Punching through the atmosphere of the alien planet, Roxy kept to a high cruising altitude, enjoying her momentary freedom behind the controls of the spacefighter. Up so high the wind currents didn’t bother her as she cruised across the top of the Mesosphere teasing the Thermosphere. She was well beyond the reprise of any terrestrial being, well above earthly concerns. This was her home, her kingdom, and she was its Queen straddling the line between stars and sky, sailing the deep dark blue. Bouncing from the southern continent, up across the coast and over the jagged Ural Mountain peaks in a matter of minutes, Roxy began to lower her altitude into the clouds. It was time to become a predator again, to become a shark within the rolling clouds. “This is Buzzsaw, target sighted. Objective Guardian is about to run face first into an ambush, am I cleared to engage?” The air before her was filled with clouds, but with each individual in the air marked with wireframes and pips, nothing could ever hope to hide from her.

“You’re weapons free, Buzzsaw.”

If she’d still had a face, Roxy would be grinning ear to ear. “Let’s begin introductions.”

Rolling on her axis, Roxy descended upon the formation from above, easing herself in just before it all hit the fan. The naval ship hiding in the clouds gave her brief pause, but the prospect of scoring a ship kill excited her far more than her curiosity. Bellying down through the clouds, she made her presence known to the bomber formation as rainwater ran sharp rivulets across her dark grey hull. She was the Queen of the Deep Blue Skies, and this was her airspace. She was the shark, and they the tasty little morsels who dared to trespass within her sea. Below her, a wounded ball gunner stared up at her craft with features mixed between wonder and horror. She would have smiled to herself if she could, as her targeting system chimed a lock, and she set off the trigger with a simple thought.

“Fox two, I’m moving to engage the air mobiles.” Roxy called over comms as her hypersonic fighter loosed an anti-ship missile toward the floating airship. The AGM Kingfisher Mk VIII leapt forward, streaking by the allied defenders as flak from the ship blossomed around the formation. Ponies fluttered in shock at roar of the missile, while fighters jinked and dove, surprised by it’s sudden appearance from behind them. The griffons didn’t react as such, but were equally unable to touch the blistering fast munition before it slipped through the clouds, and delivered a haymaker blow to the Imperial corvette. Using high powered repulsor jets, the missile made a hairpin dive at the last moment and dove into the bowels of the ship through the top deck, where the armour was all but nonexistent.

“Boom. Target spiked, switching to guns.”

As if a tiny sun had erupted inside it’s mid-deck, the corvette detonated in a dramatic fashion. Splitting down the center, the hull was shoved apart, spewing fire and shrapnel in every direction, while the deck guns were blown sky high, trailing smoke and flame. Before the shockwave had even reached the impending dogfight, Roxy jinked her craft to the side, and loosed an incredibly brief burst of her gun. The 30mm gatling cannon that straddled the length of her craft’s belly spooled immediately, and in the brief moment the trigger was activated by her linked neurons, the cannon had already spewed forth two hundred and nine rounds. Designed to take on tanks and hardened structures, the huge rail accelerated caseless HEAP rounds turned the incoming hostile wave into a cloud of red mist and falling, flaming offal. It was overkill, but the Queen had passed her judgement.

Returning her weapons into the belly of the craft, Roxy hummed to herself as the Equestrians swiftly mopped up the ravaged attacking wave. “Objective Guardian completed, pushing on to Objective Castle.” Pausing momentarily, Roxy watched as the Wonderbolts and silver fishbed fighters formed up around her, their leader looking over at her craft with windswept admiration. To them, she must have appeared as something completely alien; while their aircraft still had gas guzzling prop engines and riveted fuselages, her Northrop Grumman F/A 37 Talon was all hard radar baffling angles, with swept forward variable wings and a hugely oversized double thrust vectoring repulsor bank. With no cockpit, and it’s deadly cargo stowed back inside it’s belly, the Talon must have appeared to be some sort of divine sci-fi wet dream to the locals. When the leading pony shot her a salute with a hoof, Roxy dipped her tail, before performing a quick aileron roll for the crowd. “See you guys soon!” The whole craft shuddered as she engaged the hypersonic drives, thrust vectoring cowls tightening as the reactor whining vibrantly before she took off like a shot. To the Equestrians, she was gone in a moment, leaving only the distant double barrel booms of her craft hitting supersonic, and immediately blasting into hypersonic.

The latest attack had been launched upon Cloudchaser’s line, and they were already neck deep in it. The bodies were piling up, and refused to stop coming. The imperial forces were like a tide, and they were the rocks that they dashed themselves against. It was a pleasant statement, for those who didn’t know that even the mightiest rocks could shatter or erode away to nothing under the tides. And erode they did. The imperials sent wave after wave, crashing down on top of the trenches. Cloudchaser had already been forced to leave the trench once to clear aside corpses so Chance could keep his firing lane free of hostiles. Every time she crawled up into the filthy muck, she came away slathered in dark black mud, and deep red blood. Often she found she couldn’t tell what there was more of, but she was so far gone into it all that the difference no longer mattered. It didn’t matter, because the next wave was already on top of them.

“Fuckin thing’s jammed!” Chance cried out in panic as he wrenched the charging handle back and forth, trying to clear the stovepiped round out of the action. The barrel of the heavy gun all but glowed in the dark, steaming from the heat and blood spattered on it.

“More of them, pushing up!” Fate yelled as he poured a bucket of piss across the barrel in desperate hopes of cooling it down. They’d run out of water hours ago, despite all the rainwater in the trenches. They could never hope to use that filth, for worry of fouling the gun even worse. The reek of cooking ammonia filled the area, fighting against the stench of the dead and dying.

Cresting the trench, Cloudchaser lobbed a 35mm grenade at the encroaching pack, killing scores of them as the round tossed up clods of dirt and a puff of smoke. Reaching into her webbing for another round, terror quickly enveloped Cloudchaser as her hoof squished empty pockets and spent pouches. “I’m out! I’m-” The round that punched into her crude chest armour knocked the air from her lungs, stealing her words from her throat as stillborn warnings. Falling back into the trench with a splash, Cloudchaser forced herself to gasp around bruised ribs and push her head out of the mud. Turning her eyes toward the sky, horror enveloped her as the last barrage of artillery smashed it’s way through, shattering the shield.

The golden shield that had protected them from the crashing Imperial shells exploded from the pounding pressure, the fragments dematerialising as they fell to earth. Beyond it, vibrant comets lit up the inky black skies, barrelling down toward the earth.

The sky was falling.

“We have broken through, Emperor.” The words echoed through the bridge of the dreadnought, but brokered little celebration as the great magic shield covering Canterlot fractured, and began to fall. It would only be a matter of moments until the next shells were loaded, and the real bombardment would begin. Lance Corporal Alentius Steelbeak of the Imperial Special Operations Group watched on wordlessly as the Emperor chuckled, and raised a glass.

“To the Fall of Equestria. The conquest of ages, and it’s finally my right to claim.” Carolus toasted with his generals, a murmur of pleasure and self congratulation passing through the flight of them.

Trapped within his own mind, Alentius wallowed and lamented against it all. He hated it, but there was nothing he could do. He had tried to fight when it all had began, but the god Jalgromak had simply shoved his consciousness deeper into his mind, and taken control. At one time, Alentius had been a rising star, joining the ranks of JSOG and serving with distinction across the world. Now, he was nothing but a door guard, no better than a coat hanger. As the shield fell, he knew that at least it would be over soon, one way or another.

Subconsciously, he flicked his attentions to the Equestrian elements as they stood nearby, equally entranced by the magic. Each of them had their eyes all but blazing bright blue as they continued to fight the control, but only earned more in return. Alentius wished them well in their endeavor.

“Come here.” Carolus snapped his talons, pointing to the deck as he looked to the six mares. “I want you all to witness the fall of your capital. Order, has won.” While no smile etched the young Emperor’s features, the vile venom of his malice all but dripped from every syllable. As the mares slowly approached, one of the generals spoke.

“My Emperor, what is that? In the sky.” The withered talon pointed up, toward forty blisteringly bright comets that streaked toward the ground.

A pall fell over the bridge that belonged wholly to Carolus as he crushed his glass in hand, and leaned forward on the console. “No… No! Damn that insufferable harpy, she wishes to steal my victory!”

Lunging forward into his mind, Alentius pushed all of his willpower into simply craning his neck to see out the viewport.

Against the inky black backdrop that had smothered the world for nine days, forty comets lit up the night, plunging downwards. A smile was creeping onto his face, earning him more agony from the vindictive god controlling his actions. The pain hardly registered for the large griffon as he stared out the window, eyes fixated on what he just knew weren’t simple comets.

The sky was falling.

Within her sanctum, Celestia gasped for air, nearly falling over as her willpower was spent by the last few imperial shells. Within the realm of magic, every strike to her shield had carried the full bloody minded intent of the beast responsible for their launching. She’d known for nine days and nights what would happen if the shield were to fall, and so for nine days and nights, she pushed herself as hard as she could. Celestia could hear the sirens sounding already through the high pitched ringing that sounded in her ears, telling of their coming doom. Letting her head hang and the blood dribble free from her muzzle, Celestia screwed her eyes shut, mourning what was about to be lost. Her mane was long since limp, as she was unwilling to waste even the barest ounce of power to keep it flowing. Her coat was matted with sweat and stained with blood, despite the best efforts of her loyal attendants. Pushing herself up, the solar diarch walked shakily to her balcony. If she was going to witness the end of the world, she wanted to do it with the wind in her mane and through her coat.

Her guards and attendants came galloping in, crying out to her, but all she heard was the low keening whine the mental backlash had forced upon her. Pushing open her balcony doors, Celestia stared out at the battlefields at the base of the mountain. In the distance, she could see the Imperial guns thundering again, and could imagine the shells screaming toward her, with the same genocidal intent. Closing her eyes, Celestia pulled in a breath-

-and all but found it stolen away as an alien craft screamed by her tower, shattering windows with its slipstream. Opening her eyes wide, Celestia tried to follow the glowing tail of the craft as it streaked through the city, jinking and rolling between Canterlot towers and through Cloudsdale streets. The imperial artillery that shrieked toward her detonated mid air, their warheads set off prematurely by precision laser CIWS fire from the craft. As a foolish smile began to play at Celestia’s lips, her eyes went up.

“Celestia!” Her guard captain yelled to be heard over the ringing in her ears. “What are your orders!?”

Casting her gaze over at the stallion, Celestia saw his ears go flat out of shock. “All orders to surrender, are false. We will no longer fight in the shade. Deploy everything, every spell, every bullet and every body! If we’re to win this, we must strike now!” With the urgency in her voice and the wild look in her eyes, Celestia sent her guard galloping off with her orders in mind. Raising her head skywards, Celestia pushed deep into her soul, bringing up the last of her magic. No matter the cost, she’d see the sun rise one last time. “We will not die in the dark.” As her eyes went up, she watched as the rising sun gleamed off forty comets streaking toward earth

The sky was falling, and hell followed with it.

Like meteors, forty drop pods entered the atmosphere of the planet as the sun was forced to crest, flames licking across their tempered shells as they hurtled toward the ground, hellbound. Air brakes deployed, emitting sonic booms as they jostled the pods out of re-entry speed, and began slowing them down. Soon, the heat would blow off the breaks, and the drag chutes would deploy, jostling the craft again as they slowed just a little more. To an observer’s eye, it would appear as if they pods hadn’t slowed at all, but as the area denial charges detonated across the bottoms of the pods and their automated guns opened fire, it would be known that the pods were working exactly as intended.

Flitter’s pod shuddered as the AD charges set off, splashing the impact area below her with six thousand high velocity steel ball bearings, turning anything caught within the dozen meter zone into chutney and offal. She didn’t bother holding her breath as the ground rushed up and her pod slammed into it. The gravity dampers kicked in just in time, lowering the G’s she felt on impact to a mere 15, well within tolerances. The pod’s automated guns were already hammering away as she burst forward from the drop door, rifle raised forward.

Drones whipped back and forth through the air, providing tactical data and support fire to the three teams as they disgorged from their pods, immediately shoving the scales of the battle aside as the sun flooded the valley with light, blinding the imperials. JSOG Unicorns were the first to act, slamming their hands together as they focused their magics into gloved fingers, untainted by titanium influences. Polarized shields leapt up in key locations as the earth ponies deployed, taking point in their massive power armours. Shoulder rockets leapt across the battlefield as rotary tri-barrel power guns spooled, and started spewing cerulean death across the lines. Every hostile struck by a powered round became an immediate threat to the fellows around him, as his body was turned to boiling hot steam and bone shrapnel. The blistering firepower was immediately improved by the assistance of the heavy drones, which formed mobile fortresses that lumbered through the muck and filth with zero issue as their autocannons blasted away at the hordes. The next wave of Imperial shells were turned to flak as the deployed Calliope drones tracked each round, gunning them down moments after their launches had been detected by orbital scanners.

The pegasi of JSOG took to the skies, immediately assisting in facing down the waves of attackers as they bore down toward Canterlot’s defenders. Their smaller weapons packed no less punch, and their hive rockets swiftly set the battle in their favour as whole wings of hostiles were smashed from the skies.

Overhead, Roxy only throttled back long enough to acquire eleven targets, and loose her remaining complement of Kingfisher AGM’s. The missiles streaked forward, smashing apart smaller corvettes and outright crippling line cruisers as they detonated and tossed the ships about like toys. The brainbox bound pilot twirled through streaking tracers, laughing as the skies burned with light and explosives.

Despite it all, on the ground, JSOG was still only forty against the world, and they couldn’t last on their own.

The thunder of the battle shook the trees gently as the humans waited. Within their pillboxes and entrenched positions, they waited. Guns were readied, scopes were dialed in, and engines idled. They waited, for the signal.

Letting out a long, slow breath, Jack watched as JSOG descended from the heavens, while the shield shattered and fell to earth. Experimental hardware burdened his frame, his feet pushed into the sodden ground from the heavy weight. Rain pitter pattered against the tarps and metal, as of nature were attempting to lull them all into a deep sleep. They couldn’t act too early, and no matter how much he wished to leap into battle and wade in waist deep, he waited for the signal.

Lifting a hand, as the First Expeditionary force held their fire and lined up their targets, the War Armour clad Kleese waited for the signal. As pods fell from the skies and ships exploded, his hand remained aloft, and the human guns remained silent. They had to wait for the signal.

“This is Overlord, Tactica-Command is established, orbit belongs to Humanity.” Captain Milani’s prideful voice sounded in their ears, earning grins as tactical data streamed in by the terabyte, and targets were locked on. “Satellites have been launched and locked into orbit sync with target area. We’re reading some… implausible things from the local sun, but it seems you boys will be fighting in the light. Give them hell.”

“All units!” Irving declared as he opened his hand, and drove his arm down like a knife. “Weapons free!”

The treeline exploded with the vicious firepower of a hundred and fifty humans, taking the Imperial flank completely off guard. Various weapon tracers licked back and forth, felling scores without need to aim against the veritable horde. Behind the line, the huge eight wheeled Hogs activated their raised missile batteries, and unleashed their payloads. Cruise missiles streaked forward from the trees, trailing smoke from their rocket engines as they angled up high, before splintering and launching their submunitions like how a dandelion spreads its seeds in the wind. Each submunition was launched far from the host body, pushed onwards by a small repulsor engine bank that saw each warhead changing angle and diving on their own accord. The submunitions, if they could be called as such, each carried a single two tonne yield plasma warhead that was targeted for the Imperial warships and camps, where they would do the most immediate damage. Where Roxy’s anti-ship missiles had crippled the smaller cruisers, the Hogs immolated entire ships, erasing them from existence with white hot flashes of light. The ground targets fared no better, hundreds vanishing in blinding flashes that caused the valley to experience a second dawn for the first time in nine days.

Standing at the front line, Jack tracked the smaller attack ships as they tried to maneuver out of the killing field, unleashing some of his experimental hardware. His twin shoulder mounted cannons boomed again and again, driving fifty kilogram slugs into the ships like they were made of paper. As ships fell from the sky, his cannons disengaged, landing in the dirt as they chimed empty. “Keep up the fire, they’ll regroup and be on us at any moment.” His voice carried over the gunfire, warning of the attack wave that was already forming.

“Jack!” Jessica called out. “Now or never big guy!”

“Copy.” Treading over, Jack walked with Walter and Jessica as the woman wheeled a dirtbike toward the sideline. “I’ll guide you through the city via comms, but all the hard shit will be up to you.”

“I got it, I got it. Just make sure I’ve got an opening.” Hopping onto the dirt bike, Jessica started the bike up as her brother double checked her cargo.

“I don’t like this.” Walter rumbled through his War Armour’s external mic.

“You don’t like anything, Wally.” Jessica chided, before taking off through the treeline.

Sighing hard, Walter shook his head as he looked to Jack. “Well, let's get you ready for your part. Are you sure this plan will work?”

“If I lie, will it make you feel better?” Jack tromped over to the backline stations, where several of his pods stood, ready to deploy his rearmament and experimental kit. “I always wanted to be a Rocketman.”

Jessica lived for excitement. She lived for the rush, lived for the feeling of being alive. She’d joined the Legion looking for a means to feed her excitement, but had only walked away missing years of her life with nothing to show for it. Her civilian life as a day trader offered her some creature comforts, but all the work kept her shackled down, staring at her omnilink, a slave to fluctuating numbers.

But now? As she raced downhill with tracers whipping back and forth over her head, straddling a screaming dirtbike pinned to high gear? She was alive. Ostensibly, she was carrying out one of the most important objectives, with nothing but Jack’s voice in her ear guiding her forward. The weight of her cargo felt like a feather as she braced her legs and whipped across no-mans land, spraying a muddy rooster tail as bullets snapped and hissed by like wasps. Hopping over trenches and ducking alien heads, Jessica ran the bike for everything it was worth. The trenches zigzagged back and forth, creating a maze of pitfalls that the bike skipped and hopped over at speed, revving and screaming as the big knobby tires bit and grabbed at the muddy terrain. Soon, she was guided to a set of train tracks that scaled the mountain aggressively. A massive armoured train sat at the base, its cannons roaring as she zipped by, an uninteresting target for the heavy guns.

Exiting the trenches, Jessica set forth into the equine city. “Don’t let the architecture distract you.” Jack spoke in her ear, watching through her eyepiece. “Hang a hard left at the station and carry down the main avenue. Don’t stop for anything less than six feet tall and regal.”

“Copy that, Big Guy!” Gunning her throttle as she shot through the train tunnel, Jessica burst on to the station’s tracks, only to find the station itself nearly deserted. A number of militia and guards called out in surprise as she mounted the ledge, but none acted in time to stop her as she leapt down main street and carried on to the castle. Zipping by abandoned shops and public works, Jessica found it incredibly hard to not get distracted. “Wow… Jack, this place is beautiful! It’s like something right out of a fairy tail! I’ve never seen so many soft colours in a city!” Her tires squealed and her engine keened as she skipped across an intersection, bringing the castle into full view. “Holy- Damn, look at this place! It’s- It’s amazing!”

“Focus, the main gates will be closed. Use that park hill and jump the wall!” A trio of guards aimed their rifles at her, screaming for the intruder to stop, but she’d never intended on listening. Popping the front wheel off the ground, Jessica jumped the wall surrounding the castle grounds, and landed inside the unmaintained gardens within. The aftermath of the militia camp was still visible in every direction, from turned up dirt to small portions of destris. “They’re converging on you now, go through that door.”

Slipping between the massive oaken doors, Jessica had to fight to keep from gawking at the fantastical opulence of the castle. She couldn’t afford a single distraction as she churned up carpets and slid across polished marble, leaving skid marks upon the fine finish. The guards were really moving in on her now, going as far as to take flight and give chase. “How much further!?”

“Straight, straight... Left! Now!” Jack called out, causing Jessica to nearly put the bike down sideways to make the turn. “Up those stairs and through the doors!”

“The doors are closed!” As she mounted the stairs with squealing tires, the guards at the door roared for her to halt.

“Fuck it, ram em!”

With a laugh, Jessica pulled her front wheel up, letting the bottom of the bike take a warning shot from one of the guards, before slamming into the heavy wood doors. Smashing through, Jessica was sent tumbling into the war room, her bike scraping up sparks as it rolled. The Generals within dove for cover as weapons were raised and magic charged; at the center of it all was a battle-ready Luna, horn ready to lance forward and fell the intruder. Slinging off her backpack cargo, Jessica slammed the device down on the table, and activated it.

Unwilling to let her carry on, Luna’s magic wrapped around the human woman, hefting her off the ground like a toy as a sword pressed against the girl’s neck. “Identify thyself before I run you through!”

“Wow, you’re really tall for a pony.” Jessica quipped as she hung upside down, her neck bare millimeters away from being opened up. A slight grin cracked under her helmet as the device fully activated, and deployed on to the table. The grin vanished as she was pulled over violently and used as a shield from the impending explosion that would never come. With no small amount of smugness in her tone, Jessica called out. “Tactica-Command module is deployed, Boss!”

“What do-!” Luna was cut off as the combined radio chatter of JSOG and the 1st Expeditionary flooded into the room and the holographic display kicked in, revealing the battle in real time, alongside projected enemy movements, friendly positions, and a whole slew of tactical data. “Gods above…” The radio calls of the assisting army were calm and collected, each layered back and forth to avoid chaos. JSOG was a well oiled machine, working flawlessly together, and in tandem to the assisting 1st Expeditionary Force, which faced the horde with a bravado only possible in foolhardy humans.

“It’s cool, don’t worry. We’re here to help!” Jessica grinned as she hung upside down, and the rest of the war room staff began to move closer in to get a better look at the revolutionary device. While magic could afford near real time positions for tactics, it was fickle, and never this clear.

“Princess Luna-” Jack’s voice boomed in the room, his dagger icon lighting up upon the board, with the callsign ‘Courage’ above it. “-I’m about to begin my assault on the Dreadnought, use your radios to readjust your lines with the new tactical data. Have Jessica dial in your radios to the system, it’ll sort everything else out!”

Suddenly, new battle lines were drawn, and JSOG units began to move to match them.“The left flank is flagging, Aurora, get a pair of heavy drones on it!” Flitter commanded, her sword and shield icon popping up as ‘Hellion’. “Princess Luna, JSOG has landed and repelled the wave, we’re digging in and holding the line until Jack’s objective is complete!”

Dropping Jessica, Luna pushed forward. “I do not know if you can hear me, but my Night Guard are ready to deploy!”

With a chuckle, Jack set a marker upon the floating dreadnought. “Then you better prepare for their counter attack, because I’m about to piss them off something fierce.” The dreadnought’s massive signature was pinged, and outlined in red.

“You heard the human!” Luna bellowed. “Deploy my Nightguard, and Cloudsdale!” The war room exploded with activity that had been frozen by the sudden arrival of Jessica, but now that Luna had broken the spell, it carried on with a hopeful, frenetic energy. New orders were shouted, battle lines redrawn, lives were saved, and lives were ended with simple gestures.

“Simoh.” Jack started as the technicians attached the huge experimental pack to his back, ratcheting it down with pins and clamps. Despite his strength, the pack weighed almost too much to be used properly.

“Yes?” The snowy griffon man was settled atop a copse of rocks, with a commanding view of the battlefield through his rifle scope. All anybody could see of him outside the optical camo ghillie suit was the meter and a half long 20mm barrel poking free.

“You see my markers?” Jack tested the throttle on his new equipment, the huge pack rumbling and whining with great power. The pack was a huge array of control surfaces, oversized thrusters, and a small power supply, giving Jack the appearance of a hedgehog. An experimental jetpack, that was about to be turned into a one-way rocket ride.

“Of course I do. Do you know how to fly that thing?” Simoh toggled his munition switch until the titanium penetrators chimed in.

“I know enough to go real fast in a straight line.” Jack squatted down slightly, bracing his knees against the adhoc launchpad. “Gimme three rounds, on my mark.”

“With pleasure.” Simoh sighted his rifle, and allowed a little smile to play his lips. “If you’re good at anything, it's going really fast in a straight line.”

Jack chuckled mildly as his rocketpack shook the woods with it’s thrusters. It took everything Jack had to brace against the monstrous thrust the pack was putting out, he had to hold it all in until the right moment. “Now he gets with the program. Mark!”

“I’ve seen enough.” Carolus snarled as he watched the battle unfold before him. “Humans. Damnable, disgusting humans!” He spat at the window, fuming as another ship exploded and sank to the ground, flaming and disgorging burning crew. Alentius watched near the door, silent and still as he waited. He could see something though, far off in the distance.

Without warning, the tinted window was struck, and a uniformed general’s head turned to a fine mist as a trio of heavy rounds snapped by, into the wall behind them. The bridge went silent in shock, though the silence was entirely Carolus’. They were supposed to be untouchable within the dreadnought, not targets of opportunity. The only thing that had spared Carolus was his current lack of uniform. The object from the woods was gaining speed, and detail. Whatever it was, it was spewing flame and smoke, and headed straight for the ragged holes that sat in the once impenetrable shield.

“I…” Carolus waivered, before his own eyes glowed blue for a moment. “All guns, fire on that human!”

It took all of Jack’s willpower to not cry out with terror and excitement as he was launched from the woods atop his rocket pack, the g-force from the flight pulling hard at his face. The rough kilometer and a half between him and his target vanished in all but an instant as he blitzed through the air like a missile. Now that the ships in his way were repositioning or falling to the ground as broken wrecks, he had the clearest shot possible, he just had to make it count. As it turned out, keeping the pack straight was far harder than he’d anticipated, and there was plenty of reasons why the jetpack had never been circulated.

Raising his arms against the pressure of flight almost felt like too much, but as the great glowing shield fast approached, he knew he had to, otherwise he’d just become a stain smeared across the ship at four hundred kilometers per hour. Heaving his arms forward, Jack only managed to utter a simple “FUCK!” as he slammed fist first into the shield. With the three pre existing holes acting as guides, his titanium forged knuckle dusters smashing through like the shield were made of glass. Unfortunately, his experimental pack was too big to make it through the hole, exploding in a conflagration of twisted metal and plasma fire. Trying to tumble mid air as his own inbuilt thrusters deployed and tried to slow him down, Jack failed entirely, and plowed through the top deck like a rocket. Structure and pipes clanged and hissed as he smashed through them, before finally coming to a stop two decks below.

“ow… This is Courage… I’m onboard the dreadnought.” Slowly rolling over, Jack rested on his haunches as he popped his shoulder back into place. “ow…”

Jack.

Mark’s voice echoed in his head as he pushed himself up, drawing his pistol and fighting knife. “What?”

There’s something you need to know about Jalgromak.

Grunting in annoyance, Jack set off down the cramped gangway, weapon muzzle sweeping back and forth. “What, you couldn’t tell me before?” Shaking his head slightly, his attentions flicked to the side at the sound of quietly clicking talons growing closer. Jack jerked his arm upwards without a second's hesitation and pulled the trigger, blasting an Imperial armsman off his feet, killing the griffon behind that one with the overpenetration. “Go on, I ain’t got all day.”

Jalgromak and I are brothers, as you know. We were placed upon this world at it’s birth, and tasked in seeding it with life. Together, the two of us created harmony, or rather, a physical manifestation of Harmony. The tree of Harmony.

“Good to see your naming conventions are simple enough for marines to remember.” Jack tucked into cover, rolling his Kbar in the palm of his hand. The clack of hostile talons on metal and the jingling of loose equipment was the only sound in his ears that mattered. He lunged out as the group passed him, impaling the lead armsman as he bore down on the others. The griffons fired through each other, but even without the unwitting meat shields he had, their rounds were far too anemic to do more than marr the gleaming silver finish of his armour’s heat treated plates.

Yes yes, I’ll reward you with some crayons later. Anyways, the tree of harmony… It, and all pieces of it, ala the Elements of Harmony, are derived from our essence. All pieces are equal parts order and chaos, intertwined.

“And that means?” Rounding a corner, in pursuit of the fleeing armsmen, Jack was met by a hail of bullets from an infantry support weapon that sparked and spalled off his plates. Idly yanking a smoke grenade from the storage unit in his leg plates, Jack tossed it into the intersection as he sidestepped out of the way momentarily. Using the smoke as cover, he slipped aside from the storm of bullets, and used his magnetic vision mode to seek out the gunnery crew through the glittering cloud. “High Ex.” The cylinder of his handcannon span on its own accord, before chiming an affirmative, moments before he pulled the trigger. The shot rang out in the enclosed spaces of the dreadnought, but the echo of the explosion swiftly overlapped it as the crew was annihilated. Jack strode by the position, ignoring the cooking ammo as it plinked off his armour harmlessly.

It means that both myself and my dear brother are able to manipulate the elements, and by extension their wearers. I’ve done so in the past, for my own entertainment, but you know by now what Jalgromak is using it for.

With an uncharacteristic cry of rage, an Armsman charged him, clutching two fragmentation grenades. “Yeah that would have been real slick info a year ago, but how’s this affect me now?” Jack grunted in angry derision toward the voice in his head as he slammed a fist into the Imperial armsman, crushing the griffon’s ribcage before idly tossing him down a set of stairs, toward a charging group of griffons. The frag grenades did the rest.

You’ll need to separate the bearers from their elements. To do that, you’re going to need to separate the bearers themselves from each other.

Entering the primary superstructure underneath the center tower, Jack scanned the area, and found stairs. “Noted.” Jack muttered in exasperation as he began mounting the stairs. “Anything else?”

There is. You won’t like it.

The thumping and clattering of Armsmen rushing downstairs toward him provided Jack ample warning, while the confined stairwell provided him a whole squad of easy targets. “Flechette.” He spoke to his weapon, shifting his ammo type over. The tungsten darts made short work of the squad, ripping through their soft bodies. “Stop fucking around and give me a straight answer dammit, I don’t have all day for fucking story time!” Jack fired again inside the confined space, spraying blood across the walls.

When I betrayed my brother, I sealed him away within a stone dias, and placed a requirement for release far too heavy for any mortal to achieve upon it. To free him, it requires a massive blood sacrifice from innocents. Over millennia, he used his remaining power to shape the dias into something that would allow him to exert control over the denizens of the world I was ruling. I would have stopped him from creating the first mask, had I not been sealed away myself within stone before I knew.

The sole survivor of the squad attempted to retreat, inly to find the bulkhead closed behind him. Turning, he made to face down the oncoming monster. “You fucking deserved it, you cunt.” Pistoning a foot into the griffon, Jack split the armsman in half, while blasting the door off its hinges. He sprung upon the armsmen behind it, laying into them with knife and fist. “What’s the catch!”

The welp, Carolus, is using this seige to fulfill the blood requirements of the ritual. A million innocents, all lined up nicely.

“So I stop him, big deal. It doesn’t change-”

It changes everything! To destroy my brother once and for all, we must see the ritual complete, and for that, we must carry on with the sacrifice!

His orders were followed to the letter. His soldiers never hesitated. It was a thousand to one, and they were being slaughtered like rats. Carolus clutched his radio, sweat beading on his skin. “Sergeant, where is the human!?”

“He’s-YAREUG-” The line went dead momentarily, before a voice crackled over it, booming out the receiver. “Gobble gobble, Turkey Bitch.”

“Teleport me to Hunter’s Perch!” Carolus ordered frantically as the sound of stomping boots and staccato gunfire drew closer and closer to his lounge. All too soon, his glasses and bottles of fine brandy were bouncing in their shelves from the footfalls alone. As the Element of Magic nodded slowly, twin holes exploded through his lounge doors, the fine wood fragments carrying portions of skull and brain with them. “NOW!”

Plowing through the doors, Jack showered the inside of the lounge with splintered wood. “CAROLUS!” He bellowed in unadulterated fury as his jets unfurled, seeing him lunge forward like a cannon shot from hell. Despite his speed, he couldn’t outrun the swiftness of Twilight’s spell. They were already beginning to light up, and there was no way he could reach the Emperor before he was whisked away. “I’LL FIND YOU!” He roared in anger as he dove, interposing himself between the first element he could reach. With his titanium clad armour raking across Dash’s hide, the teleportation spell around her came undone, just as the rest of the girls vanished before Jack’s eyes. “Motherfucker! FUCK! Slamming a fist into the wood floor, Jack pushed himself up as more armsmen flooded in, and Dash squared off against him. “Goddamn my fucking life!”

Alentius recognised the voice inside the lounge, but he didn’t recognize the imposing armour. More mind controlled armsmen flooded ahead of him, keen to follow their lord’s orders to the letter. Alentius however, had other plans. It was agony, fighting against the control, but he had been waiting for a moment like this. He’d played docile, and didn’t try to fight the control when he knew he couldn’t escape, but now? Now his commander was here. With his weapon already raised from the commands, Alentius willed his talon into the trigger guard, and pinned his rifle down in full auto. The action racked his body with lances of unbelievable pain, repayment for his sudden but inevitable betrayal. As his rifle clicked empty and the magazine fell from the well, Alentius found himself facing down the large bore barrel of a pistol, belonging to a beast far bigger than he’d remembered, who currently had the Element of Loyalty slung over his shoulder. The weapon didn’t fire as Alentius felt his body being overtaken by Order’s influence.

“You always were stubborn for a chicken.” Alentius lost consciousness as an armoured hand smacked his skull, ringing his bell like never before. As he hit the deck, Alentius felt his failing body being picked up, and manhandled like a sack of potatoes. He hoped that wherever he ended up, it was better than the hell he had endured.

“Overlord, this is Courage! Enemy Commander has fled the field, and I have two VIP’s in tow, I need immediate medivac for the VIP’s once I’m off the dreadnought, how copy?”

“We read you, Courage.” Augustina watched the battle unfold before her scope. Far below her, Courage was still on the dreadnaught, fighting his way off. There were no friendlies nearby, or at least, none crazy enough to make a run at the dreadnought while it was still active. “Anybody willing to jump into the flames for Courage?” She called across the unencrypted radio channels.

“This is Captain Alsan of the Righteous Justice, we’ll retrieve him.” The voice was unfamiliar to Augustina, but the steel within it earned a respectful smile.

“Great!” Jack responded as he reached the top deck. “Overlord, Drop the Hammer on the dreadnought! We need this beast out of the fight before it does anything drastic! We plug it, and it’s all over for em!” As if on cue, the gargantuan ship began to make full steam for Canterlot. “Aw hell… Marsa, kick that tub into high gear!” Jack spun on his heels, shielding his two charges with his body as rounds danced off him. In the distance, the massive cloud city above Canterlot began to move. “Why is Cloudsdale move-” He found his answer immediately as lightning began to emit from the city, acting as weapon arrays. The lightning lashed out, smashing into the ground before the front line. Skirmishes opened up between imperial vessels and the floating city, and it was impossible to tell who would come out on top. Every building had been weaponized, and the weather factories were churning out emergency class weather cells that wreaked havoc across the sky and the vessels within, but the Imperials had more guns than the Equestrian’s had bodies. Cloudsdale, wouldn’t be enough. “That ain’t something you see every day…”

“Jack!” Marsa called over the radio as her destroyer slipped from the lines, it’s great golden prow gleaming against the sun. “Get ready to jump, I’m not slowing down!” The Righteous Justice’s shields sparked and shone as rounds impacted them, the whole array focused forward. Aerial units were attempting to catch up with it and swarm it’s decks from behind, leaving not a single inch for error on either end.

“Aw hell…” Running for the tear in the Dreadnoughts shields that was slowly beginning to seal, Jack leapt through, still clutching his unconscious charges. Squeezing through the hole with all the grace of a dying buffalo, Jack began to tumble, before he slammed his hand into the shield, and entered a more controlled fall as he raked his way across it. Coming in hot was the Righteous Justice, guns blazing like suns.

“Now!” Marsa called as the destroyer slipped under the dreadnought, and Jack let go.

“Fuuuuck!” Jack managed to yell as he plummeted through the air, his thrusters firing frantically to try and keep him oriented and slow his velocity enough to avoid punching right through the deck. Landing with a loud thud, Jack grunted from the impact as his boots hit the deck and he tumbled from the transferred inertia. “GO! HIT IT MARSA, HIT IT!” He hadn’t even stopped sliding across the deck when he bellowed into comms, eyes on the little glint in the sky.

As the Righteous Justice began to push away, a great weapon in orbit span it’s three cylinders. The 6.1 meter long, .3 meter diameter tungsten rod slowly slid into the chamber of the satellite, which held itself in a pleasant geostationary orbit above the country of Equestria. Far removed from the battle, the satellite secured the rod within the firing chamber, and began using solar power to charge the initial capacitors. The ferrous core of the poles changed little in regards to their design, but gave the satellites the ability to use charged rails to launch the rods faster, assisting in delivery times. As the capacitors charged, the trigger signal was received. With a single pulse signal, the capacitors discharged, jettisoning the multi-thousand pound rod into the atmosphere. Punching through the mesosphere, the rod began to superheat itself from the air friction, the tungsten itself catching fire from the heat. As the rod passed through layer after layer of atmosphere, gaining speed and slowly earning its heat corona, it began to glow so brightly that it acted as a falling star. Punching through clouds like a dart, the rod continued downwards, aimed for the mid deck of a gargantuan ship.

The rod’s impact flashed by in an instant, the superheated pole punching directly through the magical shield, which had never been designed with weapons of mass destruction in mind. The steel and wood used in the construction of the mighty vessel provided little means to do so much as slow the rod’s descent, let alone stop it. The rod carried onwards, punching through the bottom of the ship, and into the ground below.

Such monstrous kinetic energy had to go somewhere. The resulting blast detonated under the dreadnought, splitting it in half and sending pieces sailing off into the bright blue skies. The blast continued to expand, stealing away any hope of watching the dreadnought’s final moments as the area was filled with flying debris, dirt, and dust. The shockwave passed over Equestrian and human lines, knocking some people off their feet or hooves, and shattered every window in a twenty kilometer radius. As the blast subsided to a low rumble, the battle was found to have gone silent, as if it had been momentarily cowed by the godly blow.

“Hammer has landed. Good effect on target.”

Braced against the concussive wave as it passed over her, Flitter covered her face to avoid the blast of dust and debris that followed. A stunned silence fell across the battlefield as the report of the impact echoed back and forth. Above, the sun poured down, with the clouds blasted aside to reveal brilliant blue skies. “Gods…” Flitter fought against the need to gawk, but found it hard to take her eyes off the impact site. Giving her head a hard shake, she forced her feet to move. “All units, check in!” She ordered as she slid into a filth filled trench, careful to keep her rifle above the muck line. She could see the readouts of her whole team in the corner of her hud, but with the dust cloud she wanted confirmation. Scanning the battlefield as the echoing roar of the strike bounced through the valley, Flitter watched as godrays reached down to touch the earth through the dust. The clouds above had already been parted by the concussive wave, allowing the dawn to shine brightly. Any flier near the impact zone had been knocked for a loop, and more than a great few had been outright killed by the blast.

“Breaker Squad, we’re all still hanging on. That was… that was...” Minerva sounded breathless, but exhilarated. The tight-beam info shot from the sergeant gave Flitter a swift rundown of their munitions and vitals, which earned a swift frown.

“Minerva, you’ve used half your medigel and your armour is breached, swap out with Fellows. Fireball, you’re up.”

“Fireball Squad.” Taven spoke through the soft sound of whistling wind. He sounded awestruck, only just now moving. “Jolt’s headed back for medical treatment, he took some bad flak but he’s still mobile.” Fireball Squad’s munitions were running dangerously low, but they were the furthest back. Not an easy resupply by any means.

“Copy, I’ll send one of my squad to escort him. Daisy, you’re up, on the bounce, trooper!” The young corporal nodded once, before jetting off with her thrusters screeching. Across the board, people were sore and tired, running low on munitions. “All squads, pop caffeine tabs if you haven’t, and try to conserve medigel. I know we just witnessed something… insane, but we need to keep our heads in the game. Switchblade Actual, do you read me?”

There was a brief pause, followed by a click as Kleese answered. “Yes! Sorry, we’re all here! That kinetic strike gave us a good rattle, but our lines have held for now. Do you need a resupply, Hellion?” It felt comforting to know that even the humans were awestruck by the sheer power of the weapon, which had almost brought an end to the battle with a single blow.

“Yes, send it immediately while there’s a lull.” Flitter continued to scan the dust cloud as the godrays cut neat glowing lines through it. Something was moving inside it. “All units, heads up. Got movement-” The sudden low whining tone of a casualty rang in her ear, causing her eyes to widen in shock. The radio call came moments later.

“Progeny! Flying Progeny got Jolt!” Daisy called out, jinking about frantically as an unmarked bogey stuck to her tail. “It’s all over me, I can’t shake it!”

Taven’s authoritative voice spoke over Daisy’s as his pip rocketed toward her. “Don’t panic, keep up your maneuvers and I’ll get him off your tail.”

“We got progeny all over, where the hell did they come from!?” Minerva's gun spooled up, and immediately began spitting rounds downrange. Her hud cam showed shapes and forms flitting about in the dust, like wicked poltergeists. “They’re using the dust cloud to get closer, pour the fire on!”

As a great lumbering shape charged toward her, Flitter found her limbs locked from fear. All she saw was her blood, splashed across snow, and a monstrous beast tearing her limb from limb. As the ogre progeny locked on to her and lowered its head into it’s charge, the scream of terror within her mind began to morph and shift, changing from terror, to molten fury. Soon, her scream forced its way out her mouth as a roar, challenging the ogre’s own in volume and ferocity. With her mind locked on to the target, Flitter leapt over the trench parapet, firing her rifle into the beast’s guts. The rounds struck and splashed across it’s brutally thick hide, boiling and burning it, but failing to penetrate deep enough. As the beast lunged forward, Flitter threw herself backwards, and fired her jumpjets down. Shooting out from under the ogre, Flitter twisted on the ground, and immediately changed the angle of her thrusters so she was pushing forward. In a single pulse she leapt upon the beast’s back, planting her boots between it’s thick shoulders. Firing her miniature anchors, Flitter dug her boots into the thick flesh, and began pouring fire on to the back of the Ogre’s head. Realizing it had been duped, the creature shrieked in fury, and began to buck about in hopes of jostling her free. The bipedal thing reached upwards to snatch at her, but found its muscles far too large to have such range of motion.

The ogre’s resistance died moments after, when the eighth two centimeter plasma ball shattered it’s skull, and detonated it’s brains into a slew of grey mush and steam. More shrieks sounded around flitter as she slung her empty rifle over her back, and drew her sword. “ALL UNITS, SWAP TO APSV MISSILES AND FOCUS FIRE! LET’S SHOW THESE MONSTERS WHO WE ARE!”

“Incoming, another wave!” Kleese rushed back to the frontline as another wave of bodies came crashing down upon them. Guns opened back up, stressing their cooling jackets as round after round was poured on. The cacophony of bullet, laser, slug and plasma lit up the copse of trees like a macabre christmas, but still only served to keep back so much. As the wave closed in, -and it could only be called a wave, as every body within it lacked the individual thought to be considered anything else-, they crashed into the monofilament razorwire. Bodies came apart at the seams against the hypertense wires, sliced to ribbons by the nearly imperceptible hazard. Waving a hand, Kleese gestured toward the convoy. “JSOG needs it’s ammo, get going!”

“Large bandits, inbound on us.” Hans responded as he fired his heavy gauss rifle into the oncoming horde. Through the dust and smoke, great beasts barreled down on them, not showing any signs of slowing as they batted aside anything in their way. “Hold the convoy back.”

“Heavy weapons teams, focus fire and bring them down!” The order had barely been spoken when one of the AT guns spiked the lead ogre, tearing an arm off with the railslung round. However, despite the grievous wound, the creature continued onward, giggling like a child. More of them exited the cover of the cloud, advancing rapidly on the human position. “More of them, pour the fire on!” Shots lanced out, perforating the beast’s hide, but most failed to cause more than a shriek of pain. All too soon, it crashed into the wire, falling upon it. With a gap opened up, the wave began to wash through, and more of the progeny began to hit the line. Simoh’s bombastic rifle thundered from within his stand, coring out a progeny’s skull, but only resulted in it’s lifeless corpse falling on top of more wire.

“If they push any closer, we’re screwed!” Walter yelled as he unleashed a torrent of jellied fuel, incinerating anything that got close with his gauntlet mounted flamethrowers. The torrential flow of the fuel emitted a sharp noise that fought against the noises the enemy made as they were cooked alive, their blood boiled and their bones charred. The smell of jellied DE-40 incinerator fuel was one that would never leave a nose, and intertwined with cooked meat it made for a stomach churning, eye watering concoction.

“Buzzsaw, this is Switchblade Actual, we need air support, danger close! There’s- shit-!” Kleese poured the fire down on the big ones as they charged the line, taking down sections of monofilament wire. His eyes tried to follow the smaller, faster ones as they leapt the wire and made to close in with the 1st’s lines. “Overlord, we need pegs on these things, they’re all over us!” As an ogre finally reached the skirmish line, it lunged forward, grabbing a human trooper by the legs. The woman barely had a moment to scream before she was tossed through the air like a toy, landing somewhere within the coming tide of hostiles.

As the beast began to rampage, Walter disengaged and charged it head on. “Bastard, commere! I’ll teach you to touch my friends!” His heavy war armour boomed as he collided with the Ogre progeny, the pair grabbing at each other for hand holds. As furious as Walter was, he couldn’t help but be wigged out by the childish giggling that it continued to let out as it slammed a huge meaty fist into his chest plates.

“Blowtorch, give me an opening!” Hans yelled as he turned toward the wrestling pair, his warform twisting on its axis before lopping over on huge clawed feet.

“I’m trying!” Walter yelled back, before feeding the beast a brutal right hook that shattered it’s jaw. As the beast recoiled at the kinetic strike, Walter jumped on to it, wrapping a massive arm around it’s head. “Now!”

Striding forward, Hans pressed the barrel of his gauss rifle against the progeny’s skull, and promptly fed a two round burst into it’s twisted cortex. The Ogre hadn’t even gone limp before the old soldier turned again, and unleashed a volley of rockets from his rack. “Keep up the pressure!”

“Fast movers inside the wire, Calliopes! Get the Calliopes on them!” Kleese cried out as one of his squad was shredded by the swift footed, talon bearing progeny. The thing giggled and laughed as it dodged around his shots, wounding and slaying anybody who it got near with brutally efficient claws. As if on cue, the scuttling drones turned their attentions from the skies, and began pouring the rounds onto the groundbourne targets. For as fast as these progeny were, they weren’t faster than artillery shells, which the Calliopes had a field day shooting down. The catlike progeny yeowled as it was struck again and again, it’s hide being split by the blistering firepower. The moment it slowed, it fell prey to Kleese’s big guns. “YEAH, HAVE SOME OF THAT, CREEP! BUZZSAW, WHERE’S THAT AIR SUPPORT!?”

“Yeah yeah, don’t get your panties in a bunch.” With her craft being jostled from the swift dive. Her sights tracked back and forth, seeking out hostiles in the dust cloud. “Having a hard time spying them, I need manual pings or I might splash some of our guys!”

“This is Overlord, we can’t get accurate readings through the dust cloud, you’re on your own.”

Moments later, as she reached the point of no return, a dozen pips appeared on Roxy’s scope. “Guns guns guns.” With all the coolness of a veteran fighter jockey, she rolled, and unleashed the 30mm gatling cannon. The report of the weapon shook the Talon’s airframe as she kept up the dive, driving thousands of rounds down to the ground in a matter of moments. With every second the monumental ‘BRRRRRRRTTTTTTT’ carried on, another pip simply vanished from her scope, eliminated by her firepower. All too soon, she reached her final elevation. “That’s all I got, returning to Overlord for a rearm. See you in five mikes.” Twisting her craft, Roxy pinned the throttle down and shot up in a near straight vertical line, the double barrel blasts of speed marking her exit from the field. She could only hope her CAS hadn’t hit any of her buddies in the dust. The guilt gnawed on her all the way up.

“Good guns, Buzzsaw, good fucking guns! It was close but we’re okay! We’ve got a moment to breath. Tiger Lead, you’re up!” Kleese waved erratically to the convoy of vehicles, the lead of which was the massive main battle tank, recently fully retrofitted with a fully modern control suite, a mine plow, twin 20mm caseless anti-infantry bushmaster autocannons, and finally, the 20cm power cannon. The power cannon gleamed maliciously against the godrays as Maggie started the powerplant, filling the forest with her nuclear turbine whine.

“This is Tiger Lead to all Tigers, stick close and let the plow do the work, break off once we hit the trenches and don’t get bogged down. All gunners, eyes open for the big boys, call ‘em out for the cannon.” As a chorus of affirmatives from the heavily armed and armoured combat trucks rolled through her suite within the tank, Maggie smiled, and gunned the throttle. “Let’s go hunting.”

Cloudchaser was in hell. That, she was sure of. It was only through the arrival of JSOG that her position hadn’t been completely overrun, but now that the huge bipedal soldiers had shifted their locations to fight the progeny, she and Chance were all that was left. “Chance, pass me another mag!” Cloudchaser cried out as an Imperial round plinked off her helmet, fuzzing her senses with the ricochet. She felt like vomiting, but she’d already done that, and there was nothing left to puke up but bile. “CHANCE!” Cloudchaser screamed as she turned to the blackened zebra. “He’s dead, and we’ll both join him unless you get back on the line!”

Huddled over his brother’s crumpled, headless frame, Chance could only murmur quiet little nothings into the filthy fur of his brother’s chest. Chance’s eyes were all but entirely white, and she could tell he was gone. Cloudy hadn’t even seen how Fate had died, she hadn’t been paying any attention to them. Maybe if she had been, she could have saved him…

No. No, there was no place for thoughts like that here, and now. There was no place for them in her head at all. Pushing aside a griffon corpse, Cloudy pulled a half empty stick mag from his crude bandoleer, and jammed it into her own pilfered sub machine gun. Aiming down sights, she squeezed the trigger, and was rewarded with two rounds before the action stuck open and double fed a pair of rounds. “Piece of shit! PIECE OF IMPERIAL FUCKING SHIT!” Her voice was going hoarse from the stress and screaming, but she couldn’t care any more. Not with one of the huge progeny lopping toward her. Panic gripped Cloudy’s heart as it’s giggle echoed to her, and she began to frantically work at the action meant for dextrous talons. “ComeoncomeoncomeON!” Her eyes flicked forward as he Ogre crossed over their concertina wire, smashing it aside with little care. She was dead and done. Closing her eyes, Cloudy waited for its thumping feet to grow closer, and for it all to end.

Her closed eyes were all that saved her sight as a bolt of cerulean energy caught the ogre on it’s blind side, instantly atomizing half its body. The blast furnace of heat washed over Cloudy, turning the filthy water around her hot as white spots danced behind her eyelids. Gasping in shock as the heatwave hit her, Cloudchaser tried desperately to blink away the spots in her eyes and spy her savior. She found her hero was impossible to miss; the hundred tonne MBT plowing over the Progeny’s teetering corpse as it’s cannon swept the battlefield, hunting for targets. It flashed again, sending a miniature sun downrange to spell something's doom. Cloudsdale’s weather factories were working overtime, pushing out wind to clear out the dust. The light of day began to truly pour down, illuminating the great beast of war. Cloudy had just a moment to gawk and laugh in absurd disbelief at the sight of the mighty tracked vehicle as it churned up mud and pushed aside the sea of corpses as if they were nothing. A pair of cannons of a separate upper turret scanned about, occasionally barking so as to swat down an annoyance that made the mistake of coming too close. Behind, within the tank’s wide wake, was a convoy of vehicles which upon reaching the trenchline, broke off from their caretaker and ripped off to places unknown.

One truck went all of twenty meters behind her, and slid to a stop. The doors were flung open as the roof gunner opened fire, his gatling gun churning out a torrent of tracer rounds. Finally turning around, Cloudchaser found one of the JSOG soldiers standing nearby, protecting one of their wounded. The soldier was clad in hightech black power armour, with a human half skull painted across their helmet’s jawline. In their hands was a wicked, crackling sword, and a smoking plasma pistol. Slowly pulling herself out of the muck, Cloudchaser began to make her way through the ravaged trenches, passed the drooping hearth's warming lights and stinking corpses. As she struggled to pull herself up over a muddy berm, a pair of strong, gauntlet covered hands wrapped around her hooves, pulling her up. Looking up, Cloudy found the sword wielding soldier staring down at her, scanning over her.

“How’s Taven faring, Kord?” The woman asked, turning slightly in place to regard another human, clad in far lighter body armour with a red cross emblazoned over his helmet. Behind the safety of his deployed cover and the watchful eye of his bodyguards, Kord could work without much interruption.

Reaching into the toolbox hatches in the mobile cover system, the medic swiftly shot the woman a thumbs up. “All good, Hellion. He’s out of the fight, but he’ll make a full recovery. You got your ammo?”

“Fully loaded. My thanks. Taven, keep your head down, this is what you get for being a hotshot.” A weak chuckle emanated from the downed soldier as he waved her off. As Cloud chaser struggled to open her mouth to speak, the woman turned back to her, and picked her up entirely off her hooves. “Come on, Cloudy. Out of the mud.”

“F-flitter?” Cloudy mumbled as she all but deflated into the strong human arms, her bottled emotions beginning to overwhelm her.

Turning her faceplate clear, Flitter smiled, and winked. “Who else could it be?” Carrying Cloudchaser over to the combat truck, Flitter pulled open one of the heavy, blast proof doors, and set her filthy sister down on the mudmats. “Stay with these guys, they’ll protect you while I’m gone.” She reached out, gently stroking her sister’s muzzle. “I told you I’d come back.”

“Hellion, this is Tiger Actual, I’m moving on, we’ve got more hotspots opening up!” Maggie called out from the confines of her tank, interrupting the sisterly moment, seconds before Cloudy could speak.

Lifting a hand toward the tank, Flitter responded over her comms. “Solid copy Tiger Actual, good hunting.”

“See you around, sister!” The tank’s powerplant whined again as it kicked in, while the brilliant red flag of the 1st Expeditionary Force waved in the wind, secured tightly to the top turret of the warmachine. Emblazoned upon it was a proud golden eagle with wings outstretched, a golden earth clutched safely in its talons. The flag fluttered proudly, shining against all the muck and filth around it. The tank took off across the frontline, an unassailable bastion of firepower before the world.

Smiling to herself, Flitter closed the door on her sister, and turned her faceplate back to a solid metal. Her eyes went back to the door as her hand lingered on the handle, wanting to pull it open again and join her sister within. Turning away from the vehicle, Flitter keyed her comms as she slid another cylinder magazine into her weapon. “JSOG, rally on me! Full force, let’s end this!”

“Here they come!” Somebody called out as the remaining Imperial navy redeployed, and formed a tight attack wedge. The formation pushed far into Equestrian lines, hellbent for Cloudsdale as it chugged along, spitting out lightning and tracerfire. On the ground, the horde reformed, making a final progeny tipped push for the breakthrough. Clearly, somebody was still slinging orders, and that somebody had been hiding until they’d gotten close enough.

“Masks! Look out, Masks!”

“Don’t let them get any closer!”

“ALL ORDERS TO SURRENDER ARE FALSE!”

The cries went up along the line as soldiers repositioned, and poured fire down on the supposed locations of the mask wearers. Despite all the fighting, the battle still raged, and was swiftly reaching it’s fever pitch. The Progeny bore down upon Equestrian lines, clashing against the Royal Guard, Militia, JSOG, and the human 1st. It was brutal, bloody fighting, fought over every inch of ground with neither side willing or able to give up.

As the lines were slowly pushed back towards Canterlot, things were looking dire for the defenders. For every progeny put down, it appeared as if two would take their place. The progeny were fast and strong, and could absorb all but the heaviest artillery or the sharpest blade, which JSOG was more than happy to feed them.

Flitter fought for all she was worth, slashing and firing at anything that came close. There wasn’t any way she could stop, not with everything on the line. She was locked in, all but dancing across the field with the orchestra of guns and death all around her. Her armour bleeped at her, before injecting more vital stabilizing drugs and painkillers as she pushed herself further and further. She had to win. She wouldn’t stop until she was dead, or they’d ripped victory from the jaws of defeat. Driving her blade into the chest of a swift progeny, Flitter roared in defiance as she pistoned a power armoured foot into its neck, pinning the beast long enough for her to atomize it’s facial features with her pistol. There was already another bearing down on her, alongside several dozen mind controlled soldiers. She activated her micro-missile rack, only to hear the dread chime of an empty magazine.

“Fireball, form up, you’re drifting!” She bellowed as she slashed at the progeny in wild hopes of keeping it at bay, while small arms fire spalled against her armour. “We need reinforcements in sector A Niner Six! They’re nearly breaking through! Buzzsaw, any word on CAS?”

“Hard negative, fliers are keeping me busy!” Roxy responded as she roared across the sky, dog fighting the batlike progeny as they flitted from ship to ship like hungry predators, eager to leap upon her craft if she slowed enough to make an appealing target. “I’ll bring it around when I can!”

“This is Tiger Actual, I’m inbound, Hellion!” The call brought a smile to Flitter’s face as Roxy roared by overhead, vibrating her guts with the Talon’s slipstream.

Within the confines of her tank, Maggie coughed against the thick coiling smoke that filled the cabin, thanks to the overworked 20cm cannon. The weapon had never been meant to be mounted in such an old tank, and fitting it in had meant the maintenance crew had turned it on it’s side, and thus been forced to push the comms equipment out the back of the turret. The smoke was a thick, off grey colour, and reeked of burning ozone and melted plastics. Pulling down her gasmask, Maggie pulled it over her sweat soaked features, before gunning the engine. Her tank bounced and jostled over the rough terrain, it’s turret tracking where she demanded. Her coaxial machinegun chattered away with a pulse of her finger, stitching rounds across the enemy horde. Firing another cannon round downrange, Maggie slowed her advance as she reached Flitter’s position. “Give me pips, Hellion, and I’ll remove them!”

“Tiger Actual, don’t stop there! The ground- Contact! Contact right!” Flitter plugged down a pip on the advancing ogre, and began pouring rounds down on it as Maggie traversed the turret. It was all too late, as the ogre slammed into the tank, and began to drive it deeper into the watery muck. The turbine engine roared as the woman within pinned the accelerator, but only succeeded in driving the tracks deeper into the muck and filth, spraying rooster tails into the air as her tracks bit and tore at Progeny flesh..

“Dammit, Yuma, hit that thing!” Flitter yelled as she emptied her magazine on to the beast, peppering it’s hide with rounds.

“Out of ammunition!” Yuma yelled back as she struck a griffon with a balled up cybernetic fist, shattering it’s skull. The minotauren woman had retaken her natural appearance, seeing as there was nobody to hide herself from.

“Man down, man down!” The cry came up across comms as a casualty tone blarred across Flitter’s hud. The roar of battle around her became nearly unbearable as it pressed in, simultaneous distress signals overlapping overtop of each other to add to the chaos.

“It’s got Ken! Someone stop it! Medic!”

“Somebody cover me!”

“HELP!”

It was all falling apart. Even the clouds were returning, drowning out the light. Firing her sidearm into the horde in desperation, Flitter began to call to her orbital support.

“Overlord, this is Hellion. Broken Arrow. If my signal goes down, drop a hammer on it’s last.” The calmness in her own voice shocked her, even as her pistol chimed empty.

The dark skies had almost completely enveloped her position now, and it was accompanied with flapping wings. As the horde closed with her position, the ground before her erupted with the strikes of Equestrian artillery. Gunfire and spells stitched across the field, felling hostiles by the dozens. Changing a disbelieving glance over her shoulder, Flitter felt hope welling up once again within her chest. What she found behind her wasn’t clouds, but the entirety of the Nightguard in full formation with the sun at their backs, descending upon her from the Stalwart Liberty’s flight deck, whose shadow blanketed the land around her. Overhead, a formation of Stalliongrader bombers unleashed their payloads, the huge magically guided bombs smashing apart the condensed Imperial fleet, while unpainted fighters ripped across the air, following Roxy’s lead.

“Overlord-” Jack spoke into comms as Princess Luna landed, her magic tossing enemies about like ragdolls. “Disregard Hellion’s last. We have the situation under control.”

As if on cue, the Righteous Justice can swooping in, guns blazing. The huge shells crashed into the ground, sending powerful shockwaves over the the defenders. A large, silver armoured shape disembarked the ship as it slipped over the field, it’s broadside blazing. Spent brass fell like torrential rain, peppering the ground below as hundreds of thousands of rounds were fired.

Charging the enemy headon, Luna roared in defiance as her midnight blade consumed the light around it, eviscerating her enemies with every swing. Even the progeny felt it’s bite, though it only served to infuriate those it failed to kill, rather than leave them keening in paralyzed agony. Standing side by side as the progeny charged them, Flitter and Luna prepared to leave forward and meet them head on-

Just as Jack landed before them, flattening a swift progeny under his bootheels. He leapt into the fray as if he were possessed, his reacquired gatling cannon spewing out a torrent of armour piercing rounds as he engaged the bulk of the pack. “COME ON, COME AND GET SOME IF YOU THINK YOU’RE FUCKIN HARD!” He bellowed through his armour comms, shaking the area with his timber as he threw a hard right hook at an ogre, meeting the beast’s own meaty fist midair. The twisted limb all but came apart at the seams as Jack’s fist turned it to paste, continuing on through it. With a single hand he gripped the wounded progeny’s head, and wrenched it free as he rolled over it’s bulk to engage another one without skipping a beat. As the Nightguard and JSOG pushed back against the horde, Jack held back the Progeny, slaying them with powerful, calculated blows and high tech equipment. Slowly but surely, the lines were pushed back, the enemy being forced back inch by inch, grinded down by the combined arms over every race present. The final progeny were slain as Jack mounted the human tank, wrenching the 1st Expeditionary flag free to drive into the eye socket of an ogre as it tried to clamber over the great vehicle. Prying it free, Jack leveled his wrist mounted BFG, and unleashed a blistering ball of energy that rent apart everything it touched, annihilating even the progeny where they stood.

“This is Overlord, we have detected unidentified surges of energy, pinging the locations now. They’re coming from individuals within the enemy host.” The location was immediately focused upon HUD’s, and the four mask bearers leapt into view thanks to precise orbital cameras.

“Masks!” Jack called out, despite the lack of need. “Everyone pick one and engage, do not let them discharge!” Without waiting for affirmatives, he took off after the furthest one, crossing the distance with powerful strides and repulsorpack assistance.

“This one’s mine!” Flitter called out, locking on to the griffon as energy collated around him. “If we blow the masks, we’ll retake the whole valley! JSOG, assist Luna!” As the United Equestrian spearhead punctured the host of the Imperial army, the left flank was struck by rippling blue energy that washed over everything like a wave. As Flitter impacted her own target, slashing them in half with her powered sword, another wash of energy leapt from the right flank, washing over her. The griffon fell with a cry of surprise twisted in agony, but was silenced as Flitter drew a titanium baton from her boot holster, and used it to smash the stone mask to pieces. A pulse of powerful blue magic erupted from it, blasting Flitter off her feet and jarring her senses, even through the protection of her power armour. Painful surges of raw nerves ran up and down her striking arm as she stared up at the bright blue sky, listening to cheers begin to echo from Equestrian lines as the fourth mask was felled, but no wave followed.

Author's Notes:

Obligatory Chapter 69 mention

Primarily for this chapter, I'd like to thank my new Theme-meister, Drunkenfist, he really helped me make this chapter the best I could.

Honestly it's caused me to pull some of my hair out, ensuring that everybody who needed a section got a section, and made a meaningful contribution to the engagement. With the sheer size of the available cast, some got smaller parts than others, and I couldn't go into true gorey detail with every single paragraph for obvious reasons. Not only that, but I also had to try and make sure that things didn't feel one sided, which they still assuredly do.