Takistan was a dirty, disgusting place. Almost everything was covered in sand, it blew across the landscape and plastered itself on your sweating face. The heat was intense, only to be intensified by the warfare. Bullets slammed through brick, wood, and flesh. Grenade shrapnel riddled structures and bodies alike. This describes typical business in the Takistan region, but today it was more than just a simple skirmish.
The extremely corrupt government in place had gotten their hands on one of the Soviet Union's mobile ballistic missile launch platforms. The how was an unknown, but the where had been revealed to Blufor intelligence. Feruz Abad, a city smack-dab in the middle of Takistan. Government forces were protecting the launcher there, but were having trouble holding out. Their tanks were second-hand T-55s, due to the terrain infantry anti-tank units were able to neutralize many of them easily. However the terrain worked in the Opfor favor as well, and the anti-aircraft guns were positioned to exploit that, preventing helicopters from inserting troops and leaving only one method of approach open: The roads.
With the government tanks reduced to burning metal, this method was far less costly and dangerous than it would've been normally. The government forces engaged the advancing Blufor troops with KORD heavy machine guns for a time, but were met with little success as the armor on the advancing AAVP7A1s were so thick that the machine gun rounds did not completely penetrate. The guns were then suppressed by the forty-millimeter grenade launcher atop each vehicle. However as the Blufor troops got closer the danger intensified, previously suppressed targets attacked the AAVs with explosives as the vehicles moved past, some loosing the ability to continue.
Echo One was, unfortunately, in one of those vehicles. They were sharing the vehicle with another contractor group when they were hit in the side from the north, sending some out of their seats. The men could all hear the engine still running, but they were not moving.
"The track's out, the track's out!" One of the crewman turned in their seat and yelled.
The passengers looked at each other worriedly until Splash blurted "Nose goes!"
Echo quickly put a finger on their nose, the rest of the contractor's fates were sealed. They were stopped roughly one hundred meters west of Feruz Abad, to make it to the city in one piece they'd need to move quickly. The AAV's cargo door opened and the first few men sprinted out, one immediately taking a hit and falling down, immediately resigning to roll behind a rock and pray. Echo ran out last and grouped up on the south side of the vehicle, the men looked about, scanning for threats. The fire seemed to be coming exclusively from the north and west, Echo began to move and tried dodging cover to cover, often going one at a time until finally they reached their first building where they caught their breath.
"Are either of you hurt?" Raptor exhaled.
"Nah." Roar said, Splash gave a thumbs up.
"Alright let's go." Raptor went around the corner and immediately began firing with a scream of surprise.
After a few hostiles dropped dead he began to reload, Splash moving ahead of him to cover. For the next thirty minutes they pushed through the enemy forces, constantly stopping to reload or patch up. As they finally reached the center of town they realized it was oddly quiet, a quick check of the map revealed they were the last squad remaining. After turning one more corner they found their target at the palace with several apprehensive guards around it.
Then Raptor's phone rang.
"Do you uh... Need to take that?" Splash said, raising his eyebrows.
The man pulled his phone out of a vest pouch and looked at the screen with a puzzled look. "Celestia's calling."
He answered and raised the phone up to his ear. "Hello? ... Princess i'm sorry but we're really bu- ... What kind of trouble? ..."
Raptor paused, looking at his men, then looked around the corner at their objective. "Yeah. I have an idea. Give us just a few minutes, okay?"
Raptor hung up and stuffed the phone away, then readied his weapon. "Let's go."
...
Celestia followed Raptor's instructions, waiting patiently, but apprehensively. Despite all her conquests, Celestia's kingdom did not stand strong enough to fend off the Sonney Kingdom, especially on short notice. Hopefully her human friends had a solution, for otherwise she feared Equestria would burn, and the thought of her precious little ponies enslaved by the hideous creatures to work in horrible cramped mines made her shiver.
There was a ringing tone, Celestia brought the cell phone up to her ear. "Hello?"
"We're ready, bring us over."
Celestia hung up the phone and charged her horn. She reached out through the multiverse and grabbed Echo, along with what she assumed to be their vehicle. When they emerged into her realm she stared in confusion, it was not their Stryker she saw, but a larger vehicle painted a pale green. It had a face and eyes somewhat resembling a frog, with a large silo-like object on it's back.
"I'm confused." She simply said.
Raptor patted her on the withers. "That's fine. Let's take a road trip and give the Sonney's their ultimatum."
...
Celestia stood at the large wooden gates of the Sonney Kingdom, large walls made of upright logs stretched as far as her eyes could see. The land was flat, and with few forests nearby she questioned how they acquired the materials. Though she supposed the Sonney's had been around a long time, staying in this very land since their original ancestors. The only expansion they'd done was when they needed more living space, never once curious about the land outside their sight. They were a race in the dark, and their technology reflected such. Still, there was uncountable amounts of them, more than enough to overwhelm anything they wanted.
Which after all these years, suddenly they wanted to.
She knocked, and waited.
"Raptor?" She said. "A few quick questions, if you don't mind."
"Yeah?" Raptor said through the small speaker device in her right ear.
"What is this vest you have me wearing?"
"That's a khaki flak vest fitted with a few storage pouches, it was actually refitted for a pony by Roar, dunno why. It's meant to stop bullets, but should offer some protection if they try to attack you with a wooden spear or something. Keep that phone where we put it, we'll be able to see a lot of what you're seeing through the camera, and hear some of what you're hearing. It's almost as if we're there."
Celestia smiled a little, then frowned. "What exactly are you planning?"
"Well, we'll give them a chance to back down, I mean surely they'll see reason, you control the sun after all. If they don't, we'll fire this... Uh..."
Celestia heard Raptor speak to the background. "How many kilotons is that?"
A distant voice replied, it sounded like Splash. "I don't fucking read Russian, how would I know?"
Raptor sighed and spoke into the phone again. "We have a projectile that will cause a large explosion and poison the immediate environment. This is the same type of weapon that'll probably kill off humanity some day, so if it comes down to us detonating this make sure it's the last this world sees."
Celestia nodded to herself and looked up as the wooden gates creaked open. Two Sonney guards stepped out with neutral faces. Celestia didn't know this, but to Echo they looked like hedgehogs that simply walked on their hindlegs and had manual dexterity.
Fifty kilometers away, just barely outside of Equestrian borders, Raptor and Roar stood outside the Scud watching what was going on through the former's phone. Splash was inside the Scud, already setting up for the launch. A whir sounded as the vehicle's stabilizers lowered themselves to the ground, then the missile itself rose to an erect position. Raptor and Roar heard one of the vehicle doors slam shut and Splash soon arrived by the men, leaning over to watch the screen.
Roar looked at Splash for a second. "I'm amazed Celestia's willing to do this."
"She made it sound like do-or-die." Raptor said. "She's worried for her kingdom."
"You must yield!" Celestia said suddenly on the other side of the transmission. "I wish to leave you in peace, horrible things will happen if you do not stop preparing to attack Equestria."
The men saw a large hedgehog sitting atop a stone throne, gold riches piled around him. He simply shook his head at the princess and spoke one word.
"Death." A deep voice rumbled. Splash returned to the Scud and quietly pressed a large red button.
Celestia could be heard sucking in a large breath. The missile thrusters ignited, and it was gone a few moments later.
"So be it." The princess said darkly.
"We heard everything, Celestia." Raptor said. "Get far away, to those mountains you originally teleported to."
There was a short cut in the transmission as Celestia teleported to a mountain range several clicks out. She watched the huge settlement, now barely visible, and waited for the fate she'd bestowed on them all. She sat there quietly, with no idea how much time had passed until she heard Raptor speaking.
"S-sorry, what?" She asked.
Raptor sighed. "I was wanting to let you know the missile was coming down. That was like fifteen minutes ago or something, put on Roar's shades."
Celestia blinked, then looked down at the vest. She telekinetically pulled the aviators from a small pocket vest and put them over her eyes. A few moments later there was a flash of light as intense as her sun, then she heard the explosion, the mare's ears to flattened against her head as the sound came. Her ethereal mane was blown back by the shock wave, she was barely able to hold her ground.
The shock wave passed quickly, and Celestia looked up at the mushroom cloud rising in the distance.
The mare blinked tears out of her eyes. "What have I done?"