Hearts pounded, hooves trembled, eyes cocked. The wind had died and the Earth became a conductor around them. Low rumbles echoed from the trees and the ground shook at the advancement. They're coming, but from where? The groove in the sloped mountainside? Or the trees?

Shining Armor stood next to Lunar Guard Commander Sterling, both forward of the entirety of Equestria's last line of defense. Sterling kept looking back at the hundreds of young faces behind them, having difficulty hiding his concern.

Shining adverted his glance and spoke frankly to the superior. "We're all scared, Mister Sterling. To be honest, I'm terrified."

Sterling let out a shaken sigh. "Your men have more combat experience and training than my division. I'm worried for them."

Shining could not help but smile at this. "If over a dozen practice drills and raids count as actual 'combat experience' in your perspective, then I'd be lying if I said I didn't agree."

"Hey, if I found it in the budget of my division, I'd be ripping-off a lot of your tactics. And I promise, I would have no shame."

Shining shook his head in mock disapproval. Being of separate divisions, both superiors allowed this kind of nervous joking around, despite being of different ranks. Even if they had been of the same division, however, they most likely would maintain the same acceptance of it given the present situation.

The rumbles grew heavier, the ground trembled even more, and something began rising from the slope ahead. This is it. Let's make our kingdom proud.

...

...

...

What in the hell is that, and why couldn't we see it this morning? Tolwin was awestruck at the brilliant pink forcefield enveloping the entire palace ground. It was like a giant bubble, shimmering and rippling like water, defying the laws of physics. To Tolwin's knowledge, of course.

Behind the transparent curtain could be seen hundreds of ponies clad in medieval armor, wielding equally primitive weaponry. All stood guard outside the palace, waiting to defend it with their lives.

"Ain't that cute." He remarked to no one in particular, then held the communicator closer to his mouth. "Everyone hold position here."

The column spread out in an intimidatingly aggressive stance and halted, just as Tolwin eased back on the cyclic and pushed down on the collective to descend his aircraft closer to the ground in front of them.

"Is that some kind of magic forcefield, or something?" Riggs asked, sharing Tolwin's curiosity.

Tolwin shrugged with a sarcastic smile. "Why, of course it is. What better protection against threats like ol' Destruens Angelus?"

"Well," started Jones in the back, "why don't we find out how strong it is, if that's the case?"

"In time." Tolwin reached for the hand-microphone for the loudspeaker. "First, interrogation for intel. Then, a little psychological warfare. For the hell of it."

Riggs rubbed his eyes with disapproval.

...

...

...

The flying mechanical demon hovered only a few feet from the ground in front of a legion of other odd machines, with rather curious types of weaponry all trained in the direction of the guardsmen.

A voice called out from the flying machine as if it were a mighty god. "You cannot escape us! If you attempt to attack us, we will destroy you and your kingdom without mercy. It would be pointless! Your armament is a pathetic match!"

"Then what in the name of Equestria do you want from us, outsiders?!" Shining Armor shouted as loud as he could over the sound of the machines as he stepped forward.

"The driver! A man who is arming you for a defensive against us! Have him step forward for us all to see! I want to finally have the pleasure of seeing his pathetic face!"

The... what? Who or what in the world is he talking about? "Who is this 'driver' you speak of?!"

"Don't play with me, little horsey! The human man helping you arm yourself against us! Ha! What good he did for you, with all that 'knight-and-shining-armor' crap!"

"I honestly have no clue what you're talking about, outsider! You must have the wrong kingdom!"

An uncomfortable pause crept through the rumbles and thunder of the many machines, until a an ear-splitting explosion erupted from one of the land machines, causing Shining's magical forcefield to shatter as if it were constructed of glass. They were now fully exposed to the danger of these invaders.

...

...

...

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna looked on through the great observation window in horror as the projectile that shattered the forcefield made its way through the air above the Ward and impacted the nearby wall of the Great Hall, shattering glass and crumbling stone everywhere in the blast radius.

The structure above collapsed, faster than the two princesses had time to react to, and as a result they were pinned underneath the material.

Two guardsmen nearby ran up to them, pushing away as much of the debris as they could.

"Your Highness!" One of them shouted. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yes..." came a low, strained voice under the rubble. "My sister..."

They dug away to locate Luna. They found her under a large pile of bricks, unconscious.

"She's out cold." He turned to the other guardsman. "You, help Princess Celestia out of there. I'll take care of Princes Luna."

"Alright." He acknowledged and did as he was ordered.

Celesia struggled to speak. "Now... I'm too weak to help them. Yet another foolish mistake to end us all!"

"Please don't speak, Your Highness. Save your energy."

...

...

...

"Don't test us! Give us what we want, or suffer."

"You'll just have to give us your best shot! We will fight you with equal dismission of mercy!"

Tolwin laughed hard enough to almost loose grip of the microphone, much to Riggs' usual disgust as of late. "You and what army?!"

"This one, Mister Tolwin!" The voice calling out from their port side snapped him out of his hysterical state, as it seemed to have come from another loudspeaker. He looked in the direction and found a small vehicle situated on the nearby hillside, with a communication dish on the roof. Faust's Otokar Akrep...

The driver door was open, with a man standing next to it with a hand-microphone up to his face.

Tolwin held his own microphone back up. "Who are you?!"

"My name is Ray! I'm the one you're after!"

He smiled like a maniac, satisfied to not only finally have the man within his grasp, but to know his name. "Well, what a pleasure to finally meet the elusive driver! The only man ever to escape our firepower alive... but foolish enough to face us yet again in another softskin! Which, by the way, I believe is my property! I'd very much like to have it back."

Ray stepped aside and handed the microphone to another individual stepping out of the vehicle. He wore the very same service uniform as the rest of the Phantom Raiders, much to Tolwin's surprise. Then the man looked on at the faction, giving them all a better view of his face.

Tolwin was momentarily speechless with the recognition. Faust? No... it can't be...

"No, sir." said Faust over the loudspeaker. "I'm not letting your filthy hands anywhere near my vehicle any more."

"Faust!" Tolwin shouted much louder than he had wanted or expected to. "I killed you! I goddamn killed you, you bloody traitor! What kind of sorcery is this?!"

He grinned. "I guess you only live... twice?"

Tolwin's face flushed red with anger as he slowly spun his aircraft in their direction, all forward weapons now trained at them.

"You see, Tolwin," Faust continued, "Some mature minds grow weary from the exploits of an immature leader. Such as you."

Tolwin strained hard not to squeeze the weapon triggers on his flight controls. "Elaborate."

"It saddens me you would even make that request. Do you even know what the original cause was for our division? Don't you remember those days?"

"Cleanse the world of pitiful opposition that destroyed it in the first place, build our empire of peace...-"

Faust cut him off. "No! Our cause, the very cause your father tried to pass on, was liberation!" He practically screamed the last word, much to other listeners' discomfort. "Your father would be ashamed of what you've done to this once respected unit! For years after his death we've followed your sorely misunderstood ways, raping lands and feeding your lust for power! No more, Tolwin! I won't let you disgrace us any longer. And I won't let you destroy what is probably the only equivalent of harmonious humanity left in the world!"

"Leave my old man out of this, Faust! And don't you dare lecture me on how to run my unit!"

"I say again, Tolwin, stand down. Or we'll just have to take you down ourselves."

"Ha! I'd like to see you try!"

"So be it." Faust threw the microphone into the vehicle and stepped inside, with Ray following.

How can they possibly fathom the idea of getting out of this? They're outnumbered and outgunned! Even if they charge for attack, we could just trap them, and I could save my munitions for the palace.

Oh, Faust, and your new friend Ray, how can you be so foolish? This will be easier than when we totaled Ray's car back in the desert... Tolwin's memory woke up his deductive logic of the event again, reminding him of his old theory. Oh my god... it's another trap!

A sand buggy just behind his aircraft exploded, sending fragments through the openings in the fuselage. The ramp-gunner was badly wounded in the shoulder, tumbling onto his back in agony, gripping the entry wound with immense pressure.

Tolwin's instincts shot to life, forcing him to squeeze the weapon triggers, sending a barrage of unguided rockets and machine gun fire in the direction of the Otokar Akrep. Unfortunately, all munitions missed given that the vehicle was already in motion.

"Airborne targets!" a door gunner shouted in the back. "Left rear!"

Bullets began ricocheting off the canopy, dangerously close to the glass. Tolwin quickly pulled his aircraft out of position and prepared for the apparent dogfight.

The whole faction scrambled the area below, opening defensive fire.

...

...

...

Ray carefully drove the Otokar Akrep around the area with Chrysalis returning fire with the RPK-74 from the passenger window, and Agusta doing the same with his weapon from the turret hatch in front of the communication dish.

The airborne Changeling unit dove from the sky like green meteors, impacting in various places within the enemy column. The drones that remained in the sky attacked with their improvised carbines, but were far too high than they had originally planned, giving AA guns perfect opportunity to take them out.

"You're too high! Get down!" Ray shouted at them, despite the fact they could not hear him.Of course, they can seemingly learn new tactics and ordnance improvisation on the fly, yet they can't follow a simplified plan right!

Sure enough, the nearby Shilka opened up on them with the quad-mounted 23mm 2A7 autocannons. Its turret spun lighting fast as it tracked the targets, mowing them down before any could properly react. And before Tolwin could even react in his gunship.

Those that remained on the ground took out as many drivers as they could find in each of the vehicles with their carbines, hijacking them in the process and allowing others to utilize enemy equipment. The vehicles with concealed personnel, such as the tanks and APCs, were instead attacked with the Molotov cocktails, but to no avail as their armored skin was too thick for them to do any damage. Each of the drones who tried this attack, lost their lives to the heavy weapons on these vehicles.

An Abrams tank found a window of opportunity and fired a shell at the Otokar Akrep. The explosion was close enough to send it tumbling onto its side, throwing Agusta out of the hatch and into a patch of shrubbery.

Everyone else poured out as fast as they could, and dove for cover in a nearby ditch just as the Abrams fired another shell that blasted the vehicle into oblivion.

Cattani seemed to have a better hijacking method in mind as the armored monster stormed their direction. He leapt and climbed onto the hull, emerging onto the top of the turret with a Molotov cocktail lit, prying open the main hatch. He then threw the cocktail inside, resulting in an abrupt halt from the vehicle and terrible cries of agony escaping from inside.

Next he grabbed an extinguisher nearest the hatch, and disappeared into the tank, closing the hatch behind him.

"He's a crazy fool," started Chrysalis as she peaked over the grove in the ditch, "but his resourcefulness is undeniably admirable."

Agusta crawled away from the shrubs and rolled into the ditch with the rest of the group. His knees were skinned badly from the impact, with holes in his pants exposing the bloody mess. "Yeah, nobody go back for the gunner, leave me high n' dry in the bushes!"

"Oh, quit whining!" shouted Faust.

Cattani's newly-acquired Abrams tank began moving forward and backwards awkwardly, indicating that he was most likely acquainting himself with the controls.

A Snooty gun did not seem to notice the recent hijacking of the vehicle and pulled up next to it, with the commander atop the turret ready to signal the "fire" order.

Cattani swung the tank's turret around, aiming at the vehicle, much to the commander's surprise as he shouted "Wait!" just before Cattani fired a shot to destroy the entire port-side, raising a great storm of dirt over the fragmenting fireball. The contact was far too close, resulting in the tank's 120mm gun barrel flowering open and blasting clean off the turret.

Other drones struggling to control their vehicles crashed into each other and other enemy-occupied vehicles despite their efforts, resulting lethally explosive impacts or enemy entrapment by fire.

...

...

...

The Changelings made no effort to attack the palace, or any guardsmen whatsoever. But they fought the technologically advanced invaders with determination that appeared to be in favorable defense. They're... helping us?!

But their numbers were decreasing dramatically fast as they executed their daring tactics. Shining Armor knew he and his fellow guardsmen could not just stand idly by and watch as their one and only chance to defend their kingdom dissipated before their eyes. They had to attack now before it was too late.

"Alright," Shining started, turning to his men, "we're going in! Now I-..."

"On who's side?!" Sterling interrupted.

"Ours! Now listen up! The Changelings are an obvious neutral faction right now! Focus on our efforts against the advanced invaders! Don't attack any Changelings unless they attack you first! Got it?"

"Yes sir!" The legion shouted.

"Let's move out!" Shining lead the entire army of guardsmen in a grand stampede towards the battlefield.

...

...

...

Tempest and Gloster watched upon the nearby hillside as the Royal Guard stormed the direction of the chaos. The first wave of Changelings was decreasing at an alarming rate, much to Gloster's surprise.

Tempest spoke up. "The Guard is attacking rather earlier than we had anticipated, don't you think?"

"I don't give a good royal bone! We're loosing men!"

"We can't do anything about it. We haven't gotten Gripen's signal yet!"

Gloster glared at him. "You mean Ray's signal, you cynical, ignorant fool! And forget the signal, we're going in now!"

Tempest stepped closer with his defense. "Gloster, you'll stand down until we-..."

Gloster cut him off. "We're going in!" He waved his signal to the rest of the unit. "Attack!"

The army of Changelings charged like a thick swarm of bees, some remaining on the ground and others darting across the sky. The archers, however, remained on the hillside with their explosive arrows. They lit the fuses over small torches they had staked in the ground, took aim for their targets, and launched their thundering ordnance.

Many small scout vehicles were destroyed in violent explosions, but the armored vehicles were merely disabled, with tires and treads blown or shredded from the chasis.

In response to Cattani's bold solution to the armored vehicle problem, many of the soldiers attempted his method with success and began hijacking and utilizing the monstrous machines. Of course, it was not without clumsy introduction to their operation.

...

...

...

This is it. This is the evil storm of chaos brewed by the humans... the chaos they have to live every day. This is war. Twilight and her friends huddled together in the shallow ditch for support as the earth trembled from the destruction that surrounded them.

Rarity compulsively rubbed at her face and coat as she was bombarded by dirt and rock debris from the explosions and proximate ricochets of flying projectiles from the human weapons.

Fluttershy held onto Pinkie for dear life, crying and shrieking in terror. Another approaching tank only made matters worse for her, despite recent conversion to friendly machine by a Changeling soldier. The massive gunblast was powerful enough to rattle anyone's brain at that proximity, meaning her reaction to the effect would be doubled. Any closer and the whole group's brains would literally be mush.

Her shrieks became screams that only got worse after each blast. "I can't take it anymore! Make it stop!"

Pinkie held her in a tight embrace. She knew they could not move from position yet, so she did her best to keep her from escaping the apparent agony, even if she was obviously desperate enough herself to take the risk of breaking cover. She took Fluttershy's head in her hooves, trying for a grip as they slipped from the flowing tears. "Fluttershy, listen to me! I have an idea. Think of it as some kind of celebration! Close your eyes and think of pretty flashes of light in the sky. All of the explosions are just fireworks, okay? We're at a big fireworks show!"

Pinkie's selfless and optimistic attempt at comforting Fluttershy almost brought tears to Twilight's eyes. True friendship, shaken so vigorously in the eye of a chaotic storm, yet remain one and unbreakable. A fire that never dies. Truly, no hardship, no conflict, no war, can put it out.

Twilight rolled over to check on the rest of the group, remaining close to her friends.

Junkers looked incredibly anxious to return fire, but restrained himself as not to blow their cover. Agusta dressed his wounds with clothing shreds, despite a rather apathetic expression from Faust as the wounds were mere scrapes in his perspective.

Chrysalis held her weapon close as she strained to retain an athorative appearance, but her worriful eyes gave away her true insecurity. But I thought this is what you wanted? You seemed to enjoy watching us crumble once upon a time. How is this any different? You'll never get any sympathy from me, you evil monster.

A familiar face stood out to Twilight as she watched the waves of guardsmen storm the battlefield. Shining Armor! My brother! Oh, in the name of Celestia, please be careful out there!

"No, no, no!" Ray started, staring in her direction, "What do they think their doing?! I didn't give the signal yet!"

Twilight rolled over to the direction he was indicating. The second wave of Changeling soldiers swarmed from the hillside to join the guardsmen in battle, taking out a handful of major armored vehicles with a mix of explosive ordnance utilization and hijacking methods.

"Oh look," Chrysalis started in a rather deadpan tone as she turned to Ray, "it's working."

He was not too convinced of that, however, as his eyes darted to the direction of Tolwin's aircraft, finally unleashing firepower onto the site without hesitation. "Not for long. Not with that thing still in the air."

...

...

...

Tolwin dismissed the risk of friendly fire as the enemy had eventually outnumbered and conquered half of his entire faction. He had to act fast and obliterate as much of the opposition as he could. These damned ponies, how are we losing to these things?!

Riggs, obediently firing the minigun, obviously weaseled a loophole in Tolwin's order as he seemed to deliberately miss all of his targets by a wide margin.

Tolwin whipped out his PM-63 with an outburst of rage and put it to Riggs' head. "I swear on my father's grave if you don't help me kill these things I'm going to splatter your brains all over the glass!"

Riggs slowly turned his head to meet Tolwin's reddened eyes. "How about you just blow me the fuck away already?"

The Chinook suddenly shook from a blast in the rearmost quarter, forcing Tolwin to regain control of the aircraft.

"Ah, hell!" Jones shouted from the crane-controller's box. "I'm hit!"

Tolwin struggled to keep the aircraft level. "What happened?!"

"Some flaming arrow from hell, man! The blast took out all of the gunners and fragged me!"

"Will you be alright?" You better... you're my only senior technician!

"Yeah, but I won't be laughing for a week!"

Another explosion shook the aircraft, this time sending metal fragments and smoke into the cockpit. Riggs and Tolwin shouted curses as they shook and brushed away the hot material from their uniforms and gasped for air.

"Jones! I think we're taking RPG fire, hang on!" But there was no answer from the back. "Jones, you alright? Jones?!"

Both Riggs and Tolwin took a look behind them, expecting the worst. It was like the remnants of a hurricane-stricken butcher shop, with pieces of bone and flesh sprawled over twisted metal, laced with shreds of charred camouflage.

They jolted back into their forward positions in synchronized dread, omitting the image of what they had witnessed.

An arrow struck the outer frame of the cockpit glazing, startling the two pilots. This is just so incredibly insane.

...

...

...

The Chinook bombarded the ground forces with every weapon it had in its arsenal. Its devastation was still yet unmatched with anything the Changelings or Royal Guardsmen had at their disposal. Not even the newly-acquired enemy equipment.

Chrysalis peeked over the grove in the ditch. "What do we do, Ray?"

He looked around, hoping to see something that could possibly be used to their advantage.Anti-armor weapons lost in the Otokar Akrep, no dedicated anti-air ops, and thinning airborne defense.

The only thing that immediately came to mind was the Shilka that was blasting everything except the Chinook out of the sky. Not to mention the ground units in its immediate parameter. Utilization of it would give them a better advantage against Tolwin's aircraft, but the speedy turret was no wonder it had still yet remained untouched.

"That anti-aircraft vehicle."

Faust scooted closer. "I see what you're thinking, Ray, but the Shilka's got a full 360-degree turret radius running on 30 rpm. You're not gonna get very close in time."

"What we need is a distraction. One that'll last long enough for us to approach it."

"I got an idea!" Rainbow Dash shouted. "I'll distract it."

Wow. A pegasus pony volunteering to be a target for an AA gun. Now I've seen everything.

Twilight spun her around. "Are you crazy?!"

"Pft! 30 rpm! That thing's a glorified banana slug on tracks. I can totally beat it!"

Faust gave her a very sincere look of uneasiness. "I dunno, it's got a mean tracking reputation."

Rainbow rolled back over to face them again. "Hey, I'm the fastest flyer in all of Equestria! I did a sonic rainboom for ponies' sake!"

Agusta spoke up. "Just to be clear, how many of us are going?"

Faust turned to him with the answer. "It only needs a crew of two, so just me and Ray."

"Then how about a more sensible approach? Have the rainbow pony carry you guys there."

Rainbow shook her head. "Whoa whoa, no way. I can't carry the two of you and dodge its firepower at the same time!"

Agusta stopped dressing his wounds and picked up his weapon. "Listen, guys, going out there on foot is a terrible idea. There's a gunship out there, remember? You've got to be quick about it, and I don't buy into the flying rainbow pony as a legit distraction."

"I have a name, you know!"

Out of a sudden flare of bravery, Chrysalis chimed in. "Ray, get on my back. I'll take you to it while Rainbow distracts it. Once we've acquired the vehicle, we'll come back with it and pick up Faust and we'll finally take down that flying war machine."

Did she just say... "Wait, what?"

"You heard me, get on my back. Now!"

Ray turned to Faust, hoping for a confirmation of what he thought he was being told. He simply shrugged in return. "Queen's orders."

"And you actually agree with this plan?"

Chrysalis threw her weapon down and pulled Ray closer to her. "I said 'now'!"

Ray complied and climbed onto her back as she stood upright on all four legs, breaking cover from within the ditch. He held onto her long neck with his left arm while holding his weapon in the right. "To whichever race survives this, I would appreciate the exclusion of me going down in the history books as the first man to ride a Changeling into battle."

Chrysalis signaled Rainbow with a nod, and they were off. Rainbow scooped a pile of rocks into her hooves as she soared for the Shilka, throwing them at its hull to get its attention.

"Hey!" she shouted. "Over here! Twenty points to catch the rainbow, bulletbrain!" She immediately began her dazzling display of agility as the turret tracked her and strained for a clear shot.

Something "whirred" overhead Ray and Chrysalis as they headed for the Shilka, followed by an explosion just ahead of its supposed trajectory. Ray looked behind them to find the source. Tolwin's Chinook emerged from a massive plume of smoke and chased the two in an aggressive low-level approach.

"We got company!" Ray shouted as machine gun fire erupted from the aircraft.

Tolwin overshot them and banked around for another pass.

Luckily they had arrived to their destination in time and dove for cover at the Shilka's tracks, just as Tolwin passed over the area, clearly searching for them.

Ray leapt onto the rear engine housing of the Shilka, then onto the almost convulsing turret, struggling for a grip on the main hatch. Chrysalis followed him onto the vehicle.

Ray pulled out a grenade from one of the pouches on his belt. "Cattani's method two-point-oh!" He looked up to the sky to find Rainbow Dash. "Rainbow! Take cover, you're done!"

Rainbow Dash made a mock salute and headed back for the ditch with the rest of the group.

Ray turned to Chrysalis. "Open the hatch."

She did so as he pulled the safety pin from the grenade, ready to toss it inside, but to their surprise, a pistol emerged from the opening. It shot Ray twice on his left shoulder, forcing him to drop the grenade somewhere on the ground behind them. He tumbled back onto the engine housing in shock from the impacts, gripping the wounds before the pain could finally register. His rifle was as of then completely unaccounted for.

Chrysalis hugged the turret's hull as the grenade exploded next to them, showering them with earth debris.

The turret stopped moving and the vehicle was now in motion. The same hand holding the pistol awkwardly reached for the hatch to close it, but Chrysalis lunged for it and clamped onto it with her razor-sharp fangs, swiftly pulling the terrified man out of the vehicle and throwing him onto the engine housing.

Ray leapt onto the man from behind and pried the gun away from his wounded hand. The man elbowed Ray's ribs repeatedly, forcing him to roll away, but remained latched onto the pistol hand. He spun around to rip away Ray's hands from his own, but to no avail, and as a result attempted to aim the weapon in his direction. It was an immense test of strength for them, even to the point of the man kneeing Ray in the gut in attempt to weaken him. The man's exertion forced his index finger through the trigger guard of the pistol prematurely, resulting in accidental discharges from the weapon.

Chrysalis jumped onto the man and latched onto his arm, agonizingly drawing blood with her fangs and loosening his grip. He finally let go of the weapon with a cry and punched her wherever he thought he could do damage. In response she threw him off the vehicle, onto the battle-torn earth.

"Drop it!" They spun around to find another crew member atop of the turret, threatening them at gun-point with a P90. "Drop the gun!"

"Hey, Marchetti!" A voiced called out behind him.

He turned only to find the butt of an AKM striking his face, leaving an ugly abrasion over his cheeks as he tumbled from the hatch, onto the engine housing with Ray and Chrysalis, both of which pried the weapon away from his hands.

Faust slung his weapon and leapt onto the man to pin him down. "You two, get in the Shilka! I'll take care of him."

They staggered onto the turret and crawled inside.

"Are they gone, sir?" the driver asked, mistaking the entering individuals as the man now captive by Faust outside.

Ray put the gun to the driver's head. "Nope, not today. Get up." But he would not budge. "C'mon, get on up, let's go!" He was too petrified to even control the vehicle. Ray pistol-whipped him and threw him from the seat. As Ray took his place, the driver suddenly regained his senses and reached for a handgun on his hip-holster.

Spotting the motion from the side of his eye, Ray reacted and shot him point-blank in the forehead, splattering a fair amount of blood on him and the rest of the interior.

Chrysalis spat and desperately wiped it off her face. "What the devil was that about?!"

"I had no choice!"

She gained a mild composure and joined him in an additional seat installed in place of the battery compartment's original location next to him. "Do you know how to drive this thing?"

He put his feet on the pedals and gripped the steering levers on each side of the seat. "Shouldn't be that difficult." Despite the fact that the wounds on his shoulder were becoming increasingly painful thanks to what could be predicted as hollow-point rounds.

"I could use some help out here!" Faust called from outside.

...

...

...

Chrysalis crawled out of the cramped space and exited through the turret hatch to answer his call.

Chrysalis emerged from the Shilka and spotted Faust next to the communication dish replacing the original radar setup, struggling to keep Marchetti pinned to the hull.

He looked up at her and pointed starboard. "Tolwin! He's coming back!"

She looked and saw his monster gunship on another low-level approach.

Chrysalis snapped back to him. "What do we do?! I don't know how to work the guns!"

"As soon as I get some cooperation here, I'll join you. Just use that MG to distract him 'till then!"

She looked around and found a heavy machine gun mounted next to the hatch. But before she could reach it, Tolwin passed over the Shilka showering his own machine gun fire over them, with armor-piercing rounds shredding through the thick hull. Faust was fragged in the leg by a stray metal splinter, giving Marchetti opportunity to elbow him in the face, knocking him straight into the communication dish, miraculously avoiding certain death by missing the center antenna by mere inches.

Faust reacted with a kick on Marchetti's side, forcing him back down. Faust leapt back onto him, trying for a head-lock. Marchetti avoided common reaction of prying free and instead punched Faust's fresh wound repeatedly.

Chrysalis crawled out of the hatch in preparation to assist, but hesitated when she saw Tolwin circling around for another attack. As he was about to pass over with another barrage of machine gun fire, Chrysalis got behind the turret-mounted weapon and took aim, using magic manipulation to pull the trigger since her hooves could not fit through the guard.

Tolwin pulled out of the attack as the bullets ricocheted off the cockpit, with one lucky shot appearing to shatter one of the lower observation windows.

"Give it up, Faust!" Marchetti wheezed. "He'll kill us both if it means security of the command vehicle."

"I know that, you idiot! But not before we get those 23 mike-mikes ablazing!"

"You should kill me. I'll never cooperate for the likes of you, or that damned driver!"

"I thought I could give you a chance and show you a little mercy, but if you insist on resisting then so be it. Sucks for you I can operate this thing too." With a swift motion, Faust threw him from the vehicle, sending him on a collision course with the carcass of a sand buggy. "I never liked you anyway. Sniveling little brat like Tolwin."

Chrysalis firing the machine gun brought him back to realization of his position on the vehicle. Oh shit...

Tolwin's Chinook roared overhead, spraying the vehicle with machine gun fire again. This time a round went straight through Faust's other leg, forcing him to collapse in pain. He rolled from the turret, and despite his struggle for a grip on anything along the way, he fell to the ground below.

...

...

...

Chrysalis fell back into the vehicle and scrambled over to Ray. "Faust got hit! We have to go back for him!"

"We can't, we have to get these guns going before he starts using rockets on us!"

She looked around inside the turret. "How do you work this thing?"

Ray let go of the right steering lever and reached for the control panel in front of her, pressing random buttons. It was worn and aged to the point of the labeling rendered illegible under the rust and abrasions. "There should be a manual trigger here somewhere."

The guns suddenly erupted to life, startling them.

"Which one did I just press?"

"This one!" She pressed a small black button on the panel, firing the weapons again.

He grabbed hold of the steering lever again. "Alright, forget about aiming the turret. We don't have time to figure it out. I'll guide the vehicle around and you fire the guns when he's in range. Got it?"

"Alright."

...

...

...

No, no, no, this can't be! They've seized the Shilka! Our command vehicle! Tolwin had no choice but to destroy it now, before its new occupants could figure out how to operate the main weapons.

But behold, gunfire erupted from the quad-mounted cannons, despite the turret remaining in a forward position.

Tolwin decreased his altitude as he prepared for another attack, this time his thumb on the rocket trigger. He pressed it hard, but nothing would launch. He proceeded to press it repeatedly, just as they passed over the Shilka, forcing him to circle back around.

"What's wrong with this thing? We can't be out already!"

"It's a misfire." Riggs inspected the underwing UB-32 rocket pods from his window. "Two or three out of 192 are guaranteed misfires, and it's preventing the rest from launching. Either that or the optical wiring overheated and melted."

"And I'll bet you're enjoying every bit of it, aren't you?" Tolwin patted the floor around his seat to try and find his PM-63, but it was unfortunately missing. It most likely fell out of the aircraft when the lower observation window shattered.

The Shilka spun around and began its bombardment of AA fire upon them. Tolwin reacted and pulled out of his low-level approach.

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"He's too high!" Ray peered through the three vision slots in front of him, watching as the Chinook circled around, preparing for another attack but at a higher altitude. "We need to get him back down here!"

"But how?!" Chrysalis searched the turret for the controls, but could not find them within the confusing mess of different mechanical objects.

Amor-piercing rounds punched through the vehicle again, hitting a number of vital components. The internal lights shattered and blanketed everything in relative darkness, with the only light sources being the vision slots and bullet holes.

There's only one thing I can do now. I wish I had a better plan, but without any anti-armor weapons left, it's all I can think of! The only one thing to end this once and for all. Ray turned around to face Chrysalis. "I have an idea! I want you to go find Twilight! Have her perform some kind of spell that will bring him closer to the ground, and maybe keep him still!"

"But you need help firing these guns!"

"I can very well reach the controls, my queen!"

"And drive this thing at the same time?! You need both hands!"

"Don't argue with me, just do it!"

His attitude towards an authority figure was indeed unorthodox, much to Chrysalis' indignation, but she knew further arguing with him would be foolish and instead complied with his order.

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Chrysalis emerged from the turret and flew as fast as she could back to the rest of the group still taking cover in the ditch. Avoiding stray gunfire, she deliberately crashed herself onto the ground and rolled into the depression.

"What happened to Faust?" asked Junkers.

"He got hit by Tolwin, but I think he's still alive." She turned to Twilight and put a hoof on her shoulder. "Twilight, Ray needs your help."

She brushed her hoof off and rolled away. "Don't touch me!"

Chrysalis furrowed her brow and forced her back around with her magic. "Listen, I don't care what you think of me since the wedding, but if you really are as smart as they say you are, you'd know that now is the time to shut up and listen to what I have to say!"

"Then talk!" Twilight shouted angrily.

"Ray needs you to perform a spell that will bring Tolwin closer to the ground. I'll cover you while you perform it."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because if you don't we're all dead! Got it?!"

She hesitated and thought about it for a moment.

"Oh!" Pinkie spoke up. "Try that one you used on the Ursa!"

"I'll give it a shot..." She emerged from cover and began casting the spell, a bright pink glow emitting from her horn.

Chrysalis found her RPK-74 in the same spot she had left it and picked it up to join Twilight for covering-fire.

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Tolwin circled around again, but the controls became momentarily frozen, followed by a sudden decrease in altitude.

"What the hell?!" He pulled on the collective to try and bring them back up, but to no effect. "I can't pull up!"

Riggs checked the instruments on the dashboard. "Engines are still up, gearboxes are fine..."

"Well something's wrong, find out what the problem is!"

They passed over the terrain at dangerously low-level, with vehicles and trees missing them by mere inches.

"One thing I can tell you, sir, is that we're so VSF at this point!"

"Huh?"

"Very... Severely..." He saw a T-72 standing in the way of their path, with its barrel high up in the air. "... FUUUUUCKED!"

Tolwin turned hard to the right to avoid it, with the barrel scraping the side of the fuselage. Riggs reclined with a greatly relieved sigh.

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Twilight strained to keep the aircraft low top the ground. Sweat flowed down her face as she concentrated, with small spurts of sparkling magic shooting from her horn.

"It's... too big! I can't... keep it still!"

Her efforts still yet kept the Chinook at the same level, and she hoped this would at least help Ray with his own in the Shilka.

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Ray took a moment of opportunity and fired more shots from the guns as the Chinook entered his line of fire, but missing as the aircraft attempted to dodge it, as well as the miscellaneous machines and tree life scattered about the terrain.

He made another pass, shredding the vehicle with more armor-piercing machine gun fire. Ray fired more shots as the aircraft attempted to pull out. It moved far too quickly to confirm any hits in the already well-battered fuselage.

"Come on, you and me, man! You and me! Show me what you got!"

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I will kill him, if it's the last thing I do! I will kill this man today, even if it means the fate of this unit! You will die today, Ray! You will die!

Tolwin circled around and charged at the Shilka, squeezing the trigger to the GAU-17 on his flight controls until his knuckles were white.

Riggs turned to his commander and looked on at his rage. He was astounded how red his face was, largely contrasted by his gritting light-yellow teeth.

"Sir, you better fall out of the attack. We can't maneuver around this shit too long!"

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The Chinook passed over the Shilka again, and this time Ray followed it by spinning the the vehicle around and chasing it. Slamming and pulling the controls at such a vigorous rate felt like murder to his shoulder thanks to the bullet wounds, but he gritted the pain as much as he could and focused his attention on Tolwin.

The aircraft yawed and began another pass, with Ray returning fire.

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Riggs watched in horror how dangerously close they were to hitting various things on the ground. "Sir, think about what you're doing!"

"Shut up!"

"You're gonna ball up the rotors if you keep turning like that at this altitude!"

"I said shut up!"

The Shilka's guns blasted one of the rocket pods on the starboard wing apart, sending debris raining down onto the ground.

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Ray ran the Shilka full speed towards the Chinook, holding the trigger to fire the guns at full automatic, running the risk of overheating. He had no care in the world, except that this insane man was blown out of the sky.

The pain in his shoulder became unbearable, forcing him to groan as if it were his final battlecry.

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Tolwin charged his aircraft over the battlefield, passing flaming debris, aiming straight for the thundering Shilka as it fired upon them a hail of fragmenting projectiles.

Riggs looked as if he'd seen a ghost and grabbed hold of Tolwin's shoulder. "Sir! Please, stop!"

He did no such thing and forced the controls forwards, tightly grasping them and machine gun trigger as if they held his very life in the balance.

The AA fire blasted a large chunk away from the front rotor pylon, exposing some of its inner workings.

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Ray yelled at the top of his lungs as his foot almost mashed the accelerator petal to the floor. Machine gun fire knocked chunks of various instrumentation around the interior.

A panel to his left exploded, with glass chunks raining onto his arms. A hose popped from a nearby container, spewing a white gas into the air with a loud hiss. But nothing stopped him in his determined assault as his eyes ogled upon his target.

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Another rocket pod on the starboard wing exploded, this time resulting in a cracked door window due to the flying debris. Next was the partially-retracted whip antenna on the belly, now among the scattered debris in the battlefield below.

Tolwin let out a cry as he squeezed the minigun trigger, full auto.

More chunks of the fuselage were shot away, giving way to terrible turbulence. One of the engines split apart, with a small turbine spinning across the sky like a top. The entire port wing blasted away from its mount, spiraling it into an explosive collision course with the remains of an Abrams tank.

"Tolwin!"

The cockpit glazing shattered to pieces, with a good portion of the dashboard also taking lethal hits. Riggs was caught in the gunfire, resulting in limbs exploding from his body in a bloody mess. His head became nothing more than a twisted stump before he could scream from the pain.

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Twilight ceased casting the spell and watched hopelessly as the two war machines charged for each other. "Ray! Get out of there!"

But it was too late. They crashed straight into each other and dissipated within their fiery and debris-filled doom. The entire lower-half of the aircraft was peeled away in the blast, leaving just the rotors above spinning uncontrollably into the ground, chopping the ground up like a giant blender.

A stray piece of rotor blade flew her direction, when suddenly she was yanked from her hooves and tumbled to the ground in another's embrace before the piece of blade struck the ground where she stood.

She looked upon the hole-riddled hooves across her coat, then at the face of her savior.

Chrysalis finally let her go and looked on at the wreckage that lay in a flaming disarray. Twilight did the same, hoping to spot any sign of life from within.

It became quiet all around them. No gunfire, no rumble of engines, and no voices. All that remained audible over the smoky battlefield were the pops of fires and scuffing of individuals moving around in the dirt.

She watched and watched, just waiting for movement under the flaming metal. Anything under the rippling sea of heat. Anything at all. But, alas, there was nothing.

"Ray..." She whispered with tears welling up in her eyes.