Raining Metal

by thecakeisalie

The battle begins

"General, what was the meaning of this meeting? It was an emergency, you said." Luna spoke calmly, wondering if the dreaded event was finally occuring.

"Yes, Princess. Not ten minutes ago, our forward scouts saw a massive Gryphon naval fleet in bound. Estimated arrival time was placed at twenty minutes. However, a large number of Gryphons were seen preparing to launch into flight. Their ETA was twelve minutes. They will be upon the city any moment now. We have already ordered out combat ships out of the harbor. They are not a large enough force to defeat the Gryphon fleet, however, we believe we can harass them badly, and perhaps even destroy a few vital command ships."

"That's all well and good, General Ironhoof, but what of the city itself? What kind of forces do we have on the ground?" Luna asked, becoming slightly worried that her plan may not work.

"We have four ground battalions placed in or around the city. In addition, there are three Pegasi air divisions, though only two of them will be available, as the last is departing with the naval group. We also have an artillery battery in Neigh Jersey, and multiple field hospitals and armored calvary groups moving into the city."

"Good General. We do not want to lose the largest city in Equestria. You are dismissed." Luna turned in her chair, contemplating. After hearing the general leave the room, she contacted the Dream God. "Remember, not until the battle has been decided," Luna reminded for the last time. She didn't wait for a response.

"I don't see how," Midnight responded, squinting at the blocked out sun. "Clouds don't just block out the sun from nowhere." He'd barely finished speaking when a siren buzzed inside the compound. The gaurd went pale, then ushered the three inside.

"I don't care who you are, go find some weapons and armor. The worlds about to go to hay," the gaurd said, turning and running deeper into the base.

"Lets go find our unit, guys!" Icescape heade off in a random direction, but without anything to tell them he was wrong, Applejack and Midnight followed. They eventually realized Icescape had noticed something they hadn't- signs outside of buildings saying what platoon, squad, and unit occupied it. Icescape eventually found the 5th platoon building and ducked inside. Midnight and Applejack followd to find Icescape being confronted by an officer of some kind.

"... Do you think you are?" The officer demanded of Icescape.

"I'm Private 1st class Icescape Shine. My companions are Corporal 3rd class Applejack Apple, and Corporal 1st class Midnight Burn," Icescape finished introducing the three of them, then snapped into a salute. "We were instructed to join 5th platoon, 2nd squad, sir."

"I'm just gonna take your word for it." Reaching behind him, he grabbed three rifles, handing one to each of them. He then gave each some body armor, extra ammo, a small med kit, and a pistol. "There. Standard battle armament. Now, you're gonna go two doors down, it'll be on you right. Talk to Captain Thorn, he's your commanding officer. See you on the other side." With that, he gave the three a salute and sent them on thier way.

They had barely entered the door before a black earth pony, already fully combat ready, approached them. "You all must be the newbies. I'm Captain Thorn, and you will do whatever I tell you. I'd normally give you the run through, but right now, we don't have time. Welcome to war, by the way." With that, the Captain walked out. Having nothing else to do, the three followed him.

They were making their way to the exit gate, all three silent, all three varying shades of white, when they were thrown off their feet. A powerful shock wave had shaken the ground. Looking up, Midnight saw hundreds, maybe thousands, off gryphons flying into the city. Some carried some kind of bomb, and they dropped their payloads on the unprepared city, causing a destruction not seen in Equestria in thousands of years.

This was just an attempt to cause shock and weaken resolve, however. Not much irreplacable damage had occured. But it gave the gryphon army time to get into the city and land, quickly over running unfortified areas. "To me!" Captain Thorn shouted, waving out the gate, then leaping out, taking a chance to fire off a few shots.

Midnight, no longer quite aware of what was happening around him, followed the captain out the door. He felt slightly disorientated, and his left ear was sticky, but it didn't really register. He was mostly just looking at the gryphons landing all around him, the earth ponies and unicorns flowing out of bases and fortifications to attack the invaders, the pegasi rising into the air, chainguns mounted on their backs, firing into the never ending waves of gryphons.

Then he found himself face to face with his first enemy, and resorted back to basic training. "Never hesitate!" he remembered the drill seargent shouting everyday. So he didn't. Midnight shot the gryphon point blank, and never even realized what had just happened. As memories of old battles came back, he felt confident that he could handle whatever was thrown at him.

But one pony, no matter how mighty, could turn the tide on the docks. The gryphons were easily pushing the Marines and Army back, and they had to retreat, or they'd be surrounded. They fought tooth and nail, horn and hoof the entire way, leaving a great number of dead gryphons in thier wake, and a smaller but significant number of their own. The pegasi were trying to deal with the incoming hordes, but didn't have the ammo or the personnel do much more than make a dent. And so they slowly retreated, too.

After breaking free of the docks, however, things became a million times more hectic. There were now hundreds of ways to go, and groups of ponies flowed out of the area, taking down gryphons the whole way. Many got lost, ending up with the wrong group, or getting seperated from thier squads.

This happened to Applejack and Icescape. While they managed to stick together, they quickly lost Captain Thorn and Midnight in the chaos. Icescape protected the two with his magic, allowing them to break free with another small group, consisting of a unicorn, four earth ponies, one of whom carried a machine gun, and a pegasus that had been shot down. The new, unofficial squad broke for the financial district. They would be able to construct a reasonable defense there, as well as regrouping with whatever other forces made it there alive.

Luna and Celestia looked at the whirling smoke, the scattered bodies, the small sparks of guns being fired, and retreating ponies. "This is not good, Sister," Luna tried to state it in a matter of fact tone. She wasn't at all close to succeding. "It was a good idea to move the last remaining civilians out of the cities, it seems."

"I agree, sister. But let our soldiers fall back and regroup. They will be more prepared, and thus, more competent in battle. It's unfortunate we got no early warning, we may have been able to severly damage any landing forces earlier." Celestia had a grim look on her face. The battle was not going well at all. It very much appeared that Manehattan may be lost within the week, and the rest of Neigh York shortly afterwards.

"No use speculating in what could have been," Luna said. "When the armored divisions make it to the front, I think we will have a much greater chance."

"Yes, sister," Celestia replied. Luna had always been the better strategist, and even if she didn't quite grasp all of the new weaponry and machines, she knew more than enough to be a competent general. "Let's hope that's so."

Midnight had been pushed back, out of the dock, by the extreme number of gryphons, and by the rest of the retreating ponies. Quick sighting with his rifle, he took out a gryphon machine-gunner, saving a large number of retreating ponies. He soon found himself nearly alone as the ponies broke out of the docks, into the main streets. Not knowing what else to do, he bolted south, towards the abondend apartment complexes. The smoke was making it hard to breath, and the smell of blood didn't help very much. Coughing and stumbling, his eyes irritated, Midnight made his way into the resdiential area. He was glad to discover that the gryphons had mostly avoided this area while bombing. The lack of smoke was a good thing, and so was the lack of rubble, as far as he was concerned.

He was just about to stop and figure out what was wrong with his ear when a rainbow fell out of the sky in front of him. Rainbow Dash was streaked with smoke and looked exhausted, but still managed to portray self confidence. "Come on," she said, lifting a little into the air, "You're all alone out here. Most everypony else headed either to Central Park, or the financial district. We need to get you to them before the gryphons make it impossible." Rainbow had been bobbing and weaving in an agitated manner the entire speech, and now floated up high, taking a quick glance around before decending back to earth. "Here," she said, giving Midnight a small microphone, "put that in your ear, so I can tell you which way to go from up there."

"Why are you doing this?" Midnight was thankful, but confused. He had been sure Rainbow hated him.

Giving an annoyed sigh, she zoomed up, gave the sky a quick check, then came down again. "Because," she explained, her voice getting harsh with worry or annoyance, Midnight couldn't tell which, "You're a soldier, and so am I, and we need to stick together. Also," she struggled with what to say for a few seconds, before deciding that it didn't really matter, "I may not like you, but AJ obviously does. So that makes you a friend by extension. And I don't leave my friends hanging. Now, let's go!" She zoomed up into the sky, starting to fly down the road. At least she hadn't either broken down or hit him.

Midnight accepted the answer and ran down the street, trying to keep up with the rainbow blur ahead and above. "All right," crackled throught the headphone he'd hastily put into his right ear, "You're gonna turn right at this next intersection." Midnight did as told, knowing the eye in the sky had a major advantage on choosing a good route to the main body of the army. He just hoped no gryphons had spotted the two of them. He was sure he could handle himself, but if Rainbow got ambushed, she'd be alone.

"All right, take a left at this upcoming intersection," Rainbow barked into the microphone. Heh, she gave a small internal chuckle, it felt good to boss the unicorn around. Doing a quick 360 check, she spotted no incoming gryphons. Good, their still regrouping, she thought. This might give us enough time to get back to Central Park before anything can attack us. She forgot to check above herself, and didn't notice the shadow on her back.

The small make shift squad made it to the financial district, just to discover it had been decimated in the bombing. "Well," the machine gunner earth pony, who's name was Gear, said, "I bet we can use this rubble to make fortifications. With you two unicorns, I think we could build a lotta small walls to fire behind, maybe even a pillbox." This was the way Gears mind worked- he saw what things could become, not what they were. His cutie mark was a blueprint depicting a gear.

"We'll need someway to place some kinda fortifications on the roofs, then get up there, though." Bluebird, the downed Pegasus, explained, "Cause their gonna fly up there the second they see the pillbox."

"True," Gear responded, "So maybe one of the unicorns can work with me, the other with you?" He looked to the rubble, starting to drag out good pieces even as he spoke.

"Works for me," Bluebird stated, taking the other uniorn aside, and explaining what he wanted. They got to work building a way up immeadiately.

"You," Gear said, pointing at Icescape, "come help me. I need to move these," pointing at four massive blocks, " and a lot of those," indicating many smaller peices of rubble, "and I need you to build the pillbox. But remember to leave a way in 'n' out, ok?"

Icescape gave a nod, getting to work. Moving and sealing heavy objects together was a fairly hard task, and normally required multiple unicorns, but adrenaline made Icescape more powerful. He had the base of the pillbox constructed quickly, but building the actual walls would take some time. He just had to hope no gryphons made it to the financial district before he was done.

Not long into his construction project, a number of ponies walked into the area. There were a couple Army engineers among the group, and they quickly got to helping build both the pill box and the roof fortifications. In about an hour, not only had a pillbox been constructed on the ground, but multiple firing walls had too. The roofs had a large number of firing walls, along with sniper points that had been constructed in the high windows of the buildings still left standing.

"Well, Ah reckon that'll be better at holdin' them gryphons then the open docks were." Applejack was examining the fortifications the engineers had managed to throw together in record time. " Ah think-"

"All right, everyone!" An officer that neither Icescape, nor Applejack recognized, stood on a firing point, getting everyponies attention. "Here's what were gonna do! We need two machine gunners in the pillbox, and the rest of them I want on the roofs! Rifleponies, two or three to a firing wall. Any extra, go to any open sniper spots! Do we have any explosives specialists in the crowd?" Three hoofs went into the air in response. "Alright," The officer barked out, "I want you three to place traps where pertinent. Leave an open path, so any other ponies who show up can be let in, understand? Then, I want you to take a rifle, and go find someplace to fire! Those are your orders!" The officer walked back into the crowd, and dissapeared.

"Well, come on then, AJ. We'll go to a firing wall near the pillbox, then we're just gonna have to wait." Icescape walked back towards the pillbox, Applejack following closely. All we have to do is wait, she thought to herself.

Captain Thorn reached an untouched Central Park a little late. He found all but three of his Platoon there. All but the rookies, he thought, scanning the faces. Hopefully they're ok, I don't need to be losing any ponies. "All right ponies!" He barked to what was left of the platoon. "We're going to take positions in the trees! Get ready, it shouldn't be long now."

The messanger ran up to Twilight. "Lieutenant Sparkle, we have just recieved confirmation that the docks have been completely abandond by our forces." He snapped a salute and ran to the next gun commander.

I hope my friends are ok, Twilight worried inside. But her voice was completely steady when she gave her orders. "Full battery target the docks!" Artillery guns rotated, adjusting up or down at the same time. Eventually they all stopped. "Load!" Multiple unicorns levitated shells into the guns' breaches. "Fire!" The guns didn't all go off at once, but they nearly did. The sound was like the sky breaking into shards and falling to earth, the smoke darkened the sky, the ground shook like it had during the last stampeed in Ponyville. A few seconds later, bright lights flashed into and out of existence on the docks as hundreds of heavy artillery rounds crashed into them, raining hell on anything still there. "Repeat!"

Gilda had seen Rainbow during the first mass landing on the docks. She had been unable to get to her, however, during the chaos of the initial invasion. But she had Rainbow now. She should have, could have just shot her, but where was the satisfaction in that?

With a sudden screech, Gilda dropped down, hitting Rainbow square in the back. Rainbow flipped around, no doubt trying to kick her attacker off, but froze, a look of horror on her face when she realized it was Gilda. Gilda took advantage of the moment, ripping a three- taloned claw across Rainbow's chest. She smiled angrily at the sudden blood, but before she could ensure her once friends death, she felt a sharp pain in her head, and fell to earth, her heart no longer beating, missing the top of her head.

Midnight caught Rainbow as she fell. "Oh no you don't," he said through gritted teeth, pulling his burden inside the nearest building. "You don't get to go and die now!" He practically spit the words in his anger. But looking at three gashes, he wasn't sure he could anything, even if he combined his magic with the emergency packs he'd swiped. The gashes were very deep, and bleeding an awful lot. But he had to try, right?

Comments

[Professor Donger]

isn't it manehatten not neigh york? anyway good chapter! rainbow got owend and then gilda got owned XD

[thecakeisalie]

11268 I figured, in our world, Manhattan is a bueru of New York, so why wouldn't it be in Equestria, too?

[Midnight Moon]

I couldn't make it to Manehattan. Way, way, way, way, WAY too many errors in the grammar. I'm going to guess that English is not your main language.

If you need any help, I'm happy to help with proofreading. I've got plenty of time on my hands, and I already have experience helping another author. Just send me a message if you want me to help.

[LewisClarke]

I'm liking this so far! Grammar mistakes generally don't bother me, but watch for them anyway, and good luck!

[yusha]

ohh yeah she si deaaaad