//------------------------------// // Battle: Los Pegasus // Story: The Alien Warriors: Journey to Equestria // by Texas Style Brony //------------------------------// Just outside of the city of Los Pegasus After marching for ten minutes, Prince Captain Shining Armor sent off half of his force to retake Las Pegasus. The other half of his force along with the humans, remained on the ground and kept marching toward the smoldering, smoky ruins of the once vibrant city of Los Pegasus. They soon reached a railway station which had a sign that read 'Welcome to Los Pegasus! Where everypony's a star!'. The sign had been beaten and had what looked like magic-laser impacts on it. "Alright, Long Blade, take some stallions and secure this rail station, the rest of you, move!" Shining Armor ordered his men. The Lunar Nightwatch kept moving along with the large column of royal guards. The stallions and humans soon came upon the suburbs of Los Pegasus, which looked like a war-torn version of Beverly Hills. Everyone was on edge, especially the Lunar Nightwatch, as they soon came to the urban district. Since there seemed to be no sign of changelings or ponies on the way, Ramirez decided to speak up. "Captain?" "Yes Sergeant?" "I think we're walking into a trap, they're letting our forces move into the center of the city so that we won't have a chance of escape once they decide to show up." "What do you think we should do?" "My men and I have a lot of experience clearing out buildings such as dorm halls back in our world, I think it would be a good idea if we started clearing more buildings as we move in order to protect against getting surrounded and possibly dealing with snipers." "Snipers? What are those?" "In your case, probably changelings who will strike using their magic from far off in places where you can't see them." "Ok then Sergeant." "Alright guys, split into two teams. Smith, Yankee, Parker, y'all take the buildings on the right, Newbie and I will deal with the ones on our left. move!" The Lunar Nightwatch split into their teams and moved in on a couple of skyscrapers. Inside Ramirez and Summer's building Soon after kicking down the doors, both teams saw a wretched sight. Inside the buildings were the local ponies in green, slimy cocoons, all of them comatose. Newbie almost puked when he saw them in this filthy condition. Soon, their walkie-talkies came alive. "Steelhooves, we found some prisoners in our building, how is yours?" "Same story over here Parker, Get your knives out and set them free, have one guy stand guard while doing so, send another to tell Shining Armor we may need help." "Roger that." Soon after the transmission, a hissing sound was heard among the cocoons, and a magic zap. Summers moved around the cocoons to investigate while Ramirez kept his Stryfe rifle raised. Summers turned the corner, pointing his shotgun toward the sound. He found a little pegasus filly, covered in dirt and crying. He moved toward it slowly. "Hey little filly. Don't worry, I'm here to help. Where are your parents?", the filly backed up, scared by the massive human. Summers reached his hand out to show that he wouldn't hurt it. Suddenly, the filly snapped at his hand with sharp fangs. Summers barely managed to pull his hand away. The frightened little filly suddenly turned into a changeling, who pounced at Summers and got him on his back. Summers was suddenly panicking when the changeling hissed in his face, as it looked like the bug was about to eat it off. He shut his eyes waiting for the inevitable. BANG! Summer's face was suddenly covered in green, slimy blood, and the changeling fell down lifeless over his body. He looked to the left, and Ramirez stood there with smoke rising from the barrel of his Strongarm. Ramirez walked over and helped him up. "Next time some bug horse pins you down Newbie, at least try to put up a fight." "No prob Sarge." Behind Ramirez, some royal guards had gotten to work cutting open the cocoons and helping the ponies out. "Keep your eyes open boys, There are still plenty of shape-shifting changelings out there", Ramirez warned. Suddenly, gunshots erupted nearby. Smith, Parker, and McLaughn's building While some royal guards along with McLaughn and Parker started cutting ponies free, some of the stallion soldiers said that they found a bunch of ponies hiding in a public restroom. Smith and Parker went with them to go take a look. Sure enough, there were at least ten ponies huddled in the restroom. "Alright, bring them out guys", Smith told the stallion guards. Soon the stallions began escorting the ponies out of the restroom, but then some of the ponies jumped out of line and bit some of the guards. As soon as they heard the screams, Parker and Smith turned around to see four changelings jump on them, one on the top and one on the legs of each of them. They got the top ones off with their hard punches. However, the ones wrapped around their legs held on. When Smith tried to kick his off, it bit him in the leg. "AAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" The one on Parker was about to bite down, but Parker turned his Rapidstrike on him and put five darts into him. He then got up, shot down the rest of the changelings who had bit the guards, opened his large spring-assist knife, and plunged it into the neck of the changeling on Smith. However, Smith couldn't move after this. "My leg! I can't feel my leg!" he yelled, as he couldn't move it. "MEDIC!!!!!!!!", Parker yelled as Smith couldn't move his leg. A couple of royal guards ran over from the other room and investigated the wounds on Smith and the other stallions with them. The four stallions who were escorting the changelings were dead. The pony who was looking at Smith's wound determined that he would live. "A lesser known fact about the changelings is that they are venomous. Although they don't use them to feed, changeling fangs carry a very strong neurotoxin which can kill if it punches through a major vein or artery. They did manage to kill those other poor guards over there, but fortunately the one that bit your friend missed his artery by inches. He won't be able to walk on that leg again for a while though. The wound will heal, but since you are an alien species, I have no idea how long it will take for him to recover." "Goddamn poisonous bug horses!" Smith replied. "We can take you to the train station outside of town until your leg feels better, it heals faster if you're relaxed, or at least that's how it works on ponies," the medical pony offered. "Ok then", Smith agreed. Ramirez, McLaughn, and Summers arrived shortly after, and Parker explained to them what happened. After constructing a makeshift stretcher with two poles and a blanket, some unicorn stallions carried off Smith to the train station outside of town. Building on the next block After what happened to Smith and Summers, the remainder of the team decided to stick together and begin storming the buildings while the royal guard rescued the prisoners. As they stood outside of the door, Summers moved in and shotgun-breached the door. Along with blowing out the lock, he also blew out the top of the door frame since it was too short for the humans to comfortably enter. Soon, the team entered, passing by the cocoons, and they came upon a room. After breaching the door again, they found what looked like a pony family huddled in a corner. The guys moved in with their guns pointed at the family, unsure if they were changelings or not while the family started screaming. "Shut up! Y'all are in a war zone, and anypony who is not in a cocoon is usually a changeling!" Ramirez yelled above their screams. "McLaughn, get the father", Ramirez ordered. McLaughn went and shakily dragged the father away from the rest of the family at gunpoint, and pushed his body onto the ground. "Check his teeth. If he snaps at you then blow his brains out." Sure enough, when McLaughn opened his mouth, he found a set of sharp fangs inside. "Oh to Tartarus with this!", one of the foals yelled as they all morphed into changelings and tried to jump the humans, only to be gunned down before they could reach them. "Alright guys. From now on it's shoot on sight. Anypony who is not in a cocoon is automatically a changeling. Got that?" Ramirez said. "Yes sir!" the team responded. A couple of hours and several buildings later The guys had cleared out alot of ground and had gotten through almost a third of the city. Also, the royal guards were able to free and escort many of the ponies out of danger. Shining Armor went to talk to the humans. "Wow, you guys have done a fantastic job! Who knew that there would only be five casualties in half a day?" "Speaking of casualties, how is our guy?" McLaughn asked. "He's doing fine. I just got word that he has regained senses in his leg, but he still needs to wait a while before he can walk on it." "That's good. Hey, I heard that the reason changelings attack ponies is so that they can feed off love. How do they 'feed' off an emotion exactly?" Parker asked. "Oh, that's a common misconception. Nothing can feed off emotions, they feed off of *ahem* something else." "What is that 'something else'?" "Trust me, you don't want to know." "But--" "YOU. DON'T. WANT. TO KNOW." After a few seconds, Parker leaned down while Shining Armor whispered into his ear. "Oh my God! That's really messed up!" Parker exclaimed. "Told ya", Shining replied as the others looked away from the awkward scene. Suddenly, there was an explosion nearby. "Uh oh. Here they come!" Ramirez said as he pointed at a large swarm of changelings who began attacking the royal guards nearby. The guys raised their blasters and opened fire while Shining Armor picked up his spear and shield and ran to help his troops. Soon, the changelings started shooting magic at the humans. "Take cover!" Ramirez yelled as his men ducked behind some walls and flipped-over carts while returning fire. A lot of royal guards turned and ran into buildings while Shining Armor and about ten other guards held their ground. "What the hell are you ponies doing?! Get out here and help us!!" Parker yelled at those who ran. They just kept running. Some reinforcements came out of the buildings, and the unicorns were returning fire with their magic. However, Ramirez couldn't help but facepalm when he saw some of the guards drop their spears and try fighting the changelings with their hooves. "You guys have weapons for crying out loud! USE THEM!!!!!!!!!" Ramirez yelled as he kept firing his rifle at the oncoming changelings. Within a few minutes, it was all over. All over the place, changeling and guardspony bodies lied burning and bleeding while the remainder of the royal guard rounded up and took changeling prisoners. Shining Armor was leaning against a pillar trying to catch his breath after what just happened. Ramirez walked over to him with a mad look on his face. "Captain, what the hell is wrong with your guards?!" Shining looked down in shame, understanding what the human was talking about. "Equestria has never fought a war in it's whole existence, and even though we try to train our guards in the best way we can, it doesn't help when even the trainers lack experience. I'm sorry for my troops' inadequacy." Shining replied. "Well I did notice some guards, yourself included, who fought well. You should just try to sort out the good fighters from the poor ones, and have the poor ones train harder." Ramirez replied, trying to cheer up the young captain. "You need to train them to stand their ground and not break formation, and also for them to not just drop their weapons. In our world, our military has a saying when it comes to a soldier's weapon... " "Wow, I thought you guys weren't real military in your world", Shining replied, impressed with the speech. "We aren't. My grandpa was in the military a long time ago, and he taught me that creed. This battle is far from over, this is a big city and there are probably still a lot of changelings and pony prisoners out there. We need to have capable troops, both human and pony, to be ready for the rest of this fight. Otherwise, we may die out here."