The Field Marshal
The sleek, heavy Changeling tanks fired in a stationary line, picking targets for the battle beyond. There were a dozen of them in formation, guarding the motorized units beyond shifting into position. A shell whizzed just over the top of one of the turrets as it rotated to line up one of the smaller Gunnhildurs. The scout tank stood no chance against the long barrel.
Just before it fired, there was a violent crack of magic behind them.
Field Marshal Bronzetail’s tank lurched into existence with a low barrel aimed directly at the rear of one of the panzers. It fired point-blank into the fuel tank and their target exploded, turret blowing off the top of the Changeling tank and falling onto one of its neighbors.
“Traverse right!” Bronzetail gagged. The interior of the tank smelled awful. Exhaust fumes merged with the smell of burnt powder, mingling with the lingering smell of vomit and feces. The crew tried to ignore it.
Dietrich rammed a shell into the loader and locked it in. “Clear!” he croaked in Herzlander, making a gesture with the palm of his right claw. The griffon was shirtless in the heat.
Bronzetail peered through the scope as the turret rotated. The tanks in front of them were too slow to react. “Fire!” The next shot blasted through an entire chassis. The spent shell fell back into the basket and Dietrich shoved it to the floor.
He shoved another round in place. “Clear!”
“On the way!” Gabriel, the gunner, responded. The tank rocked back.
“Traversing!” Fritz twisted the tank to the right hard with frantic claws. The turret rotated to be parallel to the body while they raced down the line. The driver was fully naked, having discarded his shirt and pants to the floor. His seat still squelched as he shifted position to work the controls.
A soft chime rang out above them, followed by more explosions to their left. Bronzetail shifted the scope further to the right. The Changeling turrets rotated as the tanks broke their position. One commander stuck his head out of the hatch to look behind him.
Machine gun fire raked across the turret and took off half of the changeling’s head. He tumbled back into the chassis.
“Keeping hosing those bastards!” Bronzetail growled down to Featherfall. The machine gunner peered through the porthole, bobbing his tail in acknowledgement and squeezing the trigger with bone-white talons.
“Clear!”
“On the way!”
The next shot punched through, but didn’t disable the Changeling tank. It kept moving with flames leaping from the circular hole in the rear. The barrel fell slightly as they lost hydraulic pressure, but the turret kept rotating.
“Hit it again!” Bronzetail ordered with a pump of his right claw. A spent shell case rolled to a stop near his paws and he kicked it over to the others.
Dietrich heaved another shell into place. “Clear!”
“On the way!”
The shot rocked the interior. The second hit caused the welded armor to burst apart like a ripe tomato. Flames spilled forth from the inside of the Changeling panzer. Bronzetail looked to the right again.
The last panzer managed to rotate its turret around, trying to line up his tank as they broke position. Fritz was driving right into their line of fire. “Reverse! Hard left!”
The treads spun as the driver abruptly twisted the entire body around. Spent shell casings rolled across the floor, gathering vomit and other bodily fluids. The Changeling’s shot went wide and barely missed the armor skirt around the right tread.
“Hit the turret!”
“Clear!”
“On the way!”
The shell ricocheted off the side of the circular turret with a burst of sparks. The barrel twisted to the left as it tracked them. Dietrich shoved the spent case out of the basket, and pushed another shell into place. His gloves were smoking from the heat.
A chime sounded above them and the Changeling’s barrel abruptly twisted into a hard right angle with a golden glow. The changeling crew fired on reflex and the shell blasted the turret apart when it struck the bend. Gabriel fired into the broken turret and finished the panzer off.
Blue sparks drifted across the equipment and Bronzetail heard feedback screech across his headset. He didn’t have time to warn the crew, but all of them felt their feathers prickle at the static charge in the air. They hunched over their controls and held on.
For one long moment, Elias felt as if he was being turned inside out, as if his body was being scrambled like an egg in a large plate. And then the tank abruptly snapped back into existence and Bronzetail dry-heaved before looking out the scope.
Fritz, Dietrich, Gabriel, and Featherfall swayed in their seats before resuming their tasks. The crew had long since lost their breakfasts, only able to keep water down. Fritz drained the last of a canteen and tossed it behind him to join his pants.
A shell sang just to the right. Bronzetail tracked the trajectory to one of his own tanks. He slapped his headset and the static receded. “Watch your fire!”
The radio crackled. “You’re…what…engage…”
Bronzetail slammed his headset against the back of his seat, rocking his entire head back to hit the padded headrest. “Seventh, where are you?” he asked once the crackling stopped.
“We’re halfway across the plain,” the commander reported. “Blessed Boreas, you’re nearly at the damn forest!”
“Halt!” Bronzetail made a stopping motion with his claw.
The Grendel roared to an abrupt stop and Elias’ tail swished at the telltale hum of magic above them. He placed the back of his claw against the hatch. It was warm, but not scalding. He pushed it open and stuck his head out. He inspected the golden bubble shield around the stalled tank and swiped sweat off his binoculars before looking to the west.
What was left of the Changeling motorized army was falling back to the Duskwood, savaged by a pincer strike from the Gunnhildur brigades. Elias checked his watch on a scalded wrist. We’re ahead of schedule. He turned the binoculars north.
There you are, you bastards. The Changelings had played their trick; the new tanks were doubtlessly very expensive monstrosities with enchanted hulls and piercing shells, but there weren’t many of them. After the initial push, the second and third lines blurred into familiar shapes of the older panzers they initially faced upon landing.
The Reichsarmee armored core could outfight the older models. The Changelings were relying on their armored spearheads to break through the initial assault and clear the way for their worse tanks and on-hooves units. Bronzetail spotted the black half-tracks and trucks with Chrysalis’ trident on the hood retreating, chased by the Reich’s knight divisions and the regular Reichsarmee. Elias finally lowered his binoculars and looked up to his immediate left.
The Princess leaned against the turret with scorched hooves. The entire top of the turret had been charred black from the intensity of the spells, and the heavy machine gun had been knocked aside after the barrel began to melt. Her crystal armor was pockmarked with several dozen chips from bullets, and the feathers on her right wing were bloody from shrapnel and ricochets.
With no tail or mane exposed, the armored shape looked more like a statue than a pony. The only exposed bit of fur was under the half-helm. Bronzetail could see her jaw working as she swallowed. The pink fur was stained red from a nosebleed, trailing all the way down to the gorget around her neck. The Princess tilted her helmet down to stare at him.
The fire from her horn had spread to the six points on her helmet, lighting them like candles. It cast her icy eyes in a hellish light, adding to the swirls that ebbed along the purple crystal like roiling fire. The armor meant she moved stiffly, less like a pony and more like some imperious thing that had crawled forth from Maar's hell in the shape of a pony.
“Can I have my canteen?” the Princess asked softly. There was no incoming fire against the golden bubble shield. Bronzetail dropped back into the turret and grabbed the half-full flask resting against a shelf.
“Sir?” Dietrich turned from the shell basket. “We’re almost out of high-explosives.”
“Switch to incendiaries,” Bronzetail ordered absently and stuck his arm out. He felt his claw tingle as the Princess’ magic accepted the canteen and she pulled it to her lips. He flexed his claw through the golden wisps left behind.
It feels warm, like a summer’s day.
The empty canteen floated back down to the hatch. He had to strain his ears to hear her response.
“Thank you,” the Princess mumbled with painful sincerity. Her voice was too high-pitched and too soft to come from the armored thing above him. Even when she shouted in that magical voice, she still sounded young.
A kitten that roars like a lion.
Bronzetail poked his head back out and looked around her armored forelegs. It was easy to tell where they had been. The wreckage of tanks covered in blue flames dotted the plain in clumps. Several were upside down or smashed into each other. Gouges were carved into the half-frozen ground from spells that punched through the armor plating at low angles. The later lines of the Reichsarmee leapt across the narrower ones with their treads, or shifted to go around the larger ones.
The knight chapters engaged and cleared the disabled Changeling tanks left behind the advance. Their enchanted armor absorbed the small arms and machine gun fire; the knights climbed atop the turrets with flared wings or placed explosives across the hatches. Most didn’t bother with the half-melted tanks covered in blue flames. One knight pried open the hatch on a slagged turret and promptly vomited off the side from the smell. He had to remove his helmet and shake the bile out while his squad laughed uneasily aside the wreck.
The Princess did not look back to the east at her destruction. She waited atop the turret, staring west. If not for the occasional movement of her lower jaw, Bronzetail would guess she did not even breathe.
A shell bounced off the golden bubble shield around them, plowing into a nearby wreck with a spark. Bronzetail refocused and lifted his binoculars to track the shot. To the northwest, several panzers advanced to push against the lighter scout tanks a few hundred meters away.
“A dozen tanks northwest,” he said aloud. “Do you see them?”
“Yes,” the Princess said quietly.
“We’re almost out of high-explosive shells,” Bronzetail announced. He looked up to see the Princess’ fiery horn bob.
“I’ll be right back.”
She vanished with a crack like a lightning bolt. The static puffed up Elias’ feathers and blue arcs of electricity raced down the exterior of the turret. The golden shield around his tank faded just before she teleported; Fritz began moving towards the panzers.
Bronzetail raised his binoculars and held a claw to his headset. “Third, check your fire. She's engaging.” He didn't need to say who, not after a few hours of this.
"Copy," a griffon responded. The scouts broke formation and raced to encircle the enemy division.
The Princess reappeared just above a Changeling panzer in the middle of the advancing pack. She landed atop the turret and wrapped her hooves around the gun barrel. The alicorn bent the barrel like a straw between her massive, armored hooves. While she did, her horn unleashed a laser with an electric zap.
The beam scored through the entire chassis of the tank to her left, and the tank beside that one as well. She jerked her horn up; the beam sliced through the armor and split the tanks in half.
The Princess turned to the right. A golden glow enveloped a Changeling panzer and lifted the entire war machine up into the air. The treads spun uselessly and the turret's hydraulic pressure failed; the barrel spun back. The tank slammed down against its neighbor with a thunderous crash, then lifted back up and slammed against the next one.
While she jerked her head up and down, the Princess smashed her hooves against the turret she was riding and began to tear the armor apart. The sounds of squealing metal carried across the field, matched by the crash of gears and debris from the floating tank. It no longer resembled anything; it was simply a ball of shredded metal and flaming oil held together by magic.
Bronzetail was reminded of a griffon smashing insects with a rock.
The Princess flung it at another panzer while she finished prying the turret open like a can opener. Bronzetail watched bullets spark off the crystal armor as the remaining panzers turned their heavy machine guns on the stricken tank. The Princess snapped away, reappearing next to Bronzetail with a soft chime.
The three remaining panzers were quickly overrun by the Gunnhildur scouts as they flanked them. Fritz turned to the right and pushed towards the half-tracks in the distance. The Princess shook flaming oil off her greaves and lowered her hooves back to the turret.
She’s too damn quiet. The knights screamed war cries behind them. Bronzetail imagined that he could pick out Archon Proteus’ harsh screech amongst them. Comms chatter was reserved for orders, but he had expected…
I don’t know what I expected, Bronzetail reflected, and he had known her longer than most.
The Princess was said to have devolved into cannibalism on the Nova Griffonian Frontier. She wasn’t actually an alicorn; she had used forbidden magic to grow her massive wings. Half of her victories belonged to other pilots. She was actually Chrysalis in disguise. It depended on which Reich officer was spreading the rumor. The air force and navy hated her.
I guess I expected her to shout, Bronzetail admitted to himself. Grover II was a bombastic warrior, prone to laughing on the battlefield as he carved through the Riverlanders with enchanted steel. The Changelings had destroyed her home, killed her family, taken almost everything from her. She should be happy, right? The Princess did not appear happy.
Bronzetail’s tank joined with the third armored division to run down the retreating on-hooves units. The griffon spared the Princess another look as he moved to close the hatch. She stared west with a clenched jaw. Her horn sparked as she charged another spell.
“I can kill more here, not on the mountain.” Elias closed the hatch and settled back into his seat with folded wings. Fritz and Dietrich twisted their beaks to stare at him.
“Light up those half-tracks,” Bronzetail ordered. “Incendiaries, cook them.”
“Clear!”
“On the way!”
The mechanized vehicle burst into flames. Changelings leapt from the back, uniforms and chitin covered in white fire. The machine guns roared into them as they flailed in the grass.
“Thirteenth,” the command staff addressed Bronzetail’s division directly. “Report position.”
“We’ve broken through the center of the plain,” Bronzetail reported with a claw on his headset. “Advancing with Hellquill, Longsword, and the Arcturian Order. We’re driving their motorized back towards the Duskwood.”
“Overlord copies all,” the griffon squawked. “The right flank is regrouping north of Canterhorn.”
They wouldn’t tell me that unless something is wrong, Bronzetail thought. He looked through the scope again. “Pick targets. Take out those half-tracks!”
A chime sounded above the turret and one of the black canvas trucks exploded. A rapid-fire golden laser streaked from the top of the turret into the unarmored vehicles ahead. The half-tracks fired their heavy machine guns against the tanks. Bullets pinged off the forward armor while the tanks returned fire. A Changeling armored car spun out and crashed against one of the flaming wrecks ahead of them.
“There’s some bugs squatting in the foundation of that farmhouse,” the radio reported. “South-southwest! Put some incendiaries on them!”
“Eighth reporting. Escorting motorized to the south, mopping up resistance. Will join the advance in ten.”
“This is Captain Mournhalt, we’re at half fuel.”
“Fritz?” Bronzetail asked. “Fuel check.”
“Dicey, sir,” Fritz answered. “Under half. We’ll hit the Duskwood before it becomes a problem.”
Bronzetail looked through the scope. Magic continued to chime from above while bullets sparked off the front of the tank. Sometimes the rumbling engine even obscured the sound of the Princess’ magic. Whenever the main gun fired, the sound completely overwhelmed the spellcasting.
A Changeling truck was abruptly picked up in a golden aura and flung at another. The changelings inside screamed wildly, somehow heard over the noise of the incoming fire. The trucks smashed together in a burst of blood and oil, then rolled together in a crumpled heap across a dying field.
“Arcturius Above,” Fritz swore. “She’s intense.”
Bronzetail had closed the distance to three hundred meters. The remaining Changeling tanks were older models, slower with sluggish turrets. They were blown apart by the advancing Grendels as they tried to cover the retreat. The incoming fire slowed as the remaining on-hooves units were overwhelmed by the armored counterassault. A few changelings tried to fly back to the forest on their own, but were cut down by the incoming gunfire from the knights sheltering behind the advance.
The Duskwood forest extended before them on the horizon. Bronzetail opened the hatch and raised his binoculars to his sunburnt beak. The tanks continued to advance with the knights following. There were paths cut into the tree line for the trucks and half-tracks to move onto the plain from their covered positions. Elias spotted silhouettes moving against the tree trunks. They must have buried guns.
Blood dripped down onto his elbow. The Princess had flexed her right wing above him, knocking some damaged feathers loose. She hissed quietly and her horn dimmed.
Bronzetail lowered his binoculars. “Are you all right, Princess!?” he shouted up at her to be heard over the main gun. The turret rocked with a shot that pierced another half-track, coupled with a burst of machine gun fire.
The Princess tilted her head to look down at him. “Yes, it’s just fea-”
Her head snapped to the side as an anti-tank rifle round slammed into the crystal just next to one of her eye slits. The Princess lost her balance on the turret and slid onto the back. Elias heard the rifle fire just behind them and twisted around in the turret, temporarily deafened by the crack.
A naked changeling was laying in the grass with an anti-tank rifle less than a dozen meters away. The griffon ripped his pistol free and emptied his clip at the changeling while he tried to cycle the bolt. Elias struck him twice in the leg and wings, and the changeling rolled in the churned-up grass. The Princess stood up on the back of the tank and snarled like a dog, seizing the changeling in her magic and flinging him up to her.
The changeling screeched high and loud as an armored hoof came down on his head. The Princess kicked the headless body off the back of the tank and swayed on her hooves. Her horn sparked.
Bronzetail called down into the interior, “Fritz, halt!” The tank rumbled to a stop.
Elias felt the magic blast through his feathers as the detection spell swept across their portion of the Celestial Plain. Hundreds of green flares burst from the ground ahead and behind them. He reloaded his pistol with a fumbling claw.
Infiltrators. A nearby changeling rushed forward with an anti-tank mine in her hooves before Featherfall peppered her with machine gun fire. The Princess bent her knees and leaned atop the turret.
The knights sheltering behind the advancing armor broke out into staggered waves of gunfire at the unarmored, naked changelings. They were waiting for the push. “Knights!” Bronzetail screamed. “Take them out! Infiltrators! Bring up the mages, now!”
One of the nearby Grendels was literally swarmed with changelings trying to pull open the hatch or affixing explosives to the treads. The Princess twisted her head and golden flames erupted from her horn. A fireball enveloped the tank and the changelings. The tank rolled forward through the flames while the soldiers clinging to it burned.
Bronzetail shot down two changelings behind the tank with his pistol. The others were bowled down by rushing knights in gilded armor. Archon Proteus emerged from a group of bodyguards, cackling in a manner more befit a cultist than a priest. He flung his empty assault rifle at a changeling holding a grenade in her mouth, then drew his greatsword from between his wings.
“Go to hell!” the Archon cackled as he beheaded the changeling with a swing. He kicked the corpse over the severed head as the grenade went off. He laughed again through the dust and skewered a changeling that had thrown his hooves up in attempted surrender.
The Princess coughed next to Bronzetail. Blood dripped from her nose. There was a large chunk of crystal missing from the right side of her helmet, gouged in a line from the ricochet just before the eye slit. If she hadn’t turned to look at me, it would’ve blown off her head.
“Princess, are you alright!?”
The alicorn worked her jaw and blinked rapidly. “My ears are ringing,” she mumbled.
The Arcturian Order cleared the area around Bronzetail’s tank. Archon Proteus stopped along the right side. His armor was nearly as dented as the Princess’. “Field Marshal!” he called up joyfully. “We’ve made good time! Get us to the forest!”
“I’m good,” the Princess said quietly. “Keep moving.” She pushed herself back up on her forelegs.
Bronzetail dropped into the turret and held a claw to his ear. “Cut these fuckers down. Drive them to the forest.”
Fritz rolled the tank forward while the knights formed up behind them. The advance slowed to deal with the desperate infiltrators. Horns flared from the few mage units joining the knights to cast the spell locally. Bronzetail’s feathers twitched as magic pulsed over his feathers again.
Featherfall squeezed the forward machine guns. “There’s more ahead. They’re falling back.”
The Princess retched over the side of the tank. Elias heard the noise through the open hatch. “Gabriel, give me your canteen.” The gunner tossed it over his shoulder to Dietrich, who passed it to Bronzetail.
“What happened?” Dietrich asked.
“Princess took an anti-tank shot to the head.”
The loader blinked. “She lived?”
Bronzetail leaned back out of the hatch and held the canteen up to the Princess as another pulse of magic swept across the plain. She picked it up in a shaky aura and floated it to her muzzle. The Princess guzzled it down and poured the remainder down her neck and jaw.
The golden aura around the canteen winked out and it fell to the turret. Bronzetail snagged the strap with a talon before it fell. “Sorry,” the Princess apologized.
The gunfire ahead stopped as the last resistance before the Duskwood was eliminated. “Knights, form up behind the armor. Brace for contact,” Bronzetail said into his headset. Flashes and blasts still echoed to the north.
“Ignatius has pushed up to his line,” the radio squawked. “Army Group South has broken through and cut the supply lines. Reserves heading to Army Group North.”
That’s not good. Bronzetail lifted his binoculars to look to the north, but only spotted smoke clouds from wrecked planes and advancing Reich tanks. He twisted around to the east and stopped. His tail curled around a bare paw.
Smoke poured from the top of Canterhorn in large gray blobs. Canterlot. Ancestors Above, the city is burning. Distant flashes rained down from the base of the mountain to the north. Oh Gods, Thundertail got pushed back to the damn mountain.
“Seventh, report!” Bronzetail screamed into the headset. “Northern plain, report now! Anyone!”
“We’re stretched,” a commander answered. “Brought up artillery to pound the flank. We can’t advance against the Duskwood. Facing pressure from Changeling on-hooves divisions. No sign of Army Group North.”
Guns within the Duskwood, hidden under the tree line, flashed. The sound carried a moment later. Bronzetail whirled back around and raised his binoculars. The entrenched guns, buried beside the pines and with logs protecting them, tore into the first line of advancing Reich armor. “Halt! Everyone halt! Form a line!”
The spearheads abruptly reversed as the knights scrambled back behind the armor. Shells from anti-tank guns churned the plain ahead of them, joined by short-range artillery. “They have guns in the tree line!” Bronzetail squawked into his headset. “Where’s the bombers? We need to clear it out!”
“Army Group Center, you are ahead of schedule.”
Bronzetail glared down at his watch rather than turn back to face the midday sun. “I know I’m ahead of schedule! Where’s the air force!?”
“Air support is standing by,” the griffon answered. “Hold position.”
Elias looked up and watched the distant planes spiral around each other. The Changeling Hegemony had been exhausting itself ever since they landed on Equus, but the sky was still raining metal and debris. They must’ve thrown every plane they have left at us.
“We’ve gotten reports that some Changelings broke through to hit the supply lines,” a rear commander reported. “Pony planes are flying over the Everfree to intercept.”
Bronzetail looked north and clacked his beak. “Seventh, can you push north?”
“Terrain’s good on our side, but we can’t move against the Duskwood,” the commander reported.
The sky was tinged pink in the north. The shield wall’s not far. “If you had reinforcements,” Bronzetail allowed.
“Reserves are moving north.”
Elias stared at the Duskwood. They were out of range of the entrenched guns, but they weren’t in range themselves. Ammo and fuel were running low. The supply trucks wouldn’t be inbound for another hour.
“Command, we need resupply to hit the Duskwood. We need air cover. Acknowledge,” Bronzetail spoke into the headset. The communication crystal flickered.
“Hold position,” a voice eventually answered.
While they stopped, the Princess finally turned around and stared east with four scorched hooves on the back of his tank. Her horn lifted up as she stared at Canterlot. For a long heartbeat, she only watched. Elias saw the bottom of her jaw tremble.
“I have to go back,” she whispered as her horn glowed.
“Wait!” Elias grabbed her right foreleg. The crystal scalded his claw, but he tugged on her hoof. It didn’t budge, but he got her attention. The helmet angled down to look at him. Underneath the flaming crown and swirling patterns of fire in the crystal, the Princess' eyes were bloodshot and watery.
“I have to go back,” Flurry repeated. “They can’t hold.”
“Thundertail was pushed back to the north,” Bronzetail explained. “The Changelings are overstretched. Their supply lines go through the Duskwood, but we need air support to take them.”
“I can’t stay.”
“Listen to me!” Elias shouted. “I can swing north and cut them off. We’ll pin the entire army and drive them to the shield wall!” He jabbed a claw at the forest. “But I can’t do it while worrying about the reserves in the forest!”
The helmet slowly turned west. Muzzles flashed under the trees in the far distance. Bronzetail flexed his burned claw, regarding the thin strips of charred paint and the dents along the turret. The metal had begun to deform where the Princess rested her hooves for long periods of time.
“I can do it,” the Princess declared. “Go now.”
She vanished in a crack of light.
Bronzetail dropped into the turret. “Fritz, traverse right. Go north.” He fiddled with the headset, tapping the communications crystal. “Army Group Center, prepare to shift north. Divisions, form a wedge. The Changelings are exposed at the northern edge of the Celestial Plain.”
The radio crackled. “Negative, this is Overlord." That was the direct command center in the Castle of the Two Sisters. "Hold position at the Duskwood. Acknowledge.”
Bronzetail swallowed. “Overlord, push supplies through. We need shells and fuel.” Fritz began to drive to the right. The other Reich tanks followed. The gunfire intensified from the Duskwood forest as the advance swung to the right. Claws clambered up the side of the tank.
“You are playing a dangerous game, Field Marshal,” Proteus chided from the hatch. “The Kaiser is in direct command.”
“The Reichsarmee rewards initiative,” Bronzetail answered.
“Not when you disobey the Kaiser,” Proteus replied. “Is the Princess returning to save her ponies while you ride to the rescue?”
The shelling intensified from the Duskwood as the entrenched guns took the chance to fire at the exposed sides of the tanks. Most shells fell short. “Seventh, we’re on our way to the northern edge of the plain. Prepare a counter-push. We’ll blast through the side.”
“Army Group Center,” Reich command cut in with an angry squawk. “Hold position at the Duskwood. Field Marshal Bronzetail, acknowledge.”
“We can’t hit the forest without air support,” Bronzetail swallowed and answered. “We’re going north. The Princess will deal with it.”
The radio crackled with static while the guns fired from the forest. Bronzetail lifted himself halfway out of the hatch to look north. Archon Proteus had leaned his sword against the side of the turret; he placed a gauntlet in the divot caused by one of the Princess’ forehooves.
Bronzetail turned his head to the left to watch a few Changelings advance back out from the tree line with recoilless rifles. The shots fell short, so they crept forward under suppressive fire. Elias winced; they were trying to aim for the exposed trucks and half-tracks behind the rough wedge of armor moving perpendicular to the forest.
“She might be Maar’s Daughter,” Proteus said ruefully, “but I have my doubts that she can-”
Fire arced from the sky along the tree line, engulfing the forward line hidden by the forest. The blaze was so intense that the trees were blasted apart and heaved into the Celestial Plain. Bits of burning wood rained down onto the northern advance. The sheer concussive force from the blast knocked the teams of Changelings clear off their hooves with smoking bodies.
Bronzetail’s headset burst into static from the residual magic in the air. “Hold position at the Duskwood,” a voice crackled. He couldn’t tell if it was a male or female, or even Grover himself. The fire traveled in a straight line, pouring in a funnel from an armored figure gliding just above the tree tops. The flames reflected off the purple armor as she passed by.
The flames had the size and intensity of an elder dragon, but unlike an elder dragon the figure was too small for the rapid-fire bursts of flak to track as she raced over the treetops. The inferno traveled along the edge of the forest, burning into the horizon. Bronzetail felt the intensity of the flames from over a thousand meters away. The Archon turned his helmet to stare; the roaring steel beak looked befuddled. A flash of light appeared in the distance to the north.
“She is very good at killing, isn’t she?” Proteus said idly with a palm on the hammer-hilt of his greatsword.
“I don’t think she enjoys it,” Bronzetail answered.
“When done righteously, it can be a chore like any other,” the Archon nodded. The tank ran over the naked corpse of one of the fallen infiltrators. The chitin burst under the treads in a spray of gore. Bronzetail flinched.
Like Griffenheim Square, Elias sighed to himself. Gods forgive us.
Another gout of flame screamed down from the sky to the south. More of the Duskwood burned. Archon Proteus watched it travel north again and gripped his greatsword. He scraped the blade along the wide burn marks atop the turret.
“The Gods know there’s much to be done here,” he said down to the Field Marshal. "Take us north. We'll save Thundertail and send these parasites to hell." The helmet twisted to the burning forest. "We can't expect the Gods to do all the work," the Archon repeated in a more subdued tone.
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Burn bugs burn!
It may be that the changelings have over extended themselves. Of course, they would have realized that if they had known how game changing an Alicorn can be on the battlefield.
As long as you have power, people will attribute everything to you.
It's good that she is not enjoying it, means she won't miss it.
I think this should be marked Mature at this point.
so flurry is a little scary.
11543362
She's always been a little scary.
She graduated to advanced scary.
And now she's at existentially terrifying and only at seventeen!
How big is the forest Flurrys burning? Size and position are getting a little hard to keep track of. It sounds like Flurry burning the entire changeling line but that can't be right.
Fun to see some of the crazy rumors about Flurry while she was growing up in Nova Griffona.
One last thing, Flurry is described as pretty musical, chimes, her laughs sounding like crystal by griffons. Is that just a Flurry thing or ponies in general?
11543818
She's not hitting the entire forest. It's too large. As for her voice, despite her growls and snarls and threats, Flurry Heart has a soft, high-pitched voice even when shouting. (Similar to how Grover pitches his voice deeper.) Her "windchime" quality probably comes from growing up in the Crystal Empire, where the crystal ponies have a bit of an archaic lilt to them. Add to that some Aquileian, a dash of Nova Griffonian frontier, and the Equestrian diaspora; Flurry has a "Rarity accent" that nopony else has.
I noticed those little Joshua Graham references with the Archon. Just imagining him as Joshua in griffon form now.
Griffenheim Square? Oh no
I was trying to remember what the total numbers of the belligerent forces were, I just remember that the ponies have 80k surrounding 100k of 'lings on the mountain
Based on that I would say that the main armies are 200k each, That would be over 500k troops deployed, if my estimates (based on nothing) are correct
Seven new chapters? Christmas must've come early.
It occurs to me that that tank will be a priceless museum piece: “here is the tank that Princess Flurry Heart rode and fought from and that Field Marshal Bronzetail commanded from.”
I mean, it’s not like they can just buff it out.
Joshua graham motherfucker