• Published 12th Aug 2013
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Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship(Season 1) - Barrobroadcaster



The story of a man named Dan and all his friends in Equestria.

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Resort: Tip of the Trident- Tank Battle

Surprisingly, Dan did not rush his tank out to take the lead, but remained in close formation with Marshal Ally.

If you're wondering who High Marshal Aegis Ally is, don't worry- he's a minor character. Originally, he was one of the royal guards from Episode 5 who escorted Dan, Twilight and Chrys to the guard jail after Chrys inadvertently knocked out Shining Armor. After the entire ordeal was revealed to be a mix up, and the subsequent battle on the castle grounds, Aegis was among the royal guards who recommended Dan be folded into the existing chain of command. Because of his handling of the situation, Aegis was promoted to captain himself and placed in charge of the Canterlot city watch.

Some time after that, Princess Celestia and Luna would depart to assist Saddle Arabia in what would become a failed attempt to defend their kingdom. They took the majority of the royal guard with them, leaving Aegis and a hoof-full of other guards behind to protect Canterlot. After the catastrophic destruction of Oasis City and the defeat of Saddle Arabia, Princess Celestia, Luna and the guard ponies they had taken with them all went missing, along with the population of Saddle Arabia. Vanished without a trace.

Aegis Ally would soon find himself as the highest-ranking guard, but still outranked by royalty including Prince(ss) Blueblood. While Dan and company did their best to restore order and combat the various forces Vice Grip had unleashed, Aegis was forced to accept the title of High Marshal, protector of Canterlot.

In a war of shadows and deceit, with terror and betrayal running rampant, High Marshal Aegis Ally has been one of the very, very few ponies Dan and the others have been able to trust, despite barely even knowing him. He's just a pony who cares about his country and respects those willing to protect it.

And now, they have tanks. More tanks joined the formation from behind and soon, Dan found himself at the head of an armored column. All were the same model of MALA that they were driving, but their colors were vastly different. The one Dan drove was a clear and vibrant blue, Al's was a dark navy blue. A pink tank and a green tank pulled in behind them, far enough apart that they could fire without hitting each other. As the column rolled down Mane Street, Twilight and Phoenix saw out of the hatches that other tanks were pushing down the other streets, all heading south.

"I am enjoying this SO MUCH right now!" Dan delightedly exclaimed. "I'm so happy right now, I'm not even going to ask how long we've had tanks and why we've just now started using them."

"For the sake of plot convenience, that's probably a good idea."

"The tanks? We've had them for years," Aegis' voice said over the radio. "But they're not the easiest things to deploy.
The Flutterbirds are the only things that can carry them and when the Enclave went rogue, they took their choppers with them."

"I GUESS that makes sense," Dan said. "But from now on, any time we get some kind of new weapon or awesome explosion-making thing, I demand to be notified. And I demand to get one of said weapons for my own personal use."

"Honestly, if it's something new and potentially could destroy the entire kingdom, I have no doubt you'll be among the first to know about it," Twilight said. "When they're ready for use, at least."

"Why am I imagining him destroying a city in a Christmas-themed tank?"

"At least you're only imagining it, Phoenix," Twilight said. "Also, remind me to ask if sea ponies celebrate Hear- umm, Christmas. Hearth's Warming and Christmas. Two different holidays."

"Sea ponies straight ahead! Open fire!" *BLAM-BLAM BLAM-BLAM*

Dan fired, then looked through the gunner's scope. A group of sea ponies in the middle of the street were already scrambling to find cover. The tanks fired four shots- one from each in the formation, but only one came close. The explosion blasted a couple armored sea horses, sending them into the air but the rest ran to the sides in-between buildings, even to the adjacent streets. *BLAM-BLAM BLAM* Where they were caught by the other tanks.

"Clear! Keep pushing south! Dan, you want to take point?"

"Point? Point of what?"

"Point, lead position. Do you wanna go first?"

"Oh, sure! Don't gotta tell me twice, Al!"

Phoenix took the driver's position. "You know, it's so pleasant that Dan is being nice, I'm not even going to ask why he's just now acting nicer when he's in control of the tank."

Dan smiled back at his friend. "If I wasn't in control of the tank right now, I'd probably kick you in the face."

"Only probably?"

"Only probably."

"Heh. We are making progress, then," Phoenix remarked.

"Contact! Contact!" one of the other tanks yelled. "Sea ponies! Corner of Bourbon Street and-BLRRZZSSHT We're hit! WE'RE HIT! BACK UP NOW, WE NEED-"

"We're on our way! Al, with me!" Phoenix pulled a hard right, the wheels carving into the dirt. The tank aimed for a space between a Starbucks and a Squeebok horseshoe outlet.

"Dan, I think it might be two narrow-"

"Too bad. We're going in."

Phoenix swallowed. The tank's wheels crashed through the edges of both buildings, breaking through wood and brick alike. The walls themselves held up, even as Aegis' tank followed close behind. The narrow shortcut had damaged both buildings but they remained intact as the tanks plowed through to Baker's Street.

Baker's Street was known for exactly that- bakers. Running parallel to Mane Street, Baker's ran all the way through town and featured all of Ponyville's bakeries and confectioneries from end to end. While Mane Street stopped in the middle of Ponyville at Town Hall, Baker's Street bent around the Hall and continued to the north-east side. All along the narrow stretch were shops specializing in various baked goods: on the south side were pancakes, crepes, donut shops and entire stores dedicated to single types of pastries. Towards the middle were cultural specialties like French and Italian bread, English toffees and crumpets, Scottish scones and European-style treats, eastern and middle eastern breads like pita advertised along with traditional accessories, far-eastern and polynesian fried doughs, and finally north, central and south American-influenced wraps, tortillas and several stores devoted entirely to bagels, donuts and churros.

At the north-end of Baker's Street, the road intersected with Sweet Street, with the hub of Sugar Cube Corner occupying right where the two streets came together.

And all of those shops, including Sugar Cube Corner, had been destroyed.

"Oh mai gawd."

"Bastards... THOSE BASTARDS!!" Dan raged, shaking the controls of the tank in his hands. "They're gonna pay for this! NICKY! FLOOR IT!"

The tank powered onto Baker's Street, the smell of bread so strong, warm and wonderful that it even penetrated the tank's armor. It was a well-known fact(for tank crews, at least) that a tank's only weakness was home-cooked food.

Dan peered through the scope. "I don't see the other... wait! There they are!" The other two tanks that had been rolling down Baker's Street were both knocked over. One was on its side inside of Baguette Fagots, a bakery that specialized in bundles of baguettes, loaves and bread sticks. Dozens of of bread sticks, broken glass and debris surrounded the tank. The other tank was burning on the corner of Baker's and Bourbon Street. And attacking its underside was-

"THE DRILL GUY!!" Dan yelled. He fired the tank's main cannon.

"Grrurr?" *BLAAM!* "GRRAAAA!" Expertly, Dan fired the cannon so that the shell would explode just near enough to scorch the Big Daddy, but not too close to hurt the downed tank that it was assaulting.

"It's the diver again!" Phoenix said. "What do we do, Dan?" The Big Daddy picked itself up. A few other sea ponies were nearby, but incapacitated from Dan's blast. The armored black-suited twin-drill diver stepped on a few of the sea ponies as he lumbered towards the tank.

"The tank's shells don't seem to be affecting him!" Twilight shouted.

Dan narrowed his eyes at him. "We're going to take this very, very cautiously. We're going to use a sound strategy, one that is safe and efficient, one that doesn't put is in danger. This plan will-"

"You're not gonna do any of that, Dan," Phoenix said over his shoulder. "We already know."

"Yeah, Dan, this is like the third time-"

"Try ninth."

"It doesn't matter which time it is- that you've explained an elaborate plan and in the end, you just throw caution to the wind, charge in and blast him in the most violent way imaginable," Twilight said. "So why don't we do that?"

"It would save us a lot of time and energy, buddy."

"Wow," Dan remarked. "Well, I actually did have a well-thought-out extremely practical and safe plan this time. But if you guys would prefer just excessive violence, then-"

Both Phoenix and Twilight jumped up at him. "Nonononono, WAI-"

The tank charged and smashed into the Step Daddy. "GRARRERRARRR!" *BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!* Dan fired the cannon at pointblank range into the armored diver, while still driving forward. The shells exploded on the diver's helmet, the tips of his drills and the ground and everything around them. And Dan just kept on driving.

*BOOM-BLAM-BOOM-BLAM-BOOMBOOM* The tank drove through other buildings, through the ruins of the Baker's Street shops and onto Bourbon Street, then continued on to Foxtrot Street. Foxtrot Street was home to residences, toy stores, more miscellaneous shops and other places that served the mercantile workers in town. Ponyville's older buildings were in the south and west side while newer locations and businesses popped up in the north side. They were plowing through the destroyed remains of the towns' many artisans and craftspones.

"GraaaRRAAAAARR!!" the Big Step Daddy groaned and flailed, but the momentum of the tank combined with the frequent blasts prevented him from doing more than scraping his drills on the tanks' side. The tank smashed through Pants Planet and then the store next door, Planet Pants, two different competing pants outlets, the owners of which held a feud since the day their stores simultaneously opened. The owners of both Planet Pants and Pants Planet had only just recently ended their feud when their stores were both attacked by the sea ponies. Now, only rubble and torn pants fabric remained of either of the two proud lower-attire establishments.

"DAN! STOP, WE JUST DROVE THROUGH PLANET PANTS!"

"Actually, that was Pants Planet-"

"STOPPP!!"

"Not yet. NOT YET!" Dan yelled. The tank slammed the Big Daddy into one of the walls on the outskirts of town, mashing the armored suited fiend against the stone. Dan fired several times, blackening the wall and the front of the tank in the process. Finally, Dan popped out of the turret with Twilight. "AAAAHHH! HAAAHAAAHAAAAHAAAA!!!" He spun Twilight's tail, causing her horn to release a flurry of magical bolts into the diver. Finally, their foe slumped downward and collapsed in a heap of dripping black-purple fluid.

"Ahh... that feels better," Dan said. He climbed back into the tank with Twilight and closed the hatch.

"I'm happy you excised whatever that was, Dan," Twilight remarked. She sighed heavily. "We're going to have a lot of the town to rebuild after this."

Phoenix patted her on the shoulder. "I'll help. We all will. You know that," he told her. She didn't say anything back, but it was obvious what she was thinking. Outside the rear hatch, Twilight's eyeblinking gaze fixated on a single building at the end of the street: Sugar Cube Corner. The two-story bakery and the home of Pinkie Pie and the Cakes was still mostly intact, or, at least half. The entrance of the building was caved-in, the brown gingerbread-like roofing drooped and the cupcake decoration at the top was nothing but bits on the ground.

Ponyville was rapidly becoming a pile of rubble. There were barely any of the thatched-roof houses that were the residences in the core of the town, the beautiful and simple structures that gave Ponyville such a homely touch. Most of the tents that gave Ponyville an eternally-festive feel were completely gone; only a few remained and none were standing. But one thing Twilight noticed that was missing was the heart of Ponyville, the very thing that made Ponyivlle Ponyville.

"We'll rebuild. We'll build it back better than ever," Phoenix assured her.

"I know," Twilight said, sure of it herself. "But where is everypony? There should be..."

"Dan! We need you back in formation, now!"

"I'm on it, Al!" The tank spun around and drove back through the now even-more wrecked streets back to Mane Street.

They heard the other tanks firing long before they got there. A pair of Flutterbirds flew overhead; one dropped another tank, another launched missiles at something Dan couldn't see. An explosion lit the street from end to end. The tank pulled onto Mane Street to face the opposition.

"What is it now?"

"Form a firing line! These monsters have brought in their armor!"

"One on the building! Two o'clock high, on the bank!" The turret on Aegis' tank rotated and fired. The blast hit a chrome-plated creature that had been on top of the Equestrian National Bank. One of a few banks in Ponyville, the ENB often cooperated with the local Happy Ponyville Savings and Loan bank next to the post office. A policy of the banks of Equestria was that snuggles were always free, unfortunately, snuggle futures were recently beginning to show diminishing returns as of late, but that was most likely because ponies weren't snuggling quite as much in the middle of a bucking war. There was also the predicted drop off of Bitsquee, an Equestrian cryptocurrency that shook the market. Even with an economy based on adorableness and hugs, things tended to fluctuate based on speculation so it wasn't unexpected.

"CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABS!!" Dan yelled. In front of them, there were CRAAAAAA okay I'll stop now. There were crabs- armored, augmented, weaponized crabs with armored pincers snapping at the tanks. One of them fired an energy blast from its claw that flew upward to track a low-flying Flutterbird, but luckily, the pilot was able to dodge. Equestria had no amateur fliers, not any more.

"They've been abducting ponies from town using these things! Destroy every last one of them!"

"AAHH- As if I need another reason to hate these guys!" Dan cranked the tank's gears. "Nicky, forward!"

This was an Equestrian tank battle. In all the remaining streets, tanks lined up and so did crabs. They charged at each other, cannons and claws firing. Dan's tank fired, blasting one of the lead crab's claws off. One of the Equestrian tanks was hit by three green homing bubbles launched from the crabs- it exploded and flipped over backwards.

"KEEP FORMATION! WEAVE!! WEAVE!!" Aegis Ally, a royal guard through and through, was disciplined even in the heat of battle, as were the other royal guard tankers. Rather than charging in a straight line, they broke into a staggered line to maximize coverage and allow for easier evasion. A couple tanks were still unlucky- one lost a wheel, another its turret. But most of them, including Dan and Aegis, kept up the assault until they reached the end of Mane Street.

The crabs were not as disciplined. The crustaceans charged as many as they could at a time and fell in droves losing limbs, claws and carapaces. They exploded in showers of parts and electronics; they were all robot crabs. Oddly enough, some were almost artistically decorated, as if care had been taken into the crafting of their armor. One of the crabs, a red one, launched a flurry of missiles.

"I got it!" Twilight popped out of the hatch. Before the missiles could hit them, she latched onto them with her magic. "Oh crap! What do I do now?!"

"THROW THEM AT THE CRABS!"

"Uhh! Uhh! Here!" She tossed the missiles back at the crab that fired them. It had the opportunity to regret its decision before exploding.

"Nice one, Twilight!"

"Good work, your highness! Keep pushing them back!"

Twilight blushed as she returned to the tank. "Oh, it was nothing. I just used a regular-old levitation spell, I'm surprised the sea ponies weren't expecting it. But if they write a story about the Battle of Ponyville, you think they'll call me War Princess Twilight Sparkle? Because I could-"

Dan popped out of the tank. "Adorkable moment over, back to battle."

"Right, right, right." She closed the hatch to the tank.

The tank vs. crab battle continued. At the end of Mane Street, the tanks divided: Aegis and Dan took to the west, a couple others to the east. The crabs did have a slight advantage in that they could clearly crawl on buildings but they weren't apparently smart enough to use it adequately. The tankers kept a close eye and were able to clear them off of structures but damaged some of the structures in the process.

"Two more on the right side!"

"They're mine." *BLAM-BLAM* Aegis blasted a pair of crabs to pieces. The chittering robots tried to claw at them with their damaged limbs, but Dan and company simply drove over them.

It started raining.

"Hey, it's raining."

"That could be a good sign... or a bad one," Twilight said.

Phoenix nodded. "All it means is there's something going on in Cloudsdale." Back in the days of the Pegasus Army, back when they were just a tribe, a rainbow after a great victory or rain to soothe a stinging defeat was common. Since becoming weather managers, abrupt, unscheduled weather was cause for concern.

Dan looked up through the scope. "It's overcast. Can't see anything up there." The crab onslaught had stopped for now, at least. They continued rolling. "Hey Al, what's going on with Cloudsdale?"

"Unknown, captain. Can't seem to raise them on the radio."

"That's a bad sign."

"Not much we can do. We're approaching Ion Station Five." On the south-west corner of town, the two tanks rolled up to one of the ion cannons. Built to look like a statue, the cannon was the exact same model as the one attached to the Golden Oaks Library, except it was designed to be deployed from underground when necessary. Ornate sculptures of ponies had been carved into the base of the cannon, making it a work of art as well as defense.

The cannon fired several blue bolts into the air, which was at least an indication the power was still working.

"The guns are still online, so the dam's okay," Dan said. And then the ion cannon stopped. *Drzzzzzzzzzoooooooooooo* "Dammit."

"You had to say something. You HAD to say something!"

Dan grabbed the radio transceiver. "Mayor? Chrys? Anybody? Hello, you guys? It's Dan- the ion cannons just stopped firing! What's the problem?" Dan paused for a moment, then added, "Why am I asking you? If the power's out, you won't be able to hear me!" He hung up the transceiver and folded his arms. "We're gonna get everyone in town a walkie-talkie. That's next on the list."

Alarm klaxons began blaring on the side of the cannon. Red lights flashed, spinning through the rain.

"Oh boy."

"Danger: Orbital weaponry detected. Danger: Orbital weaponry detected."

"OH BOY!!"

"Orbital weaponry? What is that?"

"It means we need to get underground! Under something, fast!" Dan popped the hatch. "Get out! Out, everybody out!!"

The alarm klaxons began screeching rapidly. "Warning: Orbital strike is now imminent! Orbital strike is now imminent!
All personnel, vacate the area immediately! All personnel-"

Dan looked up at the sky. Dark clouds still covered the sky, but a bright orange spot began glowing right above them. And another... and another... and another...

"Ohhhh..."

"Boy."

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