Long ago, in the magical land of Equestria, there lived the Three Tribes. The Pegasi, who held dominion of the Sky, the Earth Ponies, tied to the land itself, and the Unicorns, who alone could unravel the deeper mysteries of Magic and the Aether. But, as eons passed, the Three Tribes quarrelled, and brought upon themselves a terrible foe, unbeatable and unyielding from beyond the Frozen North. These Three Tribes quarreled and bickered, and the Frozen Darkness almost consumed them, had not the Sun and the Moon intervened.
The Sun in Her Divine Radiance, cast fire and light onto the frozen shadows, as the Moon lit the way for the Three Tribes, and her own servants, to fight back the darkness. Peace reigned in Equestria, with the Sun and Moon in Harmony, until the inevitable happened.
The Moon, envious of the Sun, attempted to overthrow Her and claim the throne for herself, and after a battle that lasted a fortnight and a day, the Sun cast the Moon away into the Aether, never to be seen again.
Twilight huffed, snapped the book shut between her hooves. “Darn it, still nothing, nothing at all Spike!” she griped, stepping over the perforated body of a drab unicorn assassin that had long since expired. The little dragon groaned, stretching his limbs out as he laid on his book fort.
“Twi, the Empress said that it’s nothing to worry about!” he chided her, jumping to the floor. “And come, you can’t exactly argue with Her!” Twilight sighed, rubbing her horn.
“I know, but the fact remains Spike!” she said, heading to where a veritable mountain of scrolls, books, inkwells and pens were packed into several bags. “Legends don’t come out of nowhere! And if the tale of the Mare in the Moon is right, then that means that the Empress is in danger!”
“Riiight, the Empress that singlehooved crippled Neighpon to its knees,” Spike deadpanned. “Oh, and let’s not forget how she forced the Minotaurs underground, oh, and the gryphons are now little more than the occasional auxiliary for pegasus legions, or bandits. Twilight, the Empress can handle Herself! You can’t!” Twilight groaned.
“Spike, it’s a trip to some backwater town that happens to be within spitting distance of Canterlot!” she pointed out, slinging a saddlebag onto her rump with a burst of magic. “It’s not like we’re going to be in any danger whatsoever!”
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San Francisco Bay
September, 2013
“Five minutes to contact!” shouted the crew chief of the hovercraft, the thump and crash over ocean waves on air cushion and hull making the statement almost inaudible.
Major Gabriel Hopkins flipped the last of the switches inside the cockpit to his Armored Support Platform, the six and a half meter tall combat mech ready for battle. He and the rest of his current assignment (out of many; he was flexible like that) were all encased in the multiton ASPs, each of them armed with the best that could be supplied to combat mechs their size, which considering the situation at their destination, wasn’t saying a whole lot.
For whatever damned reason, Xenilla and whatever collection of dredged up mutated monstrosities had decided to attack and destroy San Francisco. That had, in turn, simply invited Godzilla himself and the Terran Defenders to come in and start a massive all out brawl from hell. Where Hopkins, and the Second ASP Division, 3rd Regiment came in, was to evacuate as many civilians and stranded military personnel as they could before Marshall Pentecost went and fired the Dimension Tide on the Mutations.
[Systems look good Meatbag,] Hopkins heard in his helmet’s integrated headset. [Just to let you know, you got a rookie behind you, two down on left, vitals are firmly in the predictably panicked state.]
Hopkins turned to look, his ASP mimicking his movements as he spotted the soldier in question. Hopkins’ HUD quickly brought up the pilot’s vitals to confirm what Julian had said. Stomping over, Hopkins paused by the terrified soldier and caught a bit of what he was blabbering about. “I don’ wanna be fiver, I don’ wanna be a fiver, I can’t fu-!”
A giant metal hand clanged down on the relatively smaller shoulder of the scared pilot’s M12 chassis. “Private Key, what was the score from the game last night? The one between Manchester United and Liverpool? Who won?”
“W-Wha-?”
“The game last night? Who won trooper?” Hopkins asked again calmly as gentle violet lines glowed on his armor. The Private’s ASP slumped as its pilot did the same.
“It was… it was Manchester sir, by one.” Key slowed his breathing down as he recalled the game. “Was a tie game until they forced it into overtime.” Hopkins nodded, his customized ASP’s head mimicking him as he stepped back.
“Well, you’re gonna see the next game, don’t you worry,” he said, stepping back to the front of the hovercraft. “Listen up, all of you! You know the mission, you know the stakes! Keep your buddy’s ass covered, remember your training, and don’t do anything stupid. That’s an order by the way.” The other pilots chuckled over the radio, even as the San Francisco skyline finally appeared through the fog. “Now ready up troopers! We got civvies and ground friendlies to evac, and a whole lot of kaiju ass to shoot up! Lock and load!” The cacophony of various chainguns, energy weapons, and other weapons systems let Hopkins know that the squad of ASPs were ready for combat.
“Sixty seconds!” Hopkins gripped his chaingun tighter.
“Troopers, who are you?” he shouted, starting his unit’s call and respond.
“THE PALE HORSEMEN!”
“What do you do!”
“KILL!”
“Why do you kill!”
“FOR WE ARE DEATH, AND WHERE WE RIDE, HELL FLEES BEFORE US!”
“Damn right!” Hopkins exclaimed as the hovercraft finally hit the edge of a dock, the ramp falling down and clamping itself down onto the asphalt. “Now move out!” Hopkins charged forward, the ASP’s footsteps cracking the pavement as the squad followed, dozens of other hovercraft hitting the shore and discharging their own cargo of ASPs. Up above in the sky, a Super Gyaos took notice of them and let out a blood chilling cry, banking over to attack.
By the time the ASPs had secured their landing zone and were charging through the streets, the Super Gyaos was on the ground, surrounded by numerous more of its lesser brethren, charred and bullet ridden.
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L.A. Shatterdome
Marshall Stacker Pentecost watched stoically as the GDF forces worked to evacuate San Francisco, even as multiple kaiju continued to converge on the city. The former RAF pilot noted the multiple guided missile destroyers in and out of the San Francisco Bay provided supporting fire where they could for the various ASP platoons going into the city to rescue civilians and American National Guard forces.
“All ASP force elements have landed Marshall, operation is at full swing,” Tendo Choi reported. Pentecost nodded.
“Thank you Mr. Choi, keep me posted,” he answered calmly, clasping his hands behind his back. To his direct staff, up to and included General Gordon who was beside him, katana resting on his shoulder, glowering at the holographic projection on the wall.
“Whole thing looks like a piece of crap mess Pentecost,” Gordon grumbled. “Only good thing is that we didn’t have to deal with this back in the Final Wars.” Pentecost nodded silently in agreement.
The Final Wars… now that had been a hell of a spectacle. An entire alien coalition spearheaded by the Xilians that had tried to take over Terra, and perhaps had events played out differently, they could have. Hundreds of millions dead, and that was a conservative estimate. Had humanity not had the technologies they did when the invasion happened, the body count likely would have reached the billions. And that wasn’t even remotely taking into consideration all of the kaiju the aliens either brought with them, or mind controlled into serving them. Still, Pentecost reminisced, it was easily one of the very few times in recent memory that humanity itself hadn’t needed to solely rely on the Defenders for protection.
He looked over to one of the many stations inside the control room of the Shatterdome, watching the camera feed from one of the ASPs in the city as it moved to the first of six civilian anti-kaiju bunkers. The Armored Support Platforms hadn’t been around nearly as long as say, the venerated MASER cannon, but the small bipedal mecha had proven themselves near indispensable to the GDF and Terra as a whole since their introduction in 2002, intercepting the Gyaos in Osaka.
When the aliens invaded, they clearly weren’t expecting the platoons of autocannon wielding combat mechs, to say nothing of-
“Marshall, Dimension Tide is approaching orbital attack window,” Tendo reported, breaking Pentecost out of his reverie.
“Understood Mister Choi,” he answered, slipping back into the role of ‘impassive leader.’ “Continue monitoring our progress, alert me when anything changes.”
“What, you expect something to happen?” Gordon quipped. Pentecost’s face remain a study of stonework, and Gordon realized the severity of the situation. “Marshall?”
“Nothing to concern yourself with General,” Pentecost remarked, stepping back to his original spot in the midst of the controlled chaos. “Remain focused on the task at hand.” Gordon looked like he was about to complain, but held back his tongue, if only for now. Because now, there was nothing now but the plan.
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A man entered a darkened room, a seemingly empty desk table and a simple chair the only furnishings visible. The man sat down, setting the briefcase he had been carrying on the table before adjusting his tie. He still had time before the meeting; might as well take some time to refresh on the high points of the discussion to be had.
He popped the briefcase open, and pulled out several red trimmed manilla folders, each of them given simple titles with little to no indication of where they had come from. He opened one, and skimmed the mostly redacted documents inside. Project Voynich was showing good progress in the study of psionics and its applications, as well as its projected capabilities with old G-Force and MONARCH projects. In particular, the man mused, the document continued to be elusive as to what this ‘VX-1’ was.
But no matter, the man thought as he closed the folder, sliding it back into the briefcase before opening a new one. This one was far less redacted, in that the ASP detailed inside was based off the culmination of the past eleven years of research, development, and active combat service. Only slightly larger than the newest model of ASP entering service,this one was shaping to feature-
A small green light flashed on the wall in front of him, and the man stopped reading, closing the folder. He had read enough to be able to at least cover most of the meeting. Setting the briefcase off to the side, but well within reach for him to grab the pulsed laser handgun inside, he readjusted his tie, and tapped an innocuous spot on the desk.
The wall flashed, an inverted pentagon projected onto the wall, it’s center holding a globe crossed with an ‘X’ as a series of lock images secured the channel. The man cleared his throat moments before the screen changed.
“Hello, Commander.”