=///Five kilometers from Manehattan, EAS Torantrot, January 10, 2007 CLD, 0730 hours\\\=

Inside one of the crew compartments of the Equestrian Airship EAS Torantrot, Captain Cloudy Strike came out of his private cabin and started walking towards the Airship bridge to begin his duties today.

The 59-year-old Pegasus Stallion has been a part of Equestrian's navy for more than three decades now, and he is approaching retirement age at the age of 60, in fact, this will be his last scheduled deployment before his retirement, he plans that after he is done with his duty to his country he will spend the rest of his time in his hometown of Caneighda Province with his wife, but before all of that materialized he still had to remain in command of his Airship and lead his crew in guarding Equestria's airspace.

For now, they are on a routine payroll through the province of Neighbor York, several kilometers from the city of Manehattan to be precise.

The moment he entered the bridge of their Airship all the crew there quickly sternly saluted him.

"Everything is really good captain, the weather today is very sunny and the wind speed today is about five kilometers per hour, if there is no setback we will arrive at our last stop in Neighorage Military Airbase at 0900 hours sir." One of the navigation officers answered

"Glad to hear that sergeant, continue the Airship path towards our destination and keep the speed at 20 knots." Captain ordered.

Captain Cloudy Strike couldn't contain his joy, this would be his last voyage as an Airship captain and his duties in Equestrian's navy would finally come to an end, he couldn't wait to finally see his wife Marble Wing again and see his granddaughter Selene Light and her sister Cynthia Star in the city of Ottahay and spend the rest of his life in peace.

But sadly for Captain Cloudy Strike, his last deployment is not gonna be as smooth as he thought it would be, because the situation is gonna turn 180° from now on.

"Sir, we detected a dozen of unidentified flying objects, twenty kilometers ahead flying towards our position from our nine o'clock direction, speed 250 kph and closing sir." The Magidar operator replied

"Is it maybe that it's one of the humans flying machines? I heard their expedition fleet brought some kind of strange contraception for them to fly." Captain asked

"Erhh, Negative sir, according to data from Magidar Display, This object does not appear to be like a human flying machine, the speed, size and energy signature of the flying object are completely different....wait, oh Faust's, it almost matches the magical signature of a dragon sir!"

Cloudy's eyes then went wide as saucers, he had already had decades of experience of military experience to know what this meant, the presence of multiple flying dragons near a densely populated area would only mean one thing.

"OH BUCK!, All available personnel, get to your Battlestations! Prepare the enchanted ballista and Magical Shield generator now!"

All the personnel at EAS Torantrot started rushing towards their assigned post and manning the Airship weapon system, meanwhile, the technicians and mages rushed to the magic stasis room to activate the Airship's shield generator.

"Alert all air bases in the province to be on alert for a possible rouge Dragon attack, and notify every airship in the area that we need reinforcements here now!"

The Radio operator immediately took up their radios and started broadcasting the news about the situation to all the air bases in the area and sending out a signal for help to all the nearby airships, Meanwhile Captain Cloudy took his old binoculars with his telekinesis and started scanning the horizon.

And sure enough, he can spot dozens of dragons of various sizes, ranging from the size of a car to the size of a Boeing Jumbo jet over the horizon, and the worst of all is that they all flying straight towards his Airship.

Cloudy Strike started sweating, even though this was not the first time he had encountered dragons, this was the first time he had faced this many dragons at once before, even so he kept his professional stoic face and hoped his decades of experience would be enough for him to face these dragons.

Will the old veteran of Equestria's navy come victorious and be able to enjoy the rest of his life in peaceful retirement? or will he die in a brutal firey death under the face of dragon manace? only time will tell.

Meanwhile inside the bridge of the USS Theodore Roosevelt Admiral Jordy was walking towards his seat carrying his morning coffee and biscuits for breakfast, today looks like usual, scientists and other eggheads personnel are walking around trying to learn everything from the aliens, marines and sailors are enjoying their time posting their photos on social media for clout or maintain equipment and aircraft on board the ship.

Even though the situation looked really peaceful, Jordy started to feel uneasy, the situation from the beginning of the contact really smoothed out without a hitch or complications, everything was too good to be true, the only way he can describe it is just like when the soldiers started to feel uneasy when the battlefield felt too quiet for their comfort, this is exactly how Jordy felt right now.

Unfortunately for him, his guess turned out to be right as one of his trusted sailors Corporal Henry Watson started entering the ship bridge in a hurry, and everything started to go to hell from now on.

The corporal then started to explain the whole situation from the beginning, the first was that one of the marine sergeants from the 89th naval battalion went to the city, using his personal jet suits, and intended to buy some Hayburgers from one of Equestrian's McDonald's knockoff.

"I don't see any problem with that at all corporal, from what I hear the Hayburgers are actually pretty good," Jordy said

"Sir, the problem is after he ordered his food, a group of species that we identified as 'griffons' tried to rob the restaurant while he was still waiting for his food inside!"

Jordy's eyes went wide, the scenario that one of his personnel or local civilians was injured would be bad in the eyes of the public and Equestrian's leadership.

" According to eyewitness testimony the griffons tried to threaten him into giving them his money, he of course refused and they started attacking him!" Henry answered.

"W-what happened to him? Were any civilians injured? and why the hell did he go alone without anyone accompanying him?" Jordy asked worriedly.

"Everything went to Hell, his gun went full blazing, eight of the eleven robbers were dead and the rest were seriously injured, the Equestrian's authorities took him to the local police station for questioning," Henry answered

Jordy then slammed his hand on the table in anger, not just because one of his marines is now being held custody by foreign authorities, but also because of the fact that the marine didn't get his Hayburger.

"The good thing, sir, was that none of the civilians in the restaurant were injured, except for those who were attacked by the Griffon, of course."

" And furthermore because this is an act of self-defense, the Equestrian's authorities will release him later this afternoon, we already have sent some guys to pick him up later," Henry continued.

Unfortunately for Jordy, his sense of relief was short-lived as one of the ship's communications officers came to the bridge.

Jordy also turned his attention to the ship's communications officer Winston Harper, he and his team were scheduled to be tasked with monitoring local and external communications for the expedition fleet.

"Sir, we've picked up an emergency broadcast from one of the Equestrian's Airship just seven kilometers from the fleet, I think you would like to hear it, sir," Winston reported

Jordy then immediately followed Winston to the ship's communications room on deck number 5C near the ship's bridge, during these days the expedition fleet force had also managed to hack into the ERN (Equestria Royal Navy) line of communication because they didn't want any possible surprise attack by the alien Airship, and also so they can hear what Equestrian's military is talking about.

When Admiral Jordy arrived in the room he was greeted by dozens of officers and the ship's communications crew, one of the radio operators also gave him a pair of headsets to listen to the emergency broadcast that the Equestria navy sent.

"This is Captain Cloudy Strike from EAS Torantrot, we are experiencing a Level 10 attack by dozens of rouge Dragons five kilometers from Manehattan, the Dragons are trying to attack and decimate population centers, we requested immediate reinforcements, please, we unable to hold them for long!!, I REPEAT this is--...

"The first were multi-color pony aliens, then griffons, and now Dragons, what's next a Tentacle monster?!"

Jordy then kicked the nearest table in frustration, and things started to go from bad to worse, he knew something bad was going to happen, he just didn't expect it would be this bad.

"Sir, I understand your frustration, but we need your orders sir, should we send one of our boys to help them? or we just let them sort it out on their own?" Winston asked

"...I think we should, they say these dragons intend to attack the city right? there are many of our expedition personnel who are still in the city and can't let the chance of them getting hurt," Jordy answered

"Let them know, but we still gonna send some of our boys first because I'm not sure those fat cats in the Pentagon will reply in a timely manner, nor will politics and bureaucracy get in my way trying to keep my personnel safe."

"All right sir, but what should we send?, we have two squadrons of F35C standing guard on board and five Seahawks ready to fly on USS Boxer."

"Just send three F35s first to do a reconnaissance to gather intel on the dragon's capabilities and evaluate the situation whether or not should we send more jets and the Helicopters Squadron, I don't want us to use up too many resources because our budget is tight this year, Understood?"

All the personnel in the room rushed to their posts and started carrying out the Admiral's orders, the pilots quickly got up from their sleep and quickly put on their suits, and the technicians started checking the condition of the plane to make sure it was ready to fly and countless other personnel ranging from simple personnel whose job is to maintain electric catapults to weapons such as missiles and bombs start quickly prepare themselves for what is to come because this will be the first military operation the United States will carry out on Equestrian's soil, this was going to be one a hell of a day, the one that will be inscribed in the history books of humans and ponies for generations to come.

The sound of screams echoed down the hall of EAS Torantrot, an explosion caused by the Dragon's fire breath burning the hull of once the mighty Airship, killing many of its crew, everything started to get disorganized and the crew started to panic.

Nearly one-third of the Airship's crew are either died or seriously injured, this made the effectiveness of the Airship's defense begin to decrease every second, this prompted many of the crew to begin abandoning the Airship and save themselves, the crew who were pegasus can easily fly and save themselves while the Unicorn and Earth-pony crew have to rely on parachutes to save themselves.

Meanwhile Capt. Cloudy Strike and the rest of his crew on the Airship's bridge were still doing their best to try to salvage the situation, but unfortunately for them, the fire that was experienced by the Airship was so great that the communication cable between the bridge and all parts of the ship was cut off.

Seeing the crew and his Airship start to die and burn by the Dragon's breath made Cloudy almost start crying, all he wanted was to have his final deployment a peaceful routine patrol mission before finally retiring, but sadly all those dreams are now crumbling like cheap Chinese apartments.

He wondered how this could all end like this, he is a long-time veteran with long experience dealing with the dangers of the Equus sky, and he followed all the protocols and his training on how to deal with this kind of situation, but somehow it all failed and it was his crew who had to suffer the consequences.

On the Airship bridge, Captain Cloudy Strike is checking the Airship's preparations to engage the Dragons, he has to make sure important systems like weapons and shields are ready to deal with attacks from dragons.

"Sir, the Dragon is coming at three o'clock, all Starboard ballistae batteries loaded and ready to shoot, sir!" The Weapon operator said

"Great, how about reinforcements? Have the other air bases answered our requests for help?

"Erhhg...many air bases still haven't responded yet, only the air base in Brooklyn has answered our call for help, they said help will be here in Forty-five minutes," Radio Operator said.

This got the pony crew nervous, hearing that they would have to face the Dragons alone for half an hour before reinforcements arrived was not a very good sign, but despite that, they still maintained their professionalism and continued their work.

Meanwhile, Captain Cloudy Strike remained where he was while holding his binoculars, his brain going overdrive to contemplate how he could hold off the Dragons, but while he was still thinking about his strategy one of the Magiadar operators suddenly shouted a warning.

"SIR, WE DETECT ENERGY SPIKES COMING FROM THE DRAGONS, OH MY FAUST'S IT'S SO BIG!!!" one of the crew said.

Before Captain Cloudy or the other crew on the Airship's bridge could react, suddenly a loud roar of magic sparks sounded from one of the dragons, the crew then set their sights outside towards one of the dragons flying towards their Airship, Captain Cloudy and his crew could see the dragon's mouth begin to glow a purple light and seemed to be charging a great amount of energy.

Before the ponies could fully comprehend what was happening, a bright flash of light suddenly appeared, temporarily blinding them all, the thermal radiation that was produced from the light made their coats feel really hot to the point where it was almost burning up, and they could also hear the roar of fire magical blasts being shot towards their Airship.

A magical blast comes into contact with the Airship's magical Shield, and the amount of energy that is being discharged is so enormous that the point that the sound of an explosive shockwave could be heard dozens of kilometers away.

The magical blasts generated by the dragons were enormous to the point where it's were able to penetrate the Magical Airship's shields, the Equestrian's crew was thrown from their positions due to the excessive kinetic force generated, and some of them died from blood trauma.

By the time the Airship's crew had recovered from the attack, they could see the impact the deadly attack had on their Airship, their Magical shields were destroyed, the Airship's midsection hull was on fire, and nearly all of the Starboard Airship's side compartments were ablaze.

This made Captain Cloudy Strike stupefied and his jaw dropped to the floor, in his decades of experience at ERN this was the first time seen something like this.

Cloudy's gaze kept locked on this Dragon that was doing the impossible, he could see how big the Dragon was, it was larger than an Airbus A380-800, and it had reddish-purple scales, and the look on his face was filled with such rage, and cruelty that it sent shivers down Cloudy's spine.

"Sir, another Dragon started a flame burst attack, and the third floor of the left hull was burnt!!" one of the crew said.

"Evasive maneuvers! lower our altitude to five hundred meters from the ground, and give the order to all surviving ballista batteries to open fire!!!" Cloudy ordered

Dozens of ballista bolts began to fire from the remaining ballista batteries, almost all of the shots missed but some of them managed to hit several dragons and killed some of them, but even so, this was not enough to change the situation, without the Magical Shield and most of the Balista Batteries they were crippled rendering the Airship unable to offer effective resistance.

Ten minutes into the battle, nearly one-third of the crew was dead and most of the rest started deserting from their posts and started leaving the Airship to save themselves.

With this, any chance or hope for them to be able to defeat the Dragons began to dwindle to nothing.

The sounds of explosions and the screams of the ponies continued to echo across the Airship's bridge, at this point captain Cloudy started to think about finally deciding to abandon ship and save himself and his crew, but if he did that they would leave Manehattan vulnerable to be attacked by the Dragons.

While he was still thinking about what he should do, one of his crew came up to him, it was a mare Pegasus with a black coat and triple blue-white-pink manes, her name is Midnight Gem, and she actually serves as a meteorologist who takes care of the job on predicting the weather and how to maneuver through it.

But that's not her only job here, she also works as a religious priest on the Airship, she helps the ponies with their religious problems and keeps crew morale high.

"Sir...I think we should pray to Faust for salvation, and hope we can hold off the beasts until help comes," Midnight Gem said.

Ahhh ya, everypony knows Faust, The Creator of Equus, and the God Empress of Equnekind the one who gave birth to all life in the universe, The mother of Goddess Celestia and Luna.

There is a story where if someone prays to her sincerely and honestly, Faust will answer the prayer.

All the ponies on the bridge then start praying to Faust for her Salvation, they hope that help will come and help them, they hope to survive this coming battle and be able to see their family again.

The sound of the internal combustion of a Pratt & Whitney F135 turbofan engine roared over the air over Equestria as three F35C Lighting IIs flew towards their destinations.

In the cockpit of one of the fighter jets was Lieutenant Aditya Shaffer, he is an Indonesian-American who lives in Los Angeles, California. He and two of his wingmen Mohammed Williamson and Jeremy Mclaughlin couldn't contain their excitement after hearing that the three of them would be sent on a reconnaissance mission to gather intel about the capabilities of the Dragons that reportedly attacked one of Equestrian's military Airships.

Aditya can't help but compare this situation to the scene that happened in the Japanese Anime entitled 'GATE: Jieitai kanochi nite, kaku tatakaeri', where two Japanese F4 Phantoms are sent on a reconnaissance mission to gather intel about speed, capabilities, resilience, and intelligence of the fire dragon before the JSDF were dispatched to slay the Dragon.

From what he could remember from that scene in the anime, the Japanese pilots almost died when they decided to recklessly charge toward the Fire Dragon which ended with most of the F4's airframe bearing burnt marks and all of its electronics being fried, Aditya couldn't help but laugh as the pilot had his ass beaten up by the aircraft maintenance engineers for his stupidity.

"Vanguard, this is Blackjack 0-1, Our EOTS (Electro-Optical Targeting System) is online, we'll have visual contact in a minute and twenty seconds, over," Aditya said

"Blackjack 0-1, this is Vanguard, please continue your flight to the target and test the capabilities of the Dragons, the use of Sidewinder and AMRAAM missile has been authorized, report the result whatever it's effective or not afterward, over," Vanguard answered

"Copy that Vanguard, Blackjack 0-2 and 0-3, this is Blackjack 0-1, can you guys cover my left and right flank, I will engage the Dragons first."

"Copy that Blackjack 0-1, please be careful, don't let what happened to Dagger 0-1 happen to you, remember what happened to their squadron leader after the first recon mission!?" Blackjack 0-3/Jeremy Mclaughlin said.

Ahh ya, he definitely can remember what happened to them, their squadron was laughed at by the whole crew on the ship and their leader was GangBang'd to death by Internet users when his colleague uploaded a video to YouTube where he was held hostage by one of the alien ponies.

After several minutes of flying they finally arrived at their destination, but what they found shook them to their core.

Aditya and his wingman couldn't believe what they were seeing, Dozens of Dragons of all sizes, ranging from the size of a car to the size of a jumbo jet flying around Equestrian's Airship, he could see the main hull of the Airship was charred and leaking helium while their crew compartment was on fire, they could see hundreds of charred wreckage from the Airship crashing to the surface of the earth, Aditya swears he could see dozen of charred pony corpses fell to the ground along with hundreds of Airship wrecks in his EOTS system.

"V-vanguard, this is Blackjack 0-1, we have a visual on the targets, I'm sending you the combat footage now, oh my god they are HUGE!!!" Aditya fearfully said.

Aditya can also see that the dragons are able to spit flames that are really similar to Godzilla's Atomic breath at the Equestrian's Airship.

'Astagfirullahaladzim!!, ini sih Godzilla Bangsat!!!' Aditya said in his mind.

Even though the dragon really looked scary he still decided to continue with his mission, he couldn't just easily run away like a coward because he was frightened by some flying lizard, he had faith that humanity's twenty-first-century state-of-the-art arsenal was capable of defeating the Dragons.

Meanwhile, on the bridge of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, all the ship crew members were unable to hide their shocked and frightened faces as they watched the combat footage sent by Blackjack 0-1, even Admiral Jordy, who was initially really calm in this situation, starting to feel worried for the safety of his personnel.

Three F35s were only armed with short-range missiles, Which simply would not be sufficient to defeat these Dragons, therefore he then ordered his subordinates to quickly deploy all available planes and arm them all with heavy weaponry like AGM-65H/K and GBU-57A/B Anti-Bunker missiles to take down the Dragons.

"Ah shit that thing is huge... I WANT EVERY AVAILABLE AIRCRAFT ON THIS SHIP TO BE IN THE AIR, NOW!!!" Jordy shouted.

All the crew on board then went overdrive, they had to quickly fuel and arm the jets to get all the planes in the air, because otherwise if the Dragons managed to make it to the city it would end with the death of hundreds of innocent lives, both ponies and humans alike.

Meanwhile, Aditya's F35 started trying to lock the target on one of the smallest Dragons first to see how effective his AMRAAM missiles are against dragon scales.

"Vanguard, this is Blackjack 0-1, I got the lock on the Dragon, do we have permission to shoot down the target? over!" Aditya said

Aditya then took a deep breath and slowly started pressing the firing button on his joystick.

The F35's lower compartment opened and dropped an AIM-120 AMRAAM missile, the solid rocket fuel then ignited and the missile started flying and roared towards one of the Dragons who had the size of a Toyota Avanza.

Aditya and his wingman could see the fireball that was produced by the missile explosion, Aditya then started to grin as he watched the lizard start to fall to the Earth as the beast had his upper torso disintegrate due to the shockwave generated by the missile's explosion.

"Vanguard, one hostile is down, It looks like the missiles are very effective against them! over!" Aditya reported.

Aditya then started praising himself for his newfound knowledge that he could take down dragons with the missiles.

Meanwhile, the Dragons started to realize that one of their comrades had fallen dead and also realized that they had a new enemy, one of the biggest Dragons started roaring in fury and then started ordering the other smaller Dragons to start facing the new challenger.

Seeing a group of dragons starting to fly towards them, Aditya ordered the wingman to start shooting at the dragons who were trying to get close to them.

"Alright boys, let's kick these flying lizards out of the sky!" Aditya ordered.

Aditya and his wingman started locking their respective targets, The F35 has the ability to lock on multiple targets at the same time without overlapping with other aircraft.

Multiple missiles began to be fired and started flying towards the approaching Dragons, the Dragons that are as small as cars have their bodies vaporized from explosions while those who have medium sizes like trucks or buses suffer heavy injuries and their important appendages like their wings and eyes are injured, which ends with them falling to the ground towards their deaths.

Meanwhile, the ponies on Airship EAS Torantrot could only stare in amazement and astonishment as they watched three arrowhead-like objects release strange arrows of light toward the Dragons and blasted them to pieces.

Meanwhile, on the deck of the amphibious assault ship, dozens of marines from the 057th Airborne division start preparing their weapons while they start getting ready to be deployed on a mission to slay the dragon.

As they started marching towards the hangar they were greeted with six Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawks, and two Bell AH-1Z Vipers getting ready to take off, Sergeant Quaritch then started giving his good old speech to his troops.

"You are not in Kansas anymore, you are in Equestria! Full of multi-color mythical beast!" Sergeant Quaritch said as he walked towards the hangar.

The marines began to murmur and whisper to each other, they did know that on this mission they were deployed to kill the mythical lizard beast, but many of them doubted whether this Dragon was actually real or not.

"For those of you who are curious, no, this is not a drill, we are indeed going to be mobilized to slay dragons today, I wish the best from all the personnel in this battalion, do you all understand?"

Sergeant Quaritch then checked his watch and Battle Management System in his iPads to find out the status of the battle between the F35C jet and the Dragons, he knew that this was the time when the mission should start.

"Alright, we have our orders!, inserting at LZ Epsilon, Down and Dirty just like we taught you! Everybody knows what going on!! Everybody knows where they're going!!" Sergeant Quaritch asked loudly

The marines began to walk hurriedly towards their respective registered Seahawk helicopters. They began to hold on to their seats while the helicopter's engines started to start and began to prepare for takeoff.

As the eight helicopters had started taking off from the deck of the USS Boxer, the marines had a full view of the city of Manehattan in their sights while Equestrian's civilians below could only stare in confusion and amazement at what they were seeing.

Mitchell nodded and started activating giant speakers that had previously been installed in their Seahawk Helicopter hulls by the technicians. Mitchell took his tablet and started scrolling down the Music section and decided to choose the 70's classic.

𝄞 Some folks are born made to wave the flag 𝄞

𝄞 Hoo, they're red, white and blue 𝄞

𝄞 And when the band plays "Hail to the Chief"
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, LordIt 𝄞

𝄞 Ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no senator's son, son 𝄞

𝄞 It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no 𝄞

𝄞 Some folks are born silver spoon in hand
Lord, don't they help themselves, Lord? 𝄞

𝄞 But when the taxman comes to the door
Lord, the house lookin' like a rummage sale, yeah 𝄞

𝄞 It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no millionaire's son, no, no 𝄞

𝄞 It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no 𝄞

𝄞 Some folks inherit star-spangled eyes
Hoo, they send you down to war, Lord 𝄞

𝄞 And when you ask 'em, "How much should we give?"
Hoo, they only answer, "More, more, more, more" 𝄞

𝄞 It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no military son, son, Lord 𝄞

𝄞 It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, one 𝄞

𝄞 It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no, no, no 𝄞

𝄞 It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate son, no, no, no 𝄞
𝄞 It ain't me, it ain't me... 𝄞

Summoning Equestria: Arrival

by NicieLunar

Interlude - Battle of Manehattan (Part 1)