Of Myth and Metal: An Equestrian Alliance

by SF-Sonar

Shock and Awe

Shock and Awe

“When you meet the enemy, kill them harder than they try to kill you” - Chief Petty Officer Rusty Chain, 2nd Amphibious Infantry, NFU

Instantly we sprang into action. I took a defensive position behind a fallen tree with Firing Pin right next to me. Chameleon disappeared like he normally does, and Hollow Point readied is 203 with Iron Sights behind him. I heard the screech again, then came the hardest part. Waiting for the enemy to show themselves so I can bury them.

10 seconds

20 seconds

40 seconds

Finally a silhouette appeared against the trees, the figure appeared to be a griffon. I signaled Hollow Point to fire the 203. His 203 let out a thump as he fired it.

BOOM

Not even close.

The griffons were alerted to the attack and started shouting.

“Chameleon? You have a good shot?” I whispered into my radio

“That I do buddy. Give me the word and there’ll be one less chicken clucking about.” He responded.

“Engage.”

CRACK

Chameleon’s sniper rifle roared and a griffon fell out of a tree and landed on the ground. They advanced towards us, at least 20 of them. This was a much larger group than anticipated.

How the fuck do they know where we…

I turned around and one of the Equestrians, Spyglass, was just standing there in shock, not moving. I jumped up out of cover and tackled her.

“What the hell are you doing! You need to get to cover!” I shouted.

I dragged her by her coat collar to position behind a tree.

“Stay here!”

I quickly turned to the rest of my team. “OPEN FIRE! GIVE THEM ALL YOU GOT!”

Everyone’s rifles erupted, sending volleys of lead down range. The griffons began returning fire but lucky for us they weren’t good shots. After surveying the area and seeing Compass Rose and Wood Crate hiding behind a boulder, it was safe to assume I could join the fight without suffering Equestrian casualties.

I trained my rifle on the closest griffon in my immediate line of sight.

CRACK, CRACK

Two rounds plunged straight into the bastard’s chest and he plopped lifelessly to the ground. His olive colored uniform turned red.

Another notch on my rifle.

BOOM

Hollow Point’s 203 hit dead on the mark this time and four more griffons cease to exist.

Zip

A bullet zoomed right past my head causing me to duck.

I radioed to the pegasi flying above us.

“Shield this is Guardian. Requesting air support. Heavy enemy activity 100 yards due east of our position.”

“Solid Copy Guardian, Air Support inbound.”

RATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA

The pegasi’s machine guns rained down lead on the advancing enemy. I poked my head out to see three griffons get cut down, allowing me to rise from cover once more.

CRACK

Another griffon fell out of a tree.

“You’re welcome.” came over the radio.

I fired at another griffon hiding behind a tree as he poked his head out. Got him right in the dome.

Out of my peripherals I noticed three more griffons fall to the ground.

Then came a bunch of screeching then the remaining six flew off into the air. I reached for my radio. “Shield! Guardian! Six hostiles went airborne.”

“Copy that Guardian, engaging.”

I could hear the pegasi’s machine guns light up as they flew off to finish off the stragglers.

“WHOOO! THAT’S HOW MOUNTAIN DOES IT BABY!” I heard Chameleon shout from a distance.

“I did not expect that many chickens, there was roughly twenty of the bastards. A whole platoon.” Iron sights commented.

“You’re telling me.” Hollow Point chimed in.

“Shut the fuck up boot! This is nothing compared to what the rest of us have been through. The one who had it the worst was the Corporal.” Iron Sights lashed.

“Oh yeah! Wasn’t he at Nov…”

Firing Pin smacked him in the back of the head. “We do not talk about that unless he brings it up.”

“You did well for your first fight boot.” I said as I went to go check on the Equestrians who were still in their hiding places. “You can come out now! It’s safe!”

Compass Rose and Wood Crate crawled out from behind the boulder.

“You two injured?” I asked.

“No, we’ll be fine. What just happened?” Compass said, a bit shaken up.

“I’ll explain later.” I looked to where I positioned Spyglass and she was sitting there shaking. I trotted over to her. “Miss Spyglass? Are you alright?” She didn’t respond to me.

Oh shit, she’s in shock.

I threw the pack on my back to the ground and started shuffling through it. Finally I found what I was looking for, the flask of whiskey. I held it up to her mouth and seconds later she spit it out and start coughing.

“Welcome back.” I said with a bit of a chuckle.

“Wha… what happened? Why is my mouth on fire? What did you put in my mouth?” she asked.

“There was a firefight, you went into shock, and some good shit.” I said taking a swig out of the flask.

“Copper, where did you get that? Did you steal it from the LT?” I heard Chameleon yell.

“None of your friggin business!” I shouted back taking another swig.

“You fucking alcoholic!” He yelled.

“Wha… what’s a firefight?”

I turned my attention back to the sand-colored mare.

“An exchange of gunfire, however I don’t have time to go into detail. We have to keep moving. Are you good to walk?”

“Yeah… I… I think so.”

“Good, let’s keep moving.”

I stood back up and scanned the area.

“Alright let’s go! Pvt. Point, you take point.”

Chameleon chuckled. “Pvt. Point take Point, classic.”

We hiked through the griffons’ position in the firefight; it didn’t phase us any but the Equestrians weren’t as used to death as we were.

“Are these griffons… dead?” one of the Equestrian mares asked.

“Yes.” Iron Sights answered.

“You… you murdered them.”

I can see this causing huge problems in the future.

“Corporal! This one is still alive!” Chamelon shouted

Well Fuck

I walked over to where the griffon was lying on the ground, half of his uniform was turned crimson with blood. Two bullet wounds were in his chest and they were slowly oozing. This poor bastard couldn’t have been older than eighteen. He slowly turned his head to look at me. I just stared at him coldly.

“Specialist. Keep everyone moving forward, I’ll catch up.”

“Roger” Iron Sights accepted my order and everyone continued moving forward.

I knelt down near the griffon’s head.

He shakily tried to reach for his weapon but I pulled it away from him.

“So why are you here?” I asked him.

“To… rescue… the… Equestrians…” He managed to get out, coughing up blood in between words.

I pulled out my pistol and placed the muzzle close to his head.

“Don’t worry, we won’t harm them, they are guests in our country.” I said to him.

BANG

One squeeze of the trigger and the poor sod was relieved of his misery.

Problematic indeed.

--

We managed to go 12 more miles before it started to get dark.

“Alright, this is a far as we’re going for today. Set up camp here.”

“About fuckin time, I’m getting tired of walking.” Chameleon bitched.

I swear by the board, I’m going to shoot him one day.

I scanned the area, Pvt. Hollow Point and Pvt. Firing Pin were setting up the tents. Chameleon disappeared again, he better be on overwatch. The Equestrians were... starting a fire… Oh shit.

I ran over and put a stop to it.

“What gives!” Compass Rose shouted.

“You can’t light a fire, it will give away our position.”

“Are you going to kill us if we do?” she retorted

You can’t be fucking serious right now.

“Alright!” I shouted.

The Equestrians looked at me with a mixture of shock and horror

“We are not bloodthirsty murderers, our actions were completely justified! They attacked us, not the other way around.”

“PRIVATE FIRING PIN!” I screamed

The young mare immediately ran to my side.

“Yes Corporal?”

“Make sure the camp is properly set up, I’m taking the first watch.”

“Roger that, Corporal”

I gave the Equestrians a burning glare as I left the vicinity of the camp.

Those stuck up, never do wrong pieces of

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of… singing?

“I am a killer, was the best they’d ever seen. I’ll shoot your heart before you ever heard a thing.”

What in the monkey fuck?

I approached the voice and discovered that it originated from Chameleon. He was sitting against a tree overlooking a small valley, strumming his rifle like a guitar.

“I am a sniper and I had a job to do, little did I know that bird was a sniper too.”

Since when was Chameleon able to sing? Especially with that atrocious Poneomaisk accent of his.

“Suddenly I’m in.”

He turned his head to see me standing there

“Serious shit.”

I just stood there looking at him in raw amazement.

“Since when the fuck were you a singer?” I asked him.

“Ever since I was a colt.” He answered.

“Anyway.” I had to change the subject before anything else happened. “I’m taking the first watch, go help finish setting up camp and get something to eat and rest. You’ll be relieving me.”

“Oh, how nice of you Copper.” He said while getting to his feet.

“I’ll see you in about 3 hours.”

He disappeared into the woods and I was finally alone to cool off. There was something always relaxing about watching the sunset over the Canterpathean Mountains. Especially since we were now below the snow line.

--

Two hours down, one to go. Thank the Board this was an uneventful watch.

There was the snap of a twig behind me.

I thought way too fucking soon.

Then there was another one accompanied by the rustle of a few shrubs. I trained my rifle towards the direction of the noise and waited, ready to strike like a coiled cobra.
A silhouette appeared from the brush.

“Mr. Corporal? Are you out here?” Judging by the voice it was Spyglass

Oh sweet fuck, it was just one of the Equestrians.

“Yes, I’m out here.” I answered back.

She walked over and sat down right next to me.

“Firing Pin explained everything to us, and I just wanted to apologize. I had no idea.”

“It’s quite alright, I shouldn’t have acted the way I did.” I said to her.

“It sounds like you have been through a lot.”

“I have, more than any stallion my age should.”

“May I join you?” she asked.

I probably shouldn’t, in the event we’re attacked again.

“Sure, I could use some company.” I responded.

We talked back and forth for a while, I told her about my early life, my home town of Coltovsk, the Sever Spell and how unicorns can’t use basic magic, and a little bit of Unikranian history. She told me about Equestria, and her hometown of Trottingham, as well as a fair bit of Equestrian history. Then somehow my rifle came up as a topic of discussion.

“So that’s how that works.” She said, “All without magic too.”

“Here I’ll give you a lesson.”

I picked up the rifle and handed it to her.

“Okay you hold it with one arm along the side, while firmly holding the foregrip in your hand like this. Then with your right hand, hold onto the pistol grip with your index finger, straight and off the trigger.”

I moved right behind her and guided her arms until they were in the proper position.

“Now bring the buttstock up to your shoulder and line up the sights.”

She raised the rifle to her shoulder, and this brought her face directly next to mine. I turned my head to face her and she did exactly the same.

“and that’s all there is to it.”

We looked at each other for a moment.

She has beautiful eyes

I started to lean in right as she was, and just before our lips touched there was a voice from the bushes behind us.

“Are you two going to fuck now?”

MOTHERFUCKER!

I broke off and trust into the bush with both arms. Grabbed Chameleon and dragged him out. He still had his camouflage spell active, so he looked like a stallion shaped pile of foliage.

“What the fuck Chameleon!” I blurted

With a dim flash of yellow from his horn, Chameleon deactivated his spell and stood up.

“Copper, bro, are you really all that surprised I would do such a thing?”

I am going to stab him

“Oh my goodness, I should get back to the camp.” Spyglass said. She was embarrassed and quite frankly, so was I.

“I’ll escort you back.” I said to her. I turned to Chameleon before we left. “We are going to talk about this later.”

“Okay, Copper.”

The first few minutes of the walk back was shrouded in an awkward silence. Neither of us knew what to say. Spyglass broke the silence “I thought you said Unikrainian unicorns couldn’t use magic.”

“I said they couldn’t use basic magic. Such as levitation.” I answered. “Chameleon was using his destiny spell.”

“Destiny spell?” she asked in a confused tone.

“Yes, it’s the one spell that makes every unicorn unique.”

“Oh, okay.” She said.

We finally made it back to the camp, everyone was asleep except for Iron Sights who was awake as the camp sentry. Before the mare and I went to our separate tents we exchanged a few last words.

“Goodnight Copper.”

“Goodnight Spyglass.”