The Kingdom and the Leviathan

by beckoning devil

Act I, Chapter VI

Ponyville, Equestria
Sugarcube Corner, now Headquarters of the 1st Eastern Army
Day 10 of the Invasion of Equestria

For just a moment, the Ponyville headquarters was in chaos. Messengers were giving reports right on top of each other, and every colonel of every regiment, it seemed, needed to talk with General Shining Armor.

"Ok, enough!" His voice caught their surprise, and he then added in a more conversational tone, "One at a time, please."

The first messenger awkwardly shifted from hoof to hoof, looking around the headquarters, which had actually used to be his sister's library.

Twily...General Armor felt tears pricking at his eyes as he tried not to think about how she was stationed on the front at this moment, directing the artillery batteries that had been hastily set-up at the frontier.

"Well, sir, our reconnaissance pegasi have determined that there are indeed, three armies invading us." She pointed them out on the map, placing them just three days from Ponyville at this point.

"Ok, anything else?"

"Yes, uh, we have received word as to the size of their army, it numbers at about 600,000, sir."

Damn.

"Alright, next, uh, you!"

And so the process began, as each messenger gave Shining Armor a report that further turned the odds in the favor of this General Scott, as he was now being called.

At the conclusion, Shining Armor had figured out that the invaders had their own type of ponies, which were a bit larger, though they didn't speak, or have cutie marks, so the order was to regard them as combatants when being ridden by a human. He had also heard about the battle at Appeloosa. Nasty business, that.

He sighed, and thought about the circumstances so far. He had about 50,000 ponies under his command, about 5,000 of them trained soldiers (what was left of the Royal Guard), the rest were conscripts, or worse yet, the town militia. They were expected to receive the garrison of Appeloosa in the following day, as they had fallen back rather rapidly.

All other reinforcements were out of the question. The Princesses had decided that there were to be two main armies, one stationed in Canterlot, another stationed near Cloudsdale.

As he closed his eyes, he remembered his first day in tactics training. Prewar life was beginning to be more and more harder to remember, and so this memory was strained.

"How can a nation such as ours stand a chance to the Griffons?" This was before the days of the Changelings, back when
things were simpler, it seemed. "Our warriors aren't exactly on par with them, but we lack in fighting ability, we must make up in our magic, and our tactics."

The instructor, an aging former general of Equestria, had surveyed the class, and removed his glasses.

"Imagine that you're fighting an enemy that has better warriors and has the capacity to match you in terms of magic. What do you do then?"

"Well", a mare had stood up, and began to answer. "You have two options. Either engage in a guerilla action, or attack them when you are numerically superior."

Shining Armor remembered that the older stallion had looked her over, and then said, "That would be correct. However, what if you must fight in open battle?"

The mare had paused, and searched for words.

"Alright, sit down. In such an engagement, you must find tactics that take away their advantage, or find flaws in their army, and exploit them. Or...you must change tactics."

Going back to the present, Shining Armor struggled to see how this could work. He thought about all the types of tactics and strategies that could be used, and he eventually decided on something that the humans had been reluctant in doing thus far...

Eastern Approaches to Ponyville
August 18th, 1851
Day 13 of the Invasion of Equestria

The regiments were ready. We were deployed in two waves, my regiment being in the first. Here it seemed my luck ran out, and I was in the first rank. Tip of the spear, as it were.

We all knew that we were in Equestria proper, since we could see that this was a major army base for them, and if one squinted his eyes, he could just make out the towers of what was assumed to be Canterlot, their capital that we had been hearing quite a bit about.

The air was still and tense as we were given instruction by Colonel Gearhart, instructing us to take no prisoners, in a rather poetic way.

Next, we were given the doctrine of the day, which stated to avoid civilian casualties when possible. I personally didn't want to be anywhere near their civilians, those things were becoming increasingly nauseating for me to look at, because with them came the fear, and memories, that I was beginning to collect on this "just crusade".

Finally, we were given a drink of whiskey, which helped steady the nerves of some, and further deteriorated those of others.

"Fix bayonets!" Here we go.

"Hey, John," It was Tom, standing to my left "If I don't make it, give this to ma and pa in Virginia." He produced a case, which when I opened it, held some letters, and a lock of his hair.

I nodded, kicking myself for not doing the same. We shook hands, as Colonel Gearhart began to speak.

"Soldiers of the Army of the West! Take no prisoners! Forward, MARCH!"

The tune of Yankee Doodle began to play, as our long lines, which must have looked very impressive to the defenders, began marching towards them. A few men began to sing it, and I decided to join them.

"Yankee Doodle went to town a'ridin' on a pony,
stuck a feather in his cap and called it maccaroni!
Father and I went down to camp, along with Captain Goodin,
And there we saw the men and boys as thick as hasty puddin'!"

The whole line had erupted spontaneously into this song, and if one listened, they could hear the response of the defenders. We had more men, and Colonel Gearhart, on horseback, was encouraging everyone to sing it.

We began to notice some rocks that were laid in front of us, which were oddly enough, painted yellow and red.

"Go around them, men!"

As soon as we did that, we were rewarded with a series of explosions, all coming from the town of Ponyville. Their artillery was firing, and their shells began exploding overhead. Behind me, the line must have been in chaos, as soldiers struggled to fill in for the fallen ones, as those who were hit were begging for their help.

"Steady, steady! Keep moving!"

Then it hit me, as we approached another set of rocks.

"THEY'RE RANGE MARKERS!" I screamed it as loud as I could.

"Who said that?"

"John, this better not be a joke-"

Another series of explosions struck our line, as their artillery began pounding the whole line.

We continued to advance, and we began to cheer as our artillery, having found a firing solution, began responding with their own percussion-capped shells, which began blasting the hell out of these satanic creatures' imitation of our cannons.

Then we found the first trench. The regiment to our right, the 42nd, if I wasn't mistaken, was about 30 feet from it when a series of war cries were let out, and the horses hopped out of the trench and started galloping toward them. The Colonel of that regiment quickly halted them, and fired a volley, but that was all they had time for, and in a few more seconds, the horses were on them.

Colonel Gearhart answered our turned faces with a simple command.

"Continue marching, the second wave will take care of them."

We did so, as the several of the regiments ran straight into these trenches. Each time they did, the horses would hop out, quickly kill a good part of the regiment, then pull back to Ponyville.

We must have spent an hour clearing the field to Ponyville, there was a total of four lines of trenches dug into that field, which showed that they had developed a rather clever counter to our muskets, namely, not allowing us the time to properly fire volleys at them.

Our regiment, in all of this, was pretty unscathed, having lost only a few men to artillery. We were ordered to hold position, along with four other regiments, and wait for the second wave.

They didn't need to tell me twice. After 5 minutes, the second wave caught up with us, and we began to enter the city. We knew what we were getting into, judging from the sheer number of them that had pulled away from the trenches.

If the streets of Clovis had been hard enough to hold on to, then I shuddered to imagine how much it was going to take to clear out a street, when we needed to kill as much as possible.

As the regiment, now in a column (I was still in the front rank) turned a corner, we were promptly greeted with a hail of spears, tossed by the enemy. The soldier to my left wound up with a spear sticking through him, and he begged me, with fear in his eyes, to help him pull it out.

"HALT! MAKE READY!" More spears flooded the area, killing about 20, judging from the grunts and wails. The sound of their grunts was loud enough to cover us pulling back our hammers.

"TAKE AIM!" I sighted a rather conspicuous looking one, (hard to call one of them conspicuous, they all had different bright colors), and tensed my finger on the trigger.

"FIRE!"

Oh God...I did it...

I hit him, or her, judging from the stature of it. It fell over, grasping at its side as blood poured out of it from where I had hit it in the chest.

"Front rank, kneel! Second rank, AIM!"

I began to reload my musket at a kneeling posture, all the while watching the life empty out of this thing. I wanted to finish the job, if not for my sake, then to at least end the suffering of this poor thing.

She must have been young. As I started to begin ramming in the musket ball, and the second rank fired its muskets, the horses began retreating. They were nearing the end of the village, and it was then that I noticed the horse had stopped moving.

I almost didn't notice the charge of their heavy infantry until it was too late. I blinked, saw them bearing down on me, and assumed the posture to receive their charge. It didn't help. I was still knocked onto my back, and it was now that I noticed the drawings on their flanks.

I saw that Tom was being attacked by a rather well-dressed horse, it must have been a leader, dressed in a bright red uniform, not unlike (damn, I was beginning to use that phrase a lot) the uniforms of the British. He had a white mane, and what seemed to be a shield as a drawing.

Wouldn't it be ironic... I gave a thrust toward it's shield drawing, as if a bulls-eye.

Right before it could pierce the skin, another horse kicked me onto my back, and I was confronted with a rather...cute...face, one that belonged to a purple-colored horse.

Though it's face was contorted in anger, and it did yell "GET OFF MY BROTHER!" I still felt that it was the cutest thing I had seen in this war.

I saw it's hooves raised, in the same pose that the orange one had held. I quickly pulled my bayonet off my musket, fashioning it as a knife, and kicked it off me, rather easily, by sweeping its hind hooves off the ground.

I slashed at its face, perhaps the soldier side of me reminding the civilian one that this was an enemy, and to make it easier for the both of them, taking away the cute part of it would make it easier to kill, to do my duty.

It covered its face with its hooves, as I could imagine the slash across its face.

I pushed it over, got on top of it, and prepared to finish it off.

That face.

I saw its puppy-dog looking expression of fear, as I lifted my knife, and then stopped.

I tried it again.

Nothing.

I couldn't do this. It must've not even been an adult.

"Get away from me, and keep this a secret between us." I looked it in the eyes as I picked up my musket, fixed my bayonet, and began looking for Tom, as the horse coughed out, "T-thank you...mister..."

I saw Tom, who had managed to beat off that white-colored horse, but not kill it. It yelled the words "PULL BACK!", and the horses began to retreat.

They began running, as our regiment broke formation, and watched them run away at full gallop. We had taken Ponyville.

We saw them notice our cavalry, and our men on horseback, fresh and waiting, began to charge at their flanks.

The one in the red uniform organized a hasty rear-guard, which was promptly slaughtered, the sabers of the cavalry cutting through the gaps in their armor. The others made their way back to the almost medieval-looking castle of Canterlot.

That night, I gave Tom back his package. He said I could hold onto it, because judging from the ferocity of the defense of just an interior village, there was a very good possibility of more deaths at their capital.

We later learned that Tom was right. What we had just lost thousands of men capturing was a mere village, more important symbolically then in strategic location or resources. And their army?

It was a fraction of their army, which we were sure to meet in all its might at Canterlot.

Comments

[Matt345]

First. Also, We have artillery, they don't.

[The Gunny]

I see a siege battle in our future.

[lockpick]

this reminds me of the mlp mod for vic 2, american muskets vs pony magic. Played as ponies and crushed the americans with help from the british and mexicans.

[MADC3]

2330072 what is Vic 2 I would like I play it.

[poisedanimeBloke]

I say they should sieg Canterlot, since the damn thing is built on the side of a mountain it shouldn't be that hard to keep them in. Also, since I would imagine a city on the side of a cliff would have alot of weak areas in it's structure and remember they brought heavy artillery cannons with them.

All we have to do is take the force field down that Shining Under Armour (see what I did there?) would inevitably put up which wouldn't be that hard considering an army of changlings did it just by body slamming it. We will inevitably win, I really hope for a chapter that shows what is happening in Celestias point of view. You know, see her motives for attacking us in the first place.

[Sean Mulligan]

Their is no way that the United States in 1851 could raise an army of 600,000 so quickly. Right after the Mexican War, the U.S. had a standing army of about 10,000. When the Civil War started, LIncoln called for only 75,000 volunteers, and that and at its height the Union's largest army, the Army of the Potomac, had only about 100,000 to 125,000 men. Supplying such a large force so far out west would be impossible.