“All troops! To defensive positions! The perimeter has been breached!”
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Twelve hours previous....
Twilight Sparkle was returning home to her library after a rather extensive workout helping Applejack harvest her orchard. “Whew,” Twilight remarked to herself, “I didn’t realize how much work it was to collect apples!” As she continues her trek home, she passes by her Pegasus friend, Rainbow Dash. “Hey Twilight! Do you have any plans tomorrow? I have an awesome new trick to show you!”, Rainbow says zipping around her. Twilight replies, “Umm..... I don’t think so.” “ALRIGHT!! This is going to be so awesome!” Rainbow yells as she zooms away. ‘Alright then... I need to hurry up. I still need to get everything checked off of my list before i go to bed tonight.’ Twilight thought, ‘So much to get done’. She speeds up her pace, and arrives home without another incident. “Spiiike! Spiiiike! Where are you? I need to get my checklist completed!”, she yells as she kicks the door open. “Oh, there you are. Good. We have a lot to do.” Spike climbs back down the ladder where he was diligently putting books back where they belong on the shelf. He collects a very large scroll and the two begin to check everything. After two hours of checking little boxes on the form, the form is completed. “Good job Spike, now I need to go get some sleep. I have a lot to do tomorrow.”, Twilight informs the baby dragon. “See you tomorrow”
“Wow. I woke up late!”, Twilight says yawning, “I need to get ready.” She climbs out of bed and begins to prepare herself for her day. She retrieves her checklist of her morning routine, checks everything off, and heads outside to find Rainbow. She spies Rainbow outside the Town Hall. “Hurry up Twilight, let’s go! You are late! This trick is so awesome! How could you be late?!”, Rainbow yells across the courtyard. “I’m hurrying Rainbow, just wait a moment.”, Twilight exclaimed, “It can’t possibly be that amazing.” Rainbow ushers Twilight out to the outskirts of Ponyville, where there was the most room to show off. “All right, watch this!”, Rainbow yells as she rapidly launches herself into the sky. She proceeds to do intricate loops, twirls, and spins in the air. As she does this, she slowly lists over toward the Everfree Forest. After a while, to keep her in sight, Twilight had to run into the forest. Suddenly, an eardrum bursting BANG was heard. Rainbow was so startled by the loud noise, she lost her concentration and crashed through the trees and thudded into the ground. Twilight ran over to her, “Rainbow are you okay?”. Rainbow, dazed, replies, “I’m fine. What was that loud sound?” “I have no idea. It sounded like it came from that direction”, Twilight says, pointing. The pair head that way and see an oblong, phosphorescent gray, object lodged in the ground. The two slowly edge closer, curious, but cautious. “Hmm... this object isn’t made of any material I recognize, where did it come from?” Twilight asks, trying rationalize the event. Suddenly, the object started making a loud humming sound. The two leaped back with a gasp. The front of the object burst outwards, nearly hitting the two ponies. Out of the object stepped.... something. “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!”, the two screamed simultaneously. They sped away as fast as they could, terrified out of their minds.
Upon reaching the city, they nearly ran over their other friends, who were leaving to go find them. “Whoa Nelly, what’s the matter Twilight?”, Applejack asks. “Alien... forest....get help!”, Twilight exclaims, gasping. With quizzical expressions, the group seeks out the mayor. “What is all the commotion?”, she asks. Twilight had time to calm down, and she gave her report to the Mayor. “Mayor, Rainbow and I were in the Everfree forest when an unidentified object crash-landed nearby. We moved closer to investigate and a creature that I have never seen before stepped out. We need to prepare ourselves for a bad situation.” The mayor’s disbelieving face showed exactly how much she believed Twilight’s response. “I don’t think your claim of invading aliens is enough for me to put the entire city into a state of lockdown”, the Mayor says skeptically. “Arrrgh!” Twilight yells as she runs away in a huff. “Well, that was rather odd.” Rarity says watching Twilight’s slowly retreating form. Twilight reaches her house, and angrily heads up to her room. “Why won’t these ponies believe me?!” she yells loudly as she throws herself into bed. Twilight’s angry muttering slowly faded into snoring as she drifted off into sleep
Twilight awoke with a start to the loud explosions and bright flashes of light outside her window. “What is going on?!” she asked out loud. Twilight dashes outside to see an incoming shell impact on the town hall. The shell smashed through the roof, landing inside the building, and then exploded. The town hall disappeared with a huge flash of light. When the light faded, more than half of the building was reduced to rubble. Twilight fell to her haunches, stunned. The loud roar of more incoming shells shook her out of her stupor, and she quickly ran off to find her friends. “Rainbow! Applejack! Pinkie! Rarity! Fluttershy! Where are you?” she yelled as loud as she could. As she ran frantically from wreckage to wreckage to find her friends, she spied Pinkie waving at her from the bakery. “Twilight, over here!” Pinkie yelled. Twilight dashed over there and saw the rest of her friends. “Thank goodness you’re all right. I was terrified.” Fluttershy said quietly. “I’m all right girls, Do any of you know where the mayor is? Maybe now she will believe me.”Twilight queried in between explosions. “The last I knew, she was hiding in the basement of the town hall, trying to raise the military on the radio.” Rainbow replied warily. “Right. Well. We need to find a place to hide until this bombardment is over.” Twilight immediately started organizing her friends and set up a place to hide. Slowly, the roar of shells began to lessen, and was replaced with a new sound was heard, the rasp of armor on armor. A large buck, heavily clad in dull gray armor with splotches of silver, dropped from the hole in the roof. “Which one of you is in charge here?” he asked in a deep, very masculine, voice. “Sgt. SteelThunder. Equestrian Army, First Silver Company. My Commanding Officer received a distress call from this city, and sent our platoon to fight off the invasion.” “I don’t know where the Mayor is. She is the leader.” Twilight replied. The Sergeant began to issue commands, “Right, you six hole up here. My troops will set up a defensive perimeter. Do any of you know what these enemies look like?” Twilight and Rainbow slowly raised a hoof. “We were in the Everfree Forest and an object fell from the sky. After approaching it, a large, hairless, bipedal creature stepped out. It had a face vaguely resembling a bear, and short, wavering tentacles that protruded from the back of its head. These tentacles were a pale orange and its leathery skin was metallic grey.”, Twilight answered. “All right. You six gather the rest of the citizens of Ponyville and then return here.” the Sergeant ordered. He spoke into his radio, “Sierra one and two, take up overwatch on the boutique, Sierra three and four, establish your heavy weapons in the town hall. Sierra five through ten, establish a perimeter around the bakery. Double time it soldiers!” Outside, his squad leapt into action. After about ten minutes, his soldiers were in position. The sniper team had set up on the wreckage of the boutique, the heavy weapons specialists set up in what was left of the town hall, and the rest of his squad established a defensive perimeter. The other three squads did similar actions, as dictated by their Sergeants. The soldiers kept a wary eye out for any movement from the Everfree Forest. Hours passed, and the soldiers still kept an active watch for any enemy.
The alien assault came early in the morning. The Sergeant, who had been up most of the night keeping a watch with his squad, awoke with a start to the frantic call of his sniper team on the radio. “All troops! To defensive positions! The perimeter has been breached!”. The encampment immediately became a flurry of activity. As the soldiers who had rotated out of their watch leapt to their feet and rapidly prepared themselves for the alien onslaught, the rapid fire whine of the aliens’ assault weapons broke the relative silence a few moments previous. The loud report of the sniper rifles drowned out the sound of screaming creatures and the sound of the ponies’ assault rifles. After SteelThunder had donned his armor, he levitated up his personal assault rifle. “All teams, report.”, he ordered through his radio. “Sierra one and two reporting , we have fifty-plus,” a loud BOOM cut out their transmission momentarily, “hostiles breaching the left flank”. ”Sierra three and four reporting, we have them pinned down on the right flank, but they are slowly approaching.” “Sierra five through ten reporting, we have a large number of hostiles at our twelve. It is difficult to get an exact number, but I estimate seventy-plus”. The Sergeant rapidly assessed the situation, and ordered, “All units keep up the suppressive fire, I will be..” his order was cut of by a burst of gunfire. The Sergeant had to rapidly duck to avoid the hail of lethal projectiles that were launched in his direction. He swung his assault rifle to draw a bead on the direction of where he perceived the enemy to be, and loosed off a burst of fire. His efforts were rewarded with a cry of pain. He switched his radio to the platoon frequency, and heard that their efforts were not going so well. “The hostiles’ advance is too strong! We are retreating to the next defensible position!” “Our position is being overrun! We cannot hold them off much longer!”. Suddenly, a loud roar drowned out all the sounds of war around him. SteelThunder looked up to see a barrage of shells hurtling toward the city. The blue nimbus of electricity that surrounded the shells dissipated as it impacted in the city, only to be replaced with a fiery explosion. The shockwave of the explosion shook the ground, knocking a few soldiers near him off their hooves. As they regained their balance and scrambled back to their hooves, they were met with a hail of death. Upon seeing this, the Sergeant immediately traced the shots back to their origin, and gasped as he saw a mounted machine gun emplacement. He ducked back down behind cover and mentally reviewed the range of where the target was. He lined up a shot, and quickly popped up out of cover and sprayed a burst of fire into the gunner. The gunner was hit by almost all of the rounds, and collapsed. SteelThunder watched him fall, and then searched for another target. As he slowly walked toward his squad, he spoke softly into his radio, “Sierra one and two, locate the mortar team.” Immediately after he gave the command, another barrage of shells roared overhead and impacted violently in the city. Another building was completely reduced to rubble. “Sierra one to Sierra Actual, the mortar team is located twenty clicks north of your position. Permission to engage?” “Affirmative, team. Take them out.”, he replied. A series of loud booms echoed across the battlefield. “All hostiles neutralized.”, the radio confirmation came in. “Mortar team eliminated” “Good work soldiers. Keep the rest of the enemies pinned down.”, SteelThunder replied as he dashed to the next place to take cover behind. Suddenly, the level of gunfire coming from the enemy positions increased rapidly. The platoon radio was swamped with frantic reports of all the squads. “Sir, we have one hundred-plus hostile reinforcements inbound!” “Our position is being overrun! We need to retreat!” Sergeant SteelThunder immediately ordered the other squads, “Hold your positions! We must keep the city!” He switched to his squad’s channel, “Sniper team, suppressive fire. Heavy weapons, target the troops that are advancing. Everyone else, on me! Move it troops!!” The troops rapidly moved as per their orders. The Sergeant and his followers charged the enemy fortifications. The enemy’s mounted machine gun there had as of about three moments ago mowing down the Equestrian Army forces. The Sergeant levitates out a grenade while his troops give him covering fire and he tosses it into the position. The muffled CRUMP of the grenade permanently silenced the rattle of death coming from the entrenchment. The continued BOOM of sniper rifles and the fiery explosions of the heavy weapons troops were slowly thinning the enemy forces. The Sergeant and his followers had become pinned down in the library. Outside, several platoons of alien forces were laying down suppressive fire to cover the advance of their other troops. The Sergeant turned to his troops around him, “You soldiers go that way” he said pointing “and try to cover me. I will hold this position.” The troops left, and SteelThunder hunkered down for a battle. Suddenly, an alien burst through the wall next to him. He had fought them at a distance, but this was the first time fighting them up close. The first thing he noticed was the quivering orange tentacles protruding from the back of its head. He telekinetically drew his knife as the alien drew its own. His was a serrated, matte grey combat knife. The alien’s knife looked peculiar. It had a phosphorescent purple sheen, flickering faintly, and dripping with the bright red of pony blood. The alien lunged for him and he dove to the side. As he did so, he slashed upwards with his knife. The alien screamed, a high pitched nerve wracking sound. It spun around and quickly stabbed forward, SteelThunder just as quickly brought his knife up in a parry. ‘This creature is fast. I can’t keep this up for much longer.’ he thought to himself, ‘I need to end this now.’ SteelThunder shifted his hooves, and dove into a roll to the left. As he continued back to his hooves, he used his momentum to launch himself into the air backwards. He hit the rubble behind him, and used it to transfer his momentum forward toward the alien. His body impacted on it, knocking the creature to the ground. As it lay there, momentarily stunned, he drove his knife into its neck. The creature spasmed for a few moments, and slowly stopped moving. SteelThunder wipes his knife on the corpse, sheathes his knife, and levitates his assault rifle back up. As he did so, he spied another alien approaching. He looses off a burst of fire, killing it. He speaks into his radio over the platoon channel, “All troops, find a place and hunker down. I am contacting HQ and am going to try get air support.” All the responses he got was an affirmative. All across the battlefield, the Equestrian Army forces found areas that could be defensible for a while, hid behind them, and prepared themselves for the onslaught of the enemy forces. SteelThunder opened Command’s channel on his radio, “Headquarters, this is Sierra Actual. Large numbers of hostile forces are pushing us back. Thirty-plus civilians are holed up in the city, we need air support to keep the city under our control.” “Negative, Sierra Actual”, the reply came back, “it is too risky to consider high explosives in that proximity to the Princess’ protege.” SteelThunder sighs, and says “Affirmative HQ. We will hold this position.” He turns his radio to the platoon channel, and says “All right soldiers, we must hold this city at all costs. We have a VIP holed up in the bakery. HQ has denied us air support due to the proximity of that VIP. If we can push the hostiles back into the Everfree Forest, we can have our air support finish them off.” “Roger that Sierra Actual, all squads moving to offensive positions”, one of the other squad leaders relayed back. The amount of gunfire increased rapidly as the Equestrian troops began to lay suppressive fire for their squad-mates. SteelThunder ordered his sniper team, who had been methodically thinning the alien forces over the course of the battle, to cover him as he advanced. Steelthunder slowly inched his way toward the aliens, assault rifle ready to fire. One alien spotted him, vaulted the wall he was hiding behind, and immediately drew a bead on him. SteelThunder rolled to the side, and a loud BOOM was heard, as a round blasted by his ear and impacted in the alien’s sternum, dropping it immediately. “Nice shooting, Sierra one and two.” he said as he continued his determined assault on the forces between him and the forest. Slowly, the Equestrian forces were pushing the aliens toward the border of the forest. However, as much of the enemy the Army killed, there was still very many aliens, demonstrated by the level of incoming fire. An enemy RPG round whooshed through the air, and hit the encampment where Sierra three was hunkered down. SteelThunder’s view of the area was replaced with a fiery explosion. As it dissipated, nothing remained of Sierra three. The Equestrian Army continued is advance, no matter the amount of lives lost. The one thing on their mind was protecting the civilians in the city behind them. The Army continued its fire, giving the aliens no choice but to fall back to protect their lives. As they withdrew from the city, a few aliens suddenly found a burst of courage, and instead of retreating, they charged forward, only to hear two loud BANGs, and fall dead to the ground. Sierra one and two were still covering the advance of the army. As the first group of aliens took their first step back into the forest, SteelThunder calls this into HQ.
“Sierra Actual reporting, the aliens have entered the forest. requesting air support.”
“Roger that Sierra Actual. Fighter Squadron Alpha is inbound. ETA thirty seconds.”
SteelThunder told the squads through the platoon radio, “Keep up the suppressive fire! Air support is inbound!” The soldiers gave a cheer, and keep firing. An extremely loud roar was heard, and a wing of fighters flashed by overhead. As they began to release their payloads, the soldiers began to back up. The fighters began to fade into the distance, and every soldier had to avert their eyes as the missiles’ impact transformed the forest into a massive fireball. As the blinding light dissipated, the soldiers looked into the inferno, and saw no enemies, not even charred bodies, just fire. As the fire began to fade away, no trace remained of the aliens all pinned down in the forest. Not much remained of the forest either. The soldiers cheered as the fighters were gone, and SteelThunder called in the destruction.
“Sierra Actual to HQ, that is a confirmed kill. All hostiles neutralized. The city has been saved.” “Roger that Sierra Actual. Good job. A dropship is en route to your location for evacuation.”
As SteelThunder looks around at the wreckage, Sierra one approached from behind.
“We did it, Sir. We saved Ponyville.”
SteelThunder looks at the surviving troops and mentally tallied how many troops were left standing. Out of forty troops sent in initially, only twenty-something were left. They had lost almost half of their number in this one assault.
“Yes, we won. But at great cost...."