The Red Sun Rises: Homefront

by The Atlantean

36. Fallen (Battle of the Crystal Empire Part 3)

Twilight Sparkle, with only a partial horn lock now, stood at the top of Sombra’s castle, up all those damned stairs. She saw the multi-pronged attack, one on the mine, another between the city and the port, a third in a blown-open hole in the line, and a last one blasting the fortress open and continuing on in. She could feel the death of each fallen pony like an arrow piercing her chest.

A screech from the east drew her attention. She turned to find its source, but instantly ducked. A four-inch steel projectile missed her by less than three feet. Bringing her eyes back up, she saw a massive American ship hovering above the river port! A closer inspection revealed a distinctive yellow magic surrounding the vessel. Celestia had picked up a cruiser with the white number “47” on its bow. Searching her memory, she remembered that the captain of a certain USS Ticonderoga, CG-47, wanted to talk about an alliance before she died. That had to be it.

A missile launched from its foredeck and curved down, slamming into the innermost wall of Dragonspire Citadel and sending up an orange mushroom cloud that could be seen for miles. Beyond the cruiser, a large gray thing sat in the river harbor with “turning-wing sky boats” coming on and off it. White smoke drifted lazily from the several hundred cannons along the side. Twilight cast a spell to zoom in on the structure sticking up from its starboard side. A white number read “76.”

Princess Celestia told me that she was on some ship called Reagan. Its hull number was apparently “76.” Wait a second - that’s the A-mare-i-can fleet! Twilight practically jumped to her hooves in excitement. Celestia had come!

Another high shot from the flying cruiser’s forward weapon smashed into the Crystal Castle, shaking the entire building to its core. Unlike the last shot, this one didn’t explode, causing Twilight to believe the Americans had multiple types of projectiles.

Replies immediately came from the Russian/Chinese encampment on the north side of the city in the form of missiles. A quick response from other ships out in the harbor saved the flying cruiser’s bacon, and was followed by an attempted retaliation missile strike. Russian jets fired up and escaped the missiles that did get through, and flew towards the Americans. The CIWS guns opened up. It sounded like muffled popcorn from the princess’s vantage point, but a lot quicker. Explosions quickly resulted.

Twilight used her magic to see inside the flying cruiser. No living being was there, not even in the apparent command center. She let the spell dissipate and stared hard at the ship. It turned to port (towards the castle) until it was bow-on pointed at Crystal City. Then it got a whole lot bigger as if Celestia had thrown it like a javelin. Twilight’s eyes widened when she realized that was exactly what happened.

Ticonderoga flew and fell like an arrow. Her bow slammed into the Crystal gate separating the city from the Causeway. Sparks flew and the front of the ship practically disintegrated from the impact. But momentum carried it on into the military supply area containing a literal shit-ton of ammunition. Needless to say, the resulting explosion destroyed what was left of the cruiser, knocked an enormous hole in the wall, and nearly sent Twilight off the castle with its shockwave. Twilight looked beyond the flaming supply depot towards the American fleet, where Celestia was. She had no idea how insane her former mentor could be at times. All Twilight could do was stand there with her mouth agape.

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Aboard Reagan, Princess Celestia stood on the starboard bridge wing, shaking almost uncontrollably. She hadn’t originally planned to throw Ticonderoga; it just happened. The stunt had cost her most of her magic and physical strength. Luckily, the cruiser’s crew was aboard a different ship of the same class while Robinson shuffled his crews around to fill gaps, so Celestia had complete control over the ship when she lifted it into the sky.

Robinson walked to stand beside her. “Was that planned?”

“No,” she replied wearily. Her knees collapsed and Robinson moved to catch her before her head hit the rail. “Sound GQ and initiate self-defense! You have the Deck, OOD!” he called as he carried Celestia to the medical ward.

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“GET DOWN!” Midnight cried as the massive 173-meter ship flew overhead like an arrow. It slammed into the western end of the Causeway with a massive amount of momentum and skidded for a few seconds before crashing into the gates. An explosion seemed to rip the very fabric of air when the cruiser hit what was probably a supply depot and set off practically all the ammo this side of the city. The overpressure was excruciating, as it blasted everypony’s eardrums to pieces.

The Crystal troops saw only one way out: around the enemy. They ran away from the ruined gates through the two paths left by the writhing Equestrians, not caring what happened next. The ponies just wanted out.

Midnight struggled to his hooves and lit his horn. His eardrums quickly repaired themselves with the simple healing spell he cast. After fixing his own ears, he moved on to the other Unicorns so they could help him get the two regiments back on track. It took half an hour, but they were ready and the Crystal remnants weren’t doing anything. In fact, most of the Crystal ponies surrendered just to get their ears fixed.

“Flintstone! You alright?” Midnight called.

“I’m fine! My ears have seen better days, though.”

“I think we can all say that.” Midnight cleared his throat. “Look, I’m going on to the city. We have too many prisoners to just leave them. I’ll give you what troops I can spare, but it won’t be many.”

“Sir, the Crystal ponies want to fight Sombra. Their leader told me how he keeps ‘em in line: by holding their families hostage. They’re rarin’ to kick some shadow ass here, and I didn’t sign up for guard duty. We go in, we go in together,” Flintstone replied.

“Well, that simplifies everything.”

“Yes, it does. Let’s move!”

Midnight shrugged and turned to face the smoldering wreck that was a grand pair of gates literally an hour ago. “We need a Plan B. Otherwise, we ain’t gettin’ in the city.”

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Crimson had dropped his repeater a while ago. He hacked and slashed at everything that bore the mark of the Crystal Empire, becoming a whirlwind of pure death. Instead of wielding his short sword in his mouth like most ponies, he was trained by the late Colonel Silvercrest to use his wings as well. This gave him a distinct advantage, as he didn’t need to swing his head at the enemy to attack or defend. At one point, Platinum was at his back; the next, somepony else.

Eventually, the solid line of Crystal ponies before him slackened as the enemy pulled back. They clearly had something more important than a single regiment to worry about. Taking that break, Crimson looked to the east, seeing a black pall of smoke where twisted steel and warped buildings marked the location of a supply depot. He then turned to his comrades. Out of the five hundred that charged up the slope, only fifty remained, and everypony was wounded to some degree. Most of Crimson’s wounds were superficial, but he quickly realized that wasn’t the case for all his friends.

“Platinum! What happened, buddy?” he cried, racing to a bloodstained body.

“Oh, hi, Red. Damn idiot guy over there hit me with a Heavyweight. Got him, though.” He coughed up blood. “I - I - I can’t go on.” He coughed some more. “Just tell your sister. Tell her I-” The silvery Unicorn went into a spastic fit and Crimson backed away for a second. “I… I love…” His head dropped to the ground and never moved again.

“No! Not you! Stay with me, Platinum, stay with me!” Crimson let his head fall into his friend’s and cried. At the same time, the forty-eight ponies left took their hats off in salute to the adventurous stallion who’d been one of the most likable guys in the regiment.

“Sir, we must move on. The longer we stay here, the more prepared Sombra will be,” the sole surviving NCO said.

Crimson nodded, tears in his eyes. Platinum had been like family to him, like one of the two brothers he had but never met. He’d filled that spot, just like Bats had done before the Battle of Pacifica so many years ago. Now he was gone. Crimson stood and turned his gaze to the Crystal Castle, its single towering spire piercing the hazy sky. “Let’s go take out that son of a bitch,” he hissed.

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Atlanta wasn’t expecting an American missile to destroy the enemy reserves within Dragonspire. She though she’d have to fight every last pony in the damned fortress. All the same, her job didn’t change. Dragonspire was in the way, and she had to clear it.

She felt her magic return to her as she stepped outside the blast area that was Celestia’s first army. It was invigorating; she felt like taking on the whole Harmony-damned Crystal Empire by herself for a split second. Then she regained control and calmed. Her ocean-blue horn glowed red with the magic of a powerful spell building up. Then she released half her reserve of alicorn magic in shattering the magic locks of the second Dragonspire gate and then the doors themselves. The explosion sent the gatehouse crumbling in on itself and falling onto the smoldering heap. She smiled. A day when you could blow shit up was a good day.

Atlanta charged headfirst into the space between the second wall and the partially-built third wall. This was it. If her ragged troops could pour through this gate, the fortress was done for. She sweated under her sunsteel helmet despite the overwhelming cold that was the Frozen North.

Her single pant was all the line of Russian machine gunners needed. They opened fire from behind the white smoke of the Crystal rifleponies, decimating the ground and sending hundreds of bullets in Atlanta’s direction. Her quick reflexes saved her; the responsive shield slowed the bullets down enough to only wound her with a bunch of punctures.

She gasped for air, breathing in smoke instead. Her ragged, labored gulps of the surrounding field of death pointed her location out to the one pony who was quite interested in finishing her off.

General Shattered Hope walked over the wreckage, sidestepped Atlantean weapons fire by the slightest margin, and stopped to stare down at the queen. He pulled out his longsword and carefully inspected for any imperfections. “This blade was passed down to me from my father, and his father before him. My family has always believed alicorns were the scourge of Equestria. I will particularly enjoy this.” He thrust the sword blade down into the base of her neck. Red blood seeped out through the wound and he turned it to point at her heart.

Atlanta couldn’t even scream in pain; Shattered Hope had severed her trachea. The only thing she could do was choke on her own blood as he rammed his sword through her collarbone, down her chest, and into her heart. Her head instantly slumped to the ground.

Shattered Hope knew he could try to live up to his name. He threw Atlanta’s limp, dead body over the second wall and into her own troops. The reaction was mixed; some seemed ready to run, while others only glared at the imposing wall. All the Crystal general did was piss them off.

He realized this fact too late. Instead of running, most of the Atlanteans surged into the wall and laddered up each other to the top. Some burst through the door and dove among the cover, taking snipe shots at the machine guns waiting for a lovely target. It took less than ten minutes for the situation to go from seemingly controllable to FUBAR. Fifteen minutes after Atlanta’s death, her troops had taken the wall and were decimating the Russian morale with pure recklessness and courage. Shattered Hope tried to run, but the angry mob of veteran soldiers reached him and quickly tore him to shreds with bullet after bullet.

Above the keep, the grand flag of the Crystal Empire was ripped from its post and replaced with the Atlantean battle flag. Dragonspire Citadel had fallen.

Author's Note:

No qualms. Not really. I like Atlanta.

I'm not sure how the jumping around does for this. I try to leave on cliffhanger moments for tension purposes, but...

Feedback appreciated.

Comments

[Fireheart 1945]

Well, that escalated fairly quickly.

In any case, killing Atlanta backfired, like when bombing cities in WWII enraged people rather than making them afraid. The CE is effectively done, even if Sombra denies it to himself.