The Melding of Two Worlds Pt. 2: Home and the Battlefield

by Luckless

Chapter 4: Battle for Canterlot

Zlat

My unit all received commendations for our swift victory at the farm, and the prisoners we took against greater numbers. There had been an officer among their ranks, and he was thoroughly interrogated, mostly over where the owners were. I silently prayed that they were ok, and just among the refugees who had fled West. I didn't want to think about any alternatives. But my squadmates had other ideas.

"What do you think happened to them?" our resident bullet sponge Spike asked.

"I wouldn't know Spikey, but let us hope that they are safe." Rarity soothingly told him. To me, that was odd. It nearly sounded like she was babying him.

"Yeah, but what if they were captured?" Suggested Ace. Damn it, why'd you have to say that? I'd read about the Second World War, and what had happened to the prisoners of war the Germans took, and the victims of the Holocaust. Images of ponies in POW camps and extermination camps started to sprout in my mind. Horribly starved and/or wounded ponies, terrified and mentally exhausted behind barbed wire fences and constantly guarded by soldiers who hated them and looked for any reason to shoot them.

"That's plain ridiculous Ace!" Mac's voice boomed, even though he hadn't spoken loudly.

AJ followed up with her own admonishments, "Yeah, all yer doin' is making us nervous! We need tuh stay calm and focused on the task at hoof so we can win the war. Riling ourselves up will only hurt us in the long run."

"Damn right." Bouncer agreed.

But I was already jittery, and their words weren't helping as much as they were intended to be. I need something to calm me down. An idea popped into my head. Often times, when Wolf was really stressed and either didn't have any alcohol in the house, or couldn't drink, he'd smoke a cigarette, and he'd calm right down. I'd shared one or two, but I couldn't make a habit of it since I could never tell when there was too much ash on the cig. I remembered how relaxed it made me, how good it felt.

Every other ration we got from Chestia held one pack of cigarettes, and I'd never done anything with them except try to save them to scrounge with the addicts for more food, water, or in the rare case a beer or shot of hard alcohol. I dug out one of said packs, and briefly read the name "Lucky Strike", before digging out a match, lighting it and then the cigarette.

I breathed in the smoke a bit too quick, and coughed. I tried again, a bit slower, and the nicotine started working its' magic. My head swam in a euphoria, and I calmed down. For the next 10 minutes, I slowly smoked, enjoying the nicotine and the effects. When it came to the filter, I stomped it out on the ground, and looked back to the squad, who were all looking at me bemusedly.

"What?"

RD pointed at the stomped waste, "What was that?"

I shrugged, "A cigarette. I needed to calm down after I started thinking of some rather... unsavory possibilities."

They looked at me quietly, like they expected something more, "No, I'm not telling you what they are. Those thoughts are staying as dead as a doornail, and you aren't convincing me otherwise." My squad looked at me with frustration, probably because I wouldn't indulge their curiosity. But I didn't care, they were better off not knowing.

Suddenly, Arids' eyes widened, and he quickly saluted to what must have been an officer right behind me. I stood quickly, spinning around into a salute. Standing there was the Lt., with a expression almost as stoic as Mac.

"Saddle up. We're getting close to Canterlot, and they're in trouble. Messenger relayed that the Feds have managed to get a foothold into the commercial district of the city, and the Equestrian Army stationed there are slowly being beaten back. We're going to have to pick up the pace if we're going to keep the city. MOVE OUT!"

"YES SIR!" We choused. We quickly shouldered our packs and weapons, put on our helmets, and started marching out at a brisk pace as the rest of the column got their orders. By dusk, we could see the city not 15 miles away. By the next day, we'd reach the city walls, and come into contact with the first of the enemy forces.

It was hard for us to get to sleep besides Spike and RD. They were asleep as soon as they hit the ground. Our anxiousness over tomorrow kept us up well into the night until exhaustion finally caught up with us.

The next day

We woke an hour before dawn to the sounds of trucks pulling up to the front of the column. The implication was clear. Troops were going to be sent ahead to engage the enemy and hold them in place long enough for the rest of the army to show up to relieve or reinforce us. While the trucks were getting into position, a pony came by pulling a resupply cart full of ammunition and replacement weapons. I eyed a bazooka, and realized that my unit didn't have a fire team specialized with one. That had been Wolf's responsibility before he got wounded.

"Hey, Arid, grab that bazooka and some missile bags."

He gave me a confused look while he was putting away some 5.56 magazines, "The what?"

I pointed at the bazooka, "The green tube. We need a demolitions fire team. You're going to be armed with that given we run into a situation where we need it."

"Like when?"

"Infantry occupying a house, a fortified positions, trucks, field guns, anything our guns or grenades can't handle." I turned to Spike, "Spike, your strong, so you're gonna be carrying his ammo and reloading him. Consider yourself as part of the demo team."

"Ok." He answered simply. Huh, figured he'd want to argue that. Not going to complain about that.

I showed Arid how to aim, fire, and load the bazooka, even though Spike was going to be doing that for him anyhow. It paid to be proficient in your weapons, or so Wolf told me. I moved on to tell Bouncer and Ace to wrap belts of ammo around their torso's so they could provide for the machine guns when their stores ran out, and had them pack another belt each into their packs. They complained about the weight, but they still obeyed. That's all I needed.

When I was finished giving orders to them, I turned around to find a very expectant Rainbow Dash, "Whatcha got for me?"

Uhh... I didn't really think through my words, but they came out before I could reason through anything, "You're with Rarity. We'll be getting into closer combat than at Ponyville, so she won't have as much space as last time. We need our sniper, so you're going watch he back and keep her out of trouble."

"Pardon me?"

"Gotcha!"

After rearming ourselves, we were ordered into the trucks that were already starting to be crowded like a sardine can. After the truck was loaded to maximum capacity (and with a few Changelings riding on the cab roof), we took off. We each went through our process of getting ready for the fight, making sure our bolts worked smoothly, clicking the safeties off and on, tapping our feet, looking fondly at each other with sad smiles, and praying for our safety. I did some of these, and smoked another cigarette to help me calm my nerves. I made the mistake of blowing the smoke out my nose, and paid the price with an intense burning sensation in my nose. Ok, note to self: don't blow it out your nose. When I finished, I tossed it out the back of the truck, and waited as the euphoria swam in my head.

It had ended just before the assistant driver yelled out, "One mile!"

We all chambered a round, and made sure our safeties were off. This was it. A charge into a hail of bullets to rain down death and destruction to the Feds. We tensed as we waited for the truck to stop.

The truck stopped sharply, and we all jumped out. Those furthest from the back hopped over the side and took off for a forest of tents. The sound of war was coming from the city, but we could still hear voices coming from the camp. The soldiers we came across were obviously surprised by the sudden arrival of new troops, and were quickly disposed of in grizzly fashions. Halfway through, we came to a radio tent, where inside, several officers were hovering over a radio operator who was screaming loudly at a radio in French. A long spray from my rifle wiped them all out, and they fell over one another.

The camp was finally cleared just as the remnants realized that they were under attack, but too late to provide a counter attack. We ran to one of the many holes in the walls, and started running through the streets, mainly ones that were heavily damaged. The city didn't look as good as it had been when I'd first visited with Wolf. Many of the buildings had massive sections reduced to rubble, and the ones that were mostly intact were riddled with bullet holes.

The streets were littered with debris, spent rounds, and what once had been firing positions (which were filled with even more spent rounds, blood and on a rare occasion a body). We moved through the streets hugging the walls on either side of the road, sweeping our guns over open doors, windows, alleys, and down the street where the gunfire was coming from.

We stopped at the corner of the street. I shimmied to the edge of the building that looked like a toy store. Looking to the other side of the street, there was no one there. I popped my head around my corner, and the street was flooded with corpses and activity of Federation troops.

"MAC!" I pointed at a stone wall in the street, "Get over to that wall and lay down suppressing fire! Ace, back him up."

"Going!" They answered, running out to the stone wall while I opened fire to cover them. They dove behind the wall just as the enemy turned on us to realize they were getting shot at from the rear. The wall I was pressed on got peppered with bullets, and I ducked back away. Looking back at my squad, everyone was on my side of the street, stacking up to run around the corner into battle.

The thunder of Mac's gun roared to life with the small pops from Ace's M16. "Get out there and find some cover!" I yelled, sprinting out into the street. I ran about 40 feet before being targeted, forcing me behind an overturned truck. Rounds pinged off the steel hull, and I silently relished the protection. I looked back into the street, looking for where my squad had holed up in. AJ and Bouncer were in a deep crater, Rarity and RD were in the crumbling remains of a store, while Arid and Spike were hiding behind an abandoned fortification post made of sandbags atop a pile of rubble.

AJ was already opening up on the enemy, who were finding their own cover. Bouncer was popping off rapid shots, Rarity was using the iron sights on her rifle, RD was laying down fire on a position that had tried to shoot at Mac and Ace, while Arid and Spike were keeping low under a barrage of bullets.

I looked out of cover, and took a shot on a Fed who was hiding behind a barrel, but was giving me an angle to shoot him from. He slumped forwards into the street dead. I leaned a little further out, and fired rapidly at several positions pinning down Arid and Spike, giving them enough breathing room to pop off some shots of their own.

Slowly but surely, we took down the Feds closest positions to us, as were the Equestrian forces on the other side of them from their fortifications. Said fortifications, now that I looked at it, resembled a sort of castle make of sandbags that walled off the whole street. They fired down from above, easily wiping out the flanked units. I yelled at Arid and Spike to move forwards to another stone wall 10 feet ahead of where their position was, while telling everyone else to give them cover fire.

Slowly, I moved my men closer to the remaining enemy troops. The enemy fell quickly, losing their numbers against flanking forces. The last man stood up abruptly with a grenade in hand. He was about to throw it at the fortifications when he took a shot to the chest, and fell to the ground. Moments later, the grenade went off, sending a mangled body into the street.

There was a pause where there was no sound from our street aside from the tinkling of settling of brass casings. It lasted several seconds as the shock from the sudden absence of combat ran its' course.

Finally, a voice came from the battlements, "Chestians?"

I called out, "Only me, the rest are Equestians and a Changeling!"

"Get in!" We left our cover to accept their offer. They lowered latters over the edge of the sandbags, and we climbed over. It was slow, as we held a weapon in one hand, and used our other to balance. On the other side, we met what must have been the Night Guard. They were in their human forms, and I use that term loosely. Their skin was either black as night (and had a very inhuman look to it) or a steely, leathery grey skin. Their eyes were slitted (which wasn't that different from an anthroperson or altered human) which seemed to dimly glow in the color of their eyes. Then, tightly folded against their backs, were a set of leathery bat wings, and the fangs that poked out of their mouths.

A bigger surprise for me, however, was the fact that they were still wearing armor, which was generally a very bad idea for a modern fighter, who relied on mobility rather than the pointless attempt at soaking up hits. They weren't wearing plate armor, but given the combat environment, it was still pointless. The armor was layered so as to allow them to shift with the body better, and it curved elegantly for the deep blue and purple metal. The helmet was highly reminiscent of the guard pony helmet, as the main body wrapped around most of the skull, and had more layered plates to "protect" the neck.

But these soldiers, they were ragged. Pieces of their armor was missing, or heavily damaged, but always coated in thick layers of dust and filth of the city. It was a stark difference compared to us. We were muddy, thin, wearing worn combat fatigues with only a tempered steel helmet for armor. There was also the fact that there was me, an anthro-fox, Arid, a Changeling, and what I would call normal Equestrians who had a wider variety to their color pallet.

But I wasn't allowed much time to muse over our physical comparisons, as the soldier in front of me gestured over to what I assumed was an officer if his blue plume was to indicate authority (which I was quite sure of).

We disembarked the battlements, and the officer greeted us, "Welcome to Canterlot, sorry it's in such poor conditions. I'm Petty Officer Zordac. What brings you here?"

"I'm Private Zlat, acting squad commander. We're here to help purge the invaders. The rest of the army was dispatched to other areas of the city to clean up or to secure the rest of the outskirts."

"Who's here?"

"Mostly Changelings, good deal of them. I didn't get a number, but there's an insane amount of them. Only about 750 Chestian Militia are here out of the original 900, and then about 50 some Ponyville volunteers. My brother trained a fair bunch of them, and quite well too."

The Petty officer made a look of disappointment "You aren't too green are you?"

I puffed my chest out in indignation, "The Militia have as much combat experience as they've been in the force, and we've all been through the Ponyville siege. We're more than fit."

He snorted, "We'll see about that."

Rainbow Dash, for whatever bravado reason she had, stuck in her two-sense, "I was about to say the same thing about you."

I pinched my nose, and sighed. Damn it Dash.

Before Zordac could form a response, I interjected, "Forgetting that, what's the situation? Do you know where the enemy are focusing their efforts?"

He bit his tongue before he answered, "They're mostly on the main road heading towards the castle, but they're still trying to flank through streets like this one. Can't guarantee that you'll have a easy time getting around. You planning on heading that way?"

I nodded, "Our orders are to eliminate the enemy. Taking out any part of the main force would end this thing faster."

Zordac gave a nod of approval and respect, "Then go with the blessing of the Moon and Sun. We can't go with you though, our own orders are to defend this street."

I bowed my head with and extended my hand, which he grasped, "Godspeed friend." We released our grip. He gave me some directions, and I called out the order to move out.

We walked off single file, not pointing our guns at the building, but still eying the openings. Following Zordac's direction, the noise of combat grew into a devastating roar. We could hear exactly where the fighting was. An idea popped into my mind, and I acted on it. I ordered everyone into the most intact building in the immediate area, and climbed the stairs to the second floor. The place looked to have once been a music store with ruined instruments. Entering the rooms swiftly, we knocked out the windows, and looked out.

It was once a small park, but it was now it's own little hellhole. Craters were scattered around, the ground having been upturned into an ugly mottle of dull brown dirt. There were hundreds of bodies, both Fed and guards, scattered about the field. The walls of the castle itself had machine gun nests, a few empty, and scattered pockets of snipers. The once grand perimeter wall had been collapsed in multiple areas, which Equestrian soldiers were using as cover. There were other sandbag barriers scattered about, also manned by friendlies, and in another massive sandbag castle that was inside, and flooding outside of the perimeter wall. Consealed Equestrians fired from small slits into the enemy flood of soldiers.

I yelled my order, "Open fire!"

Our guns added to the roar of battle, firing on unsuspecting enemy soldiers. To the right, where the enemy soldiers were coming from, an armored truck was rolling its' way down the battlefield.

"Arid! Blow that truck up!"

Complying, he shouldered his rifle, and aimed his bazooka at the truck carefully. The weapon screamed when it fired, and the rocket sped across the air, blowing up the drivers' side wheel off.

"Again!" Spike reloaded the bazooka, and Arid fired again. Now that it wasn't moving, the rocket nailed the truck where the engine housing and cabin met as the door opened. It exploded in a massive plume of fire and smoke, the shockwave killing and throwing off the few soldiers stupid enough to be close to it.

Seeing the smoke trails from the rockets, the enemy soldiers acknowledged our presence by trying to divide their attention between advancing on the castle fortifications and us. A bullet struck the outside wall, and I naturally flinched. I ducked down as more bullets began peppering my cover. I pulled a Fed grenade off my bandolier. It was shaped like a baseball with a tumor on top of it, so it was easy to throw. I pulled the pin out, and chucked it over the wall. It blew up shortly after. I popped up, fired a few more shots at a reloading rifleman, and ducked down again.

A shrill whistle blew, and a good deal of the gunfire ended. I peered over the lip of the window, and saw blue backs running away from us.

It's... over? It was over at least for now. The enemy had abandoned the street, leaving us with an eerie silence as even the snipers stopped firing.

"Did we win?" Spike asked.

I sighed, and sat down heavily on the ground, leaning against the wall, "For now. It ain't over, but we've got some breathing room." I eyed the room we were in. It was large, considering the nature of the store, but Mac and AJ were still in the other room.

I shouldn't have sat down. I need to check up on them. I groaned, stood up, and shambled over to the next room. AJ, Rarity, RD, and Bouncer were laying against the walls, looking exhausted. I almost missed it when I first looked them over, but I saw that Mac's helmet wasn't on his head.

"Hey Mac, where's your helmet?" He pointed over to the corner. There laid the helmet he'd been wearing since he joined, but with a massive, lengthy dent across the top. I looked back to Mac, and noticed the thin amount of blood starting to drip down his forehead.

Ugh, I wish Fluttershy was a part of this unit, she was pretty good at patching people up. "Hey Rarity, you good at first aid?"

"That I am."

I nod over to Mac, "Check up on Mac, see what you can do." As Rarity went over to care for Mac, I addressed the group, "When you're rested up, tear down some of the wall. I want our machine guns to be able to swing around as much as possible."

I was about to leave the room when Bouncer stopped me, "You sure we should do this? We're going to be damaging somepony's home."

"This is war, nothing gets left untouched. The best thing we can do is end this quickly so we lose as few people as possible, and begin the rebuilding process. One wall among hundreds of others won't mean anything." A thought entered my mind. We were going to need to contact the defenders, and let them know about us and the favourable position. It's gonna be me, isn't it.

"AJ, I'm going over to the defenders and let them know we're here and see if they want us to shift somewhere else. You're in charge until I get back. Do an ammo count, see if and what you need, then tell me when I get back."

"Got it."

I told the other group what I was doing, and went downstairs to find the door that led to the "park". I still peeked down the road from the doorway, and sprinted madly across the battlefield towards the defences. I jumped over a small "wall" of sandbags, and ducked down into safety. On either side of me were two surprised, golden armoured soldiers.

"Hey, how ya doing?" I didn't give them the chance to answer by bolting out of cover once again to the main fortification. I slipped through a crack between the sandbags and a gate pillar, and searched for an official looking soldier.

Someone tapped my shoulder, and I turned to see a guard with a blue plume. They were frowning at me, though I couldn't figure why, "Hello, I'm Private Zlat, I've got a squad in the buildings over there. Is there anywhere's you need us at?" Despite the guards' sour look, I smiled at him, hoping to diffuse the hostility.

I saw a flash of movement to his side, and I saw a pistol barrel pointed at me, "We need you in our prison camp. Lay down your arms."

I cocked my head. Surely, he had to be joking, "Why do you need us at the prison camps? Wouldn't we be better used at the front lines somewhere? And why would we abandon our weapons?"

My answer was a swift pistol whip to the side of my head, knocking off my helmet and sending me facefirst to the floor. I moaned, "Ooof, motherfucker." I rolled over, clutching my now wet with blood head.

An armored boot planted itself on my chest and pressed down, restricting my lungs. I looked up with bleary vision to see the barrel of a gun pointed between my eyes, "Say good-bye you Federation bastard!"

I shut my eyes in terror, just as something collided with the guard above me, throwing them off, "Staunch! What the buck are you doing?!" A voice boomed.

"What are you doing sir! That's a Fed!" Came his retort.

I opened my eyes to see a black guard whose plume was a pure white, and he looked to be on the verge of an aneurism, "You... IDIOT! He's not a Fed! He's a Chestian! Didn't you see the Chestian flag on his shoulder? Or hear him speaking Equestrian? I swear, if you weren't so good at your job you'd have landed yourself in a bloody asylum!"

The apparent officer turned his attention towards me, and offered me a hand, "Sorry about that. Staunch is a good guy on most days, just really... dense." I grabbed his hand, and he hefted me to my feet.

Bitterly, "Let's hope he's the only one. Anyways, I've got my squad up in one the buildings facing the street. You want us anywhere's?"

He shook his head, "No, you're in a really good place to be. We've been wanting to get a squad in one of them for a while, but with all these attacks, we haven't been able to act on it. Anything you need?"

"Nothing I can think of right now. I've got my men doing an ammo check, though I'd have to guess we might need something for our machine guns. We've relied on them heavily since we entered the city."

A spark flashed across the officers eyes, "Speaking of which, what's the news?" Though it was hard to see, a quick sniff informed me of how hopeful he was of good news.

"We've wiped out what I think was their command base, and much of our army has been sent on search and destroy missions. We aim to purge the enemy forces in the city by weeks end."

Unable to control his emotions, the officer broke into a smile, "Wonderful! I look forwards to the downtime once this is over."

"God knows we all need it. I've been fighting since Ponyville got surrounded, and just got off a long march. Not doing anything will be heaven."

We bid our farewells, and I departed for my squads' position. I ran across the field littered with dead bodies, and entered the building ridden with bullet holes. Inside, I found my squad consolidated to a single room.

"How's the ammo count AJ?"

"We're good on grenades, but we're runnin' a little low on everythin' cept fer Rares. We've redistributed our M16 ammo, but we've still only got about 3 full mags each. Mac and I are runnin' on our last couple belts too."

"How 'bout you? Didya meet with them?" Asked Spike.

"Yeah. They want us right here so we can pin them from a higher position." Truthfully, I wasn't happy about that. Setting up here was meant to be temporary, so we could get somewheres more fortified once the fighting died down. Apparently, our luck wasn't good enough for that, and we'd have to make do with sub-par cover that was in all honesty more concealment than cover. I had no doubt that bullets could easily punch their way through the wooden walls.

RD seemed to have the same thoughts, "In here?! This place is a deathtrap! The only reason we didn't get turn into Swiss cheese, is because we surprised them! No way are they gonna forget about us being here! And before long, we're going to run out of stuff to chuck at them. I mean, I've got a pretty good throwing arm, but I doubt that bricks will do much against their rifles!"

I absently wondered over how she knew what Swiss cheese was, given that she didn't know what or where Switzerland was, but that was irrelevant, "I know, it's less than ideal, but we are getting more ammunition. We just need to let them know how much we need. Besides, we've thoroughly beaten the enemy. They've got little to no command structure, constantly faltering numbers, and they've been fighting for longer than we have. They're on their last legs, so they've got to be giving up soon. We just need to keep it up until then. Dash, Arid, you're coming with me. We need to pick up some supplies."

We ran back out to the Equestrian fortifications, and met with the officer from before, who'd been waiting for me. When he heard what we needed, he wondered aloud, "What have you been fighting? A dragon?" None of us mentioned that we actually had a dragon in the unit, since we didn't want to delay getting our supplies any longer.

He led us all the way to the palace where the ammo dump had apparently been placed. Inside, we asked the distributing sergeant for our ammunition types and how much we needed, and waited for his return. When he did, we simply stared at what he offered.

There was only 8 mags of M16 ammunition, and a single belt of ammunition for each machine gun. That was only enough for each squad member to get two extra mags, and each machine gun one extra belt. We looked back up to the sergeant, who hadn't moved and wore a tired, almost annoyed expression on his face.

Rainbow Dash growled, "That's it? Bub, I don't think you know how bad our situation is. This isn't enough to get us through the next firefight! We'll run out halfway through! How can we manage with just this?"

He shrugged with a noncommittal, "Improvise, cuz that's all yer getting."

We all glared daggers into his face, and I could feel all of our veins beating on our heads, threatening to burst out of the skin and spray him with our blood. Before I could react, RD slugged the sergeant in the face hard enough to knock him onto the floor, screamed, "FUCK YOU!" At the top of her lungs, grabbed two mags, and stalked out of the palace, presumably to where the rest of the squad was holing up.

I grabbed three of the mags, stuffed them in my pocket, and grabbed a belt of ammunition. Before I left, I sent a luggie of spit sailing into his very surprised face, gave my own, "Fuck off and go to hell," and stormed off after RD. I don't know what Arid did, but he joined me before I left the fortifications. When I entered the room where everyone resided, they all looked pissed, even Spike and Mac, who collectively either had no emotion, or extreme control over their anger.

I tossed Bouncer a mag, as did Arid, and we sat down. We remained in angry silence over our situation, even when we started eating our MRE's. The day bled on in that silence until night came, and I took the first shift. The night was apparently too scared to offer up anything to disturb my anger as I waited for when I could drop my shift. When my shift ended, I woke up Bouncer, and promptly collapsed into a corner exhausted.

*BOOM*

I woke up screaming as the entire building shook from an explosion much too close for comfort. Standing up, I rushed to the window sill, and peered out.

A crack from a rifle, and my helmet flew off of my head. I dropped down behind the wall, and clutched my head which was now dully aching. My squadmates were now crying out in surprise and terror over the sudden attack. Looked beside me, I saw Bouncer, who was grimacing in pain, slouched against the wall I'd been sleeping on. Fuck. I crawled over to him, and got him onto his back. I told him he'd be fine as I dumped sulfa onto his wound, and applied a large bandage over the wound. For now, without a medic, that'd have to do.

I raised my gun over the wall, and fired a short burst, and lowered it again, "How many of them are there!??!" I yelled.

"HUNDREDS OF THEM THEY'RE FLOODING THE STREET!" Screamed Rarity.

"FUCK!" I blindly fired again. Over all the noise, I could barely make out the frantic firing from the Equestrian side. We entered a frenzy where we shot for what felt like hours, watching as our ammunition bled away. What went even quicker were our grenades. After only a few minutes, we'd tossed them all out into the streets, and we knew we'd killed and wounded several. We could hear them.

Then, bootfalls stopped our hearts cold. Someone was in the building. "MAC! AJ! KEEP UP THE FIRE! Everyone else, fight off the intruders!" I exited out my room, and took cover at the corner that oversaw the staircase. I could hear the enemy running inside, coming ever so closer. I popped around the corner, my guns raised. There they were, blue uniforms and all. I pulled the trigger spraying them with bullets. Some of them collapsed, but the others that I'd missed returned fire with bayoneted rifles. I ducked, and stumbled away from the wall to my room, and took cover behind the doorway.

Now I could hear the thumping footfalls of them going up the stairs. I fired around the corner again, and heard a body fall to the floor. I stayed behind the wall, and waited a little bit longer, and turned fully out of cover to spray at the next soldier who was only a few feet in front of me. My gun clicked, empty. The enemy soldier pulled his trigger, only for it to not do anything. A small yellow shine showed that his rifle was jammed. He looked down, saw it, and screamed as he lunged forwards. I took a few steps backwards, dropping my rifle. He shoved his bayonet forwards, and I barely caught hold of the blade. I lost my balance, and fell backwards onto my back. The man kept pressing down on my with a snarl, and I snarled back. He'd left his feet wide, and directly over my legs. Perfect target.

My boot went straight into his groin, and the blood in his face immediately drained from his face as it scrunched up in pain. He made a noise uncannily similar to how Harry from the Home Alone movie sounded when he got shot in the balls with a BB gun. His knees buckled, and fell backwards himself, letting go of his rifle in the process to nurse his agonizing pain. I scrambled to my feet, cleared the jam in his rifle, and shot him in the head. I looked out into the hallway to see that many other soldiers had made their way onto the second floor, and that the others had quickly, and effectively eliminated the threat.

With that out of the way, I returned to the wall, and fired the crap gun until it ran out of bullets. When it did, I chucked it out the window, and went back to my original gun, just to learn I was on my last magazine. I peeked out the window, and saw that there was still no end to the onslaught of enemy soldiers. I prayed for a miracle, and fired off the last of my bullets. Apparently, Arid was out too, since a smokey tailed rocket fired out of the next window and into a group of enemy soldiers, sending them high into the air from the explosion. I found myself in the same situation as I exhausted the remainder of my bullets.

I hid behind the wall, and eyed Bouncer, who was still conscious, and moaning quietly in pain. I crawled over to him, and grabbed the extra 4 remaining magazines off of him, and returned to the window to continue firing down on the Fed soldiers. It wasn't too soon that I again, ran out of ammo. I dropped my rifle beside me, an sat down in resignation. This was it. If any of them tried to get into the building again, I , and likely everyone else, was finished. All I had left was my KA-BAR knife. Fuck it, it's better than nothing.

I brandished the blade, and waited by the entryway to the door. For the longest time while the battle raged, no sound came from the downstairs. But of course, that wasn't to last. Soldiers charged into the building, and a quick peek confirmed that the Feds were trying to take the building again. I grit my teeth as I waited for the first soldier to come close enough to grab, and when I did, I lashed out faster than the eye could see. I rammed my blade underneath the breast bone, shoved the dead soldier aside, and lunged at the throat of the next with a war cry. I slashed his throat, and jammed my knife through his ribs, shoved him backwards, and lept at the next man who'd caught his falling companion. I tackled him with every fiber of my being, and once he was on the ground, I buried my knife into his wide eye socket. Another soldier came up the stairs, one I already knew I wasn't going to be able to kill, when a gunshot came from behind me, and the new threat fell flat on his face.

I turned around, and saw Spike disappearing behind the wall again. I made a note to thank him in the future, and set about with remedying my ammo problem by liberating the dead of their weapons and ammo. The new gun left much to be desired. It had no sights, and jammed every 4 shots on full-auto. But it was better than having nothing. Finally, just as I ran out of ammunition again, the battlefield quieted down. Looking over the edge, all I saw were bodies. Bodies and bodies and bodies covered every inch of ground and formed piles all the way up to 15 feet away from the first sandbag emplacement outside of the Equestrian fortifications.

I dropped the crappy gun from my trembling hands which had gone numb from the constant gunfire. It was over. It was finally, over.