Equestrian Dawn: Tiberium is Magic

First Command

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Canterlot was in chaos. The indigenous aristocratic unicorn ponies were in a frenzy. Panic ensued throughout the entire Equestrian capital city.

The rumors had already started floating.

Rumors that the Changelings were attacking again.

That Princess Celestia was dead.

That a giant monster was stomping through the countryside, longing to crush the city. This along with countless other ridiculous notions were being thought up by mislead conspiracy theorists within the city.

Royal troops from the regular army and Royal Guards were being deployed into the streets while Shining Armor began to raise the magical barrier around the entire stretch of the mountainside capital.

The Captain of the Guard strained his eyes shut and gritted his teeth as he focused his magic on powering the purple forcefield. He grunted in fatigue as a white beam of magic expended from the tip of his horn, shooting straight up into the sky.

The beam stopped after a certain altitude and began draping a purple forcefield around Canterlot from top to bottom. It wasn’t long before the forcefield covered the entire perimeter of the city and dropped from the sky and finally reached the ground.

Once the task was complete, Shining Armor stopped abruptly, dropping his sweaty head as gasped in exhaustion, facing the ground. His breath was heavy as he fought to regain oxygen. He could hear soldiers nearby picking up assault rifles out of wooden supply boxes that were being dispersed around the city.

The troops sounded confused and very nervous. Shining couldn’t blame them. They had a right to be. No pony saw a national security threat on the horizon.

A young officer who was carrying his Mare-16 like a spear, pointing the end of the barrel to the sky, approached the Guard commander. The officer galloped up to Shining on three legs with one foreleg carrying the rifle, and halted in front of him promptly. The young, yellow earthpony slammed the butt of the rifle on the ground like one would do with a spear, and saluted the Captain with his free foreleg.

Shining Armor looked up at him from the ground and after a deep breath, and returned a lazy salute. The white unicorn Guard let out a deep breath as he cut his salute; slowly followed by the lower officer’s cutting his.

“What is it Lieutenant?” Shining asked, eyeing the buttery gold bars on each side of the officer’s collar.

“Sir, please excuse my bluntness but what are these? And how do you use them?” the low-ranking officer questioned, raising an eyebrow at the assault rifle.

“From what I read for a brief minute before the Princess was attacked was that the weapon you have is called an assault rifle. Its technical name is like…M-17 or M-16 or M-something teen. Frankly, I don’t know,” Captain Armor admitted, still taking huffs of breaths as he was still wiped from building the barrier.

The Lieutenant eyed him skeptically, cocking his head to the side and raising his eyebrow again.

“But how do you use ‘em?” he asked again.

“Oh, that’s easy! The manual said that all you have to do is point the barrel-part of the weapon at your selected target and squeeze down on that big blue button inside the grip. See?” Shining explained as he pointed at the Lieutenant’s rifle grip with his hoof.

“Then what happens next sir?” the quizzical regular army officer pressed, scratching the top of his mane with a hoof. He appeared to be still in confusion.

“Well Lieutenant, apparently it’s suppose to fire a projectile of some kind and harm your target. So it’s probably not a good idea to point the barrel at ponies you don’t intend to shoot. Just like spears, these aren’t toys,” Armor remarked in a warning tone.

“But sir, where did we even get these? And when did we start producing them?” The Lieutenant shot back.

Shining Armor scratched his head quizzically.

“This kid has WAY too many questions,” The white unicorn thought, trying to think of a decent answer.

“Even Princess Luna can’t answer that question Butter Bar,” Shining replied honestly.

The younger earth pony’s eyes grew wide.

“How did you know my name?”

“Wha…I just called you that because you’re a 2nd. Lieute—you know what? Forget it, I’m just an awesome commander, that’s why,” the guard captain with a small chuckle.

“Yes… sir?” the yellow earthpony acknowledged in confusion, nervously adjusting the rifle stock in his shoulder.

The army lieutenant saluted Shining Armor once more before leaving and returning to his unit. Shining Armor gave a playful smirk as he cut his return salute. Even in chaotic times like this, he still enjoyed messing with the lower ranking ponies.

He had his Royal Guards deployed around the city, searching for possible security threats. All of his units and the other army units under General Shepherd were patrolling the streets of Canterlot with their new M-16 rifles that none of them knew how to use.

The Captain of the Royal Guard shook his head. Why would Luna make him disperse these weapons to his troops that weren’t trained with or much less even heard of? It made no sense to him. Then one of the Lieutenant’s questions from earlier returned to his mind…

“Where DID we get theses rifles? When did we even start producing these?” he pondered as he started to head back to the castle at a brisk trot.

Did the Princesses know something he didn’t? After all, Princess Luna was showing him the weapons cache and it just happened to be at the same time as the assassination attempt. The moon princess claimed that it was just pure coincidence when he asked back in the caves, but it did provide one with an interesting speculation.

Back there, he threw the question out and just forgot everything else, and focused on using the new equipment to save the sun alicorn. What he didn’t know was that Celestia had actually ordered Luna to give her Guard Captain the tour the night before, just as a precaution when she saw those unexplained meteors the night before.

And why the hell were dangerous projectile weapons and blueprints for advanced war machines kept in a secret cave stockpile under the Canterlot castle, ready made?

All these questions racked his brain as he got past gate security and entered the Castle’s courtyard. The once beautiful and peaceful courtyard was now bustling with a mix of regular Army troops and Royal Guards scrambling to get to their posts. On occasion, he had to dodge a few squads that almost bumped into him. The pony teams were seemingly running in random directions.

Some were still wearing their original gold-plated Equestrian armor while others had changed into the tan camo uniforms and Kevlar helmets found alongside the rifles in the secret cave.

It was a disorganized madhouse.

As Shining advanced deeper into the courtyard, he noticed Princess Luna advising ponies that he could recognize as being political figures, along with military officers. He also observed that even though the ‘Princess of the Night’ wore an emotionless and regal mask on her face, she was still visibly shaken by what had occurred today.

But Shining understood that now the entire nation was looking to her for guidance and she had to remain visibly strong and professional, even if she was falling apart and heartbroken underneath. Now was not the time to let those feelings show. Being ‘The Captain of the Guard’, the blue-maned unicorn understood how important morale was to a cause or nation just as well as the princesses.

He approached Luna and her entourage, maintaining his commander-like prose, straightening his back and keeping the rest of his body rigid, the military discipline from his Guard training showing.  He saluted the princess but Luna held up a hoof to halt him.

“Enough with the formalities, has General Shepherd responded?” the night goddess asked robotically.

“He sent a distress letter actually. It appears that Fort Cadance in the Northern Highlands is under siege by an unknown militia of some kind. I’m not sure what’s going on up there, but it sounds like the general needs help,” Shining reported, referring to the letter he received from Shepherd a few minutes ago.

“Celly…why now? I-I can’t do this alone. I need you,” the dark alicorn whispered to herself, barely loud enough for the white unicorn to hear.

“Hmm…looks like the stress is getting to her. And also seeing Celestia banged up pretty badly probably isn’t helping either. Can’t say I blame her,” the guard captain thought grimly.

“How is she?”

“Wha? I…um…well the medical staff said that Celly would live…although, now she has multiple broken and fractured bones in her right foreleg and ribcage,” Luna responded, frowning at the ground in between the two, and it was looking as if the blue alicorn had the ‘thousand yard stare’.

“That is too bad. I’m sorry. I promise as Captain of the Royal Guard, an attack on the crown will never happen again. I failed you once already. Can you forgive me?” Shining replied, the guilt still fresh in his mind.

Luna lifted her face to look at him with empty, yet saddened eyes.

“No,”

“I understand, if you would like to discharge me then-”

The younger princess cut him off.

“You didn’t let me finish. I’m not going to forgive you because it wasn’t your fault,” she emphasized.

“No pony could have ever seen an attack like that coming,” Luna waved a hoof dismissively, signaling that this was the advisors’ cue to leave.

“It surprised us all…so please don’t burden yourself with thoughts of guilt,” she pleaded as the advisors and commanders scattered out of the courtyard and to their respective units.

“Are you sure you’re okay? I’m worried about you,” Shining Armor butted in, trying to change the subject.

The princess promptly ignored him.

“We need you here, to fight whatever this group is. I not sure if the entities attacking Fort Cadance are connected to the…bombing here, but we need to stay on high alert,” the alicorn almost choked at ‘bombing’.

Shining Armor pondered the situation for a second. This did not sound good. First, Celestia hardly managed to evade an assassination attempt, now the fortress that he named after his wife was now probably getting pummeled by unknown aggressors, and to top it all off, General Shepherd was cut off from him and trapped in the besieged fort.

General Shepherd was the commander of the Equestrian Army, and the only military officer in all of Equestria that outranked Shining Armor.

Perhaps, if he could spare some stallions…

“Captain…are you alright? Now you’re starting to worry me,” the dark princess chuckled weakly.

“No, I’m fine. It’s just that…I’d like to…,” Shining Armor tried to spit out, scratching his mane nervously.

He acted like a scared foal that was asking his parents for permission for the first time.

“What is it Captain? What do you suggest we do?” Luna raised an eyebrow.

“You tell me, you’re the one in charge now princess,” he stated bluntly, the nervousness hijacking his tongue for a split second.

That hit the princess like a ton of bricks.

It reminded her of why that is, and all she could see in her head was the image her big sister covered in blood, scrapes and burns with shattered bones ontop of all that. As much as she hated it, she couldn’t deny the truth now. Who knew how long Celestia would be inoperable.

Luna was now the interim leader of Equestria…by herself.

“At least until Celly’s back on her hooves,” she reasoned.

“Ok then, what were you proposing Captain?” the moon goddess asked, trying to retrack her mind to the conversation.

“Princess, with your permission of course, I would like to take a force of five-hundred Royal Guards and move to reinforce Fort Cadance,” the captain stated in a professional tone.

“But that’s half of the Royal Guard presence in Canterlot. Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Luna inquired, military strategy not being one of her strong suits, especially after being defeated by the Elements of Harmony twice.

“General Shepherd is an asset that we cannot afford to lose princess. Also, it will give us a chance to study these attackers more closely and maybe find out who they are. And don’t worry about Canterlot, we’ll still have over 12,000 Army troops here and the other half of the 1st. Royal Guards,” he reported.

“Well I suppose there aren’t any better ideas right now,” the princess replied with an unconvincing smile.

“Wait! What about the forcefield? Who will keep it operational in your absence?” she revoked in a worried tone.

“Hmm…I didn’t even think about that. The one I have up now is good for three days but I imagine that my journey to northern Equestria will take at least a week, and that’s if everything goes smoothly. Maybe I shouldn’t leave Canterlot, I mean-”

VVVRRROOOMMM!!

VVVRRROOOMMM!!

“WHAT THE-!”

Shining Armor nearly had a heart attack as he dropped to the ground with his hooves over his ears. Two tan colored vehicles screeched to a halt dangerously close to Shining Armor as the Royal Guard in the lead vehicle’s chain gun turret whooped and pumped his hoof into the air.

“WHHOOHHOOO! That was SOOO radical man! Let’s do it again!” the green unicorn urged as he spun around in circles in the turret.

The driver stuck his head out of the window and looked up at his spinning friend.

“Dude, this thing has a radio! I’m totally gonna play some Neighvana!” the red pegasus yelled with a wide, open mouth smile.

“Awesome!” the unicorn inputted, slamming his hooves on the roof to stop spinning.

The green pony started to look a little dizzy as he recognized Shining Armor, his pupils rotating in his eyeballs.

“Yo! What’s up Cap?” the gunner lackadaisically acknowledged, leaning back in the turret coolly.

“Have you two no discipline at all?” their commander snapped bitterly as he got up to recover and dust off his new tan uniform with his hooves.

“Hey Chief! Sup dude? Diggin’ our ride?” the red pony driver spoke with a west coast Equestrian accent like the gunner also did.

“Um, Captain? Who are those two, and what machines are they operating?” Luna asked quizzically, as she eyed the two guards with worry.

“Those two disgraces to the guard are Psycho Twitch and Skinny Dipper. Those vehicles I believe, are the humvees you showed me this morning,” Twilight’s brother answered, glaring at the red pegasus.

“What is meaning of this Private Twitch?” he snarled at his subordinate.

The red pegasus didn’t seem to be fazed in the slightest. He just took off his tan helmet and looked down the Captain and smiled with the most chilled expression in Equestria.

“Nothin’ sir. Just thought you’d might wanna ride,”

“Really? You almost ran me over with that thing you maniac!” the white unicorn rebutted.

“Naw, its cool man! Chill out and jam to some Neighvana!” Skinny Dipper, the green unicorn, proposed.

“This Smells Like Colt Spirit to me!” Psycho joked as the sounds of guitar riffs and drum beats emanated from inside the vehicle.

The two young colts were hardly old enough to be in the Royal Guard. How they got their hooves on the humvee they were using, Shining and Luna didn’t want to know. These two ponies wearing the tan camo uniforms in the humvee were probably the most laidback Royal Guards or even ponies for that matter, in all of Equestria.

“Is there something wrong with those two?” the princess asked, raising her eyebrow at them.

“No, they’re just harmless dimwits is all,” the guard captain replied plainly.

“How did they even get into the Royal Guard?” Luna asked with concern, suspiciously eyeing the two as she ranted quietly, something about them having ‘mental health issues’.

“Princess, I ask myself that very same question when I go to bed every night,” Shining chuckled, his demeanor lightening up when he saw Luna’s reaction to the young colts.

The princess realized that her formal mask was broken and blushed in embarrassment. Then, she returned her attention to the strange vehicles, which were classified as ‘humvees’.

“They look strange,”

“Well, they are strange ponies, so I guess that fits them,”

“No, I meant the vehicles. They look like tan boxes on wheels,” the alicorn described.

“Well, that’s probably what they are. I read that they are very fast. In fact, why don’t I take these to Fort Cadance?” Shining pondered as an imaginary light bulb appeared over his head.

“Are you sure you want a pony with the name ‘Psycho Twitch’ driving your humvee though?” the alicorn questioned with comical concern.

“Of course not, there are other humvees. I think counted around 50 or so in the cave that were already assembled. I don’t know if that’s going to be enough though,” the guard commander analyzed.

“Seventy-six. There are approximately seventy-six completed humvees in the cache,” Luna corrected in a matter-of-factly tone, similar to Twilight’s.

“Good, I’ll just use those to transport my guards. After they learn how to drive them, that is,” Shining stated, unsure if they had time to train before moving out.

“It can’t be that hard. I mean if even Private Twitch can drive these then it’ll be a caketrot for the others,” the Captain of the Royal Guard thought with confidence.

After much reluctance, Shining Armor consented to riding with the two laidback royal guards in their humvee. He saluted the princess, the alicorn mare waved him off, saying that she wanted to check on her sister’s condition. As the princess galloped away towards the royal medical ward, Psycho Twitch punched the gas pedal with his rear hoof, with his forehooves on the steering wheel.

“Alright Twitch, try not to kill anypony,” the white stallion nervously remarked, gazing at the red pegasus with suspicion.

The humvee sped off at an alarming speed, some Canterlot unicorn natives having to gallop out of the way. Psycho’s driving was erratic and he tended to swerve a lot, causing the tires to screech along the road. As he watched scared ponies dive out of the way of the homicidal vehicle, Shining Armor cursed the fact that the trailing humvee behind them was full.

“Naw, sir! …Damn the Neighvana song ended,” Skinny Dipper sighed as the guitar’s melody faded out and was replaced by a newscast.

The reporter on the radio was an anchormare giving a report on a possible attack on a small village in Equestria. Her voice seemed shaken mixed with a sense of urgency.

“Word is that the assault has taken place in a small village called ‘Ponyville’ details of the attack are scarce and the identities of the attackers are unknown. However, speculation states that-” Twilight’s BBBFF stopped listening at the ‘P’ word.

“No…” he mouthed.

This can’t be.

Not Twily.

He wouldn’t stand for this. He had to make sure his little sister was alright, and if she wasn’t, there’d be hell to pay.

“Private Twitch, change course to Ponyville immediately,” Shining Armor ordered, a sense of urgency in his voice.

“But sir, what about the others?” Psycho Twitch replied, maybe the only semi-formal question he had ever asked in his life.

“Don’t worry about them, they’ll catch up! Now go!” Shining demanded, raising his voice from the passenger seat as he pointing in the direction of Ponyville with a hoof.

“You got it Cap,”

A new Nod commander was preparing his strike force as he stared intently at his computer monitor. Through his computer screen, he could see about fifty-five infantry units of various types, lining up in formation. They were awaiting his orders to cross the border into Usea. Two Nod buggies and a light tank complemented his force as they rolled in behind the infantry.

“REINFORCEMENTS HAVE ARRIVED,” a computerized, female voice stated emotionlessly.

Belkan fighters and bombers were already wreaking havoc in the skies above and further in country. Now was the time that he was to seize the city of Tora, and that more reinforcements were supposed to arrive from the west with a new toy for him to play with.

It was called a ‘Mobile Construction Vehicle’ or ‘MCV’ and he was the first commander to field test it. Apparently, it was a vehicle able to fold itself out and deploy into a construction yard. And from that point, you can use it to build a base of operations. Of course, you would need credits to build the base, but this fledgling commander had already planned ahead.

He glanced over at his credit count of 6,000 and he smiled. He had plenty, considering that 1 credit was worth 100 bits.

“Let’s see what 600,000 bits can do. Not like I need them, I can crush anypony without spending a single bit…but…I’d like to play with this new technology and see what it’s good for,” thought the confident, brainwashed Nod commander.

This red pegasus’s name was Andrew Slavik.

The Belkan stared into his screen as a large Nod symbol filled the monitor. It was replaced by the white earthpony known as Seth. Slavik’s first mission briefing was about to begin.

“So…you’re the new addition to the Brotherhood. Well…I’m Seth. Just Seth. From God, to Kane, to Seth,” the beret wearing white pony introduced with a superior smirk, putting a hoof to his chest.

“I am his right hoof, and I have a task for you,” Nod’s second-in-command began as the young and eager Belkan pony leaned towards the computer, showing great interest and rapt attention.

“For too many years, Usean forces have maintained a stranglehold on Tora. It’s fallen upon us to liberate these citizens, crying out for a better way of life. Kane wants to establish a base here to eliminate the smothering presence of Usea. It’s too risky to move our heavy forces in, so we want you to sneak in with a few expendable troops and set up a forward attack post,”

Slavik’s adrenaline began pumping. This was his time, his moment, where he would go down in history. The red pony would finally get to serve Kane, but not just that. He also would receive the glory that he so desperately wanted his entire life.

“Uh… by the way, there’s more than enough Tiberium for you to harvest. That should easily pay your expenses,”

Slavik raised an eyebrow at this.

“Tiberium? I wasn’t briefed on this,” he thought, wondering what the word had to do with the mission.

“If you are detected, you fail. If you fail, you die,” Seth finished coldly as the screen winked out and returned the monitor back to the visual of Slavik’s strike force.

Andrew grabbed the mouse and clicked on hoof-sized left button. Then dragged the cursor over his entire force and let his hoof off the button.

“Yes sir?” a soldier reported.

He selected a point that was near a Usean village across the border and left-clicked again.

“Affirmative!” another soldier replied as all the units under Slavik’s command started moving towards the village.

Now the young lieutenant’s adrenaline was pumping through his veins.

He’s in command…now it’s time to conquer.

As the black shroud that indicated unexplored territory melted away for the areas that his troops moved through, he noticed that about seven Usean soldiers and a humvee were mingling with some civilians in the village.

“Those ponies are probably sent to patrol the border after our air attack began,” Slavik thought, his tactical mind telling him to eliminate them as soon as possible.

He clicked on one of the enemy scouts, signaling his troops to attack.

“Not a problem,” a Nod flamethrower mare answered.

The Nod troops flooded into the village as the civilian ponies reacted by running away and screaming in terror. Commander Slavik saw the enemy soldiers in white camouflage and helmets, started to converge on his position. In response, he doubled-clicked on the closest Usean solider, telling his own gray-camouflaged ponies to attack him first.

“Roger,” one of his minions responded.

As the two factions met in the middle of the village, heavy gunfire broke out between both sides. The popping of automatic fire erupted as Slavik watch three Usean troops drop immediately, let out pierce death screams as they hit the ground. Having superior numbers and firepower, the Lieutenant’s strike team should obviously make quick work of this enemy patrol.

The humvee tried desperately to help out its comrades that were getting ripped to pieces by the Nod infantry. It sped towards the Nod troops and started firing its chain gun as fast it could.

One Nod pony was killed by the chain gun before a torrent of small arms fire and rockets pelted the humvee, causing it to explode immediately. The driver tried to escape the humvee but was immediately barbequed by a flamethrower.

After this, the other four Usean soldiers were gunned down so fast; it was like they weren’t even there. A few of the civilians made the foalish error of trying to confront the Nod ponies but were shot immediately. Slavik smiled as he ordered his troops to move through the village and farther into the desert landscape of north Usea.

He moved very quickly through the tan landscape that was dotted by random trees. After he overran the village and left it behind, he decided just to push forward and see what he could find. After all, he needed to get to Tora before he lost the element of surprise.

Shortly after passing the fortress, the assault force ran into what looked like a barren plateau. The cliff was much too steep to climb, so he ordered the Nod ponies to try to go around the plateau.

The gray-covered Nod troops flanked the plateau, moving to their right and eventually found its end after a few minutes. Now they were free to continue advancing southward.

About a mile south later, the Noddies had run across another village. This one was much better defended. The rookie commander counted around thirteen enemy infantry, two humvees, and one medium tank. Andrew frowned at the white-painted vehicle. This might be a problem.

Seeing the vehicles in the rear, much like his own vehicles were, he decided to have a little fun with the Useans.

“Unit reporting!”

He ordered his minigunners and flamethrower troops to attack the enemy infantry head-on. As his infantry started reducing the enemy patrol to bullet-shredded body parts, Andrew noticed the enemy humvees and the tank moving up to support the distressed infantry.

Exactly what he wanted.

When the enemy vehicles reached his force, Commander Slavik ordered his infantry to retreat and had his rocket troopers and his own light tank take their places. A sadistic smile appeared on the Nod commander’s face as he watched the two lead enemy vehicles get raked with rocket fire.

Both humvees exploded and Slavik ordered all of his units to focus their fire on the tank. The Usean tank managed to destroy one Nod buggy, but was abruptly destroyed shortly after.

“Too easy,” Slavik gloated in his head.

He continued to advance his troops through the village and keep pushing southward. Some of his minigunners stopped to shoot a couple civilian ponies for a split second before moving again.

It wasn’t long before he had passed the canyon and now his troops were headed straight for Tora. As his forces moved through the desert and continued to remove the black shroud, he noticed the landscape getter slightly greener. The Noddies decided to press towards that area, and when the shroud was removed, Tora was revealed.

It wasn’t a gigantic city, but still a sizable one with a few skyscrapers. Slavik noticed a Usean outpost protecting Tora, directly in his path.

“What have we got?

…Two guard towers, a barracks, two power plants, a communications center, and a shitload of Usean infantry and vehicles protecting it…

Poor bastards,”

As his troops advanced towards the outpost, an interception group of twenty-five Usean infantry supported by five humvees and two medium tanks, rolled out of the outpost to meet his troops.

“That’s a big interception force…I think I can punch through though,” Slavik calculated.

After all, he did have superior numbers.

He ordered all of his units forward for a frontal assault, having his minigunners, flamethrowers and his surviving buggy focus their fire on the enemy infantry while his rocket troopers and light tank will handle the enemy vehicles.

As the two sides met in battle, infantry started dropping very rapidly for both sides. Slavik winced as his last buggy took a tank shell and exploded. His own light tank was putting up a valiant fight against the other Usean tank but didn’t have the armor or firepower to take it by itself.

The Nod commander tried to send a squad of rocket troopers to support it but was dismayed when the light tank went out right as help arrived. The enemy humvees started dropping his rocket troopers like crazy. The missile-carrying ponies were desperately trying to destroy them, and although they succeeded, the commander realized that the casualties he was taking were far too heavy.

His minigunners and flame troopers had eliminated the infantry and what was left of his rocket troopers destroyed both Usean tanks.

Slavik’s victory was short-lived however, when he saw that at least twenty more infantry spill out of the outpost, along with the last of the Usean vehicles.

“It’s that damn barracks! It keeps deploying enemy troops! If this situation continues for much longer, they’re going to bleed me out!” he cried in frustration.

He growled as he selected his entire force and ordered them to charge head-on into the new enemy formation. He picked out the leading enemy humvee and left-clicked on it.

“Right away sir!” a Nod pony acknowledged.

As his troops collided with this second formation, he noticed that he was still victorious, yet his force kept on shrinking with each attack. He couldn’t last forever like this, even though he still had a slight numerical advantage.

“REINFORCEMENTS HAVE ARRIVED,” the EVA unit spoke again, sparking interest within Slavik.

He dragged his mouse to the far left of the map near the outskirts of Tora, and there they were. The western reinforcements he was hoping for. The reinforcement force was huge. Hundreds of mixed Nod infantry units stormed the weakly defended city, the support of over twenty Nod buggies and tanks behind them.

He watched as local police units were erased from existence in seconds and whatever Usean guards that were deployed in the city itself were wiped out shortly thereafter. The Nod troops rushed through the city, sometimes stopping a shoot a civilian pony that got in the way.

Delight filled him as he saw an MCV enter in behind the reinforcement force and stop in a flat desert area on the western part of the city. The commander also noticed some of the reinforcements moving to attack the enemy outpost from behind.

Seth’s image then appeared on the top-right corner of Slavik’s screen.

“Good work. You managed to capture Tora, now build our forward base and finish off that pesky enemy compound,”

Seth image disappeared as Slavik placed the cursor over the Mobile Construction Vehicle and left-clicked.

“Ready and waiting,” the MCV replied.

He left-clicked again and he watched in amazement as the vehicle folded-out and rapidly transformed into a large building with a giant crane sticking out of it.

“NEW CONSTRUCTION OPTIONS,”

The Noddie saw a queue appear on the right side of the screen and selected ‘Power Plant’.

“BUILDING,”

He observed in awe as he watch his credit count fall three-hundred ticks as the building was finished.

“CONSTRUCTION COMPLETE,”

He placed the power plant next to the construction yard and selected the ‘Hoof of Nod’ which looked like a hoof coming out of the ground with a globe in its grasp. After he was finished with that and placed it on the other side of the construction yard, he built another power plant and saw ‘Refinery.’

Not knowing what it was for, he selected it and waited for it to build. After he deployed it, a vehicle that looked like it had ant-pinchers drove off from it and towards the south of the city. As more shroud was removed, he saw that the big and slow vehicle was heading towards a field that was covered in strange, glowing green crystals. The field was on the southern outskirt of the city so it took a while for the Harvester to get there.

Slavik gazed at the decently-sized field with wonder.

“Is that the ‘Tiberium’ that Seth was talking about?”

When the Harvester returned to the refinery, he noticed that when it deposited the Tiberium into the building, the commander’s credit balance started to climb. Now the commander understood the purpose.

Focused on building his base, he completely disregarded attacking the outpost that was still out there. His troops were idly standing by, waiting on him.

When realized this, he moved across the map and selected both his original force and some of the reinforcements to attack the outpost together from two directions, north and south.

“Awaiting orders,”

“Reporting,”

“Acknowledged!”

“You got it!”

“Moving out!”

His now-massive force swarmed the enemy outpost like ants and watched as the remaining Usean troops drowned under the carpet of Nod-gray blanketing them and enveloping their compound.

Andrew was pleased to see that no more hostile troops were still standing in the area and returned his attention to building his base.

Seth popped in once more on his computer monitor.

“Excellent work Lieutenant. Now all that’s left is to build a Weapons Factory and your mission will be complete. This ‘Weapons Factory will allow you to call in vehicle reinforcements by cargo plane, when you build some Air Strips of course. An important building, so don’t forget it!”

Seth faded out once more as the commander did as he was told.

Once the building was complete and he finished placing the new structure the screen froze and displayed in big, white letters:

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

“Well that was easy enough. I wonder how the other regions are doing,” he pondered out loud as he flipped the switch to his radio so he can pick up chatter.

The air battle for Usea was already taking part all over the north part of the country, and Slavik’s radio suddenly came alive with the radio chatter of pilots on both sides. From what he heard, things sounded like they were going well for the Brotherhood.

“F-15s? That’s all the Useans got? This’ll be cake!”

“Meteor Squadron, open fire!”

“Fox two!”

“Fox two!”

“Damn it, I’ve got another scorpion tail fighter on me! I can’t shake him!”

“Where did these guys come from?! And why are there so many of them!?”

“They’ve already started seizing Tora and bombing our border villages! But there’s too many enemy fighters for us to deal with! It’s no use trying to intercept the bombers!”

“The enemy’s got F-22s?! Usea is toast man!”

“I’m hit! The ejection seat isn’t working! Dammit! I can’t… (static),”

“Fox two…NAILED HIS ASS! These Usean pilots are a joke!”

“Yeah, watch ‘em drop like flies!”

“C’mon! Where are the other Usean Squadrons!? We need help out here! Damn…there aren’t very many of us left, are there?”

Slavik are elated when he listened to the chatter. Everything was going according to plan. Kane will be pleased with his success. A promotion maybe? Surely the Messiah would view his skills as superior.