Legends of Equestria: HeroSoul

Outskirts of Xetesk, three weeks previous.

"Owww." Dawn found herself muttering, she felt pain all over her body, especially her head, the last thing she remembered was jumping from the ramparts of Xetesk as the FlameGlobe exploded, killing anything inside that city. Those poor ponies...

"You're lucky to be alive there." A soft, kind voice pierced through the darkness, Dawn opened her eyes slowly, to see a brown coated stallion wearing a black apron. He had no horn nor wings that Dawn could see.

"Wha- what happened?" She asked. The stallion looked confused.

"I heard a loud, boom, went out to check on the noise, went east for over an hour, at first I thought nothing of it, I have heard stranger noises from that dammed college. But when I saw the destruction, I panicked, I tried to climb into the ruins but most of the city was molten stone, do you know how hot stone needs to be to melt?" The stallion asked, when Dawn didn't answer immediately, he continued. "Sorry, moving on, I found ponies, fused into the stone, melting from flesh and bone. I found, figures. Dead figures, large monsters in black armour.-"

"Garonins." Dawn muttered.

"You know these creatures?" The stallion asked.

"I'm from Manehatten, they are aliens, invaders. They destroyed Manehatten and besieged Xetesk, I was part of the defence, until the mages tried to cast a huge fire ball to send the enemy back. It- it failed. The spell went mega and exploded. I don't remember much else, I jumped off the walls before it exploded." Dawn explained, the stallion nodded.

"I see, that makes a lot of sense, well. I never did trust magic, I don't have anything against it, just, you know. Though, you didn't exactly avoid the blast and I had to, replace some things." The stallion muttered. Dawn began to panic.

"What do you mean?" She asked quickly. She tried to get up but found she couldn't, bound to something soft, a bed?

"Calm down, you have to listen to me. You were caught in the blast slightly, your leg was burned off. But I managed to save it, somewhat." The stallion explained quickly, walking over to a wooden table and coming back with a mirror. Dawn looked at it and screamed. Her mane was a mess, it had been for a while, but was burnt and shorter than before. Her face was covered in boils and soot. The stallion aimed the mirror down and Dawn saw how raw her skin was, much brighter than before and stung as she noticed the burns. Her left back leg was gone, completely. Gone. Replaced with a wooden stump in the shape of a hoof, she couldn't move it, but it felt like it was there still. Dawn then began to cry.

"What is your name?" The stallion muttered, as Dawn wept quietly.

"Dawn, Dawn Star." She muttered, and continued to cry.

"Alright Dawn. My name is Iron Hammer, I'm going to look after you, take you to Canterlot, you have to warn The Princesses. If these aliens destroyed two cities, then there is little hope for pony survival." The stallion muttered, Dawn nodded and wept. Falling asleep at some point, she didn't remember.

Fort Last Stand, Present Day.

Not even a full day had past and my fears were answered, it had been me to see them, on the wall like I had been the day previous. Only this time, I had spotted something. There was a large force of those Garonin bastards heading towards the town. They weren't in range of the catapults yet but there was a lot of them. I didn't even try to count them but Steven was sure there were nearly three thousand of them. The main force was flanked by three huge tank looking machines, bellowing black smoke and tearing the ground apart as the army advanced. Everyone was now on the walls watching the enemy march towards us, the gates were reinforced as much as they could in the time we had and the walls were about ten foot thick of hard stone. They would be getting into the walks anytime soon. I hoped.

"Do we have enough boulders to take them out?" I asked Aeb, who had been spending all day looking over the mechanisms.

"No. If they stayed tight like they are maybe. But my guess is they will try and split of and let those machines of theirs tear down our defences. And from the looks of it. A couple rocks aren't going to take it down. We are better off pushing a couple boulders down off the walls over the gates to halt their advance and try to get a couple of those crossbows closer to the gates." Aeb replied, I just nodded.

"Then get pushing on some rocks, leave enough for the catapults though." I ordered, Aeb nodded and ran towards the huge weapons, shouting for help from Steven.

"Do we have a plan?" I heard Dari asked, she was standing next to me and had seemingly appeared from nowhere.

"Sort of." I muttered truthfully, I hadn't really been thinking much on a plan, since I didn't know who was going to attack.

"Sort of?" Dari asked, I nodded.

"We will hold them here for as long as possible, but as soon as the gate begins to fall, we retreat back into the town, I made some preparations last night." I explained, letting Dari think on that rather than tell her outright.

"You expect a dozen of us to hold an entire city against over three thousand?" Dari asked, panicked, honestly. So was I.

"We have to, if we run we can't outrun them, here at least we have some cover." I grunted.

"I don't want to die here, promise me you have an escape route planned." Dari replied quickly. I opened my mouth but before anything came out, she added. "Without you standing here to sacrifice yourself."

"I have placed fire wards all over the town, like a mine field. When we retreat, they will follow us to the crossbows, the mines will go off as they go over them and their numbers will dwindle. Shadow found a back exit of the castle last night so we have a way out, but we need to take down as many as possible for the retreat, or we will die when we run away from them." I explained, Dari paused, she still looked upset, or angry. But after a short time, she calmed and nodded.

"Where do you want me?" She asked.

"You can either arm a catapult, use a Decay Gun, or my gun." I replied.

"Yours? Won't you be using it?" She asked.

"Nah, not for a time anyway, I am the only mage here, living anyway, so I'll be bombarding the enemy with spells. Steven has the rest of the clips, you have 16 shots, not a lot I know, but each one should kill them. Try and aim for high targets, so anyone who seems to be giving orders or leading the force. If not, weapons free. When you run out of ammo, just grab a Decay, cuz by then they will be much closer. Stay behind the wall and try to cover your ears when you fire. At least one I suggest." I said, she nodded again and I unhooked my sniper from my saddle and helped Dari with hers. I also grabbed a Decay Gun from the small stockpile of our weapons we had put down and tied it to her free side. It was a bit awkward and would be very annoying, but it was the best we could do.

"Good luck Bright Haze." She muttered and ran up the wall and aimed down the sight to prepare.

"And you, Dari. Pray to Lauren we survive this." I muttered. I then turned and waited for the enemy to get closer before firing.

The gunshots had begun about five minutes later, Dari was the first to shoot, a target fell and the rest of the Garonin army began to fire their weapons, the lasers chipped the walls, but as expected, not much damage was down, one of the catapults, with Heart as the pilot, fired a boulder and as it flew, I sent magic into it, setting it ablaze as it spun toward the enemy, there was a large boom as it hit the ground and flung up a dozen or so Garonins. The army split and let the three tank things drive forward, I could see, and even smell the ground being torn apart and turned black like the Void.

"Fire on those machines!" I shouted, I heard another catapult swing as Aeb let the rock loose, again I set it on fire and it spun, hitting the tank square on the front, the metal crumpled and the thing exploded in fire and smoke. Mana seeping into the air. I heard a cheer and saw Heart smiling, this was much easier than I expected. For about two seconds. One of the tanks stopped, and a strange looking gun appeared on the top, literally just materialised, the turret aimed towards Aeb's catapult, I was about to shout for him, but the Changeling saw it already and ran towards me, a long, large red laser fired from  the Garonin machine and the catapult exploded in fire and wood splinters. I looked away, not knowing an shields that would protect us, I felt a burn as a piece of burning splinter hit me on the hoof that had covered my eyes. I heard another sniper shot and a cling sound. I looked to Dari who was trying to take down the tank.

"Fire on the soldiers!" I shouted, I don't know if she heard me, but she aimed away and another soldier went down, so probably. Or she saw sniping a tank was fruitless. I heard another swing and Heart fired his catapult, after a long reload, which was a massive downfall to our defences, we weren't trained with these things, and they did take ages to pull down without a lot of strength or magic. The boulder went flying but just as I tried to magic it up, another blast from that tank fired and blow a part of the wall up, I was knocked down by Aeb tackling me and the part I had been standing on exploded and rubble flew everywhere. I coughed but stayed down in case the tank fired again.

In those few moments I looked up and down the wall to my friends. Rainbow and Derpy I could just see beyond the smoke bellowing out from the ruined catapult, the two of them both had a Decay Gun and were firing on the enemy. Nick was standing next to them, trying to look over the walls, but his main job was to wait until we were fighting in close combat. Steven was also missing, ready in the castle to charge down, he was with Spectra who was attaching some make shift armour to him. Crystal was another shooting, him and Shadow both had Decays too and were firing, ducking behind the cover of the ramparts. Aeb had his carbine attached and was firing over the walls. I prepared a fire ball and fired blindly, hearing another explosion. I wasn't overly sure what the tanks were doing so looked over the walls. One had been crushed by the boulder, but the gun one was still standing, aiming at Heart's catapult, which he had already abandoned and was firing his gun with Crystal and Shadow. I grabbed up a gun with magic and attached it quickly to my saddle, I was genuinely itching to use Lunar Bane and Aurora Lorem, but that could wait. I started firing at the Garonin and hid behind the wall as a barrage of lasers shot towards me, bits of the stone were chipped away but not much else. The enemy seemed to be at a standstill and the entire wall began to shake as the tank fired on the gates. Luckily, they held. How long for I couldn't be sure. I kept firing and ducking, the sounds of battle raging around me. I didn't need to order anything, somehow none of us had been hit but the two downed catapults were a problem, the third was round the side of the walls and wouldn't accurately hit anything, we needed the tank down but who knew how long it would take to bring that fucker down. The other two were still smoking and the first was still aflame.

We actually seemed to be doing well. Somehow.

Until one of us got hit. It was a mare who screamed, I heard it pierce the battle and turned to where Dari was, she was now using a Decay and a dozen empty bullet casings lay across the ground, my sniper had been thrown next to the mare, I would be upset but this was a full on battle. I would have been more pissed had she kept it safe, it was only a gun. With Dari okay, I checked Derpy, she was down in cover shouting something I couldn't hear, for a second I thought the worst. But she seemed unharmed, it was Rainbow who was burning red and screaming.

"Aeb! On me! Heart, cover us!" I shouted, Aeb heard, I don't know if Heart Breaker did though. I began to run down the walls, and jumped over some of the wreckage of the catapult. I ran towards Derpy and Rainbow, dropping behind cover, Aeb began to fire again towards the enemy. Rainbow had been hit right in the head and at least half of her face was now missing, she was crying out but no tears came, amongst all things, this was such a strange sight seeing an undead, well, die. Rainbow kept crying for Spectra and I shouted to Aeb to go get him, I doubt he would make it though.

"Rainbow. Rainbow Speed listen to me." I kept shouting, she kept screaming and panicking, heavily breathing, blood slowly ozzing from her brain. It was all rotten and decayed and looked disgusting. Derpy was trying to cry as well and hugged me.

"She, she saved me. The shot went for me." Derpy said, and kept saying "It came for me." Over and over, I hugged her and heard a loud whoosh as Spectra appeared next to me, his wings outstretched and a bit of metal in his teeth from Steven's armour I presumed. He spat it out and began to comfort Rainbow, I got out of the wall and kept close to Derpy.

"Rainbow, honey. Don't do this again, please. You're undead, you can survive this." Spectra shouted, crying already. I looked away and buried my face into Rainbow's hair, I was done watching ponies die. On my account. Rainbow seemed to stop screaming but was still getting spasms through her body.

"It's. It's- li-like those za-za-a zombie stories. A shot to the br-brain." Rainbow muttered, twitching violently. "I'll- I'll see you- see you in Pari-Paradise." Rainbow added and shut her eyes. At least it was a fairly quick death, I wasn't sure about pain though.

"Rainbow? Rainbow no. You can't die. Not again. You came back! You have to come back again!" Spectra shouted. I wanted to say something, but this guy had seen his wife die, twice now. I had seen mine die, and I know that feeling. I just wanted revenge. But the first time, that had broken him. He hadn't used Red Spectra in ages, I had forgotten the name nearly.

"Haze." Spectra muttered, he was very quiet, I barely heard him over the battle. I looked up, Derpy hugging tighter. "This is it." He added.

"Spectra-." I began.

"Don't. I have followed you from the Changeling Invasion and into the Void and back. I would follow you to the End of Time and hell, even to the end of the world. Literally, and geographically apparently. But they killed my wife, again. I can't live without her anymore Haze. You must understand?" He interrupted. I just nodded.

"Take as many of them out as you can." I muttered, Spectra smiled slightly, spread his wings and jumped off the walls. Charging toward the Garonins.

"COME AND GET ME YOU BASTARDS." He screamed. The tank turned it's turret and fired.

And that, was the last time I saw Spectra Speed alive. So long had he survived, fought and bled for and with me. Now.

He was gone.

We were eleven, now we were nine. Aeb kept firing even as Derpy made the sounds of crying into my bad ear. Her scar rubbing against my body as I looked down over the walls at the gore that was once one of my best friends.