SAPR

by Scipio Smith

Thin White Line (New)

Thin White Line

The Skyrays soared through the night air, the lights on their wings illuminating the darkness as they raced over the open ground beyond Vale towards the Green Line.

Rainbow crouched in the open doorway of the airship, looking downwards. Night had fallen, but there was enough moonlight to make out some of the land that they were passing over; it was hard to make out details, but then, Rainbow wasn't sure that there was a lot of detail to make out. Most of the space between the Green Line and the Red — not all, there was that bit of the city that had spread out on the wrong side of the wall, but most — was either farmland or just wild and untamed. There weren't any villages out here — there weren't even any farmhouses — for all that the Green Line was meant to be the point behind which it was safe, people lived behind the Red Line where they could, behind the walls, and went out beyond them to do their work before retreating back behind the walls again at night. That wasn't the same everywhere — there were bits of city beyond the walls, gradually expanding outside due to the pressure, and Rainbow was sure that if she searched the whole area, she could find some farmers like the Apples living out in the open beside their land, but right now, all that Rainbow could see directly underneath them was fields, with only barns or…

Okay, no, no, she could see someone's living space, even if she wouldn't call it a home; they'd just flown over a shepherd's hut on wheels parked in a field next to a flock of sheep. Trixie had lived in one of those during her time at Canterlot; she'd preferred it to boarding at the school, although that one had been a lot more colourful than the beige-looking hut they'd just flown over. Rainbow thought it must belong to an actual shepherd because of, well, the sheep, but she hoped that whoever owned it had gotten themselves behind the walls of Vale, because if the grimm broke through, then he'd be in a lot more trouble than the sheep would.

Not that the grimm were going to break through without a fight, but you never knew how a battle might turn out.

For the rest, at least this part of the area, the part that they were flying over, it all looked pretty deserted. There were fields, but they'd all been harvested by now; there were some livestock — sheep or cattle or goats — grazing in grassy fields, even some horses — at least one of which looked to have got out of its field — but no people, and the fields were only grass. There were some enclosed woods that Rainbow could see as she looked around, and some country lanes with walls and fences and such, but not a lot. It was very empty land. Empty and barren, now that fall was here and all the crops had been gathered in already.

Not bad land to fight on, if they had to fight their way back across it. Not a whole lot of cover as far as Rainbow Dash could tell, but the grimm didn't shoot for the most part, so the lack of cover wasn't such a big deal. And as much to the point, there wasn't any cover for the grimm either, except maybe in those enclosed woods. Only the darkness would prevent the Atlesians from seeing the grimm coming, and what they could see, they could shoot down before the grimm could sink their teeth into them.

Unlike during their descent on Beacon, the Skyrays weren't being covered by fighters; there were no grimm in this part of the sky, so the fighters had already raced ahead to get ready to confront the grimm over the Green Line, while the slower Skyrays lagged behind. If Rainbow looked up instead of looking down, then she could see the fighters ahead, darting in and out amongst the much larger cruisers as they formed an airborne line in counterpoint to the line of ground troops down below. Once the bombers — even slower than the Skyrays — arrived too, then they would be able to rain fire down upon the grimm from the air, inflicting huge casualties upon the horde before it got close to returning the favour against the Atlesians.

Of course, the same didn't exactly apply to the parts of the Green Line that weren't being held by the Atlesians. What the Valish would do next was anyone's guess, and as for the Mistralians, they only had that one ship, and while that one ship had a lot of guns, it was still just one ship, and a pretty old ship at that. They wouldn't be able to put out the same volume of fire — and that was without getting into their artillery, if they had any — and so they would be a lot more vulnerable to a charge from the grimm. The Atlesians could easily find themselves outflanked.

We'll just have to hope that the Beacon students can make all the difference, I guess.

There were fewer Skyrays as part of their group, flying over the Green Line towards the Atlesian position, than there had been when they swooped down on Beacon. School choice was the reason for that; at Beacon, they had all fought together, but now, they were getting split up according to what school they went to. Atlas students to the Atlesian line, Beacon students to the Valish line if the Valish were in either mood or state to take them, Haven students to the Mistralian line — plus Pyrrha, she supposed, although nobody had confirmed that. So there were fewer airships accompanying the Skyray that carried Rainbow Dash, but on those airships were, being as modest as need be, some of the best students.

Rainbow wasn't alone on the Skyray. Blake was with her, standing over her, the tails of her tailcoat flapping up and down behind her as the night breeze swept through the airship; Rarity, too, with one hand on the hilt of her sword and the other holding onto a ceiling strap; and Ciel, eyes closed and head bowed, murmuring something so quietly that Rainbow couldn't make it out. Rainbow thought she was praying.

Team TTSS were with them too, with Maud having joined the team in place of Tempest. Rainbow hadn't told them about Tempest just yet; it didn't seem the right moment to break the fact that the comrade they thought had died had actually tricked them and run off to join … an enemy whom Rainbow couldn't even properly name or describe to them. That was the kind of thing that, to Rainbow's mind, would keep until the battle was over. Otherwise, it might distract them at just the wrong moment.

What good would it do them to find out now? What were they going to do with the knowledge?

Rainbow would tell them, just not yet. When they could sit down to hear it.

For now, they should keep their minds on the battle ahead.

"See anything, Rainbow Dash?" asked Trixie, raising her voice to be heard above the Skyray engine.

"A lot of empty space," Rainbow replied. "And a shepherd's hut, like yours."

"Trrrrrixie does not have a shepherd's hut!" Trixie declared. "Trrrrrrixie has a wagon."

Rainbow frowned. "What's the difference?"

"Trixie has bigger wheels," Trixie said.

Rainbow smiled. "Ciel?"

Ciel didn't reply. She kept on murmuring — praying — for a few seconds longer, before she opened her eyes and raised her head. "Yes, Rainbow Dash?"

"What can you tell us about the commander at the front?"

"Lieutenant Colonel Olive Harper," Ciel said. "Commanding officer of the Fourth Squadron, until a full colonel is appointed. Born in Atlas. Twenty-nine years old—”

“Twenty-nine?” Rainbow spluttered. “Twenty-nine years old? She’s twenty-nine and the lieutenant colonel commanding a squadron?”

“Is that young?” asked Blake.

“Yes!” Rainbow said loudly. “Yes, that is very young.”

“She has had a meteoric rise through the ranks,” Ciel confirmed. “And received seven commendations on the way.”

“Impressive,” Starlight murmured. “She must be quite something.”

“We’ll see that for ourselves when we meet her soon enough,” Blake said. “What about the commander of the other unit, the … First?”

“Yes, the First Squadron is on the line, with the Third in reserve,” Ciel replied. “We are being dropped off at Fourth Battalion headquarters, since their line adjoins onto the Valish and is thus … potentially more at risk, but if the situation changes, we could be asked to redeploy towards the left of the line.”

“So who’s the commanding officer there?”

“Colonel Redvers Buller is the commanding officer of the First Squadron,” Ciel said. “While Lieutenant Colonel Dunnet commands the battalion, the ground element. Forty-eight years old, born in Atlas, possessed of a long record of service, including…” She paused.

“Including what?” asked Sunburst.

“Several years spent in Mistral cooperating in anti-White Fang operations with the Mistralian Imperial Police,” Ciel said.

There was a moment of silence in the airship.

“Well,” Starlight said. “Just because he’s spent some time going up against the White Fang doesn’t mean … it’s not like Blake’s White Fang, after all.”

“No,” Blake said. “No, I’m not. And the fact is that the White Fang does need to be stopped. This Colonel Dunnet has been doing good work, I’m sure.”

Rainbow nodded but didn’t say anything. So long as Colonel Dunnet remembered that Blake wasn’t part of the White Fang anymore — that she never had been, officially — then it would all be fine.

“So, Dash,” Trixie said. “How did it feel to be in charge?” She grinned. “And what’s it going to feel like taking orders from someone else now?”

Rainbow snorted. “It’s going to be fine, Trixie. I took charge back at Beacon because … because someone had to. But if someone else, someone better, wants to step up, then that’s fine too. And a lieutenant colonel at twenty-nine with a row of commendations … I can get behind the idea that that’s someone better.”

They were getting close now, making their final approach to the Atlesian line. Rainbow no longer had to rely on the moonlight, as the Atlesians had set up lights all around their camp and rigged up little footlights on the ground, pointing up into the sky or across the grass so that they could see better. Landing zones were marked with rings of glowing blue and green lights, while still more lights illuminated the spider droids that sat at the rear of the line, guns angled upwards.

The Skyrays began to descend, rotating in the air as they dropped downwards into the pre-marked landing zones.

“This is it!” the pilot called from out of the cockpit. “Good hunting!”

“Copy that,” Rainbow said. “Let’s go!”

She led the way, leaping down from the airship, with the others swiftly following, all jumping down and crushing the grass beneath their feet. The Skyray barely waited for the last of them — Sunburst, his cape billowing out behind him — to get out before it was taking off again, heading back the way it had come in the direction of Vale. They were probably getting held in reserve, for any units that needed transport — or, in an emergency if there were no better airships available, air support.

Rainbow looked around the illuminated rear echelon. There were a few troops around, but not many; most of them must have been deployed to the front line.

An emergency aid station had been set up inside a white tent with the staff and star medical symbol on it; the sides had been rolled up so that Rainbow could see that it was empty at the moment, with doctors and nurses waiting for the casualties that would come later. It was only a triage point, to patch up the badly wounded while they waited for transport up to one of the medical frigates where they had all the serious medical equipment, but that triage might be the difference between life and death for some.

Music filled the night air, courtesy of a cluster of Atlesian Knights with speakers mounted onto their backs, playing appropriately martial music to call the battalion to arms. Maybe the sound might reach out beyond the Atlesian lines, all the way to the grimm horde gathered across the field and let the monsters know that they weren’t afraid.

Probably not — it wasn’t that loud — but it was a nice thought.

Other androids — and some soldiers too, troops without armour, wearing the all-blue jumpsuits of the artillery company — were attending to the spider droids that were spread out all along the rear line. Atlesian fire support didn’t only come from the air; these spider droids were integral in providing a punch from down on the ground. A mobile battalion like the fourth would have forty of them, and a static force like the Mantle garrison would have more than that. They only had four legs, so the name was a bit incorrect, but they were quite spidery legs, like a tarantula without the hair, each one ending in a blunt point down into the ground. The four legs formed an X with the body in the centre, so that, more than a spider, they kind of looked like they could form the basis for a kind of grimm. Their heads resembled old-fashioned helmets and were stuck on the front of the body like a lizard or a bird. The spider droid was a modular weapons system, able to be equipped with a variety of different weapons as the commanding officer or the situation demanded. It looked like Colonel Harper had gone with a pretty even mixture of twin 105 howitzers, one mounted on each side of the head, and boxy missile launchers, again mounted in pairs on either side of the droid’s shoulders. Fresh boxes of missiles and fresh shells lay in piles behind the feet of the spider droids, with androids and humans alike waiting with all their necessary cranes and equipment to reload the droids when they were out.

Rainbow glanced at Blake and saw that she was looking at the spider droids with what looked to Rainbow like apprehension in her golden eyes.

“Brings back memories?” Rainbow guessed.

Blake glanced at her. “You could say that.”

Rainbow clasped her on the shoulder. “Just remember, you’re on the same side now. So stop worrying and learn to appreciate the firepower.”

“Ooh, that’s right, you’ve never been in an all-out battle as part of the Atlesian military, have you, Blakey?” Neon asked, appearing in a rainbow burst with one arm around Blake’s neck, leaning off of her as she smirked.

“No,” Blake murmured. “Have you?”

“…no,” Neon admitted. “But at least I know what to expect.”

“Students!” they were hailed by a burly sergeant major with a sash across his armoured chest and a swagger stick held in one hand. “This way!”

The assembled Atlas students — not just Rainbow and her friends, not just TTSS and FNKI, the whole assembled student body who had come down to fight on the line — followed in his wake. The sergeant major led them down a path marked by two rows of red lights, down a slight descent in the fields, to where a command post had been set up.

It wasn’t much of a sight to see, just a few poles stuck into the ground with some netting strung up between them to give some protection from a grimm just swooping down from above, and underneath, a couple of tables and a holoprojector.

Nearby the makeshift command post stood a couple of knights, each with a pole mounted to their backs from which flew the colours of the Fourth Battalion. One was the Atlesian Colour, the Atlas spear and gear upon its grey background, with the IV emblazoned on it in pure shining white. The other was the Battalion Colour, a black bull with fiery red eyes on a white field, and around the fringes embroidered the battle honours of the unit going back to the Great War and beyond: Mantle Incursion, Ice Field Barrens, Cold Harbour, Northampton, First-Eighth River Isis, Four Sovereigns, Crystal City, Stonecross, Vacuo Campaign. They would be able to sew ‘Vale’ onto the flag come tomorrow morning.

Standing just outside the command post, as if on guard, was a Mistralian orderly, an affectation enjoyed by some senior officers. This particular orderly was dressed in a vivid violet robe and lavender trousers, with a curved scimitar worn at his hip.

At the moment, a cluster of officers stood around the projector, which was displaying a vertical image of the battlefield. A single line of white crossed the ground, with various lines of red in front, and images of the Atlesian spider droids behind. The white line was their deployment then, but what were the red lines?

The students gathered on the fringes of the command post, as yet unnoticed, unsure — Rainbow was unsure, at least — whether they ought to bring themselves to the notice of officers examining the hologram.

“Ma’am,” the sergeant major said. “The students are here.”

A woman half turned to look at them. She was about medium height, not too tall but not short either, but slightly built, with narrow shoulders that only looked a little wider because she was wearing a blue cloak over them that swathed half her body from view, although the arm she was gesturing with had thrown the other half of it aside, revealing a spiked pauldron on her shoulder, an arm that was bare with the sleeve of her uniform cut away, and a vambrace on one arm. Rainbow could also see that she had a sword at her hip, and that was only what she could see beneath her cloak. Her hair was black and half-hidden beneath the high-peaked cap she wore on her head, but not so hidden that Rainbow couldn’t see it peeking out from behind her head, just above her shoulders.

Rainbow straightened up and fancied that she wasn’t the only student to do so.

“Good evening,” she said, in a slightly high-pitched voice. She paused for a moment, and when she spoke again, it was softer, as though she wasn’t sure if she really wanted to be overheard. “Good evening, good evening, the colonel said.” She took another pause, blinking her dark eyes, before clearing her throat. “Good evening,” she repeated. “I’m Lieutenant Colonel Harper of the Fourth Battalion; this is Lieutenant Colonel Dunnet of the First.”

Colonel Dunnet turned to regard them. He was a middle-aged man with a round face and curly brown sideburns descending down his cheeks towards his mouth; his white jacket had three layers of silver buttons running down it and black lacework crossing his chest between them.

His lip curled into a sneer. “Rather more faunus than I was expecting.”

Rainbow didn’t glance at Blake, although she wanted to. She hoped Blake remembered, as she was remembering right now, something that she had said to Blake way back on their first mission together, to Cold Harbour, at the start of the semester: some Atlesian officers might not mind their manners, which made it all the more important to mind yours.

Hopefully, she hadn’t forgotten.

It was a good thing Rainbow hadn’t forgotten either.

Blake didn’t say anything. No one did, except for Colonel Harper, who said, “Haven’t you been watching the tournament, Warren? If you had, few of these students would be strangers to you.” A slight smile crossed lips painted a darker brown than her skin. “And if I’m identifying them right, some of these students here have distinguished themselves.”

“Not here, they haven’t,” declared Colonel Dunnet. He turned away. “But you may as well brief them, since they’re here.”

“Thank you,” Colonel Harper said quietly. She picked up a stick from off the table, raised her voice so that it carried to the assembled students. “Here,” she said, using her stick to gesture to the main white line on the map, “is the Green Line, where we are. The Valish didn’t leave us the best defensive position in Remnant, but we’ve had several months to improve it, so now that the grimm have finally shown up, I can say with some confidence that we’re ready for them. We haven’t been able to finish all the wall that the Valish stopped building, but we have filled in the gaps with earthworks and raised elevation all along the line; we’ll be firing down at the grimm every step of the way. In front of the rampart, we’ve strung barbed wire and set up anti-ursa barriers and caltrops to break up the grimm assault in its final moments; their charge won’t hit as a single solid mass, but in disorder and disarray. In front of that, we’ve dug two parallel ditches and mined the space between the ditches and in front of the outer ditch. Even if not a single soldier fired on the grimm as they came in, they still wouldn’t reach our line intact or in what passes for formation amongst them.” The smile returned to her face. “However, we are of course going to be firing at them.”

A chuckle rippled through the Atlas students.

“As you will have seen on the way down here, we have our spiders deployed to provide fire support from behind the line, joined by our cruisers and bombers. Mortar platoons are closer to the line, while on the line, we have our redoubtable infantry.”

“Permission to speak, ma’am?” Ciel asked.

“Granted … Soleil, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ciel replied. “What about the new Paladins?”

“Our ramparts provide a height advantage, but they aren’t huge,” Colonel Harper explained. “Our Paladins, and the remaining spiders, can still fire over the top of them, just about.” She paused and pointed with her stick at the right flank, where the white line turned inwards. “Here is where our position meets the Valish. We haven’t had any difficulties with them, they didn’t attack when their commanding officer went off the rails, but this join is still the weak link; even if all of the events of tonight hadn’t happened, I don’t think they’d be up to the level of an Atlesian battalion. That’s why I’ve deployed the Military Huntsman company there, with the Light Company on the left flank joining to First Battalion and the remaining companies in between. I want you students to concentrate on the right flank, spreading yourselves out to the left but adding most of your firepower there, where we’re most vulnerable. I know you’re young, but I’ve seen enough to know you already pack one hell of a punch. Is that understood?”

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am!” the students chorused.

Colonel Dunnet sniffed.

"Alright then," Colonel Harper said. "I know that you're not a part of this unit, but I sincerely hope that this is only the first time that we get to fight alongside one another for the glory of Atlas. Sergeant Major Waters will show you the way. Go to it!"

There was no cheer. The lieutenant colonel's words had been too low key for that, although Rainbow thought that she must be saving her speech for when the whole battalion could hear it, not just the students. Nevertheless, she'd set out what they were doing, where they were going, and what had been done to prepare the position with clarity, and Rainbow felt quite content as she and the other Atlas students — and Blake — followed the sergeant major down away from the command post, leaving Colonel Harper and the other officers behind, still finalising their discussions, making their final preparations.

“Colonel Harper feels the weight of her command,” Blake murmured to Rainbow Dash as the two walked briskly down a track marked by more red lights laid out along the ground. “It’s pressing on her shoulders.”

Rainbow glanced at her. “How do you mean?”

“'Good evening, good evening, the colonel said,'” Blake said softly. “Her words.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow acknowledged. “Yeah, I thought that was a little odd. Does it mean something to you?”

“It’s a poem, from around the Great War,” Blake told her. “'Good morning, good morning, the General said, when we met him last week on our way to the line. Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of them dead, and we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.' She’s … aware of her responsibility.”

“Good,” Rainbow said. “She should be aware, because it is her responsibility.” She paused. “But we’re not going to be cursing her tomorrow, I’m sure.”

"No,” Blake agreed. “No, I'm sure not. Personally, I have to admit I’m glad we're reporting to Colonel Harper instead of Colonel Dunnet.”

"Me too," Rainbow muttered. "Even if it won't be the last time that we have to deal with someone like that. Which it won't," she added, glancing at Blake to see how she took that.

Blake's face twitched a little, but her voice was calm as she said, "No, I suppose it won't be." She paused for a second, before she said, "So, what's a Military Huntsman company, and what makes it so special? I thought huntsmen in the military were called Specialists?"

"Oh, yeah, you don't know, do you?" Rainbow asked. "Okay, Atlesian Military One-Oh-One coming up: an infantry battalion is divided into six companies: A military huntsman company, a light company, three rifle companies, and an artillery company. Plus battalion headquarters, but that's its own thing, and we'll ignore the cruisers and the airships for now, that's all … we'll get into that some other time. The point is that you've already seen the artillery company; it's all those spider droids set up on the back line. We didn't see them, but there'll be officers around there somewhere directing the fire, checking the range, feeding coordinates to the droids, that sort of thing."

They passed some mortar crews, also spread out in a line, a mixture of large one hundred and twenty millimetre and smaller sixty millimetre mortars with crews of Knights working under the direction of human NCOs, loading the mortars ready to fire.

"Are they part of the artillery company too?" asked Blake.

"No," Rainbow said. "Mortar platoons are assigned to infantry companies, which we're getting to now. The light company is an old thing, goes back to before the Great War; it's all the best shots in the battalion, the smartest men, the quickest men. That's the theory, anyway. Guys who could be trusted to act on their own initiative and not because a sergeant was yelling in their ear. They're the ones with the yellow stripes on their armour, but other than that, they're pretty much the same as the rifle companies, who have the blue stripes on their armour. Each company has a company aitch-queue, a mortar platoon, about three rifle platoons of … thirty to fifty soldiers each, that's about right, isn't it, Ciel?"

Ciel looked at her. "As far as summarising our military apparatus in double quick time goes, you are not doing too badly," she granted. "Each company also includes an assault platoon, men chosen to take the lead in storming enemy defensive positions, who thus have a greater than usual supply of special weapons."

"'Special weapons'?" asked Blake.

"Light machine guns, grenade launchers, sniper rifles, armour piercing rifles," Ciel said. "Flamethrowers."

"Flamethrowers?" Blake repeated. "You use flamethrowers?"

"Only in assault platoons," Ciel said.

"I … have never heard of this," Blake said. "In all my time in … you know. I never heard of Atlesian troops being equipped like that." She frowned a little. "Is there a lot of call for a unit like that?"

"No," Ciel admitted. "It goes back to the Great War and the stalemate on the northern front. But nobody wants to abandon the concept in case it should become necessary again."

"Mmm," Blake murmured. "And what about the military huntsmen, where do they differ?"

"Military Huntsmen are people who went through combat school but didn't go onto Atlas Academy," Rainbow replied. "Who … couldn't," she said quietly, in case someone with very sharp ears was listening and took offence to anything harsher than that. "Like Rarity, if she'd decided to put a uniform on."

"I'm not sure armour grey is really my colour, darling," Rarity observed.

Rainbow grinned. "They don't actually wear armour, as you'll see in just a bit; they wear the white uniforms and the peaked caps. The point is that, even though they haven't had the chance to become Specialists, they still want to serve Atlas, and they have skills and training that other soldiers don't, so they get all assigned together in a special part of the unit."

"Wouldn't it make more sense to spread them out?" Blake asked. "Distribute them amongst the other companies where they can be more effective?"

"That is a view, to be sure," Ciel allowed. "But presently, doctrine feels that they make more of a difference in a concentrated mass, able to intervene at the decisive point, than spread out in small packages that dilute their effectiveness. As now: they could not be tasked to hold the lynchpin of the line if they were not brigaded together."

Speaking of the line, they had almost reached it: the mixture of Valish wall and Atlesian-built earth rampart rose up sharply in front of them, a wall of intermingled earth and brick in interlocking sections traversing the landscape, cutting sharply across the Valish fields. The light of the broken moon shone on the Atlesian soldiers — most of them stationary, a few still moving into position — standing on the wall or on the earthworks; the light glinted off the armour of the infantry or illuminated the white overcoats of the military huntsmen. Soldiers knelt with their rifles to their shoulders, they crouched down behind light machine guns on their stands, they crouched on the ground with light support weapons — which were like light machine guns, except they were even lighter so you could, in theory, pick one up and fire it from the hip if you really wanted to — or they loaded rocket launchers and rested them on their shoulders. Knights stood on the wall too, two knights for every human soldier, although the Knights had only rifles, none of the other weapons available to the Atlesian infantry. The way the moonlight fell on them, they kind of looked like ghosts, an army of ghosts surrounding the army of the living, phantoms risen up to fight again.

If only. It would be great to have you here, Kogetsu.

Paladins — and some more spider droids, mounting four heavy laser cannons on their shoulders and arms for direct fire — stood just behind the earth rampart. The walls the Valish had built were just a little too high for them to see over, or at least to fire over, but the earthworks only came up to about their chests, with the blocky white heads of the Paladins able to clear the ramparts with ease, not to mention stick their arms over the top without getting in the way of the infantry in front. The Paladins were grouped in fours, four machines standing in relatively close proximity and then a gap before four more, while the spider droids were deployed individually, spaced out along the line.

"Are they their own company as well?" asked Blake.

Rainbow hesitated. "I … don't actually know," she admitted; because they were so new, she wasn't sure where exactly they fitted into the org chart.

"I do not believe so," Ciel murmured. "I could be mistaken, but I believe they are assigned at the company level."

"Here we are," the Sergeant Major said. "This is you lot. Up you get, face front, but keep an eye on what's happening to your right. And good hunting, and God be with you."

"And with you, Sergeant Major," Ciel murmured.

They had been led to the corner of the line, where the earthworks ended, but a trench had been hastily dug perpendicular to it, cutting through the earth and heading back towards the students. Looking over the trench and pulling her goggles down over her eyes so that she could see better in the dark, Rainbow could see the Valish troops across the field, lying or crouching down on the grass, a few of them moving furtively here and there, keeping watch on the Atlesians. She could make out the outline of one of their cumbersome tanks a little bit behind, although it wasn't pointing any of its guns at them.

The Atlesian trench was occupied by a thin line of military huntsmen, men and women in white double-breasted overcoats and white peaked caps with blue bands wrapped around them, soldiers with rifles in their hands but a variety of more unique and individualised weapons slung across their backs or at their hips: the weapons with which they might have hoped once to become huntsmen and Specialists.

None of them looked at the students, and Rainbow wondered if they might feel a little bit jealous.

Maybe, but she was sure they'd be able to keep it professional.

Anyway, nobody moved to join the military huntsmen in the trench; instead, they swarmed up the plentiful plethora of ladders that had been put on the inner side of the ramparts, climbing onto the earthworks or the wall and spreading out amongst the military huntsmen there, starting from the end of the works and moving leftwards until they were in amongst the rifle company adjoining the military huntsmen.

Rainbow and Blake found themselves more or less in the centre of the line, with Rarity and Ciel; Team TTSS was on their right, and Team FNKI on their left as they stood upon the earthwork, Atlesian troops and Knights around them, Paladins and spider droids looming behind them, standing on the rampart looking out.

Before them lay the Atlesian defensive preparations just as Colonel Harper had described them: directly in front of the earthworks and the wall, a mixture of barbed wire strung across the ground; metallic anti-ursa obstacles, those metal Xs standing upright and joined together; barely visible caltrops with the points sticking upwards at various angles. If the grimm reached them, then they would be slowed by all those obstacles, and some would bypass them more swiftly than others, disrupting the impact of an otherwise solid wall of grimm slamming headfirst into the Atlesian line. Then there was a ditch beyond that, a ditch that Rainbow couldn't see the bottom of because of the angle at which it had been dug. She couldn't see the minefield that Colonel Harper had described, but then, you weren't supposed to see the mines before you stepped on them, so that made perfect sense. Then there was another ditch, of which Rainbow could see even less, and then Colonel Harper had declared that there were more mines.

And then, beyond the mines, a great expanse of open ground; maybe it was farmed ordinarily, but the harvest had been gathered in; maybe it was too far from Vale to get to safely and back again before nightfall, and so it was just left fallow and bare and unwanted. Either way, it was barren now, just ground, flat ground without cover or obstacle, just a field that you could race across as fast as you could with nothing getting in your way.

And on the other side of that field waited the grimm.

They were massed. They absolutely well and truly deserved to be described as a horde. The grimm spread out across the landscape, swallowing it up in a black mass, and even the whites of their bony faces and their armour plate became swallowed up by the darkness of their sheer numbers. Small beowolves and ursai, tiny creeps who were dwarfed even by the immature grimm around them, made up the front ranks; just they alone were so many that it was hard to spot the larger and older grimm that Rainbow absolutely knew would be waiting there in the middle ranks; the only grimm that Rainbow could spot were the particularly big ones: the looming goliaths that rose out of the horde like skyscrapers rising above the ordinary houses to dominate the skyline of a city; or the one-eyed cyclopes standing erect amongst the other grimm who stood on all fours or crouched along the ground. Flying grimm — nevermores, griffons, some teryxes — flew above the heads of the more numerous grimm who were stuck on the ground; the fliers flapped their wings lazily as they hovered in place.

The whole horde — the whole multiple hordes, although Rainbow couldn't see where one horde waited and another one began — was waiting. They weren't attacking; they weren't even creeping forward.

But that didn't mean that they were being silent. The grimm were making as much noise as possible, their howls and roars and bellowing cries warring with the music blaring out of the speakers of the Atlesian Knights behind them. Young beowolves rose up onto their hind legs and joined the looming cyclopes in thumping their chest; goliaths trumpeted defiance; creeps shrieked, and ursai roared, and the whole thing rolled together like a bad orchestra, an awful band who couldn't keep the time so all the instruments just came together in a noise that made you want to cover your ears and turn away. The grimm sounded like that, except that their awful sound was tinged with a desire to kill. That was why, as they roared and howled, the young beowolves lunged forward with their heads, and bared their teeth.

"You know what?" Neon murmured. "I … I kind wish I had a gun right now."

Ciel hitched up her skirt to a daringly short length, revealing a pistol holster strapped around her thigh; she pulled out the pistol and wordlessly handed it to Neon as her skirt fell back down to its normal modest length.

"Thanks," Neon said softly as she took the pistol, checking that it was loaded.

"Unfortunately, I don't have any other spares," Ciel said.

"That's … quite alright, darling," Rarity whispered. "I, uh, I daresay we shall manage." She swallowed. "We will manage, won't we?"

"Yeah," Rainbow said. "Yeah, we'll be fine. We've got all the advantages."

The grimm were making it hard to say that with a clear voice. They were making so much noise that they were drowning out the Atlesian music coming from behind, Rainbow could barely make out the trumpets or the drums; all she could hear was the howling and the roaring and the trumpeting. How many grimm were there that they were making so much noise? How many grimm were about to descend upon them?

Neon's knuckles were white as she gripped the borrowed pistol, and Rainbow could see some of the guns in the hands of the military huntsmen shaking.

You need to say something. Remind them about what Colonel Harper said, all the defences the grimm have to get through before they reach us.

Rainbow opened her mouth.

"Soldiers of the Fourth Battalion!"

The words didn't come from Rainbow Dash, but from Colonel Harper as she mounted the rampart accompanied by a young officer, who barely looked older than Rainbow or Blake, and by another Knight with speakers mounted on its shoulders. As she reached the top of the ladder, Colonel Harper threw back her cloak, revealing not only the sword on her hip which she drew with a flourish, but also a pistol on her other hip. She didn't draw that yet; instead, she grabbed a microphone, attached by a cord to her accompanying Knight, and raised it to her lips.

"I've no guarantee the enemy will be considerate enough to let me finish this speech, so I'll try and make it quick," Colonel Harper went on, her words ringing out across the line and beyond. "Soldiers of the Fourth Battalion, we are facing a dangerous foe. You don't need me to tell you how numerous our enemy is; you can look in front of you and see for yourself. This is a horde, and very soon, it will hurl itself upon us in all its fury with only one objective: to sweep us away completely and descend upon the city of Vale that stands behind us.

"But we are not helpless victims. We are not lambs tied up for the slaughter. For the last several months, Atlesian forces have fortified this position against precisely such a moment as this. When the grimm attack, they will be blown apart by our mines, they will tumble into our ditches, they will get caught upon our wire, they will find the way forward blocked by our obstacles and most importantly, they will be fired upon every step of the way. Behind us, our artillery is loaded and ready, and from the skies, our cruisers and Skybolts will rain fire down from the skies upon these monsters. And you, soldiers of Atlas, you will tear these beasts apart before they and their teeth and claws get anywhere near you. Keep your eyes sharp, take careful aim, and keep your fingers on your triggers, and victory will belong to Atlas, and to us.

"Behind us, Vale stands vulnerable; behind us, Vale stands in chaos. Behind us, Vale stands helpless. Vale has no better defenders than we; Vale has no other defenders than we. Our thin white line is all that stands between victory and defeat.

"Defeat will mean not only the loss of an entire city but also the greatest stain upon the honour of Atlesian arms in their entire history. Victory will mean not only the salvation of the city but also the greatest triumph that has ever burnished up the honour of this battalion, or ever will.

"Stand fast. Take heart. Pin your honour to the colours of the Fourth Battalion and show these monsters the pride of Atlas!"

A cheer rose in answer, a cheer bursting from the throats of soldiers all across the line, a cheer that for a moment battled against the roaring of the grimm, pushing against it as if the cheers and roars themselves were the armies, clashing in the field one against the other.

Rainbow looked at Colonel Harper, almost stared at her.

I can see why she got to be a colonel so young.

Colonel Harper caught Rainbow staring and winked at her. She put the microphone back in its cradle on the Knight's sleek white body and strode leftwards down the line, her blue cloak flapping behind her.

Rainbow drew Brutal Honesty and Plain Awesome as the grimm quieted for a moment, their roaring and their howling stopping. It stayed stopped for a second, then another, before the grimm roared once again, even louder than before, every grimm in that black mass roaring as one.

And then they began to charge.

The beowolves left the ursai and the creeps behind, streaking ahead of their slower cousins, racing one another to be the first to reach the Atlesian line; the initial cohesion of the grimm was lost as a single front dissolved into several peaks and troughs as the fastest beowolves took the lead and the others in their packs, or just the closest to them, fell behind them. They were like wedges, or they would have been if they'd come to a clear end, but the peaks just dissolved into the solid black mass behind them until another ragged peak rose out of them. The whole thing was like a graph, like something Twi would come up with, with a line that rose and fell but had lots of little ups and downs in amongst the big ones.

The beowolves tore across the field, leading the way. In the air, nevermores and griffons shrieked as they darted forwards, rising up towards the Atlesian cruisers that hung in the skies above.

The roaring of the grimm was persistent as they ran, and so loud that it drowned every other sound, so loud it nearly drowned out thought.

Then the Atlesians opened fire.

It was the sound of the guns that drowned out every other sound as the spider droids started to let loose, the guns barking deeply as they tossed shells high up over the heads of the defenders. Missiles flew through the dark sky in clusters, trailing flame behind them like shooting stars, while yet more missiles fell downwards like thunderbolts from the cruisers above.

Shells and missiles struck together in a wall of fire that covered the battlefield, consuming the first wave of the grimm. Another cheer rose from the ranks of the Atlesian soldiers, before more grimm burst through the flames — the flames caught them in some instances, but the grimm didn't seem to care — leaping or lumbering through the dying explosions as they pressed forwards.

The flying grimm rose, and the Atlesian fighters dived to meet them, even as red laser bolts from the cruisers lanced down to eviscerate teryxes or turn nevermores to ashes. The bombers dived too, the Skybolts flying lower than the Skydarts to strafe the mass of grimm on the ground with their Tempest cannons, to fire missiles at the goliaths as they strode forwards.

The guns and the missiles of the spider droids kept firing, shells bursting and missiles exploding amongst the onward-rushing black mass. Explosions bloomed amongst the grimm, blowing whole clusters of them to pieces, opening up holes in the horde — holes that were filled moments later as the grimm kept coming. The Paladins and the spiders on the front line were firing too now; the spider droids' lasers leapt out to strafe across the grimm line, burning away dozens, scores of them at once, while the Paladins' metallic fists folded back to reveal cannons which fired with a thrumming sound, arms recoiling again and again.

In the skies, fighters duelled with the grimm in a chaotic battle, laser beams criss-crossing through the night sky, grimm only visible as they blocked out the stars or flitted across the face of the broken moon. Down on the ground, the mortars had started to fire as well; the smaller mortars fired starshells which burst in the air, illuminating the onrushing horde, while the larger mortars added their fire to the guns and the missiles, to the lasers and the cannons, to all the fire that was already pounding relentlessly upon the grimm, shredding them, devouring, consuming them in Atlesian fire.

Rainbow grinned at the sight, the fires of the explosions reflected in her magenta eyes. She grinned as she saw the grimm being taught, as other grimm had learned before they died, that teeth and claws and some raw bestial savagery were no match for the sheer technological might that Atlas could bring to bear against them. They were even sparing some fire for their flank, where the grimm were moving on the Valish line to the Atlesian right; a cruiser was directing its fire that way, and spider droids too, and Skybolts strafing in that direction.

"Look at this, Blake!" Rainbow cried as the fires from the sky and the ground hammered the grimm over and over again. "Look at it! Isn't it beautiful!"

The smile on Blake's face was softer, more contemplative, but still a smile. "It's power," she murmured. "It's impressive, but … there are still a lot of them out there."

She was right, unfortunately. The grimm were being battered, they were being burned, they were being consumed in fire, but they kept on coming. They kept on coming in that immense mass, and they were still so thick that Rainbow couldn't spot the apex alpha leading the horde. She could see some of the older beowolves and ursai, the more mature grimm who formed the second wave of any grimm horde, who let the youngsters die to tease out the strength of the enemy defences — they hadn't even done that completely — but there were still a few youngsters left, blessed with luck as they dodged the shells, the missiles, the mortars, who seemed untouchable as they bounded forwards.

They reached the minefield in front of the ditch; Rainbow could have sworn the first to reach it had a look of shock on his face like a funny animal picture in the split second before the mine blew it to ashes and dust.

Other grimm began to reach the minefield in front of the first ditch, and as the mines began to explode beneath them, the ground erupting in explosions, the grimm for the first time seemed to hesitate. They had pushed on through the punishing fire of the shells and the missiles, but now, they seemed unsure of what to do. Some tried to leap clean over the minefield and the ditch beyond; some missed and plunged into the ditch itself, scrabbling wildly with their paws; others made the jump only to get blown up by the mines that lay between the two ditches. The grimm stopped, milling around at the edge of the minefield; some pushed into the mines where they, too, were blown up by the sheer mass of grimm pressing down on them from behind. Others managed to stay away, only to be caught in the murderous fire from the artillery, the missiles, the mechs that continued to rain down on them.

"What are they waiting for?" Blake asked as they watched the grimm halt, holding under the murderous barrage to which they were subjected to.

"I don't know," Rainbow murmured.

A human army, she was sure, would have retreated at this point. A human army probably would have broken already under this amount of fire, but the grimm were different; grimm didn't break. The grimm also didn't seem to know how to go forward either, which was both surprising — why not just step on the mines? Eat the losses like they were eating the losses from the Atlesian fire support — but also, if they really didn't know how to go forward, then why not go back? Why not retreat, instead of holding firm like this like sitting ducks?

But the grimm did hold. They held firm as the Atlesians pummelled them, roaring and howling in defiance even as their roars were cut off by explosions that consumed them.

And then the mines started to explode. No grimm was stepping on them, none of them were even setting foot in the minefield, but the mines were exploding, throwing up clods of earth that momentarily blocked the grimm from view, explosion after explosion rippling across the field as the mines blew up without harming any of the grimm who waited beyond them.

"Creeps!" Blake snapped. "They're using creeps to go underground and detonate the mines!"

"That—" Rainbow started, then stopped. That made an unfortunate, a really unfortunate, amount of sense. "Oh, the sneaky little…"

"Clever creatures," Ciel murmured. "We underestimate them at our peril."

"What about the other mines?" Rarity asked. "The ones on the other side of the ditch? Can the creeps get at them, too?"

"I don't see why they can't just dig underneath the ditch and then come up," Starlight said. "Unless the bedrock stops them."

Maud shook her head. "There isn't enough stone here. The bedrock is too far down. We won't have dug that deep."

Sure enough, as Maud was finished speaking, the mines in the second layer, between the two ditches, also began to explode, first one or two, and then rippling explosions like waves spreading out across the battlefield.

The roaring of the grimm started to sound like laughter, mocking laughter.

"Yeah, laugh it up, assholes; we're still kicking your asses!" Neon bellowed at them.

The grimm started to move forward again as though they'd heard her. Some of them leapt over the ditch to land cleanly on the other side. Others missed their jumps, or else … some of them were actually throwing themselves headlong into the ditch as though they were stupid or something.

Since the grimm weren't stupid, it made Rainbow wonder what they were up to.

"Fourth Battalion!" Colonel Harper's voice echoed out across the line. "Battalion will commence aimed fire at will on my command. Take aim!"

Rifles were tucked more firmly into shoulders, fingers tightened on triggers.

"Fire!"

The Atlesian line exploded in flame as rifles, machine guns, rockets, grenades, all erupted at once. Soldiers and the ghost-like Knights that fought beside them opened fire on the grimm as they struggled to cross the ditches. Rockets traced flaming trails through the night, tracer rounds were hard to distinguish from lasers, Distant Thunder roared very close to Rainbow's ears as Ciel fired, chambered a new round, fired again. Blake was firing too, squeezing off individual shots from Gambol Shroud with a practised patience, every shot carefully aimed. Rainbow opened fire also; it was about the limits of her machine pistols, but if she aimed carefully and controlled her breathing, she could hit something. Like the soldiers around her, she fired in short controlled bursts, a few rounds at a time. With most of the immature grimm dead — it definitely seemed to be the more mature grimm that they were dealing with now — those few rounds wouldn't kill an older beowolf, they wouldn't blow one away the way that Ciel could kill one with a single well-placed shot, but combined with all the other fire being put out from the line, together, it was enough to bring one down.

And the grimm were falling, either in the space between the ditches or on the near side of the second ditch, falling down dead as they took their last few steps towards the rampart, dying under a thousand rounds instead of dying to a single shell, falling to turn to ash as more grimm rushed forward to take their place.

"That's it," declared Colonel Harper as she strode up and down the line, her personal amplifier walking behind her. "That's the style, kids, pour it on! You're the best shots in the whole Atlesian military; now let those monsters know it!"

I bet all the colonels say that, Rainbow thought.

The grimm were falling under the punishing Atlesian fire, but they were also falling down the ditch — down both ditches, as even some of those that jumped easily over the first pit threw themselves into the second like it didn't even matter to them whether they died from the fall or not, or like they were so desperate not to get shot or blown up that they would do anything to get away from it. It was bizarre to watch, as Rainbow fired in short, sharp bursts, these grimm that were being shot at from every which way, strafed from the air, just jumping down into the ditches like … not like lemmings, because Fluttershy had explained that lemmings weren't actually like that at all, but like … pop culture lemmings, if that made sense? Just leaping down into the ditches, more and more grimm, with their arms and legs flailing. Mostly, they were beowolves, even some alpha beowolves, but there were some ursai doing it too, jumping down into the ditch.

Jumping into the ditch and filling it up.

It took a while for Rainbow — for anyone, she guessed — to realise that was what the grimm were doing. At first, the grimm just disappeared into the ditch, which had been dug so deep that you couldn't stand on the rampart and see the bottom; so the grimm jumped in, and nobody could see them anymore. Nobody could see them, nobody could shoot at them, the artillery and the missiles were aiming past the ditch at the grimm still coming up beyond, and so, the grimm who survived that were free to keep jumping in and jumping in until the Atlesians could start to see them, the grimm all packed together, filling up the ditches with their black bodies, filling them up so that the bigger grimm, the goliaths and the cyclopes, the beringels, the big ursai major, they could all just walk across the ditches, stepping on their fellow grimm along the way, crossing what would have been impossible for grimm their size to jump.

Crossing the obstacles meant to keep them at bay.

The first goliaths crossed the inner ditch, trumpeting their accomplishment as the earth trembled beneath their tread. More goliaths behind them died from artillery fire, or were torn apart by missiles, but some goliaths made it, and cyclopes too, while beowolves and ursai gathered around their feet.

Ciel fired. Distant Thunder roared as a goliath, its bony elephantine skull cracked, turned away with a snort of pain. Spider droids concentrated their lasers on the immense targets, burning through bone and turning the elephant-like grimm to ashes. The Paladins, the soldiers with the rocket launchers, they were all concentrating their fire on the large grimm who now stood on the threshold of the Atlesian defences; the Atlesian cruisers were turning their fire that way too, where they were not too oppressed by nevermores or griffons flocking around them; they turned their main guns down on the goliaths and the cyclopes.

Indeed, it seemed as though more and more soldiers were turning their guns in that direction.

"If all you've got is a rifle, don't aim for the big ones!" Colonel Harper shouted. "Aim for the beowolves and ursai; leave the big bastards to the big guns."

Rainbow was doing that, had been doing that, taking aim at the smaller grimm that scuttled around the feet of their much larger cousins. But even as she kept up her fire, she couldn't help but keep an eye on the big grimm as they lumbered forwards. Some died, by laser fire or sustained rockets and missiles, or because the artillery was firing so short that Rainbow kept wanting to duck as the shells arced high overhead. But others kept on coming, and if they kept on coming much closer, then they would surely reach the wall or the rampart.

And once they did, they would break through.

The grimm kept coming.

Rainbow's thoughts were interrupted by a curse from Starlight.

"The Valish!" Starlight shouted. "The Valish have broken!"

Author's Note:

This chapter functions as kind of a best case for the Atlesian military, with all of its component parts working in harmony to deliver a lot of punch.

Comments

[AngelicTitan]

4 million words, and we’re still going strong! Excitement is endless!
So Atlas hold up, but Vale fell, and it seems we’re getting closer to the Volume’s Climax, and the infamous Vale Red Line chapters. Oh boyyyy I’m excited to see what will happen then! I love how the Grimm are smarter than the common pop-culture monsters, able to use tactics like the creeps on mines and filling a ditch to make the big ones cross; it seems that the Valish Line fell, and with it IRRN is in hot waters; and I wonder how SAPP is doing in the Mistral Line as well; have Sunset met with the rest of Sapphire? Is it holding fast like Atlas or did it fall like Vale? Questions, questions, and hopefully we will get answers next chapter.
Excited to see what will happen next!

[Mastermind4892]

Great chapter and a good showcase of how Atlas would properly hold the line. Not like that ludicrous parade-column formation they showed in V8.

[Stet709]

Well, after that ending, all I can say is...
That's not good...

11888832
I juat realized, if Pyrrha and Sapphire are going to the Mistralian line and Beacon students including Iron ar going the the Valish line, Ruby won't have to worry about being too close to Sapphire for a while.

[Kiue Jin]

11888934

11888832
There is a very real chance that Sunset might end up running into the Valish line rather then joining up with the rest of Sapphire.

[Mindscape]

So, those Grim that filled the ditches with their own bodies... They had to stay alive so their makeshift bridge of Grim bodies wouldn't disintegrate while the larger ones trampled all over them right?
... That's gotta suck for them