Exhaustion was tearing at the corners of Victoria's mind as she roared through the smoke-laden skies over Ponyville. The battle had been raging for thirteen hours; the PPA had already burned through its fuel and ammo reserves twice, and Victoria had yet to take a break. Rainbow Dash and the Wonderbolts needed her, and she could not, she would not, take a break till they did, or the Seraph lay defeated at their feet. And the Wonderbolts were not going to take a break, not over the burned out remains of Rainbow's home. According to Rainbow Dash, during the brief interludes when they could talk, the Seraph had struck Ponyville just hours before humanity had arrived en masse. Lasers and claws had made short work of their thatch homes and their police force; Rainbow Dash's home had been utterly obliterated by Seraph aircraft, and Twilight's tree-home was now nothing but ash. Dozens had been killed, butchered, in their homes before the Elements could organize a retreat. At one point, Victoria had pointed out a large scorched furrow on the outskirts of the town, and was surprised to see Rainbow cringe.

"That's where Twilight found out her home was gone," Rainbow had replied quietly, "She... she was not happy..."

No kidding...

Victoria's power alarms began to sound off in little warning beeps inside her helmet: twenty-five percent power left, roughly an hour's worth left. Victoria's teeth gritted; she had used her suit so hard that the internal battery must be corroding. She would need to get that switched out ASAP, or her suit could... A flash of color on the ashen field caught Victoria's attention, and she quickly zoomed her camera down onto it, expecting to see more pony refugees. What she saw instead stunned her; they were Seraph, all three of them, but... far different than those they had been fighting. These Seraph stood straight and tall, unlike the predatory hunch of the others, and were coated in armor- the leader was clad in gold, while the other two were silver-armored. And on each of their backs rested a large container, with the silhouette of a foal submerged in fluid easily visible.

No. No, no, FUCK no!

With a snarl, Victoria began to dive-bomb towards the strange Seraph, her suit's targeting tracking and scanning the three as they lithely loped through the devastation. With the foals in the containers on their backs, Victoria dared not use her suit's micro-rockets. Instead, she held up her gauntlets, the servos inside whirring as they brought the railguns inside to bear. Using highly condensed slugs, the railguns were tailor made to shatter enemy armor; so far, Victoria had yet found the need to really use them. Now... The on-board targeting green-lighting the heads of the three Seraph, Victoria's gauntlet roared as it rapidly launched the slugs. Everything happened so quickly after that...

The heads of the two silver-armored Seraph exploded in a fountain of brain matter and blood, dropping their bodies limply to the ground, containers undamaged. But the golden Seraph turned towards the slug, and molten metal showered off some form of shimmering, just-visible shielding. His feline face spread into a wide, toothy grin, golden eyes tracking Victoria as she cursed, landing at a full sprint, still firing railgun slugs at the strange enemy. Hardly able to even track his movements, the Seraph yanked a glowing pistol-shape into his hand, a green blob of plasma flinging out at a speed no human could hope to dodge. Striking Victoria in the chest, she had expected her armor to absorb some of the impact- but instead, the heat and stopping power of the plasma slammed her backwards, feet flying out from under her.

"Holy FUCK!" Victoria screamed, stunned and in a great deal of pain; something was trickling down her chin.

A clawed hand gripped Victoria's neck before she could hope to react, the protective servos in her armor screeching and whirring as they began to be crushed. The Seraph's bloody, toothy maw grinned in her faceplate like a horrific Cheshire Cat for a moment.. before he drove a fist into the weakened armor plates of her chest with a sickening crunch. Victoria screamed as she felt several ribs snap like twigs, and she desperately kicked and shot at the Seraph with the one gauntlet she could still aim up at him. With a loud pop, the shield around the monster fell... and his free hand shot at in a blur, slamming Victoria's left arm into the ground and snapping it cleanly. Her scream nearly deafened herself, and was still going when the Seraph ripped off her helmet in a spray of sparks and metal.

Victoria had been a police officer and soldier all her life; during her training, she thought she had learned the amount of pain the human body could dish out to her nerves. She was sorely mistaken; this was like being on fire, and Victoria was dimly aware, as she stared into the widening, toothed maw of the Seraph, that she was about to die. Little tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, to her faint shame. The smell of rotted meat rolled out to overwhelm her... only to be obliterated as a grey blur slammed into the Seraph. The sheer power and speed of the newcomer flung the Seraph back several feet, and he roared in pain and surprise as the blur kept coming, bladed hooves slicing and stabbing and hacking with a speed Victoria could never hope to match. It was like watching a storm, and to her shock, small lightning bolt were arcing out from the blur, burning holes in the ground and trees around it. The Seraph finally leaped away from the deadly blur, body crouched down and covered in oozing wounds, matching glares with his assailant. Soarin' Windsong, second-in-command of the Wonderbolts, stood on his hind legs, hoof-blades and chest covered in the red mist of the Seraph's blood; his eyes were blazing, and his wings stood proud, lightning still arcing between them. As the strange Seraph hissed challenge, Soarin' replied in kind- few understood just how avian pegasi truly were, and their battle hiss, a sound halfway between a whinny and growl, was absolutely horrible to listen to.

"She is ours," Soarin' hissed to the Seraph, rolling his shoulders slowly, "And we will not let you take her from us."

Ours?

Victoria let out a yelp as a blazing pegasus zipped overhead, and for a moment, she was filled with horror. Spitfire was on fire! The Captain of the Wonderbolts team was completely ablaze, from her already fiery mane to her wings, to her streaming tail, smoke trailing off her like a demon from the pits of hell. And as the Seraph turned to meet this newest challenge, Spitfire flared her wings, flapped once... and screamed. And hell followed in her wake. Fire roared from Spitfire's mouth, all of the searing flames from her body soaking in and then blasting back out onto the Seraph, who had crouched and tried to cover himself from the flames. Victoria tried to scream out, to warn them about the foal tank, only to realize the tank was no longer on its back. A sky-blue mare with a pure white mane was holding the tank close as she powered for the closest Aegis shield, two other Wonderbolts following in her wake, holding the other two tanks. And coming in from the west was a mighty rainbow contrail...

Spitfire screamed down at the Seraph for several long seconds, all of the gathered fire on her body transferring down to her enemy in a display that made the very ground bubble and warp. Finally the flames petered out, and Spitfire quickly launched back to stand protectively in front of Victoria, her wings spread wide as she glared death at the shaking, blackened creature. Slowly, he stalked out of the molten, fiery pit, looking all the world like a demon from Earth's darkest myths... and he began to laugh. A terrible, aweful, yowling laugh.

"Is that all you can muster, ponies?" he roared in a deep horrifically accented Equush, "You cannot kill me! I am immortal! I am a god to my kind! I... AM..."

"Fucked," Soarin' interrupted with a smirk, and dove back to cover Spitfire and Victoria with his wide wings.

The Seraph, stunned and somewhat confused, never saw the Rainbow coming. Nearly deafened by the Rainboom so close to them, the two ponies and Victoria huddled together as the shockwave and cacophony of lights washed over them. Victoria was stunned by the protective gazes of the ponies around her and, to her later shame, began to cry. Sob, even. Each body-wracking sob sent a stab of pain through her mangled body, but she couldn't stop herself. For all her bluster, Victoria had always been terrified of death. And to have come so close, only to be dragged from the very edge...

"T-thank y-you," she blubbered, tears mingling with the blood and snot welling from the terrible claw wounds the Seraph had left across her boyish face, "I-"

Both ponies nuzzled her gently, utterly ignoring the mess of body fluids as they struggled to calm down their newest flock members. Neither spoke as they gathered her up carefully; an exhausted Rainbow Dash, coated in blood and somewhat warped armor, joined them moments later, locking eyes with Victoria as she helped her friends gather her up.

"Just hold on," she whispered, the depths of her strength and care for her friend stunning Victoria, "We'll fix you right up, Victoria. I promise..."

Author's Notes:

Another short chapter, but a much needed one, I think. :3