The First Battle of Equestria

by Spyderslicer

Chapter 10. Battle for Detrot: day 18 of X

It had been over a week and the ponies were still holding back the humans; just barely. In a few sectors they were actually pushing them back. It was a miracle, but one that couldn’t last forever. It was due to all the metal behemoths which simply vanished. One day they were spread out all across the city killing ponies and destroying makeshift fortifications, the next they were nowhere to be found. But it was impossible to find out where in the city they were; Pegasi couldn’t fly to close to the ground in human territory without getting shot from the skies and sadly human territory was beginning to really intrude on the ponies.

“Ok, we are going to put some more weight on the points, here,” Blue Blade said pointing his hoof on the map of Detrot, “here and here.”
“Do we have enough ponies for that sir?” Heavy Shield asked.
“We can afford a few more pushes. But if the numbers are any indication pretty soon we won’t do anything but pulling further into the city. These humans are monsters, I swear they don’t need to eat or sleep,” Blood Blade said rubbing his temples.
“I still think they are demons from the deepest pits of Tartarus,” Tall Spark piped up. He had become Blue Blades wing pony, not leaving his side unless instructed otherwise.
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Heavy shield spat.
“Nothing would surprise me any…” Blue Blade started.
He was interrupted by a loud crash as a pony bull rushed the door.
“Sir, we have a problem!” The pony shouted, clearly out of breath.
“What is it?” Heavy Shield asked, clearly alarmed.
“The humans have broken through,” the pony said quickly.
There was nothing but a stunned silence.

The Imperial Guard hadn’t drawn their tanks out for no reason. Until they could ensure the safety of their technological children, the Tech Priests accompanying the regiments urged that the tanks be pulled back. High command disagreed with this, until commissar Aviel came up with a plan. The plan was simple; soften the xeno filth with infantry attacks on key positions while simeltaniously baiting the xenos by leaving obvious weak spots in their line. The attack would be swift; a multi-pronged attack was launched with all the regiment’s tanks focused in two locations.

The first rays of light were beginning to fall on Detrot when fifty-nine tanks revved to life.
The xenos never stood a chance. Most were sleeping; others were just getting ready to switch watch duty with others. They thought it might be an earthquake as the ground began to rumble and the rooms shook.
A bunch of equines had been taken off guard by a Leman Russ Eradicator. It had cleared the entire ground floor with a single sub atomic shell before rumbling on.

Watchmaster 1053-5024-9562-6520 Rahn was crouched behind a tipped carriage along with the remnants of his squad. His captain had his head taken off by an enemy sniper as he led the charge. The attack fell as the sniper knocked out the heavy weapons teams to their rear and several flamers at the front. After that the sniper had simply vanished.

“Get some men to the rear to man the stubbers, without those we can’t advance,” one of the lieutenants called through his vox bead.
“5205, 2452, 8132 and 5425, get to the rear and man those stubbers,” Rahn said through his vox bead.

After several long minutes of enemy fire churning the street up the heavy stubbers began to fire again. Several equines had grown bold enough to stick themselves out the window to fire; they were torn to ribbons by the hail of rounds. Several lieutenants took advantage of the enemies brief cease fire; they rallied their surviving troops and charged forward.
Rahn followed his commanding officer; they leapt over the corpses of the dead as they ran. He could smell the charred flesh through his gas mask. An explosion sounded in the rear and the heavy stubber fire ground to a halt.

Suddenly gunfire opened up from the upper windows again and hundreds of rounds churned up the road. Several guardsmen went down to the gunfire and soon the road was slick with blood. The last thing Rahn saw was the light glinting off his saber as several rounds bore into his skull. The assault had failed, but it had only been two platoons sent to assault the three story structure.

Dozens of assaults were underway all across Detrot going exactly as planned.

Celestia was informed of her pony’s work on the weapons that had been dropped off. They had taken longer than expected to arrive as a rogue storm had knocked the Pegasi off course. They had arrived with their precious cargo in tow. The brilliant minds had been ecstatic to receive the weapons and had gotten to work immediately.

“What have you for me today my little ponies,” Princess Celestia said with a smile as she entered the room.
“Well your majesty. We aren’t exactly sure what the humans call this device, but due to its similarities with the autogun and other reasons to be mentioned, we call it an ‘autocannon’,” a unicorn said barely containing his excitement.
“The weapon fires slower than an autogun, but what it lacks in speed, it makes up for in sheer power. We would like to demonstrate,” a tan earth pony said before grabbing a white sheet with his teeth and yanking it.
A large barreled weapon was revealed.
“This is the human ‘autocannon’, down the line Princess, you can see plates of metal, there are three, each an inch of iron,” the tan pony said giddily, “Star, you know what to do.”
The weapons trigger was colored with a blue aura. The weapon kicked despite being magically welded in place. The sound was loud and the princess found herself almost deafened. The plates all but exploded.
“As you can see, the rounds went through like the iron was paper!” the earth pony next to the gun shouted.
The flowing maned princess was unnerved at the spectacle. Reports from her guardponies said the humans had a lot of these weapons. She felt sick to her stomach to imagine what this thing would do to a living creature.
“We reverse engineered the weapon as best we could. We weren’t able to perfectly replicate it, but we did make a weapon that is almost as capable. If you will follow us,” another unicorn said before walking a bit further down the line.
“Down this range there are only two iron plates, both still an inch in thickness. Bring in the prototype,” the same earth pony said off to the side.
A large earth pony entered the room with a unicorn in tow, the unicorn had a cloth covered cart.
“Put our autocannon on him.”

The cloth was pulled to reveal the weapon. The pieces that held the weapon in place resembled that of the autogun and rocket projectors carried by all ground soldiers. The weapon’s barrel was several times larger than an autogun. The barrel was long and smooth, but several feet shorter than the human version.

The entire weapon was surrounded with a red aura as it lifted onto the table and onto the stallions back. He winced in pain as the needles pierced his spine.

The princess winced too, no matter how many times she saw it; the thought of all those needles piercing her own spine was enough to make a shiver run through her.

“Why not use a unicorn for this test?” Celestia questioned, “Surely it would be easier, not to mention less painful.”
“The weapon is too heavy for the average unicorn. Earth ponies are quite strong by their nature, even then only a small number can theoretically wield this properly. The weapon is heavy and it kicks back hard. It would be enough to send just about every unicorn onto their hind quarters. I’m sure most royal guards could wield it, but I digress,” the earth pony stated before turning to the weapon strapped stallion, “you know what to do.”

He walked over to the firing range and fired a burst. It wasn’t as loud as the human autocannon, but it still left Celestia’s ears ringing.

“As you can see, the weapon tore through with ease, you will also notice that it didn’t do as much damage, but after a test with the human armor that was confiscated a while back, it tears through it like a warm knife through butter. We are still working out the kinks, currently it jams a little too often and the ammo isn’t nearly as easy to replicate. But within the next several weeks we can put it into production.”
“Very good my little ponies, I must attend to other matters, inform me of any new breakthroughs,” Celestia said as she left.

Commissar Aviel was leading an assault a position that had held out for too long. He could see the burnt out hulk of a Leman Russ Exterminator. He could clearly see the four large apartment structures standing defiantly. He was leading six full companies of infantry backed with two Leman Russ Demolishers.

Aviel bellowed orders from his Centaur. Men charged to get as close to the target as possible. Mortars were being wheeled down the street by two man crews who ran as fast as they could; pairs of guardsmen followed behind them with cases of mortar rounds. Mortars were set up in the dozens of craters that pocked the area. Immediately they dialed in the distance and began firing. Krieg mortars fired heavier ordnance than most mortars. Aviel could easily track the rounds as they sailed like birds through the sky.

Explosions erupted from upper floors of the structures. Aviel gave a twisted grin as he order the charge. As one body the force charged. Heavy weapons teams charged forward to get to cover faster. Thousands of boots thundered as they charged towards the objective.

Celestia sat on her throne rooms floor with a shocked look on her face. Floating in front of her was a visage of Blue Blade.
“We are pulling back further back into the city,” Blue Blade stopped to fire a long burst from his autogun, “I need some ponies to escort the wounded, Tall Spark you’re in charge get them out the back.”
“Yes sir,” an unseen pony said sharply.
“They caught us off guard, they hit us hard and fast this morning,” he emptied his rocket projector, “they threw everything at us. I don’t know how long we can hold out, but we will,” Blue Blade said as he cut the link.

Blue Blade slid a fresh belt of ammunition into the autogun’s feed.
“We’re pulling back to the fountain of Celestia, but make them pay for every inch we retreat!” Blue Blade bellowed magically.
“Sir we are being surrounded!” there was shout from behind a closed door. A loud bang sounded and the door exploded outwardly, its hinges barely holding. A cloud of dust blew deeper into the building.
“Hurry everypony, make for the ground floors!” Blue Blade called, “we need to hurry or we’ll be cut off!”

“What is that 1647?” A guardsman asked one of his comrades.
He had a strange looking canister attached to his belt.
“Something I received on Krieg, I’m told it’s called Trimethyline-Phthaloxyic-Tertius, TP-III. Some form of chem weapon, thousands of years old. It was found in a vault in tunnel X-16-E. One was taken from a crate, the rest were handed in to be used against those fools from Hive Z-106.”
“They always were foolhardy, as if they could care more about the Emperor more than Hive I-52,” 1350 said spitefully.
“I’m sure that TP-III has turned the tide and showed those pieces of gak.”
“I hope so.”
“We’re moving out,” their Watchmaster shouted.
The squad formed up and joined the column of thousands of men marching down the street.

Dozens of brass cases bounced along the ground as Tough Oak fired his autogun. His ponies had offered to cover the retreat of the other ponies.
The enemy was pouring forth like rats. They charged forth from alleys and doorways and took cover wherever possible; whether it was craters from explosions, overturned carriages, even the bodies of their dead piled into small walls.
“Metal monster on the left!” A pony cried.
One of the open topped metal beasts was rumbling on their left flank. One of the small rockets flew from a window at the beast. It burst harmlessly against its front. A second rocket followed and hit the straps that kept it moving. The left strap snapped the metal leviathan kept going forward but turned right. One of his ponies higher up started laying down a hail of bullets at the humans from above. The ones that tried to flee were gunned down.
A several large tubed projectiles sailed through the air, smoke trailed behind them. The building shuddered as the ordnance detonated, bits of rubble showered down. There was shouting and more shooting. The humans were laying down heavy fire; the air was filled with red lights and solid projectiles.

“Medic!” a yellow earth pony shouted as he fired several short bursts from his autogun.

One of the medical mares heard the shouts. She could also clearly hear a high pitched scream, the kind of scream only a wounded pony could make. She galloped towards the source and burst into one of the apartment doors, she had to skid to a halt to avoid plunging thirty-one stories. Most of the floor and wall was missing.

She sighted the wounded pony, a brown unicorn. She rushed over and quickly got to work. He had several small pieces of shrapnel dug into his flesh along with a deep five inch gash which was spurting blood. She quickly dug through her medical satchel and gathered up the supplies needed.

“Oh Celestia, I’m going to die!” he shouted, he was able to see the blood spraying into the air.

“You’re going to be fine, just lay still,” the mare said quickly as she got to work. A large piece of shrapnel had torn open the gash; it was deep enough to have severed an artery which was going to kill the stallion quickly. She quickly moved her tweezers through the air and dug them into wounded. The unicorn screamed in agony.

“You’re going to live,” she said to comfort him as she dug around under his flesh.
“Oh Celestia, don’t let me die here” he sobbed.

Found it! She quickly yet carefully pulled the artery into view, she quickly clamped. Things were getting tricky very fast. She hovered the needle and thread in midair. She slowly and carefully slid the thread through the needle’s eye and got to work. Within moments she was closing the artery. At this point the stallion had passed out from pain. She ripped open a small packet of cauterizing agent and poured the powder into the wound. She quickly bandaged the wound up and moved the pony into cover in the hallway. She then heard another scream; a medical mare’s job was never done.

“By Celestia’s teats; big gunned metal monsters coming right at us!” An earth pony shouted over the din of autogun fire.
“Do we have any Pegasi who can help out?”
“Not anywhere nearby, we’re on our own.”
The two metal behemoths slowed to a halt at the parks edge. They both belched flames; the careful observer could see a blur as the ordnance flew towards the structures.
The building shook as the ordnance exploded.
“We don’t have many ponies down there, why aren’t them aiming higher?” A pony shouted the question.
“Maybe they can’t aim this high,” one said hopefully.
“Maybe they are just dumb brutes,” another piped up quickly.
The metal leviathans fired another salvo. As the ordnance detonated the building visibly swayed.
“Why does it feel like we’re moving?” Someone questioned.
“Because we are!” a mare screamed.

Tough Oak watched in horror as one of the apartment buildings began to sway. The supports holding up the structure were destroyed and the building was shuddering and swaying like wheat in the wind. Slowly the building began to lean too far to one side. It gathered speed quickly as it slammed into one of the other apartment buildings which in turn fell. The whole park shuddered as the two massive structures slammed into the ground.

The humans had a new found initiative and the attacked with renewed vigor.

“Oak, the enemy is in the building, they were just sighted breaking down the door.”

Tough Oak had hoped to hold them off longer; only a few hours had gone by, the sun still in the sky, but promising to only stay there for a couple more hours. The light brown equine had hoped to live to see the moon one last time, he had hoped for a lot of things.

“We shall meet them; make them pay for every room, every hallway and every step.”

The pony shot a salute before galloping away, Oak in close pursuit. He could hear the sound of fighting as they reached the tenth floor; not a good sign.

“Stay back monsters!” Somepony bellowed.

There was a sound that Oak heard, a sound that he had learned to dread these past weeks; a firethrower. There was a long scream that chilled Oak to the very core; the sound of somepony being burned alive.

“We ambush them here, gather some more ponies, we’ll stop them here and push them back,” Oak said quickly.

The pony didn’t even bother with a salute before breaking away at a gallop. Before long they had several ponies covering the stairs. It felt like hours as they waited, Oak could hear his heart thundering in his chest. He heard the smallest of sounds; a metallic clink. A small gray blur bounced off the wall and rolled at the bottom of the flight of stairs. An explosion followed and the air was instantly filled with thick clouds of dust. He was slightly deafened but he could still make out the sound of boots thundering up the stairs. He could just barely make out shapes moving through the cloud.

Quickly the air filled with autogun fire. The enemy’s retaliation was swift; dozens of red lights filled the air. The ponies may have had the tactical advantage, but the humans had training, numbers and better technology. And they made use of every advantage, the ponies were taking casualties, but they were holding on.

Loud explosions sounded from above them. The building shook too and fro, but it held. The building continued to sway and the sound of cracking brickwork and cement became louder than the gunfire. Oak watched in horror as the ceiling towards the end of the hallways collapsed. The floor gave way seconds later and a massive chunk of the hallway and its walls collapsed. For a moment Oak could see outside as clear as day. Then a massive chunk of brickwork, cement and drywall all collapsed. The view was blocked for a moment as the large shape covered the opening before continuing towards the ground. What followed was a massive crash and a pillar of dust shot into the sky

“We are losing ground!” A unicorn bellowed magically, its voice barely rising above the sounds of chaos.
The humans were walking on a ramp of their own dead.
“Charge!” somepony shouted.

They charged down the carpet of corpses to meet the humans. What was moments previously a chaotic firefight was now a bloody melee. Oak smashed a humans head open with a powerful kick. Blasts of magic made the fight even more brutal. The more powerful unicorns threw humans about like ragdolls; smashing them into walls, ceilings and even other humans. It was a struggle but they kept pushing them back. As they neared the hallway for the next floor the humans unleashed Tartarus. The melee was interrupted as the air filled with flame. There was screaming and Oak could see the flames moving like lightning towards him. He closed his eyes and waited for the pain; it didn’t come. He opened his eyes to see a red shield blocking off flames.

“Everypony, reload, when the flames die down we charge again,” Oak told his ponies.
The wait felt like an eternity as they watched ponies be burnt alive.
“Charge!” The call went out.

The shield flickered and dissipated. The scent of burning fur and flesh was like running into a brick wall. Oak had to struggle to keep himself from vomiting; yet they pressed onward; running through the small fires that covered small patches of the wall and corpses. They took out the human with the firethrower and then they pushed hard and fast. They fought floor by floor before getting bogged down at the fifth floor. They took up positions to fire at the humans coming towards them.

Tough Oak looked across the way and spotted the only other standing apartment structure in the park. The other ponies were in a similar situation. They were sparing ponies to fire out the humans that were in the lower levels of Oak’s apartment structure. And the humans from his structure were in turn firing backing. Oak ordered some of his ponies to fire at the humans in the adjacent apartment structure.

They had been fighting for another six hours before the humans broke through.

Commissar Aviel walked up the stairs; he was going to finish this once and for all. As he reached the top he could see men firing their lasguns at targets hidden behind cover. Aviel pressed the glyph and his powerfist came to life, lightning crackled across the surface of the gauntlet. He drew his bolt pistol and motioned his grenadiers forward.

As they passed the guardsmen firing up the stairs, they stopped firing. As the first xeno made itself seen it lost its head disappeared in a shower of gore at the hands of Aviel’s bolt pistol.

An equine began firing blindly around the corner. Bullets pattered harmlessly across the commissar’s shield. The bullets that passed him were stopped by the ceramite plates of the grenadiers. The commissar fired a salvo blowing chunks out of the wall. Even though the equine was in cover it stopped firing. The commissar took the opportunity to rush forward. He fired a burst of rounds at point blank; the equine couldn’t even vocalize a response before it was nothing more than chunks of flesh splattered along the walls.

It then turned into a massacre; huddles of ponies attempted to hold back the commissar and his grenadiers, but to no avail.
“Rally to me,” a shaky voiced xeno shouted.

The commissar spotted a light brown equine with one their xeno markings covering its flank in the form of a large tree. This was the ring leader of this pathetic resistance. The commissar motioned for his men to follow him in the charge down the hallway. The xenos had made small barricades to hide behind, but nothing would stand between the commissar and his foe. Hopping clean over the first barricade and gaining momentum. Two xenos reared their terrified faces to attempt to stop him. Blasts of red lasers bore into them sending them slamming into the ground.

The brown equine was looking quite terrified as the commissar continued bull rushing towards him. The xeno received a bout of courage and decided to attempt to meet the commissar in battle by charging forward, leaving a bunch of stunned equines behind him. The commissar just continued forward with purpose in his eyes and the Emperors light shining upon him.

The equine tried to combat the commissar by trying to bring down its front hooves down upon him. With a swift motion the commissar caught its leg and without any effort removed it. The beast screamed a loud screech; before it could smash into the ground Aviel removed the equine’s head with a single stroke. The large mass of flesh and bone hit the ground with a wet thump. The equines body fell to the ground where it lay twitching.

The equines comrades looked in stunned horror as the commissar fired a salvo of rounds down the corridor. Limbs exploded and heads burst. With that finished they continued their mission.

Tough Oak’s forces held on for another hour. Night had fallen and the xenos were in a full scale retreat. Aviel stood on the eleventh floor of the apartment building; the highest the structure went after everything above it collapsed and broke off from the structure. Aviel just watched as small explosions went off in the distance and tracer rounds flew into the sky

.