//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: Equines of War: Friends to the End 
// by stotans 
//------------------------------//

Dominic and the other Gears have been walking through the forest for about an hour. They were starting to tire and the winter cold was getting to them. A winter storm had started and the wind was tossing the snow all over the freezing Gears. The snow was passed their ankles now and they were slightly blinded by the snow being tossed up by the wind.

Anthony was rubbing his hand trying to warm them up. "Man its freezing. How far do we have to go until we reach shelter?"

A mighty gust of cold wind pushed against the Gears.

"Fear not my friend. For every great journey begins with a single step."

As if the wind heard Tai, it collided against the Gears with a bombardment of flying snow.

"And sadly many more after." Tai showed evidently that he disliked the cold. He was used to the humid climates of his island homeland. Such cold climate made him uncomfortable.

Very uncomfortable.

Dom was leading the group struggling against the snow.

"We just got to keep going until we find shelter. Then we can bunker down until this storm clears."

Carmine slipped on the snow but quickly recovered. "Dammit! You think that thing could've poofed us someplace that's not 40 below zero, but no! He had to poof us in the middle of a fucking snow storm!"

Another huge gust of wind and snow ruptured around the Gears. Carmine slipped on the snow, and couldn't catch himself. He fell face first in the snow.

Tai couldn't help but chuckle. He gave a hand in assistance. Carmine looked at Tai's hand and grabbed it.

"It is unwise to anger the forces of nature my friend."

Carmine dusted the snow off of his armor. "Yeah well, maybe nature could cut us a break for once."

Dom turned back to the two Gears. "Come on! We have to cover ground if we're gonna get out of this storm!"

Tai and Carmine caught up to Dom. "You okay there Carmine?"

"I'm fine Sarge, just lost my footing there for a second."

"Make sure you watch yourself now."

Anthony nodded. "Got it Sarge."

The Gears turned to continued struggling to see the trail before them. They continued when Dom saw a little blue lights about fifty feet away. "Tai. Carmine. You guys see this?"

The two Gears saw the lights and looked at Dom.

"What do you think it is Sarge?"

"I don't know. Let's check it out, but keep your guard up. It could be an ambush." The three Gears walked slowly to the lights with extreme caution. As they grew nearer they found that the lights split into three separate sources buried underneath the snow.

Dom looked at the lights from the snow. "The hell is this?"

Dom reached into the snow and with a mighty heave, grabbed the source from the snow.

A large metal container emerged from the snow with the COG symbol imprinted on the side.

"What is it Sarge?"

"It's an ammo pack. Check the other two and see what's inside."

Carmine and Tai each dug up an ammo pack from the snow.

"You think this is from you know who."

Tai looked at Carmine. "I rather not question it."

Dom opened his pack to find a comm. Link, Snub Pistol, a Gnasher Shotgun, and a Lancer. Several ammo cartridges were piled in the pack. Among the contents he found a note taped to the bottom of the pack. Dom read the note.

"Christmas came early this year. Continue down the trail, but approach with caution. You'll meet with my friends sooner or later. I'm sure you'll give them a helping hoof."

"Wait what?"

Carmine looked in his pack to find a comm. link, Snub Pistol, a Lancer, and a Longshot sniper rifle. He found a note written taped to the rifle.

"Oh the irony." 

Carmine scoffed. "That slick son of a bitch."

Tai opened his to find a comm. Link, Snub Pistol, a Lancer, and a Boomshot. A note was taped to the Boomshot.

A big gun for the big boy. Try not to scare the locals. 

Tai raised an eye in question.

Dom finished arming himself and turned to his squad.

"Everyone put on their comm. Links and synchronize them."

They strapped the earpieces on and made sure they were in sync.

"Comm. Links operational Sarge."

"Alright, grab as much as you can and let's keep moving."

The Gears stocked up on armaments and began to trek down the trail. Carmine couldn't help but think about all that was going on.

"Hey Sarge, how are we going to know when we find our rendezvous?"

Dom looked back at Carmine still walking. "What do you mean?"

"Well how do we know who's who? What if they aren't even human?"

Tai's eyes widened and looked at Dom holding the same question.

Dom stopped and stood in front of his squad. He didn't know how to answer that question

Then Prescott spoke up.

Remember the note. 

Dom recalled the note.

"Helping hoof."

Before Dom could answer Carmine, a beastly roar echoed through the forest. The Gears stood in high alert at the sound.

I highly doubt that's our rendezvous Sergeant.

"Sarge, what the hell was that?"

"Probably better if we don't find out."

Tai spoke up. "Agreed."

Another roar echoed through the forest.

"Time to haul ass people! Let's go!"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Somewhere else in the forest.

A small filly sprinted through the snowstorm with three large shadows followed her in pursuit.

The filly was running as fast as her legs could carry her before she ran into a clearing that ended with a cliff wall.

She tried to climb up the cliff but she was near exhaustion and her legs couldn't grab on the rocky wall. The cold air burned her throat and she had almost no vision due to the snow storm. After sliding off the wall several times, she looked up at the cliff.

"It's no use. Oh what do I do what do I do." She heard the trees rustling behind her.

The storm dimmed down just enough for her to see three Griffins emerging from the trees and lowering themselves to the ground, like a tiger waiting to pounce. They slowly got closer to the filly who had her back against the cliff. The griffin leading the group put on a malicious grin.

"Heh heh, we have you now little spy." He took another step closer.

The filly took a big gasp of air and let out a piercing scream. The griffins covered their ears at the piercing screech.

"Ahh her scream is like nails on granite!"

"I'll shut her up." The leader sprinted towards the filly and pounced to end her.

"Oh no you don't!"

Suddenly, a large metal beast with blue glowing eyes came and tackled the Griffin Guard.

The Griffin thrashed about trying to shack off the beast, but it had clung on with its metal claw around his neck trying to subdue the griffin.

"Man you one ugly son of a bitch aren't you? Sarge a little help here?"

She heard the griffin let out a roar trying to throw the metal beast off his back. The other two Griffins were shocked at the metal man and stepped back in fear. "What is that thing?"

"Well don't just stand there, get him off me you idiots!" The griffins moved in to help their comrade when one of them felt his flesh being torn through. The Griffin fell on the ground and saw he had bled a small puddle of blood on the snow.

The filly saw two more metal beasts emerge from the trees holding strange metal objects. They didn't have metal skin on their head like the first one, but instead had nearly furless skin. One of them spoke.

"One down! Tai take down the other one!" The more massive metal man tackled the second Griffin guard and held him down to the ground with his foot. He tried to struggle free, but the metal beast brought his metal object up to his head.

The filly heard loud explosive sounds and little flashes of light coming from the object. Each bang it made caused the filly to flinch. After the noise went quiet, she looked at the Griffin to find that his head had turned to nothing but mulch. Blood was spattered and pieces of his skull had broken off and stuck out of the snow.

The leader was still trying to throw the blue eyed metal beast off him. The beast reached to its side and pulled a smaller metal object. He aimed it at the Griffin guard's head but was thrown off and crashed into the rocky cliff next to the filly.

The Griffin turned back to the filly and quickly raised his talon to swipe his claw at her.

"Die Spy!"

The filly closed his eyes expecting the blow to come, but it never came. Instead she heard a loud "CLANG" echo. She opened her eyes and saw the blue eyed metal beast had jumped in front of her and took the blow to its head. It was brought down to its knee and small piece of its metal hide had broken off and fell in the snow. The Griffin however, was bleeding from the claw after breaking it on the beast's metal hide.

The Griffin gave a loud roar nursing his injured claw close to his chest. BlueEyes looked up still kneeling.

"Serves you right bitch!" He slured his words obviously affected by the blow.

The griffin stepped back still nursing his claw.

"Hold on Carmine we're coming!"

Seeing that the two other beasts had killed his soldiers, the Griffin guard quickly turned away and fled. The two beasts raised their metal objects and made more loud noises and lights. The filly tightly closed her eyes and covered her ears to drown out the booming noise of the metal objects. The two beasts stopped when they saw that the griffin had escaped, leaving a small trail of blood into the abyss of the forest.

The two beasts sped towards where BlueEyes stood.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Are you alright my friend?"

"Son of a bitch nearly got my eye. Good thing I wear a helmet."

"Carmine, what the hell were thinking taking on that thing head on? Why didn't you use your weapon?"

"I was afraid I would hit the horse." Carmine gestured to the little filly who was still cowering in fear of the large metal beasts. They had never seen anything like her. She had a solid red mane with a red bow and her coat was a bright yellow, but what they found more unnatural was her eyes. They were abnormally big and they were a shade of reddish yellow almost like fire. Carmine got near her and crouched down to her level. He removed his glove showing his bare claw to the filly. She shied away from his hand and cowered even further against the wall of the cliff.

Tai looked towards Dom. "This world is truly one we are not familiar with. Such creatures with the ability of speech, is not something I am used to."

Dom barely paid attention to Tai. He was too busy trying to sort the situation out in his head. Along with a certain somebody else in his head.

"helping hoof."

Things are really starting to get interesting aren't they Sergeant?"

Carmine was slowly gettin closer to her and started to speak in a soft soothing tone.

"It's okay. It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt ya."

The filly looked up at the beast and saw its face. Under its metal hide she saw one of its blue eyes have been torn off from the Griffins claw, but then she saw through the broken hide. From the broken hide she saw a part of the creature's true face. A small area allowed her to gaze at his eye. It was a shade of green like the grass during the summer time.

The creature crouched even lower still holding his hand out to the filly. She was still unsure whether or not to trust the beast. True they had just killed the Griffins that were after her, but that was all the reason itself to be wary of them. Any creature that could easily kill a griffin probably would've had no difficulty with a little pony filly.

"Come on. I'm not gonna hurt ya. Can you understand me?"

The filly eased up from against the cliff wall and took a couple of steps towards Carmine but then stopped. She looked up at him.

"Yeah, you can understand me can't you? My name is Anthony. Anthony. Can you speak?"

She was about to open her mouth to answer him when a roar echoed through the forest. The filly immediatly jumped into the Carmine's hands and buried her face against his arm.

Dom saw the trees rustlin behind them and turned to his squad.

"Looks like someone brought friends. Everybody, let's move."

The Gears sped from the clearing and sprinted into the trees.

They heard the trees rustling behind them showing that they had something coming up on their flanks.

"Carmine, get in the front and protect her. We'll give you cover"

Carmine sprinted into the front of the pack still holding on to the filly with one arm while arming the other with a Snub Pistol.

"Hold on tight kid all right!"

The filly gabbed on to Carmine's arm and held on tight.

Dom and Tai paced behind Carmine with their Lancers at hand. Dom blind fired into the trees behind him. Their pursuiters were still heavy on their tail and getting closer. Suddenly a Griffin guard sprinted and pounced on top of Dom. It tried to swipe at Dom's torso but his body armor repelled to blows. Dom tried to raise his Lancer, but the Griffin grabbed it with its talons trying to bite off Dom's face.

Tai quickly saw the downed Gear and came to his aid. He sprinted over and blasted a few bullets into the Griffin. Its body slumped over Dom's bleeding all over his armor. He tossed the corpse off of him and jumped into defensive position back to back with Tai. Dom saw that Carmine and the filly were not with them.

"Shit! We lost Carmine. We have to go after them" They tried to make a run for it, but were immediatly surrounded by a dozen Griffins. One of them was afloat in the air leading the group.

"There! That's them! Kill the wicked beasts!" The Griffins began to step closer to the Gears. Dom and Tai raised their Lancers while still back to back to each other. The Griffins grew closer and closer with each step they took.

"It seems that there is only one way out my friend."

Dom chuckled at Tai's comment.

"Yeah... always seems to be that way don't it."

Sounds of gunfire echoed through the forest.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Equestrian Border Wall

On the Equestrian Border, and large wall of stone stood with Unicorn guards at their post ontop of the wall and Pegasus Gaurds scanning the skys above. A single unicorn captain stood upon the wall and with a steely stare, gazed toward the mountain peaks a distance away from the border. A Pegasus guard landed next to the captain and stood in attention.

"Captain, Princess Luna has arrived. She wishes an audience with you immediatly."

The captain shifted his stare towards the pegasus. "Very well then. Let us be off."

The two guards met with Princess Luna inside of the Equestian border. The Princess stood near her dark Pegasus guards. The Captian greeted the Princess of the night with humble respect.

"Ahh, Princess Luna, to what do I owe the honor of this visit."

The Princess looked upon the captain. "Captain Brutroot, I need you too double the guards upon the border."

The Captain's eyes lit up in shock. "Double the guards! Princess, what would lead you to come all this way to issue this command."

"I have intelligence to believe that the Griffins will be preparing to strike soon, and I need every guard at your disposal to make sure not one of them enters into Equestrian land.

The Captain began to laugh in an uproar. "Princess, I assure you that any attempt of passing through my security forces will be rendered useless." He pointed his hoof to the border wall.

"This wall is made of ten feet of solid stone with Earth Pony Guards ready to prevent anything from breaking through, and I have my most skilled Pegasi and Unicorn guards scanning the skies to prevent any Griffin from sneaking over."

"No way over it. Now way through it. Therefore, there is no way any enemy can get past my patrol."

Princess Luna gazed at the Captain with a steely gaze of her own. "Captain I'm afraid they already have."

Luna climbed on her chariot. "Back to Canterlot as soon as possible."

"Yes Princess Luna!" With that they sped off into the sky towards Canterlot leaving the Captain and the Pegasus guard. They returned upon their post upon the border wall. The Captain stared upon the mountain peaks and scoffed.

"Double the guards? Already brached my border? She doubts my security forces. No enemy gets past Brutroot's forces." He began shouting towards the mountain peaks.

"You hear that you Griffin scum! Give me your best shot and I will send it back to you tenfold!"

He laughed in heavy cockiness and returned to his post.

Meanwhile, a long distance away from the Equestria border in enemy territory.

Solomon stood at the entrance of his mountain fortress gazing towards the Equestrian Border. Behind him General Raam emerged from the tunnel behind him.

"Ahh, General Raam. Have you prepared your forces?"

"The Locust forces I have prepared are armed and ready, and the scouts are in place behind enemy lines. They are ready to strike at my order Master."

Solomon gave a small frown reaching for his stone. "I believe you mean my order General."

Raam almost gave a small growl but quickly caught himself. "Of course Master."

Solomon returned to a satisfied smile. "That's better. Send your forces and break through the Equestrian border General."

"As you wish Master." General turned to leave before Solomon stopped him.

"And General one more thing."

"Yes Master."

Solomon put on a malicious smile. "Take no prisoners."

Raam put on a small toothy grin

"Gladly." He turned and left into the tunnels of the mountain leading to the dark abyss underground.