Raining Metal

by thecakeisalie

New territory (Pt. 5)

Midnight used magic to push the bushes in front of him out of the way. The foliage was convenient, if you were trying to hide. Which everypony was. Captain Thorn slide up next to Midnight, getting off a shot into the dark, before sliding away again. Midnight, knowing what was about to come his way, scrambled out of the hedge, back into flooded rice fields. He wasn’t a second too soon, as his previous cover turned into nothing more than stripped branches. He got up and trotted to the only solid cover available- an old, crumbling stone wall. Wet and shivering, he sat down, taking a quick look over his protection. Just another day in the life, he thought to himself with only a hint of sarcasm.

Twilight was boarding a ship. Again. This was supposed to be the last time, though. As she hauled her pack on board, the metal boarding plank creaked slightly. Great, she said to herself, stupid thing is weak. She and her troops were trusting this thing to get them as close as possible to safety before they had to disembark.

After depositing her gear near the launching stage on the ships fore, Twilight headed for the bridge. All the officers had received orders directly from General Ironhoof. They were to meet in the bridge of the ship they were being transported on as soon as their equipment had been stowed. Supposedly some massive secret was waiting for them. Personally, Twilight thought that it was just an official confirmation of what everypony already knew. Namely, they were launching an amphibious landing.
Walking through the door, Twilight discovered she was the last officer to have arrived. That wasn’t much of a surprise, since her squad had been second to last to load.
“Lieutenant Sparkle?” A mare with a naval commander’s vest on directed her question at the newly arrived Twilight.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Twilight responded, quickly finding a place to sit.
“Everypony is here then,” The commander stated. “I am Commander White Wash, captain and pilot of the H.M.S. Fillydelphia. As you have all most likely deduced on your own,” here the mare paused to activate a projector and shine it on a blank wall, “Equestria and its allies are launching an invasion of Gryphony lands.” The commander stepped down on a small button set into the floor, changing the projectors image into a map of the landing area. “These are where we will try to land the majority of you. Now,” another click changed the view to a photo clearly taken by a flying Pegasus. It was covered in red and gray marks in no recognizable order. “These red marks are fortifications built by the gryphons over the last several months, and these gray marks are approximately where all the large ships of our fleet will be anchored. The ships will not be able to escort you into the landing stage, so you’ll have to do your best to make it there alive. Now that I’ve covered what you all had figured out,” another click, this time bringing up a map of the lands just beyond the beach, which had black exes at regular intervals, “I’ll tell what you don’t know. These black marks are where elite special units from both the Marines and the Army have been dropped, along with small groups of pegasi. Their objective is simple- they will attempt to make it to the largest guns and fortifications before we launch the landing ships tomorrow. They are going to attempt to disable as many gryphons as they can along the way. That is all you need to know.” With that, the commander turned off the projector and called back in the ships crew.
Twilight was glad to learn that the fortifications were going to be weakened before they attempted their nearly suicidal attack, even though she was still worried about her three friends who she now knew must be inside Gryphony already. She figured that they could all handle themselves though. After all, they were the best in the entire armed services.

Midnight was pinned down. He couldn’t risk even taking a quick glance over the wall without losing his head. Even though that wouldn’t kill him, it would certainly hurt horribly. As well as forcing him to flee to an unknown area once his head grew back. All in all, it was much better to remain in cover.

This had its own problems. For one, he was effectively taken out of the battle; taking up the cover space another pony could use didn’t exactly make him happy either. He wasn’t the only pony hunkered down behind any shred of cover possible. Everypony was cowering just the way he was. They only luck they had at all right now was that the gryphons were too afraid to take to the air. Though they seemed to have recently gotten a hold of some kind of mortar. They were testing their aim at the moment, but every shot got closer to Midnight.

With the pegasi unable to fly, and everypony basically unable to shoot at the gryphons without committing suicide, they didn’t have much time left. Icescape and the other unicorn with their group had exhausted their magic long ago, and Midnight wasn’t willing enough to put his platoon at risk to launch a blast massive enough to take out the gryphons. Though, at this rate, none of them would ever make it to the objective. Except maybe Thorn.

The Captain had disappeared almost an hour ago. Most of the platoon thought he had died, but Midnight knew better. He would have felt if any lives had been snuffed out anywhere near recently. It was just one of the many skills of Death.

An incredibly close explosion rocked Midnight out of his trance. The gryphons had finally finished adjusting their mortar it seemed. Now they were just attempting to kill all the ponies, which really left Midnight no choice. He took a small step back from the wall he was behind, charging his horn, preparing to unleash a magical explosion slightly stronger than the guns on board an Equestrian destroyer could. Just as the black light around his horn started to slowly expand, he felt a little nag in his mind, and then another. He released his magic, attempting to figure out what was happening, when he first heard the pop of guns from in front of the wall. Lifting his head just slightly above the wall, Midnight felt another tug in his mind as he saw a gryphon collapse.

Realizing what was happening Midnight quickly lifted his rifle to a firing position and bit the yoke, causing a flash and a small pin of pain in the back of his mind. As more gryphons fell, the ones remaining started taking to the sky, leaving guns and ammo behind. Even more fell out of the sky as the last survivors fled into the blue cloudless day at a speed most pegasi could never hope to match. Bluebird growled next to Midnight, muttering threats towards the fleeing gryphons under his breath. After a quick check, Midnight was relieved to see that almost everypony was fine. The only casualty was a pegasus private. Midnight knew he had died quickly and painlessly; fairly comforted by the lack of agony, he started trotting towards the landing beach. The sun was already rising.

Comments

[thecakeisalie]

Sorry for such a long delay everypony. Real life has been hitting me with everything it can think from every direction. I finally got a little time to write, and got it up here as fast as possible. I promise the next wait won't be this long.

[darktoes]

Nice chapter, well done.

[yusha]

............yay

Enjoyable chapter, I must say. You've really gotten me drawn into this story, good job. Still holding out for Dashie, though!