Strange Bedfellows

by BRBrony9

Street Fight

Corporal Breeze gripped his rifle and turned to face the enemy. They were surging onto the street, at least a couple of squads. There were shouts, audible to him now that his hearing was returning. He could hear ponies shouting orders, and the enemy shouting hatred, spewing bile.

He looked for cover, and found it all was taken by other guardsponies, save for a large lump of what had once been the outer wall of the library. His head was still swirling a little, concussion perhaps, from the blast. He still knew what to do, however, and he went prone behind the lump of debris, raising his rifle.

Up ahead were enemies, humans spreading out into the street and taking potshots at the ponies. Those guardsponies who had been trying to extricate survivors from the library had moved to cover, firing from the doorways with their repeating rifles. The enemy were firing their red beams, and from their briefings and his experience with the first invasion, Breeze knew that the few defensive shields being thrown up by the unicorns on the street would be futile against their attacks. Nevertheless, any protection was better than nothing, and offered psychological help at least.

Breeze took aim, sighting in on an enemy soldier, who had his beam weapon raised, squeezing off wild shots at the defenders. Breeze breathed out, remembering his training. He fired, and the man went down, falling to his knees, getting back to his feet and staggering like a drunk, falling flat on his face and lying still. None of his comrades paid him any mind, which was no surprise given what the ponies knew of their enemy. Two other men crossed the street, guns blazing on rapid fire, and one of the ponies in Breeze's vision died, slumping against the wall of the building he was crouching beside.

Breeze readied a second shot and picked a new target. This human was female, and she was wielding two pistols, both of which were spitting red beams at the ponies. She was trying to reach cover across the street, and Breeze was determined that she would not succeed. He breathed out and fired, and he missed.

He cocked the lever of his rifle and tried again, firing. He winged the woman, but she half stumbled, half dove into cover behind a building pillar. Breeze grimaced. Missing the target was never a good thing, but he quickly switched to another human. There were plenty of them, more coming out of the alleyway up the street, as well as the doorway of one of the buildings. Evidently they had forced a breakthrough of the defences lining the Boulevard of the Alicorns, and were pushing through into the rest of the city. Whether they wanted to capture or destroy the command centre or simply link up with friendly forces, Breeze had no idea. It really didn't matter either way. He just had to keep shooting.

Breeze pulled the trigger, and his target went down, a bullet passing right through his brain. There were more of them than there were guardsponies, however, and their weapons packed a punch which was just as deadly. Several ponies were lain out, sprawling dead in the street. The human beam weapons were fearsome indeed, and Breeze could clearly remember the panic he had felt when facing them for the first time. Not only did it appear to him that the humans had weaponised magic and somehow managed to project it from a rifle, but the sight of their shots punching straight through the shield of one of the unicorn guardsponies had seemed chilling. It shouldn't have been possible, but there it was.

Nor should it have been possible for the humans to create an opening in the city shield, but they had, somehow. Breeze did not know how, but the hole in the shield was clearly visible from the ground, a worrying wound in the defence of the city through which the enemy had been able to pour. Now they were among them, in the streets and alleys and buildings of Canterlot, for a second time.

His hearing had now fully returned, and the deafening clamour of battle threatened to make him wish for the ethereal emptiness of the previous few minutes when he had been dazed. Bullets and red beams flashed past his head as he ducked low behind the lump of rubble. It was the only cover he had, but there was a better position behind a large concrete flowerpot, now vacant since the pony who had been firing from there now lay dead in the gutter. Breeze weighed it up; stay in cover, or move to a safer position but have to cross open ground?

A red beam blew a chunk from the cobbles close to his head, and he made up his mind. He waited for a lull in the firing, when the enemy were reloading or occupied with other targets or changing position themselves. A volley of rifle fire came from the ponies around him, and Breeze got up, galloping across the short distance to the large flowerpot. He ducked down and scrambled into cover, pressing his back up against the much more substantial protection he had been seeking. The flowerpot offered more cover and better resistance to the enemy fire than the debris.

Breeze turned and peeked around the side of the pot. The enemy were still in the street, firing from doorways and over similar pieces of street furniture, engaging the few pony defenders. Several more ponies had arrived from somewhere, the other side of the building, perhaps, drawn in by the gunfire to assist their fellow guard. They were helping, but their numbers were still not equal to those of the enemy.

Two grenades came in, exploding in the road and throwing up sprays of stone fragments from the cobbles. Breeze felt the sting of pain as numerous small fragments cut and scratched his skin. More enemies were now coming from a building farther down the road, swelling their numbers still further and putting more pressure on the increasingly beleaguered ponies. Their position in the street was untenable, but they were loathe to abandon the command centre, even though it had been destroyed. There were still ponies in there, trapped. Surely some were still alive, and could not be left behind.

There may not be any choice open to the ponies, however. The enemy were pressing them hard, hounding them and attacking with vigour and hatred. They were not rushing forward blindly, not yet at least, but they were aggressive and firing as they moved, keeping the defenders pinned down as they tried to get closer. A surprising display of discipline from the Chaos infantry after their initial charge from the landing barge, which had been made necessary at least in part by the fact that they had been deposited straight into the midst of a killzone, with pony infantry on two sides and artillery on the others.

The narrow street, on the other hand, would act as a natural funnel, and a blind charge would have seen heavy losses on their part, not that such things had ever stopped them before. The more cautious approach was perhaps dictated by the terrain and not by any sudden caution on their behalf. Breeze didn't much care what the reason was; he was just glad not to find himself rushed by dozens of rabid Chaos infantry. A firefight with them was bad enough, and was inflicting more and more casualties on the pony defenders. If they didn't pull back soon, they might well be overrun. Breeze wondered why nopony was giving the order, and he looked around. Where were the officers?

He realised with a thrill of panic that there were no officers. No living ones, anyway. He was the highest ranking pony there on the street; a mere corporal, the lowest rung of the non-commissioned officer ladder, now in charge of the defence of what remained of the headquarters building. The decision was in his hooves. He could not communicate with headquarters for orders; the enemy bomber had very much seen to that, and thrown him into this mess in the first place. He had to make the call; stand and fight, or retreat?

He wasn't even sure the other ponies around him had noticed that he was now the ranking guardspony on the scene. He didn't know they would actually listen, whatever command he might give, but technically, his word was now law in the absence of any superior. He examined the situation. They were few in number, the command centre had been destroyed. There was no possibility of conducting rescue operations while under attack. Reinforcement was unlikely given the lack of communication, though there were a couple of Pegasi among the defenders who could be sent with calls for help if necessary. Sending them off, however, might weaken the line sufficiently that by the time they arrived, the position would have been overrun anyway.

Another pony died with a steaming hole instead of a face, and Breeze knew he had to act quickly and decisively. He found his courage and conviction; after all, he had been given that stripe on his arm, they had made him a corporal for a reason. It was time to live up to the trust the Guard had put in him.

'Fall back!' he shouted. 'Fall back! By section if you can. Fall back to the intersection!' He pointed up the street, in the direction of the palace. That was the way they had to go, back to more defensible positions, to link up with friendly forces and continue the fight from there. It was the only way.

Fortunately, ponies listened. They recognised his voice, and in the absence of orders from anypony of higher rank, they obeyed his command. By section, they turned, covering each other, each unit protecting the next with a barrage of rapid rifle fire as the others pulled back to new positions, then in turn repeating the process for their fellows. Gradually all the survivors fell back in strides down the street, putting distance between themselves and the enemy. The Chaos forces tried a charge to catch them off guard, but accurate defensive fire put a stop to it almost before it could truly begin, with half a dozen more humans lying dead in the road.

Down the road was the intersection Breeze had mentioned in his shouted orders. It had been guarded by a squad, and they were now adding their own firepower to that of Breeze's new command. For yes, he was now in charge of these ponies, at least until they ran into somepony of higher rank. That was his plan; link up with friendly forces farther back, where somepony with some actual experience could take over. He was fine with commanding a section, which his rank entitled him to, but now he was charge of some twenty or so ponies, almost a platoon, which was above his pay grade.

They made it back to the intersection mostly unscathed, only losing one more of their number during the retreat. The defenders there offered cover fire for the retreating guardsponies, and they linked up, getting into cover wherever they could. The enemy were moving up, swarming over the ruins of the headquarters building now. The intersection offered a bit more in the way of a defensible position, though m it was not ideal. It would do temporarily, but enemy forces could move up from the Boulevard of the Alicorns and outflank them. Units could come from all sides; that was the trouble with an intersection, after all. The stone and brick buildings offered good cover, however.

Breeze looked around. Any officers? He couldn't see any. No NCOs, either. Was he still in command? There was another corporal, at least, the same rank as him. He kept his head low and trotted over to her.

'What's the situation here?' he asked. 'Any officers around?'

'None that I know of!' the blue mare replied. 'What about HQ?'

'It's gone!' he shouted, over the din of battle. 'I don't know if any officers got out...'

'I guess you're in command, then!' she replied. Owing to seniority in terms of his length of service, Breeze was the senior corporal among them. Though he had not been in the Guard for long, he had, at least, been in the service for longer than she. That was not exactly what Breeze had wanted to hear. Now more than a platoon of ponies were relying on him. What was he to do?

The situation had not changed very much. They were still threatened by the advancing enemy, but now there was the potential for being outflanked, also. There were still no signs of friendly forces around, though he knew they had to be nearby. A strong force had been in position at the Boulevard of the Alicorns, just one street over. Should they head over there?

Breeze looked up the side street toward the boulevard. There was some swirling smoke blocking his eyesight, but the boulevard was still visible. No sign of the enemy; that was one thing. But no friendlies, either. Would it be worth the risk of changing positions? Or should they remain in place and hold the enemy back?

He wished he knew what to do. He had no training in that level of tactical operations. A corporal was meant to oversee a section of between four and five other ponies, or a single artillery piece and its crew. A corporal would do what his sergeant told him to do, and his sergeant would do what his lieutenant told him to do. That's how it was, and that was how he had been trained. He tried his best to keep a level head and think objectively.

A few moments later, his next action was decided for him. They came under attack from the flank, though not from the boulevard- from the other side, deeper in the city, to their left. Cries of alarm greeted the new attack, as red beams flashed around them. The enemy must have made another landing somewhere else in the district. Now they were charging in and blazing away with their weapons. Positions which were protected from enemy fire from the street ahead were not proof against fire from the side, and several ponies went down.

Breeze had to act again, and quickly. He shouted orders for the ponies to retreat to the boulevard. There were friendlies there; there had to be. Ponies turned and retreated, moving by bounds again, covering each other. Some unlucky ponies had to cross the street to run to cover, and several didn't make it. The rest ran for the boulevard, and Breeze swung round the corner into cover. Two ponies slid in beside him, pressing themselves flat against the wall and firing back around the corner at the advancing enemy.

The Boulevard of the Alicorns was wreathed in smoke. The large bulk of the trio of enemy landing barges could be seen to the south, while to the north, the flashes of artillery pieces marked friendly positions in and around the palace compound. That was where they had to go, but half of the platoon was in cover on the wrong side of the street. Crossing over would expose them to heavy enemy fire from the Chaos infantry advancing up the side street.

'Private Winter Storm!' Breeze shouted. 'Cover the street! Block them off!'

'Yes sir!' the unicorn replied. His horn glowed and he directed it into the middle of the street. His magic formed a shield, but this one was completely opaque. It was not enough to keep out the fire of their red beam weapons, but it acted as a screen, hiding the movements of the ponies as they crossed the street. Breeze ordered them to move one by one. Each mare and stallion made it across to the north side successfully. Once they were over, Breeze took his turn, galloping across the street. The red beams flashed and cracked around him, but he made it to the other side, rolling into cover behind the building.

Breeze ordered them onward, towards the palace. There were no friendly forces on the street ahead of them, but there was movement outside the palace walls, which was where they headed. Shots rang out behind them, and the rearguard opened up with their rifles as enemies began emerging from the side street they had just abandoned. Ponies on the line ahead were waving them in, and Breeze urged a faster pace. Aircraft screamed overhead, and a building ahead erupted into a fountain of dust, crumbling and collapsing in on itself, debris spilling out onto the boulevard as the outer wall gave way.

The pony line was up ahead. The palace's curtain wall formed the baseline, and the street outside had been fortified with sandbags and wooden emplacements since the recapture of the city, and those positions were now occupied by guardsponies and soldiers. They held their fire as Breeze and his ponies approached, and they clambered over the barricades into defensive positions among their fellows.

Breeze quickly looked for an officer, and found several of them. A Guard captain approached him, and he saluted her.

'What unit are you with?' she asked him.

'Headquarters protection force, ma'am!' Breeze replied. 'I have a report...'

'What's going on over there?' she demanded. 'Why did you leave your post?'

'Ma'am, the headquarters building was destroyed by an enemy aircraft!' Breeze quickly explained, as firing resumed around them, rifles and cannons roaring. 'There were heavy casualties...we couldn't get back into the building, and then we came under ground attack, and...'

'Slow down, corporal,' she urged. 'The headquarters is gone?'

'Yes ma'am...completely destroyed,' Breeze assured her. 'They must have used a bomb or a rocket or something, I don't know...the whole building came down, the roof...I doubt anypony survived in the main chamber.'

'Were there no officers who escaped?' she asked, with a concerned expression creasing her face.

'Not that I know of, ma'am,' Breeze replied. 'We tried to conduct search and rescue operations, but we came under ground attack and our position was untenable. As the ranking pony I ordered a retreat.'

The captain nodded grimly. 'Alright, well, you're part of the palace defence force now. Messenger!' she shouted, and a Pegasus quickly approached. 'Relay message to the palace command. City headquarters reported destroyed by enemy air action. Requesting additional instructions.' The Pegasus saluted and took to to the sky, flitting up and over the towering palace wall to race the message to the strategic command centre inside the building.

The captain ordered Breeze to position his ponies on the left side of the defensive line, facing out across the broad expanse of the Boulevard of the Alicorns. Enemies could be seen up ahead, and plenty of them. Whether they had overcome all friendly forces on the boulevard, or simply bypassed and got away from them, could not be determined, but even as Breeze watched, another of the heavy landing craft came in, settling down far up the boulevard on its landing struts and disgorging more infantry onto the street. A second barge began making its run, but exploded in mid-air.

Breeze looked up as Princess Celestia swooped overhead, her horn flashing as a great pillar of magic, like a blowtorch from the heavens, cut straight up the boulevard, burning and smashing the cobbles and sweeping across a mass of hostile infantry. Their screams were audible even from such a distance, and a cheer went up from the pony lines as their Princess went into battle once more. The command centre may be gone, but their leader was not.

Breeze found a spot and directed his ponies- for that was now what they were, at least temporarily- to take up positions. They crouched down behind the sandbags and wooden barricades, rifles aimed outward. The Princess had torn through the enemy infantry, but had then turned away, her attention drawn elsewhere. Clearly the boulevard was not the only action area within the city, and her focus could only be on one location at any given time. In the distance, Luna was still trying to plug the gap in the shield, successfully preventing any more aircraft from entering via that route, but unable to deal with those already inside.

There were multiple cries of alarm as a Chaos bomber swung onto an attack vector, heading straight for the palace gates and the defensive positions outside it. Breeze felt a jolt of fear and panic. Another air attack that he could do nothing about. One had destroyed the headquarters and nearly killed him, and now his position was in the sights of another enemy aircraft which seemed equally determined to carry out its mission.

But the pilot had not accounted for the palace's defences. Atop the southern curtain wall were a pair of the rapid fire anti-air guns, manned and ready. They had previously been engaging targets passing overhead, but now they had a more definite and more urgent target. Their barrels swung around, their crews pointing out the target, and they fired. The two guns hurled a lot of lead at the target, shells filling the air and bursting ahead of the incoming jet. It flew on, straight into the maelstrom being thrown up in its path. Shells exploded against its relatively thinly armoured fuselage and the leading edges of the wings, ripping and tearing away at the skin of the jet.

It ploughed on blindly, a trio of guns in a nose turret chattering in reply until a shell from the ground found the gunner and killed him. Defensive turret guns were not the bomber's primary weapon, however, and the bomb bay doors swung open as it continued on its direct course. More shells slammed into it, threatening to knock it off course, but it maintained its heading. Breeze ducked low instinctively. He didn't want to die like this. It wasn't fair. Now he knew how bandits and Zebras and Yaks must have felt whenever they were staring down the barrels of an Equestrian airship's cannons.

The anti-air guns continued to pound away behind him, and they found their mark at last. Fire blossomed from the starboard wing of the bomber, and a few moments later as it tried to pull up, there was an explosion and the jet ripped itself apart overhead, spraying debris across the sky like a shooting star. But the guns had found their mark too late, and two large, cylindrical objects, tapering toward the front end and with stabilising fins on the rear, dropped from the ventral bay of the jet before it exploded and plunged toward the defensive line. Breeze flung himself to the floor, ready for the inevitable.

It came, in the form of two tremendous bangs that shook him and vibrated the ground beneath. But unlike the previous bombing, nothing struck him, nothing landed on him. There was no heat washing over him. He blinked, rolled over and looked up.

A shield was overhead, still glimmering and dancing like the sea after being struck by the two bombs, which had burst harmlessly against it, smashing windows and exterior fittings from the corner buildings at the end of the boulevard, but doing no damage to the defences or the ponies manning them. Breeze looked for the source, and spotted it nearby. It was the captain he had spoken to, the mare who happened to be a unicorn. She had thrown it up just in time to protect them all from certain death. Breeze breathed a heavy sigh of relief and got back onto his hooves, peering out along the boulevard as the shield dropped again.

'Get up and fight!' the captain shouted, and with good reason. They had survived the bombing, but now there was another threat coming right for them. Breeze could see it closing in. Out on the boulevard, down the street ahead, came the enemy. Not just a few, not a small force, but hundreds of men and women, charging, shouting their war cries and screaming with bloodlust. Breeze gripped his rifle, and knew the touch of fear once more.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Start firestorm. The marble can withstand temperatures that will boil life, never mind cook them, in fact, the stone can withstand temperatures which will melt the lighter metals on the weapons. Cooking oil on the streets. not just slippery, but combustible.

The shield withstood two building busters? Make like a snowball. Scoop up a bunch, squeeze them down, then use as wrecking ball.

Unicorn tornadoes. Fire into an offset ring so the air starts to spin and heat up, push out into teh line of advance. Just get dust and rubble into the air. hw to use slabs of rock as armor. Shield over to stop kinetic impacts, the stone to absorb the lasers.

Which of the outer sectors of the city can be dropped off the mountain?

[sykko]

When facing that many people charging, don't aim, just point your gun in their general direction and fire until the gun goes click, make them charge through a wall of lead.

[sykko]

10350388
Pegasi can use their magic much better to create tornadoes, I'm surprised they're not using their weather manipulation abilities to send torrential downpours on the enemy positions, turning the streets into flash floods. All unicorns can use telekinesis and even small stones hurled at high speeds can be just as devastating as a bullet. Earth ponies with their immense strength could roll boulders or collapse sections of damaged building onto massed enemies.

Celly needs to get over the "no damage to cities" and when the imperials regain control of orbit, she should allow at least limited bombardments of the cities. I can understand if she's wanting to preserve the manufacturing districts so she can gear up and resupply her war machine, but this is a war of attrition and the main purpose should be to not only dislodge them from their strongholds, but also wipe as many out as possible.