The Flames of War
“Say Titanfall!” I call out with a group of other Pilots, as someone takes our picture in front of a cardboard replica of BT.
After the picture, I gently pat the replica, then start to head off. “See you guys another time.” Pausing, I look at the replica, “Maybe next time don’t make a cosplay so big you can’t leave the lobby.” I get a grumble from the guy inside the replica and laughter from the other Pilots as I set out to look around the convention center. Stepping over to a wall, I double check that my cosplay is in place and smile at the fact that I was able to do my favorite Pilot loadout justice even though the grapple doesn’t exactly work. Putting the backpack I added to the costume on, I continue into the vendor hall.
After spending a couple hours looking around at vendors, I come across one that has a Spitfire LMG on display. As I walk up, the Trader from Resident Evil 4 comes up to the front. “Whatcha buying stranger?” the trader asks in a raspy voice.
I take my backpack off and hand him a water bottle from my bag. “If you’re going to be doing that voice the entire day, you’re going to need this more than I will.” He takes it with a thankful look on his face. Putting the bag back, I continue, “I was looking at the Spitfire there.”
He brings the replica over and sets a Wingman and a set of Firestars down with it. “That’s a hundred dollars for the Spitfire and, for your generosity, I’ll throw these in.”
Blinking, I pick them up and look them over, then notice a keychain of the Scorch Prime insignia. “Well, I’m not completely opposed to it, but how about these three and that keychain for $200?”
He looks over at the keychain and nods, bringing it over to me and we complete the transaction. “Well Pilot, prepare for Titanfall.”
As I finish getting everything situated, I'm smirking behind my helmet, thinking he's just joking around. It's then that I notice everything beginning to go dark as the ground gives out beneath me.
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Coming to, I notice I’m freefalling into some strange forest I’ve never seen before. In the distance, I see what looks like a village. As I approach the ground, jump jets on my suit activate, righting me to land on my feet. As my heartrate falls, I notice my helmet is giving me a heads up display. “Okay, the fact that my suit is actually functional is weirding me out. If the stories are true, it might also mean I’m no longer on Earth, or at least my Earth anymore.” Drawing the Wingman, I start wandering through the dense forest, “I can panic later. First objective, get to that village I saw on my way down, and for the love of the flame keep my armor on at all times.”
I eventually come across what appears to be a medieval village from ancient Europe. “If this is the standard for this world, then I am the most heavily armed person on the planet with just my pistol.” Putting my pistol away and storing my Spitfire on my back I start walking towards the village. “I’ll have to use my firearms sparingly, maybe I can get away with just using the Firestars.” Moving my hand down to the Firestars my hand brushes against something else and I look down at a data knife, “Ok, if anyone asks I'm an eccentric inventor and made this armor.”
I drop to the ground as I notice some armed creatures flying in the other direction, “Those looked like griffons, if that’s so then magic may exist here so it might be able to play off the stars as a magical weapon.” Staying low, I make my way towards the village and notice the villagers are anthropomorphic ponies in a panicked state. “Going off how those ponies are acting, it could be safe to say those griffons were raiders, let's go see if I can confirm that and, if so, do something about them.” Staying low, I sculk back into the forest, keeping to the tree line and making my way towards where the griffons were heading.
After a while, I hear talking and see a big raiding party. “That village has no chance of fighting them off.” I hear the sounds of trees snapping coming from behind me as something heavy hits the grounder deeper in the forest and the griffons seem to start rushing to get something together to go investigate it. Thinking it would be bad for the village, I immediately set out to get there first.
Arriving at where I heard the crash, I come across what looks to be some sort of metallic building. As I get closer, a red light scans me up and down and I hear some sort of automated voice say, “Welcome home Child of Man.” I watch a vault door open with a hiss, the telling sign of pressurized air releasing and head inside.
“Computer close and lock the door until I say to open it.” The door closes and locks behind me. “I was not expecting that to work.” I keep going deeper in discovering it’s some sort of hangar. Noticing a terminal, I walk over to it and start hearing banging on the door. “Looks like they're here.” Sifting through the terminal’s data, a manic grin starts crawling across my face, and I download the information into my helmet, “Not letting anyone else have this information. Now, where’s that door?” I continue further into what I’m going to refer to as a vault until I come across a giant door labeled Armored Fire Unit, “Here we go.” With a maniacal grin, I open the door, head inside, and look up at what I was searching for, a Scorch Prime Titan. “Add this to the list of things to figure out later, there’s no hiding this thing from anyone.”
After climbing in and noticing a lack of verbal response, I realize that there’s no AI inside the machine, only a basic learning processor. I start making my way towards the hangar door, “Time to show those griffons what they are trying to mess with.” As the door opens to show a handful of startled griffons armed with medieval swords and spears wearing what appears to be leather armor, I waste no time in grabbing two and crushing them with the Titan’s robotic hands as I stomp on another and burn the rest with the Thermal Shield, “Why do they smell like chicken?” After having the door close and lock again, I start driving the Titan back to the village to see if I can get them to evacuate.
I crash through the trees and eventually get back to the village noticing them moving carts as makeshift barricades and jump out in front of the villagers that came to investigate, getting a count that most of the villagers are female and not prepared to repel raiders. Motioning to the prototype Titan to go keep an eye out for more griffons, I turn to the ponies, noticing some pegasi as well, “So I doubt you will believe me, but it might be the best for you to evacuate the village, if you had plans to fight off the griffons don’t bother they’re about, twice the size of those capable of fighting here, well, no me taking out those five wouldn’t have made a big enough difference”
One of the older ponies comes up to me, “Who do you think you are?”
I roll my eyes under my helmet saying in a harsh tone, “Someone who will use force if necessary if it means getting all of you out of here alive.”
While a few of the more stubborn ponies stick around challengingly the others scatter to go pack up while they can, “Sonny, you have no right to come in here and tell us that we have to leave our home and thre…”
Before he can finish his sentence I throw a handchop at the spot between neck and shoulder knocking him out and throwing him over my shoulder. I then look over at the others who stepped back, “Anyone else want to test me?” I take and place the old man into a cart before looking at them and cracking my knuckles. They proceed to go pack up their things as well. I go to the front of the cart and start pushing it around to help the ponies get their things ready to move and one pony was kind enough to pack up some things for the old pony. As the ponies keep filling the cart, they stop and stare as I push it with no trouble at all.
Some of the more willing ponies offer to pull the cart out of town letting me climb up to the shoulder of my Titan to keep an eye out. Commanding the Titan to follow behind the cart, I take a closer look at the schematics I downloaded on my wrist computer and turn off the mic in my helmet to keep it from projecting. “Okay from what this is saying the Titan is more of a metallic golem that only follows commands, I need to find some way to make an AI to give it personality.” Turning off the computer and looking up, I see a filly flying in front of me. I turn the mic on and pat a spot next to me for her to sit. “Can I help you with something, little one?”
The filly lands at the spot and says nervously, “What are you?”
I smile under my helmet, looking at the position of the noon day sun as I think about how to respond. Deciding to be somewhat truthful, I reply, “I’m a Pilot. That means I'm trained to work with this big guy here.” Patting the Titan with respect, I then turned to the filly. “Now you might want to go down to the others before they get concerned.” We both looked down and noticed the concerned looks of the ponies below us. I notice some ponies weren’t looking at us but what was behind us making me turn around to see a column of smoke going into the air. Calling down without looking at the ponies, I ask, “How long till the next town?”
A pony calls up, “At this rate it will take us three days to get there.”
I look at the ponies and think to myself, “I’m not much of a strategist, but right now since none of them are speaking up it falls to me to come up with a plan, and the enemy will be on us in a day.” Closing my eyes to think, I sigh, not coming up with much, “Okay, pegasi, can you take the children ahead to the village and get them to safety?”
One pegasus says, “If we empty out one of the wagons, we can get the children and the elderly to the village.”
I nod to the pegasi, “Do so, at this point it’s your valuables or your life for those about to complain about leaving stuff behind.” My response shuts down any protests and a wagon starts being unloaded of belongings and loaded with ponies. I look back at the smoke column again and draw my Spitfire and pull the charging handle back on it letting it spring forward. With less baggage and the less physically inclined moving on ahead, we were able to pick up our pace. “Now we might get a couple days ahead of them, I also hope local forces see the smoke and move to assist.” Looking down at the ponies, I consider why I'm helping them. I have no reason to go this far for them, but I just wouldn't feel right leaving them like lambs to the slaughter.
I elected for us to stop for the night so we are well rested during our move, during the day to get more distance without anyone collapsing and just in case we get attacked. While the Titan can keep an eye out for any griffons that may sneak up on us, I explain to the ponies about getting a watch set in place while the rest sleep. Day arrives without warning from either my titan or the watchers, so we are safe for now.
Oddly enough the second day came and went without the griffons catching up as well. While most think that is good it sets me more on edge it just means that they are more likely to catch up to us tomorrow. Fresh guard rounds were decided for tonight as well. I'm taking the late shift to ease my worries.
We make it halfway through the day and have the town within sight when the griffons catch up to us. “Why did I have to be right about this?” I take a glance over my shoulder seeing the ponies pushing on to the village under the watchful optic of my titan. I’m glad these griffons are so focused on taking out the biggest threat, that being the combatant that is ground-based shooting them out of the damn sky.
Seeing a blip on the rader in my HUD rushing at me knocks me out of my stupor; I dodge out of the way and throw a Firestar into the lunging griffon's neck. “Okay Sky, you’re in the middle of a combat zone. Focus.” Letting out another burst from my Spitfire, I drop another group of griffons. “I’ll need to hold them off to buy time for the ponies and hopefully until reinforcements come.”
Four hours. I have been fighting for four hours. Two hours ago my Spitfire ran dry, one hour ago the Firestar printer overheated. “As long as I have my knife and pistol I will not stop fighting, I will hold them here or die trying.” I hear a buzz in my head followed by a firm and melodic voice.
“Well spoken soldier, we are here to relieve you of your burden.”
Turning around, I see a regiment of ponies rushing the remaining griffons and I take a look around at the corpses I caused and take pause. “How many did I kill?” I finally notice what could be described as mounds of corpses filled with holes or burnt to cinders. Noticing the ponies giving chase to the fleeing griffons I put my weapons away and look at my hands, literally and metaphorically covered in blood. I hear heavy thumps as my Titan approaches, and I climb inside and attach my Spitfire to a slot on the side of the cockpit to rearm.
While taking a few breaths to decompress some from within the safety of my Titan I notice a few ponies walking towards the Titan. I turn on the microphone to project my voice through the speakers of the Titan for the conversation coming up.
I recognize the voice as the mare in the middle speaks, ”Good construct, I wish to speak with your master.”
Chuckling internally, I respond, “Sorry ma’am, my partner doesn’t speak much, I can still hear you and speak to you from inside.” I take an audible breath for everyone to hear. “I apologize but I'm too exhausted to move out of here, I was fighting off those griffons for four hours before you arrived.” I see all the ponies including the mare listening, go wide-eyed and look around at the corpses and just catch one muttering quietly about what kind of magic could have possibly done this.
She coughs to regain her composure, “I see, Well, let us retire to yon village so you may rest and recuperate.”
I go to nod then stop myself remembering they can’t see me. “Understood,” I say, suppressing my emotions.
Not noticing her concerned gaze, I direct the titan to head towards the village while the ponies regroup after finishing off the last few stragglers. I set the Titan to autopilot, turn off the microphone, and take off my helmet to let my shoulder-length brown hair fall free. “Even with those fans it’s still hot in there.” I bundle up my hair again and put the helmet back on, “I still don’t feel safe out in this area, I'll fully relax when I know I’m somewhere safe.”
As we arrive at the village I hear several voices call out, “Princess Luna!” Looking over I see eight ponies running towards the mare that I was talking to. Noticing that colors are blending together from exhaustion, I turn my focus away from them and look around for a place to park the Titan and try to take a nap.
I get woken up by a ball of pink knocking on the titan and the warning lights going off. Unamused, I use the Titan to pluck the pink off and hand her to what I believe are her friends. “Did you need something?” She starts talking hyperactivity and I immediately tune her out. I open the cockpit, climb out, and hold her mouth shut. I wait for her to stop talking, then let go. “I’m tired and currently not in the mood to have protracted conversations.”
A white mare with a purple mane pipes in, “Well that's quite rude,” and grumbles something about tacky colors.
I look her dead in the eyes and gesture to the red on my armor. “This is not paint or dye, it’s blood. I just spent four hours out there fighting griffons non-stop, so excuse me for not being fashionable you pedantic bitch.” Not caring about the gasps behind me, I climb back into the Titan and shut the cockpit. I shut off mics on both ends and try to resume my nap.
Another hour later, my Titan wakes me to the approach from the mare from earlier that I now notice has a blue, flowing mane and dark blue coat and looks concerned. “If it’s about the mares whom came to talk to me earlier, I’m exhausted and in an unfamiliar environment. If the exhaustion was not there, I would have had the patience to deal with them, or brush off that mare’s comments.”
She nods in understanding. “We are going to head to the capital soon to report in, we were wondering if you would like to come with us or stay here and help with defense.”
I open the cockpit, wobbling a little as I get out before regaining my balance. “When do we head out?”
After saying goodbyes to the villagers, we make our way to the train and head to the capital which I have learned is named Canterlot. Choosing to remain in my Titan to not expose everyone to the smell of blood, After entinger through some modified doors I wait in the cargo compartment of the train. I hear a noise and look up from inspecting my wingman and see a butter yellow mare with a pink mane wearing a green skirt and white blouse walking over. I turn on my mic, “May I help you?”
She jumps then tries to compose herself. “Uhm, I was wondering if there was anything I could do to help you?” Not hearing an immediate response from me she continues after a moment, “I could tell you were under a lot of stress and my friend just provoked that response out of you.”
I use the Titan to lightly pat her on the head. “I’ll have to take you up on that vent session later, right now I just need time to take everything in, and that may take awhile.”
She gives a small nod and a smile before leaving, where I hear someone talking excitedly to her about how awesome me and my Titan look as they walk away.
I spend the next few hours deflecting questions from several of the mares, a lavender mare in particular asking me all the questions about my gear, the Titan, and myself. One yellow and red mare did decide to just join me in sitting in silence, but she does keep giving me or, more accurately, my Titan occasional glances.
I receive word from one of the troops that came with that dark mare that we are approaching Canterlot, make some last minute checks, and ask the soldier, “Would there be a place up at the castle for me to park this?”
He stops and thinks, “I think there may be a chariot hangar big enough, if not, the princesses could probably direct you to a warehouse to store it.”
I give a thumbs up with the Titan, ”Thanks for the tip.” Taking my hands off the controllers, I stretch my fingers then notice the mare that was with me had fallen asleep. I nudge her, but she refuses to wake up. I feel us pull into the station and the modified door opens up and I gently pick up the mare and carry her out. An orange mare walks over and offers to take her and I hand the sleeping mare over thinking I should really learn their names. As we make our way there I notice all the odd looks from the ponies and the snootiness of what I believe are the so-called nobles. I then quickly realize my fingers are tapping near the fire trigger and move them away.
As we arrive, what I now realize is a guard leads me to the hangars where I park the Titan, power it down, and lock it. I look at myself, “Uh is there some place I can get cleaned up?”
Before the guard can say anything he stops and bows and I turn around and see the mare, whom I recall the other mares calling Princess Luna. I give her a quick salute out of formality for her rank. Giving a nod back, she speaks, “I will have some of my guards lead you to a private room where you can rest and recuperate for the rest of the day, we shall talk more tomorrow, once you are situated.”
I give a nod, then make a request, “Any chance I could get the room soundproofed?”
She blinks in thought, then nods. “Of course, that won’t be hard to do.”
I give a courtesy bow. “Thank you, Princess.”
A pony with bat wings leads me to the private chambers. I go inside not paying attention to anything, and no sooner than the door is shut and the privacy enchantment is in place, I tear off my helmet and go into the fetal position against a wall. Going into a panicked state holding my knees and rocking back and forth, I start talking gibberish to myself.
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Elsewhere
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Looking up from a report, Celestia stares incredulously at her sister, “One pony did all this?”
Luna nods, “I’d say the same thing if I didn’t see it for myself. Also, I don't think they’re a pony.”
A look of concern crosses Celestia’s face. “Do you think they could be a threat, sister?”
A small smile creeps onto Luna’s face, “If their interactions with the Elements are anything to go off of, as long as we talk to them while stable and not force our ideals on them, they should be more than willing to hear us out.”
Celestia looks at another report. “And what of this mechanical golem?”
Luna sighs and shakes her head, “That’s a question for them sadly, Laughter decided to climb on it and I heard alarms go off, I don’t think it’s wise to try anything further.”
Celestia nods, “I see, we shall have to wait then.”
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Griffon Empire
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There's the sound of glass shattering followed by an irate griffon yelling, “What do you mean we lost an entire fighting force!”
A nervous griffon speaks quickly, “Just that sir, when we sent scouts to investigate there were corpses everywhere, too many for the standard forces to handle.”
The irate one sneers, “Get this incompent thing out of my sight.” They turn away from the begging for mercy from the griffon as they are dragged away. “Did she find some way to open those vessels? If she has a way it shall be mine, and then after, the world shall bow to the Griffon Empire.” The sneer grew into an evil grin which, in turn, morphed into mad cackling, backed by the sounds of a thunderstorm in the distance.