General Ironsides, Brigadier General Applejack, Princesses Celestia and Luna, and Major Shining Armor had all gathered in Canterlot as quickly as they could afford to after news arrived regarding the stalemate and tactical Nod retreat at Macintosh Hills. Big Mac had also been asked to attend but the constant engagements between his 2nd Heavy Armored Division and Rarity’s 3rd Special Operations Division required his full attention, stopping him from breaking away from his unit. The rivalry between the two divisions was quickly becoming a model for both armies’ respective fighting doctrines. Big Mac’s unit continued to hammer the enemy with superior firepower whenever possible and in many cases literally rolled over them, all the while Nod’s stealth technology and guerilla strikes were making it nearly impossible to predict troop movements and rendered Kodiak cover fire useless with how close Nod forces would get in order to engage.

It was an issue that Ironsides took particular interest in considering the fact that, despite the advances in armor, they’d still managed to lose a few Mammoths in the weeks that had followed the Second Battle of Macintosh Hills. Much to his relief, Spike had yet to resurface openly in battle as well.

“What ah’m sayin’ is we need to put more funds into stronger and more portable scanners.” Applejack said, the circles under her eyes betraying how tired she was given the meeting was going far into the night, “Only reason Nod’s been able to hurt our armor is because of them damnable stealth tanks getting in close and those stealth generators hidin’ entire armies.”

“What we need is to reinforce the supply lines between Canterlot and the Crystal Kingdom.” Shining Armor retorted, “Scanners are all well and good but the majority of raw materials for them come from my province. With the models we have attached to the Predators, we can hold those lines long enough to stockpile sufficient crystals to last at least another year, but only if we’re not cut off from the capitol, Manehatten, and Baltimare.”

“So you’re suggesting we give extra funding to the defense of our supply lines, despite them already having a substantial escort?” Luna replied.

“A substantial escort that gets shot down at a higher rate than any other unit in this campaign. We need Mammoths covering our Predators, not ORCAs… not unless you want to designate another Kodiak to patrol the roads.”

“I’m more inclined to agree with Applejack on this one, Major.” Ironsides added, “But I think it might be possible to get you your Mammo-”

Ironsides was unable to finish that thought, courtesy of his personal EVA unit going off and letting him know something was transpiring somewhere with a loud, purposely-obnoxious beeping.

“The hell?” Ironsides muttered as his EVA interrupted him. The thought of muting his EVA and momentarily ignoring the alert until after the meeting had crossed his mind, up until the EVAs of everypony in the room started going off followed soon after by the one designated for the meeting room itself.

“Nod activity detected in the vicinity of: Baltimare. Corps-sized unit. Crystal Kingdom. Three Corps-sized units.”

“EVA, confirm those numbers.”

“Calculating….. confirmed. Baltimare is under siege by an estimated 45,000 Nod troops and General Stalwart Shield has been informed of the full alert. The Crystal Kingdom is under siege from an estimated 175,000 troops and Princess-General Cadence has ordered a full alert; Crystal Heart Shield is holding.”

“What the… why now!?” Applejack exclaimed. Ironsides only scowled a moment, wheels turning in his head before the realization hit him.

“Dodge Junction…. this is Kane’s reply.”
_________

A team of GDI troopers continued their foot patrol on top of Baltimare’s Tiberium Containment Wall, looking for enemies and checking the railgun turrets that lined the wall. As they continued their rounds after making sure that none of the components were damaged or worn too much, they looked back out at the yellow zone that surrounded the city. With a sigh, one of them stopped to really get a good look at it and Luna’s Night Sky as his team joined in.

“Hey.” the team leader said.

“Hey…” one of his ponies replied.

“Do you ever wonder why we’re he-” was all he got out before his throat was slit by an unseen blade. A second later, the rest of the team was dead from similar injuries and the four Shadows that had landed behind them 20 minutes ago galloped to the nearest railgun. All along the wall, similar events were playing out and turret after turret went silent as the unicorns in each team deactivated the base defense for further study.

What they didn’t plan for, however, was a city-wide alarm going off as soon as the first turret went down. General Shield had the EVAs that practically ran Baltimare set up automatic warning systems for practically every foreseeable scenario. The sudden loss of over a dozen railgun turrets and nearly 50 ponies’ vitals signs flatlining was all the AIs needed to sound the alarm and let Stalwart Shield know that her city was under siege. Before she could even start getting dressed, Baltimare’s primary EVA had alerted Canterlot, Ponyville, and every other Blue Zone’s military garrison headquarters. By the time she had her armor on, it had informed her that the Kodiak Discord was on the way and could be there by morning if they didn’t run into too much anti-air, and that all armor in the city was already prepping and rolling out to predetermined holding positions inside the city. Once she arrived in her command center, the EVA let her know that the GDI forces in Baltimare were outnumbered nearly 4 to 1.

Usually, EVAs wouldn’t have nearly as much free reign given the disastrous Ponyville Raid months earlier that had humiliated all of GDI in the eyes of the world, but that was because the EVAs were new, mostly untested, and GDI had no idea what the true capabilities of Nod’s hackers and saboteurs were. After extensive research and analysis on what went wrong, done mostly by Stalwart Shield herself, and even a few tweaks she personally made to Baltimare’s EVA network, she trusted the AIs more than she trusted a few of her staff to get the job done properly.
________

Brother-Lieutenant Colonel Hyperion was an imposing earth pony stallion even when he wasn’t in uniform, but today he was one of the scariest motherbuckers on the field. He was one of the few ponies that had managed to not only join the Black Hand, but become an officer for the elite fighting force and he stood tall, proud, and fully armored in the face of GDI’s damnable walls. As he strolled forward, he let a grin grace his muzzle as white contrails ended in green detonations that dotted the wall, courtesy of the 23rd Missile Launch Platform Battalion’s four companies of Hydras. Cracks were now visible as the barrage passed the 60 minute mark and the Black Hand officer let out a harsh laugh.

“They made them to stop tiberium, not an army… fools.” he thought as he walked, paying no mind to the troops flooding around him. Black Hand, regular troops, lots of ponies and changelings armed with anti-tank weapons, and to his delight, two of the newest additions to the Brotherhood’s arsenal.

Behind the Lieutenant Colonel was a platoon of Changelings outfitted in sleek, steel-plated armor that shined like the suits worn by knights of old, though their helmets had full-faced red bubble visors that allowed a greater field of view. On their backs were tanks of liquid tiberium that connected to chemical sprayers, a design originally meant for pesticides, that could shoot a stream of liquid tiberium up to 20 meters away. The specially picked soldiers were Tiberium Troopers, meant to use what GDI feared most as a weapon against them. Hyperion didn’t quite agree with using them on a Blue Zone, but orders were orders and he was getting to use something that, in his own opinion and infinite humility, put these changelings to shame.

Flanking him on either side as he stared down the containment wall’s western gate were a quartet of boxy, short tanks. Their turrets were painted red and sported two armored windows in front and large tanks full of pressurized napalm with firing nozzles that extended slightly past the turret and the front treads. The “Dragon’s Tongue” flame tanks were made of the best heat-treated armor that Nod could produce and the results were going to be beautiful.

“EVA, patch me through to the tanks.” Hyperion ordered.

“Gunnery Sergeant Marcion here, sir.” came a quick answer.

“Once the wall starts to crumble, burn the gates down.”
_____________

Behind each of Baltimare’s gates stood three bunkers armed with heavy machine guns, mounted rocket turrets, and magical shields meant to deflect one or two rounds from the main gun of an Ursa tank. Usually those who were assigned to stand post in them felt rather safe; if anything happened they’d be in an amazingly secure fixed position with the high ground and plenty of armor, sandbags, and magic keeping the enemy out with friendlies providing overwatch in the long-abandoned apartment complex behind them. Today, they felt like sitting ducks.

The alarm had already been sounded, their weapons were always loaded, and each 5-pony bunker had every weapon they could muster aimed at the gates. The bombardment had been going on for nearly two hours now and the alarms were only interrupted by shells that landed within the city itself, yet nothing had managed to hit the base along Horseshoe Bay. A Nod army was sitting outside the wall, tearing the wall down volley by volley, and now they could hear the tell-tale sound of flame throwers on the other side of the gate.

Before long, the reinforced steel and titanium started to glow. First it was red, then a dull orange, and after a few more seconds it was glowing yellow so bright that their visors had to activate the tint to protect their eyesight. Each of them felt their bodies tensing up as the unicorns among them tightened the grip they had on the firing studs and the earth ponies and pegasi nervously kept their targeting software on its highest sensitivity .

200 meters to their right, the wall started to fall in segments and missiles that had been aiming at those particular portions overshot their targets and demolished buildings farther inside. Dirt, dust, and pavement were kicked up on either side of it as the massive pieces of reinforced concrete plummeted to the ground. The troopers in the bunkers all look dumbfounded as a few more segments followed suit and then partial chunks of the wall joined in. They only noticed that the gate had been blown open when a piece of it flew past and grazed the center bunker.

Immediately, all 20 ponies opened up on the gap, hoping to discourage whatever had just burned down a 3-meter-thick blast door from coming through the entryway they’d just created. Rockets flew out, the machine guns let off burst after burst, and even the ponies providing overwatch pumped a few rounds into the gap.

The bunker on the right edge of the gate fell when twin jets of flame shot out from the main gate’s melted remains and caused the magic shields of the bunker to shut down with a “pop” in seconds. Those inside barely had time to scream before the flame tank turned them to ash. The bunker on the left met a similar fate as rockets and lasers overloaded the shields and a team of Black Hand that got through the dwindling suppressing fire threw incendiary grenades into the firing slits. Once they went off, the gryphons aimed their flame rifles inside and turned the bunker into an oven.

The middle bunker was all that was left and was the most heavily shielded and armed out of the three. It had an extra team of rocketeers inside and twice as many mounted guns and rocket launchers. Out of the three, it was the most capable of holding the line by itself, but that was against a minor incursion, not an entire corps of Nod troops pouring through the wall’s open wounds. As soon as they were finished slagging the other two bunkers, the Black Hand focused their fire on the center one and its shields shut down. They paid dearly for it though as .50 caliber fire ripped through them, killing half of them and injuring the rest. For a moment, it looked like they might hold, but that was before armored changelings surged forward with unbelievable zeal.

The GDI troopers didn’t stand a chance as liquid tiberium coated their unshielded bunker and splattered all over their uniforms, armor, and fur. Seconds later, they all started exhibiting the signs of virulent tiberium infestation and were thrashing uncontrollably on the ground as the crystal converted their bodies into more of the crystal. Luckily for them, a flame tank turned the building to a molten pile of melted armor, weapons, and brass before the rapidly-forming crystals punctured their organs and drove them into unending pain.

Behind the bunker, the fireteams providing overwatch in the apartment complex were preparing to hold the line and hopefully hurt those tanks with the what rocket launchers they had. They never got the chance though as before they could line up the shot, the tanks disappeared into the smoke they had created and in their place a gryphon walked out as if there wasn’t even a battle taking place. Bullets impacted around him for a moment before Baltimare’s defenders noticed that at the moment he wasn’t using the light-machine gun in his talons.

He was covered beak to tail in armor that was colored Nod’s signature black, and instead of a cape like Black Hand members had, his wings were dyed black to match. His helmet was taller than necessary, but given how loud his speech was, the GDI ponies watching figured that the extra “eyes” on it housed speakers so he could say what was needed over the din created in combat.

“Brothers! Sisters! Take this city in the Name of your Prophet! Your Messiah! Show these infidels the true power of tiberium! The true power and righteousness of our cause!”

Had it just been one gryphon shouting out what every pony in GDI viewed as cultish bullshit, it wouldn’t have been very intimidating, but what followed caused even the most colorfully colored ponies in the city to grow pale. The entire army answered the Confessor standing before them, and in other sections of the city as well, as one, before charging the already beleaguered GDI line.

“Peace through Power!”

“In the Name of Kane!” the Confessor cheered as he reared up on his hind legs, flared his wings, and raised his rifle in the air like a club.

“For the Messiah!” the army screamed back.

“In the Name of Kane!”

“For the one true Prophet!”

“In the Name of Kane! TAKE! THIS!! CITY!!!”
_________

Apple Bloom, Jet Deck, and the rest of the ZONE trainee class were all woken up with a start thanks to alarms going off all over the base along with distant explosions. The 50 trainees dropped out of their racks onto the floor and lined up as per the usual for the ‘midnight drills’ that their drill instructors liked to pull on them. Their first clue that something was off however came when their lead instructor burst into the squad bay with her full combat kit on and rifle at the ready.

“Report to the armor facility and defend it! Those Noddie bastards are launching a full-scale attack on the city and we think they already have troops inside the wall! Move by squad and stay alive, damnit! The other instructors and I are gonna join the main line and give you time to barricade yourselves in! Defend the armor and if you can’t hold them back, destroy it!” she barked before sprinting towards the door. She hadn’t even made it to that door when the platoon sprang to life, grabbed their tags, and started a sprint towards the training facility where their armor was being kept.

Over the past month, if they hadn’t been training their bodies to withstand some of the strain that came with wearing the armor, they had been in the Lt. Colonel Gerard Bridger Memorial Armor Testing Facility training in the suits they were going to use to kill Nod by the hundreds once their training ended in three more months. Like most of the military buildings in Baltimare, it broke from the initial GDI standard of safety and was armored like a Mammoth tank. Before the war had started, General Stalwart Shield had made sure everything built in her city was built to withstand bombardment from the air, from naval forces, and artillery as well as an attack because of its proximity to the Gryphon Empire.

This was already working to GDI’s advantage as Nod artillery shells overloaded the magical shields that most of the military structures had and impacted the buildings themselves. Most shrugged the impacts off, though there were still plenty of bunkers and other buildings that were instantly gutted by the tiberium-tipped missiles fired from Nod stealth tanks and Hydra missile launch platforms. Apple Bloom kept running with the rather morbid thought about how similar this barrage was to her last engagement, Jet Deck on the other hand seemed to have trouble keeping it together as they kept galloping.

“Jet! Y’all alright there pardner?” she shouted over the cacophony caused by GDI and Nod artillery trading blows.

“Hydra fire. It… they chased us off with Hydra fire! Everywhere! Firing and screams!” he replied, his voice getting significantly more frantic as he picked up his pace. Apple Bloom couldn’t do much more than follow and keep up as they continued the trek to where they were going to hold the line come Tartarus or high water. Once the platoon arrived, each squad leader except for Jet Deck got their respective squads together and began drawing their weapons. Apple Bloom delegated the task of overseeing this to one of the unicorns in her squad, Funny Cide, before going up to her squad leader. He was sitting in a corner, forelegs over his head and he was shaking uncontrollably while muttering under his breath fervently like a priest trying to exorcise a malevolent spirit.

“Jet…?” she muttered quietly, though he didn’t reply, “Jet Deck…? Come on Jetty, talk to me.”

“Hydras… everywhere…” he sputtered back before he felt the former farm mare grab his head and look him in the eyes. Through a well practiced ritual that they’d formed after his first ‘nightmaric episode’ had woken them both up in the middle of the night nearly a month ago, he stared back and listened to whatever she said. Sometimes it was how he was safe and sound, sometimes it was how he was a survivor, and sometimes it was even just her talking about her family or simply herself.

She’d talk during those nights when memories were too vivid to simply ignore. When they took over and he couldn’t help it. Memories of him running for his life as Nod Hydras fired into the routed GDI troopers, how Harpy-class attack helicopters strafed ponies as they ran to safety, and how he barely pulled through after one lucky Hydra missile landed nearby, sending him flying, giving him his signature scars, and killing his twin brother who he’d enlisted with.

Apple Bloom kept speaking on quietly, calmly, and in the most soothing tone she could muster until his nerves calmed down, his breathing returned to normal, and his body stopped shaking.

“T… thanks, AB…” he whispered with a small sigh, “Sorry about that, I don’t usually snap under pressure, you know that, but…”

“Hydras, I know. I had… flashbacks on the way here, too. Now come on Squad Leader, we need to grab our gear and show these buckers why you don’t mess with the Apples or The Fightin’ 400 Survivors.”
_________

The gate had fallen. Nod was pouring into the city by the company, and from what the defenders could see, they had no intention of stopping. Buildings were catching fire as fast as the mob of flamers could move, and once they’d made it through, the Black Hand units spread, integrating themselves with other, less valuable units.

“Lieutenant!” a Confessor shouted. “Give these heathens a tiberium shower!”

“With pleasure!” the Changeling at the head of a Tiberium Trooper platoon replied, his voice somewhat manic.

The changelings seemed to have a better sense of where to spray their dispensers than anyone else. Floes of green were beginning to slip into the streets from several of the buildings that hadn’t been set ablaze, and the screams that came from those were some of the most horrific that any GDI troops had ever heard.

In later days, the GDI would try and make use of what had been done by the Tiberium troops as propaganda: ‘they don’t care who they kill, who they mutate.’ The truth of the Baltimare assault was that the changelings were very pointedly searching out GDI officers and command bunkers to hose down with their weaponry.

Fanatics began to spread through the city as well, corralled and led by their own righteous thoughts, filtering through the lines, pushing harder than any other troops even when out of earshot of the Confessors. More than once, a bunker found its fate sealed by a throat-rending shout of fanaticism, another explosion adding to the choir of war, another smoke cloud dotting the sky soon after the call.

More than once during the push, the newer tanks crushed their way through a GDI-occupied building’s front wall and filled the inside with fire. Once all inside were dead, they would simply drive through the opposite wall once it was weakened and watch it crumble into a massive pile of flaming debris.

For the most part, Nod was advancing relatively unopposed. GDI had never faced the Flame Tanks, or Nod in general, inside a Blue Zone and urban combat was barely covered in GDI’s boot camps and combat training. Even then, it was mostly as a “what-if” exercise more than something serious given how Nod consistently kept to where they had the most room to maneuver, the Yellow Zones.

What Nod hadn’t accounted for was Stalwart Shield’s paranoia and how her training encouraged it. After Nod had risen publically, she had her Predator crews run through drills monthly within the city on everything from how to properly support a garrisoned structure to how to use buildings as expendable cover that could be fired through.

One particular Predator crew took this training to heart and as one of the lead flame tanks crashed through a building, a window on the apartment complex in front of it exploded outward and a 150mm shell hit the flame tank’s left napalm tank. The round penetrated instantly, coating the Nod vehicle and every Nod soldier caught in the open within a 50 meter radius with ignited napalm.

“Target is mission-killed.” the tank commander of the Predator that had fired announced, “Falling back to Phase Line Charlie.”
_________

Another laser sizzled by Apple Bloom’s head, singeing part of her mane just from the proximity of the beam and causing her to drop her head down behind the shielded armor barricade that her fireteam had helped put up. All around the armor facility, windows had been covered with built-in blast shutters, doors had been closed and reinforced with armor and magic, and barricades had been erected at various ‘phase lines’ that the facility’s commanding staff NCO had briefed the ZONE platoon on.

Apple Bloom and Jet Deck both traded nods as Funny Cide threw up a shield and the two earth ponies popped up, Apple Bloom with a GD-1 semi-automatic rifle and Jet Deck with a GD-14b SAW. Both earth ponies opened up on the Nod soldiers down the hallway, starting with the tall-helmeted Confessor leading the charge. The gryphon’s armor held up against the barrage for a few seconds before Jet Deck’s SAW punched through his paws, causing him to faceplant into the metal flooring. Apple Bloom followed up by pumping a three-round burst into his head before picking out a new target on her HUD that her saddle immediately engaged. After a few more seconds of firing, they dipped back down, Funny Cide dropped the shield, and another unicorn, the staff NCO in command of the armor facility, lobbed a grenade down the hallways. The following explosion would have made everypony deaf if GDI helmets didn’t come standard issue with ear protection.

“We’re being pushed back at all phase lines…” Gunnery Sergeant Gold Smith muttered as his EVA kept updating his earpiece. “All forces, break contact and fall back to the armor bunker, we’ll reconstitute and hold out as long as we can.”

“Gunny?” Jet Deck asked with a dumbfounded look on his face.

“I know there are two phase lines between here and the armory, but we need time to regroup properly and give everypony time to recover. Nod will take a long time cutting through the doors and getting past the turrets deeper in the facility, time we can use to get the mounted weapons ready.”

“Dibs on a .30 cal!” Apple Bloom interjected, drawing all eyes to her and the two grenades she was currently tossing up and down in her hooves.

“Did you…?” Gold Smith started before she nodded and tossed a frag grenade and a smoke grenade over the barricade towards the still oncoming Nod horde. By the time that laser and small arms fire started pouring down the hall at the GDI team again, the blast doors were already closing behind Apple Bloom and were taking the brunt of the barrage. Regrettably, one round got through and nailed Funny Cide in the back of the head and sent her to the ground, dead before she even landed.

“Buck!” Gold Smith barked as blood poured out of the back of her helmet. Apple Bloom didn’t miss a beat and was already lifting her onto her back before continuing her gallop down the hallway. Gold Smith didn’t question the gesture, GDI had a long-standing tradition of “No Pony Left Behind” regardless of status, sometimes to a fault. Most of the survivors of the Blueblood Massacre suffered even worse injuries than they’d already received while recovering their fallen comrades or other injured ponies.

“Keep goin’! I won’t drop’er!” Apple Bloom practically ordered while Jet Deck started drifting closer to the mare. He backed off immediately as their trip through the hallways continued, armored doors slamming shut behind them every step of the way. As each door sealed, small dome-shaped turrets popped out of the walls in various segments and prepared to hold off any and every cut or burn through the doors and as the last door between Nod and prototype ZONE trooper armor sealed itself, 47 ZONE trainees and 35 facility personnel dug in and prepared to deny Kane his prize.
___________

Three Predators fired down the street, followed by a Mammoth adding to the volley with gorgeous results; two Ursas were immediately taken out of action, a Flame Tank detonating immediately afterwards upon being hit by the Mammoth’s barrage and an entire squad of Tiberium Troopers being caught in the blast. The counter-fire began immediately with lasers lancing out through the smoking hulks and impacting the the front armor of the lead Predator, heating the armor but not melting it. A Confessor jumped out from the smoke as soon as the laser fire slackened, bearing a rocket launcher. Before the lead tank could turn him into a cloud of blood and feathers, he managed to fire a rocket that impacted and shattered its left tread.

“Buck!” the gunner barked before his targeting computer let off a warning beep and blood started pouring into the cabin, “... oh buck me sideways.”

Another Confessor had run forward after his colleague had been killed and with deadly precision, put a burst of rifle fire through the head of the pony manning the anti-infantry turret. His body fell in through the cupola and before anypony could even properly react to it, an Ursa round hit the weakened armor and pulped the driver. Most of him was splattered across the gunner who once again swore colorfully.

With the lead tank down, the rest did their best to pick up the slack with the Mammoth slowly reversing to a different pre-determined holding position and the two remaining Predators trying to hold back the tide of Nod soldiers and armor. Despite the casualties they inflicted upon the wave of Nod forces, the dwindling GDI defenders were unable to staunch the flow. Confessors chanted, soldiers called back, and GDI troops all over the city screamed at them to shut up before gunning them down or taking a bullet themselves as the tanks continued to expend their ammunition as fast as they could.

“We can’t hold much longer! Fall back to Phase Line Delta!” the Mammoth tank commander ordered, “Infantry, pull back by squad! Tanks, hold the line and pull back by volley once they’re across the street!”
________

Unlike in Macintosh Hills and the opening volleys of the Tiberium War, the ponies fighting to keep Nod out of Baltimare were prepared. When the war began, GDI was as a whole untested, unprepared, and unable to even fathom an organized response to what they represented. The Changelings were still fighting each other, the Gryphons were broken and on their way to extinction, and the Diamond Dogs were already dead and gone with their numbers barely breaking the thousands. Kane changed all that and it took nearly 3 months for them to even mount a proper counter attack. Ponies who survived through that were jaded, disgruntled, and despite holding a titanic grudge against their commanders for their overwhelming incompetence, they held a bigger grudge against Nod for killing their friends and family.

This resolve slowly found its way into almost every pony in the GDI Armed Forces and by the time that The Battle of Baltimare took place, Nod found themselves fighting a professional, determined fighting force that Ironsides, and in a rather twisted way Kane, had helped forge out of blood and fire.

All across the city, where a pre-war trooper would have turned and ran, every pony defending the fortress-city, bastion of GDI power, held to their last breaths. If a flame tank or Black Hand squad wasn’t available to burn out a building and Tiberium Troopers were nowhere to be found, Nod soldiers had to assault them the conventional way. In many of those fights, GDI held. Rocket troopers conducted ambushes on Nod armor as many times as Nod, and in straight-up fights where a Predator had proper flanking support, GDI held the line. Despite all this though, Nod’s numbers were too much to bear.

Where one platoon would face their GDI equal and fall, three more could try again and succeed in killing them all or driving them back. Nod bodies continued to pile up and thanks to the Confessors whipping the entire army into a frenzy that was only enhanced by the Black Hand presence, no one had any qualms with climbing over their dead friends if it meant getting to kill an infidel. In the name of Kane.
_______

Hyperion cringed slightly when he saw the Flame Tank in front of his go up in a ball of flame. They were losing tanks faster than he would like, but then again that’s what reserves were for. With an annoyed sigh he delegated another tank unit to take the lead as his pulled to the side to engage the condominium that had just opened fire on him.

“Optimistic bastards.” he muttered before the Purifying Flame turned the first floor into melted beams and screaming ponies. Before he could pick another target though, his EVA began chirping again.

“This is Hyperion.” he said before opening his eyes and grinning at the female changeling on the small screen.

“Hype, it’s Mantis. Are you taking a look at what Seth is doing?” she replied, but unlike normal it had a bit of a vibration to it, almost like her voice was buzzing.

“Why don’t you tell me? He seems to not have my frequency.”

“Micromanaging the entire field. I had my nerds check up on his command history and he’s giving commands to individual fireteams. It’s like he thinks he’s in a damned video game!”

“Well my dear, the more he focuses on micromanaging the small things, the more leeway we have to work however we want. He wants to point and click his way to victory one squad at a time? Then he can be my guest.”

“You’re taking this surprisingly well, Hype.”

“Let that idiot play his command games and we’ll take care of successfully conquering this city. Keep pushing up the left flank and take every liberty you want. The more we get done before he tries to order us around again, the better… now then, EVA, get me a flight of Harpies for support.”

“Unable to comply.” the AI stated.

“Clarify.”

“All air units have been ordered by Lieutenant General Trenderhoof to intercept the Kodiak GDA Discord before it reaches optimal bombardment range.”

“HE WHAT!?”
___________

“They’re cutting through the doors and we’re almost out of ammo for the .30s. Somepony get me the armor detonation codes!” Gold Smith ordered.

“What!?” came a startled reply from half of the trainee class, with Jet Deck’s voice overshadowing them all.

“Why!?” the young corporal continued.

“Orders are orders, son, deny Nod all technological advances housed in this bunker regardless of losses to GDI. We can’t risk Nod getting their hands on this armor.”

“So we’re just going to lay down and die?” Apple Bloom added in. “We didn’t spend a month trainin’.... we didn’t survive this long just to say buck it and roll over for those bastards!”

“You’re not using the armor if that’s what you’re suggesting. Orders are destroy it if we can’t hold the facility and as you can plainly see, we cannot hold this bucking facility.”

“Buck. That.” Jet Deck spat before galloping to his set of armor. “How many ponies left are technicians!?”

“I am.” one of the smaller unicorns answered. Before Gold Smith could even protest, she punched up the console next to Jet’s armor station and gestured for him to get in.

“Sydney, what the hay are you doing?” the gunnery sergeant asked with as much steel in his voice as he could muster.

“I’m a civilian, not a soldier. I’d rather not see years of ZOCOM’s work be burned as I die at Nod’s hands if there’s a chance of us surviving.” she stated matter-of-factly before looking back at the screen and booting up the armoring process. “Anypony else that can run these stations help me arm the trainees. They’re our best chance of making it out of this alive.”

Gold Smith growled as the trainees continued to armor up and the few technicians who were left alive helped them do so. Had it just been Jet Deck and Doctor Sydney Mobius, he would have been able to use his magic to levitate and subdue them both, but with a full platoon’s worth of troopers getting ready for battle, all he could do was watch. A few minutes later, a fully armored Jet Deck walked up to the old gunny and now towered over him.

“Gunny, Doctor Mobius over there is uploading the detonation codes into each armor suit, we won’t let Nod take us alive in these. I promise.”

“... I’ll get the rest of us ‘regular’ ponies into the panic room as soon as you are all ready… give’m hell, Corporal. Make them pay for the First Armored.”

Jet Deck gave an unseen smile behind his armored helmet and reflective visor as the dual .50 caliber heavy machine guns on his armor extended from their carrying position, very audibly took off the safeties, and his speakers came back on so he could mutter out his reply.

“Memory and Vengeance.”
__________

“All units, continue the push into the base. Artillery, focus your fire on the headquarters building until someone screams danger close. Air cover, move back in over the bay and engage those carriers.” Trenderhoof ordered frantically. Despite the battle finally turning fully in Nod’s favor, he was still jittery from the multiple close calls that his front lines had been through. Lieutenant Colonel Hyperion rolled his eyes again at the mass of orders because once again, “The Illustrious Seth” had used an open channel for the whole message instead of switching to each section, as was the proper Nod communications protocol.

“Hyperion, how’s progress on the armor facility?” Trenderhoof’s voice cut in once more.

“We’re still trying to take it, we have most of the building but GDI already destroyed anything useful before we could arrive. Some of their soldiers are holed up in a bunker beneath the building and my Black Hand are cutting through as we speak.” the older stallion replied with a tone that dripped well justified arrogance.

“Tell them to hurry up, Kane wants an update on that project and if he doesn’t get it soon, I’ll level that building with your troops still inside of it.” Seth barked back, though his reply didn’t have nearly as much bite as he had hoped given the deadpan response that Hyperion began to give.

“If you do, I’m willing to bet that Sister Pinkie Pie will have your head, so I suggest you wait until my troops secure the…. facility…?” Hyperion started before his EVA updated and showed almost the entire force attacking the armor facility go to red.

“EVA, confirm your readings on grid 2-Alpha.”

“Confirming… confirmed.” the synthetic voice replied, this time with all the troop markers within the fenced perimeter of the armor facility now marked red for KIA.

“That can’t be right.”

“Hyperion, why did a whole Black Hand company just drop off my roster!?” Trenderhoof asked.

“Captain Silverstar, what’s going on out there?”

“GDI soldiers in new armor! They’re tearing right throu-” the mustached former sheriff of Appleoosa replied before an explosion cut him off and the line went dead.
_________

“GDI soldiers in new armor! They’re tearing right throu-” was all Captain Silverstar managed to get out before a flame tank to his left detonated and sent Nod soldiers flying in all directions. The lucky ones died in the explosion, the rest were left to try and put out the fires on themselves thanks to the massive tanks of flame fuel being thrown about by the explosion. Part of the volatile liquid landed on Silverstar’s helmet and the electronics inside burned out from the heat immediately. He tossed it aside and checked his mane and mustache for any singed bits before letting out a short-lived sigh of relief. Before he could even ask who was still alive a pony shot out of the wreckage of the Flame Tank unscatched by the fires around him and into the sky before landing in front of Silverstar and sending him straight on his flank.

The pony standing unflinching before him was covered ear to hoof, muzzle to tail, in gun-metal grey armor that had an unforgiving black visor where his eyes should have been. On his haunches and shoulders were two small, armored jump-jets to supplement the full jetpack built into the armor’s back. The armor itself was bulky, had angular plating, and attached to the pony’s sides were two .50 caliber guns that were both trained on Silverstar’s exposed head. Silverstar was dumbfounded at the sight, unable to really function as he continued the staring contest with this walking tank of a pony and unable to really see that well with light from Celestia’s sunrise coming up in the distance.

Both ponies stopped the staredown only when laser fire lanced across the battlefield from the GDI trooper’s left and impacted a magical barrier a few inches from his head. He replied with practiced ease and pumped a trio of bursts into the offending changeling who promptly exploded into a green mist that became a similarly colored puddle of chitin and limbs.

“What ar-” Silverstar started before Jet Deck sighted in and blew him away as well.

“How’re you holding up, AB?”

“Squad and armor are green across tha board and we’re at ninedee percent ammo. Ready for another jump?”

“Damn right. Charlie Squad, form up in fireteams and prepare for synchronized jump!”

Apple Bloom and her team formed up on Jet Deck with the other teams forming up on hers. Once Jet had confirmation that they were all ready, the onboard EVAs in their armor synced up and Charlie Squad of the ZONE Trooper Platoon Alpha-001 jumped towards the nearest GDI unit, a single, powerful statement blasting out on their armor speakers and any GDI frequency in range.

“Wolverines are on the move!”