image a few times to Graphite’s actual appearance. She gave the paper over to Graphite again and asked, “How did you survive all of this time? You don’t look like a walking corpse to me.”

Graphite patted on his chin a few times, “There was a term for that- uh... Cyropreservation, I believe.”

“I’ve only read about some experiments with freezing spells in really old magazines. But they never said that the ponies working on those ever succeeded.”

“What kind of magazines where those?” Graphite grinned, “I’m a living, breathing example of those spells working.”

“Well if you were preserved, were your family preserved with you?”

“No, they weren’t... they... didn’t even live long enough to die from the blasts...” Graphite closed his eyes, losing his grin quickly before he looked down and gave a quiet sigh.

Mayflower noticed tears were forming in Graphite’s eyes; her heart sank, and she regretted asking, “I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean too...”

“It’s fine, you didn’t know...”

“I know how you feel though, I lost my family too...”

Graphite looked over to Mayflower, her feelings were just as his, but she seemed more troubled by the feeling then he could ever know. She hung her head slightly lower, but she began a story.

“My family originally came from a stable - stable thirty nine. I don’t know if you remember, but those were large underground shelters built before the war started. One day, my father got in conflict with the overmare and our family was casted out from the stable. I didn’t know what he did, I was only a baby when that happened. We never settled down, we kept on moving from place to place. My parents taught me how to read and some agricultural spells they used to revive plants back in the stable. While we traveled, we got caught up by the slavers. Our family was captured about a year ago. On the first day they separated me from my parents, all I was left with was my mother’s stable suit. I never saw my mother or father again... I keep my mom’s suit with me at all times.”

“I guess that I could say the same about my armour, It’s special to me too - saved my hide a couple of times and that’s only as many as I can remember.” Graphite said and looked over at his back which was covered by the black duster, “I’m guessing that I got my armour sometime while I was in the military.”

“Do you remember what happened in the war?” Mayflower asked.

“I don’t really remember; we were fighting Zebra’s there - that’s for sure.”

“I don’t want to bring up bad memories, but how much do you remember from the war?”

“It’s okay Mayflower, I don’t recall too much from the war anyway. I have some parts of my memory still wrapped in the back of my mind - maybe it’s for the best,” He paused, recollecting his memories from the war, “I do remember some stuff from my first combat assignment, though. We were sent to an island. That island belonged to Equestria, and Zebra’s didn’t take too much interest in it at first; but as the war dragged on, and the front line in the north became a killing floor, both of the sides were looking for ways to end the war faster. We started to develop new technology and spells. The Zebra’s on the other hoof tried to look for a place where to open a new front. The high command didn’t notice anything until the Zebra’s had already taken two of our islands and were about to take the third island. From there, they would be in a striking distance for the main land. So they send our division and another regiment of troops to the island to retake it.”

“Which division were you in?” Mayflower asked.

“I was in the seventh marine division, if I remember correctly. We were the first ones to go in the island. Before we were sent on our way, one of colonels were shouting out to all of us the plans for the attack. ‘Hit the ground running! Don’t stop on the beach! Keep your head down!’ Things like that. The landing went smoother than expected though, there was absolutely no resistance - there wasn’t a zebra in sight. We simply walked out on the beach and enjoyed the sun. The first day was spend building up the base and searching the island for any signs of Zebra activity.”

“Were there any zebras on the island?” She asked once again.

“No, there wasn’t - we did find some abandoned sheds. Our company got sent out in the jungle and we only found an abandoned Zebra camp. The camp was sort of a small village, made out of huts from small logs and covered with palm tree leaves. It looked like they had abandoned it in a hurry. Everything was there - food, water, personal belongings, whatever they happen to leave behind.”

“But did the zebras ever attack you on that island?”

“I don’t remember,” Graphite leaned back, relaxing in his spot on the blankets.

“Nothing?”

“Nope... I just remember finding that camp; after that, it’s kinda just a blur. Most of what I could remember came to me in a dream, and I’m not sure how accurate that is anyways.”

“Maybe you’ll remem-” Mayflower yawned, lying her head down near Olive’s head, “-maybe you’ll remember it in the morning, it’s getting late, and we should head to bed.”

“Yeah, alright - ‘Night,” Graphite told her, lying his down on his hooves and closing his eyes shut.

Mayflower was already half asleep, but she had just enough attention to say goodnight back. Graphite fell into his sleep, like he was jumping down a plane and into a deeper plane of rest. He took in a deep breath and let it out. It went black.

A light blinded Graphite, disturbing his sleep.

“Get up, Graphite, we first up for scouting today!”

Graphite rubbed his eyes, trying to stop the surge of bright light from blinding him.

“Get up lazy ass,” A stallion with a raspy voice joked, pushing Graphite from his cot.

Graphite tumbled off the cot, hitting the floor with a thud, “Aww f- come on... there’s no one out here, why do we need to scout?”

Graphite picked himself up off the floor, dusting the dirt from his uniform. Ahead of him was the second of command in his squad, Blue Jay. His name was probably given for his sea blue mane and deep indigo eyes; the rest of the pegasus’ coat was pure white. Blue Jay’s job usually involved spotting the area from a bird’s eye view. He did his job without question, and he did it well; which usually earned him the respect of the other members of the company. It definitely earned the attention of the lieutenant. He was usually the one to be given awards during service. The only others to be given awards regularly was the demolitions expert in company five and the lieutenant himself. Graphite didn’t get jealous, he was pretty good friends with Blue Jay - especially as a drinking buddy.

Blue Jay was serious about his service, but he didn’t let his work get in the way of being friendly -- even if friendly was waking up your partner by pushing him off the bed. Jay was standing impatiently waiting for Graphite to pick himself up, “Come on, Graphite we don’t got time to spare.”

“I’m sure there’s Zebras everywhere just waiting off the coastline,” Graphite said with notable sarcasm.

“You never know, Graphite,” Jay replied, directing him out the the tent and back outside.

They left the tent, folding the flap down as they exited, the light was even brighter when they left the tent. As bright as it was, the blinding white light was gorgeous against the foliage of the island’s woods, and the soft white sands on the beach. The scenery was quite extraordinary, but Graphite never seemed to have time to enjoy the view when his squad was picked as the first scouts everyday.

The island on which the soldiers had landed on was the largest island in the Salmon Island chain. Scouting missions usually involved a grid-line trek of up and down through the jungle, then a lap around a section of beach. The hikes through the jungle was an unbearable thing; the island was as mountainous as the sea was wavy. It was constant up and down, and a struggle to keep a reasonable grid-line pattern through the dense rain forest. The humidity was like swimming through syrup, and just as sticky.

The only time Graphite could be jealous of Blue Jay was the fact he was “ordered” to give a bird’s eye view from the cool, clean sky above. He would fly around just above Graphite looking about the canopy of trees. Graphite would occasionally look up at Blue Jay to check on him; and occasionally, Blue Jay would catch his eyes and smirk - probably taunting Graphite.

They went in with only one weapon and a bit of spare ammo. Graphite went in with his rifle. His rifle was assigned to him when he became designated sharpshooter. Graphite had been using it since he got it back at the boot camp. The rifle was mostly wooden, the basic body of the gun all a dark wood; the mag-well was just ahead of the trigger and Graphite went in with a twenty round round magazine to keep the rifle full; the barrel and upper receiver were a polished steel, newly made just before the start of the war; coming standard as a sharpshooter rifle, it had a telescopic scope attached on the railings - Graphite wrapped the end of the scope to the body of the gun with a leather strip and some thread to keep it from coming loose.

Blue Jay went in with a submachinegun - infantry and criminal mug standard. His was an older model compared to Graphite’s gun; it had a few wood chips in the stock and fore-grip, and the end of the barrel was starting to rust. It was an old and a rather bulky gun. The gun was particularly popular with numerous criminals - many of whom were resided in Buckago. The body was mainly a steel brand, only the grips and stock were the darkened wood; to keep the gun his, Jay put in the extra time to add a fifty round drum magazine to his gun.

They scoured the jungle in search of Zebra activity, and there was none to be found. They were nearing the end of the forest, when an odd rustling of the ferns caught the two scouts’ attention. It was a different sound of rustling from the usual rustle of the wind through the leaves. They stopped, aiming the guns in the direction of the noise. They looked on into the thicket, seeing nothing but the birds fluttering about the trees and some loose leaves gliding to the floor.

“Let me go check it out...” Blue Jay conveyed.

“Roger,” Graphite responded.

Jay flew in the direction of the noise, looking over every inch of forest and hills that scattered his field of view. The branches and brush spread out and covered up most of anything that wasn’t green; Jay continued his fly over while Graphite was left on the ground - alone. He stood his ground in the spot he never moved from since the noise. He looked around in every direction, his gun unwavering from where he was focused. After that first rustle of leaves, there wasn’t a noise around; only the quiet tones of the tropical birds singing their songs to one another. Graphite peeked up, seeing Jay was still not overhead. He dropped his head back down to the tree trunks below the evergreen canopy. Just as he got his head in position of the direction of the disturbance, a wild animal sprung from the bush immediately ahead of him.

It was a zebra; he had been hiding in the brush waiting for his moment to attack. He lunged out, both arms extended, and a homemade machete in his mouth. The blade was a dark black metal, the edge of the blade was shattered and jagged with a broken up serration, the handle was a blunt stick wrapped in a tattered cloth. The zebra was flying towards Graphite, he didn’t make a sound, not even the wind rushing passed him was disturbed. Like a ghost, he came out with only one goal in mind - but Graphite wasn’t going to let this zebra get even a drop of blood from his hide.

Graphite brought his gun back for a swing, making sure the stock was up and ready for a strike. He thrust the gun forward, but at the wrong moment - it was too late. The gun hit the side of the zebra, but he was already nearing the end of his flight, and the only thing the thwack of the gun did was help him bring Graphite down. The zebra was knocked over, but his hoof caught Graphite’s uniform and dragged him down to the ground using the grip he got Graphite’s sleeve.

They both slammed against the ground; Graphite knocked his head head on a dug in rock, while the zebra got a face full of dirt. The rock almost knocked Graphite cold, but it did knock the breath right out of him. He gasped for air, grinding his hoof on the dirt floor of the jungle. Graphite winced, his head slumped over to the zebra who was spitting out clumps of dirt and twigs from his mouth. Graphite could barely see - his vision wasn’t improving either - the edges of his view were going black, but he could see the zebra come back up with his machete in his tight grip. The zebra stood to his hooves, rearing up with the blade high above him. With the last bit of will power left in Graphite, he divided all of his concentration behind him, finding his rifle that was knocked from his grasp. He whipped the rifle forward, the zebra struck his machete down and was stopped by the receiver - just before it could impale Graphite. Graphite chucked the rifle, along with the machete, away from the zebra; throwing the zebra back down unto his back.

Graphite seared and gnashed his teeth, finally sucking in air. He filled his lungs to the brim, letting it out in a war shout. He flung himself up like a spring-board, grabbing the zebra’s machete from the dirt floor. He spared no moments to rear himself up and strike the blade down on the zebra’s head. The blade of the machete tore through the zebra’s skull solely from the shear might of the swing. It cracked his skull, bashing it in and cutting into the brain. The serrations and horribly cracked edge if the blade tumbled the bits of skull straight into the brain cavity. Graphite released his grip from the blade; the blade was so deep in the skull of the zebra, it had gotten stuck in the mess of brains and tissue.

Graphite stopped to see what his fury had done. He got a good, long look at the dying zebra. His face was hard to recognize, half of it was caved in; but from what Graphite could see, he seemed to be right in his mid-life. The zebra was the natural white with black stripes - now with an added spot of crimson; his mane was frazzled and unkempt, long and with no styling to it, just as his tail; his uniform was a tan-ish brown, two straps criss-crossed each other in an ‘x’ formation and was used to keep his bag around him; the pants were just a bland, beige colour and only had a zipper to vary the design; the boots were about shin height and pure black; there was a badge stitched into the shoulder of his uniform, but the blood splattered out anything to make out as a design.

Graphite stepped away, his mind was flowing with an regretful feeling. He dropped to the ground, planting his face in his hooves. What he had just done? He couldn’t tell what overcame him and made him attack the zebra without a thought, without question, without a thought of at least doing it in a more humane way. He could have used his rifle for it’s intended purpose. One bullet to the head and end it quickly; not a skull crushing blow from a rusted machete. It was too late now, the blood was already squirting from the side of his head, splashing out onto the sides of the blade. His first blood. Graphite took his hooves off from his eyes and looked down on himself. His green uniform, now splattered with some other pony’s blood.

A screeching whoosh came down from the heavens. Graphite peeled his eyes from the floor to look upwards. A blue streak came down like a meteorite, the arc seemed awfully close to Graphite. The object landed at Graphite’s side, planting its hooves into the dust. It turned to Graphite, and the dust cleared; that’s when Graphite noticed it was Blue Jay.

“Graphite! Are you alright?” Jay asked, one hoof raised above the ground from the worry.

Graphite snarled, placing his face back into his hooves without a word to Blue Jay.

Jay noticed Graphite’s sorrow instantly, but couldn’t help but notice the eviscerated zebra lying just ahead of him, “Damn...” He commented.

“I-I just don’t know what happened,” Graphite was on the edge of breaking into tears, “H-he just jumped at me and then I-”

“It’s okay, buddy,” Jay interrupted him, “You did what you had to do.”

“I know that we’re here to kill them, but it’s just so different than what they taught us.”

“Well, they can’t teach you everything at boot camp. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it,” Blue Jay came over to Graphite and helped him up to his hooves, “Let’s get back to the camp, we have to report us finding this son of a bitch here.”

“I- I guess you’re right,” Graphite wondered and with Blue Jay’s help, got up. They both slowly trumped back to the camp. Jay understood in what condition his friend was and thus, he took up the responsibility of watching their backs on their way back.

On the way back, Graphite thought of what Jay meant by, “You’ll get used to it.” Did taking the lives of others became the same as easy and forgettable as stepping on a bug? Time would show; yet, he wasn’t very keen on finding and answer to that question.

Graphite’s head was starting to ache, the knock to the back of his skull made him dizzy. He was starting to trip, only Jay could help him stay up. He was beginning to fade; his eyes slowly dropped down and closed shut.

He flinched, his eyes were twitching, and he could feel someone shaking his right side. He looked over with a groggy squint and saw that Olive was standing at his side, holding a hoof on his shoulder and looking at him.

Graphite looked up at Olive, “Olive, why are you awake?”

Olive didn’t reply, just as quiet as a shush per usual, he just starred at him for a moment and hugged him tight.

Graphite wasn’t sure how to respond, but he put his arm around the colt and asked him again in a quiet voice, “You’re having bad dreams too?”

Olive looked at Graphite and nodded.

“It’s okay, every pony has those from time to time. Try and get some sleep now, Olive.”

Olive nodded again and lied down right next to Graphite.

“I thought that you-” He said as he looked down to tell the colt to go back to his blanket, but he lightened up when he saw the foal already sleeping curled up in a ball next to his side. Graphite sighed and whispered to himself, “Nevermind...” He then lifted up his black duster and made it into a blanket for the two of them.

Graphite pulled Olive close with one arm around his body, keeping him safe through the night as he snored little wheezes.