Equestria: The Afterlife

by Timzocker201

Ch34: A Heated Battle

POV: Mystic Gem

Even though it lasted for only about 5 minutes, the battle of Trottingham was intense all the same. The Gryphons fought like they had no other reason to live and even as we took them on from two sides, they still wouldn’t retreat. Only when Princess Twilight blasted a few of them with her magic did they finally flee.

The Damages caused by the battle were very low, considering that we were heavily outnumbered. The only ones who really had a hard time keeping up the pace were the Elements of Harmony, which may be a shock to most others considering their status, but to be honest, none of us really expected them to do much and some of us were even surprised that they were actually still alive in the end.

Well, actually calling it ‘alive’ might already be a bit of a stretch, considering that Miss Pinkie Pie was only kept alive by unicorn magic and yes, I know that Twilight has said something else, but you’ve got to take into account that she was also severely traumatized, the poor thing. The truth is that she hadn’t merely sustained a single cut, but was actually stabbed twice and was then struck from front to aft across her belly. Not a pretty sight, I can tell ya.

Anyways, in the end, the wounds they had received – physically as well as mentally – made even them realize that they may be able to handle the Everfree, but not the atrocities that come with war. Though, to be fair: Neither did I at that time, but at least, I was trained to fight.

The Elements thus decided that they were not fit for the battlefield and, when the 6^th arrived a few days later, they went home, while we went in the opposite direction, further into enemy territory. To be exact, our next target was the village of Hoovesville, though to be fair: while it was still listed as a village, it had actually been a small town already, with a small plaza in front of their Town Hall, multiple shops of different kinds and even a bar and a pizzeria!

Anyways, we arrived there during the early night hours, which was quite beneficial for us, as the town was occupied by the Gryphons. They had set up multiple sentries at the entrances and on the rooftops watching the roads, but none of them seemed to watch the sky. The Captain took note of this and thus quickly formulated the plan to have our pegasi ambush them from the air.

I would describe the battle that took place, but the truth is that what happened there couldn’t even really be called a ‘battle’. The Gryphons were completely unprepared and offered little to no resistance. Our Pegasi were outside of their bow’s reaches and everypon- euh, everygryphon, who tried to get into the air, was quickly shot down.

In the end, our pegasi didn’t even suffer a scratch, while the Gryphons were forced to flee. And yes, it was actually fleeing and not a tactical withdrawal.

We went into the village and the first thing we did was sweep the houses to see if anygryphon was still hiding in there. We didn’t find any Gryphons, but we found a whole lot of civilians that hadn’t managed to flee in time and were held captive. Some of them were actually refugees from Trottingham, which suggested that the Gryphons had dispersed and deported the local population.

However, that wasn’t our concern at the time, as we had our orders and anything that wasn’t part of them didn’t matter. I know it might sound cruel, but that’s how the military works.

After we had secured all the buildings and provided for the civvies, we held a strategy meeting. I remember asking the captain about our role, as rushing through the enemy lines didn’t seem like what forward reconnaissance was supposed to do.

“It really seems weird, doesn’t it? Well, to be fair, I don’t know what to think of it myself, as on one hand it is exactly what I’ve trained you for, but on the other hand it makes me question if General Pillbox actually knows how to use forward reconnaissance.” Was all he said to that.

The rest of the meeting was actually far more serious though, as the Gryphon’s quick ‘withdrawal’ suggested that they were planning on attacking us later with higher numbers. The captain thus ordered us to dig in around the outer edges of the town and also prepare a few positions inside the town, just in case.

At this point, I would say that it felt like the siege at Zebraville, where Major Thin Line and his forces defended against a horde of local militia, but it wouldn’t really be correct. First of all: the area around the town was very hilly, which meant that we couldn’t see very far. Second of all: Major Thin Line was fighting against a horde of almost untrained locals, with a few mercenaries in-between, while we would take on the fully-trained Gryphon Army.

Our worries were confirmed the next morning, as our sentries spotted several Gryphon scouts and we barely managed to get into our positions for the first wave to hit us.

It was a relatively small wave with only about sixty to 100 Gryphons attacking us and it was thus repelled with relative ease. What followed was another wave with easily double if not triple the Gryphons. They stormed us with all their might and actually reached the village, so that we had to fall back and engage in close combat.

They came in from the northern and western entrances and I was tasked with holding the north together with Bulkhead. They stormed against our line like their lives were as expendable as the arrows they shot at us and soon, they had reached even the inner line and forced us to fight up close. At least that’s what they wanted, but Squad four, led by Private ‘Nambs’, managed to stall them for a good bit longer than they could’ve afforded.

What they did was that they made use of the old wooden buildings that lined the street that we were defending and when I gave permission to execute their plan, they positioned themselves in the upper levels on both sides and destroyed the support beams that were holding the walls in place, causing them to fall outwards and onto the Gryphons.

Admittedly though, the Gryphons weren’t the only ones that were distracted, but I was as well. This nearly cost me my life, as a Gryphon tried to make use of it by throwing a Spear towards me.

When I noticed the incoming projectile, it was already too late for me to do anything and the only reason that I am still alive today is that Bulkhead stepped in. He placed himself directly between me and the spear, caught it in his magic and threw it back at the Gryphon who threw it. But he didn’t stop there. He actually remained in place and defended me from a few more Gryphons who tried to finish what their comrade had started.

Finally, they were ordered to withdraw and we could catch a breath. A breath that Bulkhead promptly used to lecture me about spacing out on the battlefield.

Suddenly, something big impacted into the buildings next to us and we barely managed to realized what it was, when a gigantic barrage of rocks came hailing down upon us. We reacted quickly and herded the civvies together as fast as we could, so we could then shield them with our magic while the Pegasi took off to deal with the threat.

It felt like hours that we stood there, even though it had likely just been ten to fifteen minutes. Eventually, the rocks stopped coming and we lowered our shield, but that didn’t mean that the tensions were gone as well.

Suddenly, I felt something blunt impact with my flank, sending me to the ground and I immediately saw our earth ponies and unicorns around me train their guns on a stallion that was suddenly standing behind me.

“LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO OUR VILLAGE!” He started to scream. “DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK TO BUILD ALL THIS?!”

I was about to tell this stallion quite a lot, I mean we’d just saved their lives and this was their thanks? However, the captain stepped in before I did something stupid.

“I am very sorry for your loss. I will make sure that a few engineers will come here to help you rebuild this place.”

The stallion still seemed dissatisfied. It appeared that he wanted to say a lot more, but before he could do that, the captain pulled out one of his trump cards. He just looked down at the stallion. It might not sound like a trump card right now, but that’s only because you haven’t ever seen him do that. When he stared you down, it did something to you. Like he was looking directly into the deepest depths of your soul and telling it directly that you had no chance. That all resistance was futile and you better stepped down before worse would happen.

The stallion did exactly that and slowly stepped back, making some weird scoff to try and look dignified. The captain then immediately turned to me and asked me if I was hurt, to which I could thankfully say no. I then looked back after the stallion, with a single question floating through my head.

“What was that all about? I mean, we literally just saved their lives and that’s the thanks?”

The captain now looked after him as well, although he didn’t seem like he was looking at anything at all.

“Don’t let it get to you. It’s just that to these ponies, we aren’t the ones who saved their lives, but the ones who destroyed their homes. They don’t see what was saved, but only what was destroyed and blame us for it. Though, frankly, this kind of people isn’t the worst, by far.”

I looked over to him in disbelief. There were ponies who were worse than this? He in turn, only smiled down to me. It almost shocked me a bit, as it wasn’t his normal smile, but a very sad one. This was actually the first time that I had seen him display something like sadness.

“I know what you’re thinking and yes, there are worse. Back in my old world, there were people who would just generally demonize whoever dared to carry a weapon. They didn’t know who these people were. They hadn’t witnessed what these people did. All they knew was that their job was to fight and therefore: evil. None of them seemed or even wanted to realize that in some cases, these soldiers were actually the only reason that they were still alive and could make these claims…”

We both then just looked into the distance, none of us looking at anything in particular. We would have sat there for quite a while longer, if a sudden call from above hadn’t ripped us from our trance.

It was our Pegasi team that was coming back from their mission, but something was off. They made haste to land and it was then that I saw the panicked looks on their faces and I immediately knew that something bad would happen.

I quickly ordered my ponies to pony their positions, just in time to hear the enemy approaching. And yes, I heard them or rather their hoofsteps. It turned out that the enemy general finally had enough and was now sending everything. And with everything, I mean EVERYTHING!

I don’t know, how many it were exactly, but it were at least a thousand if not more. They came swarming down the hill like a massive wave that was slowly washing ashore, only that they wouldn’t just flow back after a few seconds.

We defended ourselves as good as we could, but we were too heavily outnumbered to hold our ground. We fell back to the main plaza, where we could concentrate our defences more effectively, but even that didn’t seem to work. That was, when the captain surprised me with an order. He ordered us to slowly retreat into the town hall and cover ourselves and the civvies with heat shields. Yes, heat shields.

I had many questions to this, but by far not enough time to ask them all, so I just did what he said. We rallied up all the civilians and brought them into the town hall, before we covered the whole building in a gigantic heat shield.

The captain remained outside and was quickly surrounded by the Gryphons. He asked to meet their general, which they agreed to.

The General was about as large as the captain was, with a white head, grey body and a scar covering his left eye. He stepped forth between his subordinates, smiling as if he had won already.

“So, I take it you want to surrender?”

Now, the captain was smiling as well, though his was an evil, almost devilish smile.

“No... I just needed to know, whom to kill first…”

Suddenly, the captain was enveloped in some sort of black mist, which slowly started to glow.

The ground below him slowly became liquid as the glow and heat around him increased in intensity. When a certain point was reached, he started to walk towards the General. Every step caused a small flame to erupt and instantly left a molten footstep in the ground.

The General seemed frozen in place by the display, as the captain slowly made his way towards him.

Then, the captain held out his arm and as soon as he made contact with the General, he burst into a cloud of steam, blasting his helmet and armour away and causing the Gryphons and us to wince back.

The Gryphons then started to flee, but it was no use. The captain used his magic to quickly zig-zag through their lines, vaporizing those he came into contact with, while the poor bastards who happened to stand too close to him started burning alive from the heat.

Soon, the massive Gryphon Army that had surrounded us was reduced to a few steaming sets of armour, many burning bodies and a handful that managed to escape. The captain cooled off, literally, before he came to us and had us do a casualty report.

We were hit heavily, sure, but definitely not as heavily as the Gryphons were. Still, the captain decided that we could not hold our position in our current state and that some of us needed medical assistance. Thus, we blindfolded the foals and those who couldn’t bear the sight of the aftermath and left the village.

The stench of burning flesh hung heavy over us, even after we left the village. A few vomited directly after the doors were opened. One of them even managed to trip and sprain his ankle because the strong smell disoriented him.

We met the 5^th on the way back and they took over the civilians while we made our way back to HQ. Needless to say, Pillbox wasn’t all-too happy that we decided to abandon our position, even though he could clearly see that we could be happy to not have suffered any fatalities.

Still, after that we were stationed to the rear for a while, where our wounded could heal… and we others would bore our flanks off…

Author's Note:

Yes, I mutilated Pinkie. Yes, I referenced the siege at Jadotville. Yes, I've 'ponified' Quinlan as Thin Line. Yes, I am pleased with myself.

Comments

[Ryan_606]

Well that was hot

[PrinzEugen]

10230093
Come with me sir, the exit is this way

[Xblaster]

This was pretty good, look forward to what happens next also Twilight being punished for nearly getting her and her friends killed because she wanted to fight a army head-on

[Lunar eclipse airsoft]

/)