Brutal Black - Scorched Earth

Recommended musical accompaniment, Heavy Metal Thunder or Brotherhood of Man

Do not be like the fools who think they will be heard and revered for their many words. Rather, act in secret, and your father, who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
Wholesale Slaughter. It was emblazoned in three languages across the front of every uniform and every black landing wagon. The emblem was a Cornara Proven trident inside the mouth of The Griffin Steel Fang snake head being impaled on the dagger of the Zebra Silent Blades. The center was ringed by the gear of the Saddle Arabian Heavy Weights, the oak leave wreath of the White Tail, the bat wings of the Black wings, the spear head of the Griff Kingdom Professional Army, and the horns of the Minotaur’s with a silver coin between them for the Karkayans. Beneath the emblem was the more ambiguous crossed alicorn and lightning bolt. While the horn could be for any nation with a focus on strong single horned entities, the lightning bolt was a direct shot at the Wonderbolts.
This complicated emblem served but a single purpose, it was a direct challenge to the elite fighting forces of every noteworthy nation that held its emblem sacred, Wholesale was taking all challengers. Three medallions worn on necks, three fresh tails tied to armour, and three dead black wings bobbing in the ocean thirty miles back could attest to that.
The four landers themselves were of note, they were Griffin light armored sky wagons sold at auction for cash and since then stripped of their armoured canopy to make them light. Each was pulled by two pegasus in quick release harnesses and carried six occupants.
The weapons carried by the occupants could be had at any flee market for a hoof full of bits and a smile or pulled off a corpse in any warzone. The black armour worn by the occupants was home made but used lightweight steel Zebra recon plates stacked two thick. The helmets they all wore could trace their origins back to a robbery in Cornara and contained mild manipulation talismans as well as radios.
Every pony in the group had his mane trimmed and tail wrapped and clipped to resemble a zebra’s. Even the real zebras were dressed up like ponies pretending to be zebras. They then all pained themselves black. The exceptions to this were the two griffins flying with the group.
The wagons that now raced across the glistening sea at break neck speed were heading directly for the port city of Ambrosia. The team could be black ops, pirates, a burn team, mercenaries, or even soldiers from any country pretending to be any of the above. One thing was for sure though, this would not end well for Ambrosia as Wholesale Slaughter certainly intended to live up to their name.
A single thought ran through the minds of every member of Wholesale Slaughter, there was a case of gems onboard the Winter Thunder. A single collection of high grade gems unlike anything seen since the Celestia blockade was put into effect, and it had been allowed to get into harbour.
They had been waiting on intel to figure exactly what ship it was on. Out on the open sea it would have been as easy as losing a sword fight. Now it might be impossible.
The four wagons raced over the water focused on the growing red hull of the ship. As they neared only a handful of crew members even looked up, those that did had little time to process what was happening. As the four wagons flew low overhead they breathed a sigh of relief. A relief that died the second the wagons circled back and began heading straight for them again.
The fear of pirates is lifted from a sailor’s heart when he is within shouting distance of friendly land and under the watchful eye of the harbour guns. It is completely forgotten as the cargo is being unloaded from the ship itself. However, the sight of a determined enemy, too close for the big guns and too fast to raise the defences will still plunge the icy fangs of terror deep into a brave man’s soul.
These griffin sky tank conversions have a couple neat tricks to them, one of which is the oversized breaks and lift motor on the now light craft meant it could land on and take off of almost anything. Flying low the pegusie detached, dropping the wagon onto the deck before circling around to provide cover. The lander slammed onto the deck and almost bounced enough to flip over while the wheels screeched trying to find purchase on the slippery deck. As soon as the carts wheels first touched down they tilted the motor forward and slammed on the breaks throwing everypony against their straps. As the cart skidded across the deck it slowed enough for five of the six ponies onboard to jump clear to provide cover for the one still on the lander.
Stunned sailors barely jumped out of the way as the speeding craft fell from the sky and skidded along the ship’s deck. Impossible as it seemed their ship had been boarded by pirates in broad daylight and in full view of other ships, the harbour guards, and a navy speedboat. They probably realized as much as the pirates did the incredible time pressure. They did not realize exactly what would happen next.
“Who are you?” Demanded one black clad pony, a unicorn, as he pointed toward a nearby sailor.
“Me? I just work for the harbour unloading ships!” Rushed a terrified brown earth pony.
A knife flew out of seemingly nowhere and stabbed into the ponies gut slashing down his bowels at the same time the unicorn spun and sent a double buck into the stallions face. As the stallion hit the deck the unicorn slipped the razor sharp dagger under his ribs and into one lung before twisting the handle driving the blade into his other lung. A second later and before the stallion could grasp what had happened he was being hauled across the deck and flipped over the railing of the ship on the water side.
He realized he was in serious trouble as he tumbled through the air letting out a hideous tortured and drowned scream. There was a splash as he slammed into the cold water. Upon hitting the water he went under like anypony would do. To his complete shock he kept sinking. In horror the stallion realized all the gas in his body was escaping from his wounds and being replaced with stinging salt water. The last thing he saw as he sank was one of the 50 foot harbour eels passing between him and the sun.
“Okay,” Said the unicorn throwing the bloodied knife from hoof to hoof. “Who knows what is on this boat?”
Some of the boarders sprinted into open hatches on the ship while others began smashing boxes open and scattering their contents across the deck. Fruits and vegetables were smashed underhoof along with jars of exquisite smelling oils and wines. Two unicorns busily began tearing open bags of spices and spilling their contents. Before long two zebras (or earth ponies it was hard to tell) dragged the captain onto the deck.
…
“It’s no good!” said the unicorn into the microphone built into his helmet. The captain says the package was unloaded from the ship already.”
“Well get off the boat and find me something!” Came a harsh, raspy voice over the radio. “The rest of you get hooves on the ground now!”
“You get how many boxes are down there right?” Asked Blaze, the pegasus leader of fire team.
“Get down there and find something! I don’t much care what the something is if it gives us a cover story!” The raspy voice demanded.
The sky wagon carrying Fire team flew in low enough for two unicorns to leap out onto the ground before the whole wagon came in for landing.
Serpent landed fine while Phoenix opted to land on the back of a fleeing mare and pin her to the ground.
“I wish I had the time to have fun with you.” Phoenix grunted out syllable by syllable accentuating each word by stabbing a knife somewhere at complete random into the mare’s body. He stood up then paused for a second, listening to the shrieking mare. He almost looked surprised by the mare’s shrieks. “Smoke, she’s not dead?”
“Well who do I look like? The solutions guy? Cut off one of her legs or something and see if that works.” Smoke replied.
The mare stopped shrieking and shifted to look up at her attacker.
“N-no please! I can die on my own please!”
Phoenix turned to look at Smoke cocking his head and shrugging his shoulders.
“Is that not the most fucked up thing you’ve ever heard said?”
“It’s got to be up at the top somewhere. Let her to it then we have work to do.”
Fires were already burning, started by incendiaries thrown off of the sky wagons or from fire dripping magically off of pegasus wings. Everywhere ponies were running and screaming.
-Pirate Busters Were Onboard - Locate Them- The words flashed across every screen and everyone that had landed started running, if even just to put on a show at this point.
-They Will Have The Package- came more intel over the screens in the helmets. The captain must be spilling his guts.

Scorch and Blaze (the two pegasus who had been pulling the cart Fire team had touched down in) circled around looking for the inevitable resistance. There were a few pegasus appearing in the distance but with all the commotion and the fact they didn’t dare come close by themselves it was impossible to tell if they were civilian or part of the port guard.
“I can’t believe there weren’t war ships in the harbour.” Yelled Blaze.
The two spotted a pegasus nearby trying to fly for it. The two slammed into him from opposite sides and snapped one of his wings sending him screaming back to earth. He hit a vegetable stand.
On the ground merchants were having their goods smashed and strewn about by fleeing civilians as teams desperately searching for hidden gems. One merchant screamed so loud and incessantly in a foreign tounge that a black clad zebra shot him in the head just to shut him up. Of course this causing a unicorn to burst into laughter.
“What’s so funny?”
“He was saying don’t shoot me!” the unicorn resumed laughing.
Smoke and Phoenix kicked down the door to a house and burst in on six surprised looking earth ponies. Two Mares, two stallions, and two young stallions were all sitting around a table. All eyes locked for a split second. All eight sets of eyes looked at the table and the two griffin sky gun conversion rifles sitting on it. All eight looked up in synchronization when the silenced rifles hanging around Snake and Phoenix’s necks flew into action.
Each started on the pony on their edge with a full auto burst. The bullets tore into the offered flesh like dogs into a gut pile. The fragmenting bullets for the most part did not exit but instead blew great meaty chunks out of their white and brown hides where they entered. Blood and liquidated flesh flew through the air to settle wetly on any surface like red snow. The mare hit the ground with five holes in her and a confused look on her face and the stallion on the table unable to get a shell chambered.
The tirade of bullets only slightly paused as the carnage advanced onto the next pony closer to the middle. Bullets continued to beat the dead horses as the fields of fire crossed. The pitch of the rifles starting at a low kwump and rising in pitch until it was almost as loud as an unsilenced gunshot.

Smoke, plaster, and the smell of blood hung thick in the air that suddenly seemed impossibly quiet. The ordeal had lasted little over three seconds from first shot to last. In less than a minute the room had gone from a normal family having tea to an abattoir.

The pair rocked fresh clips into their guns and continued through the house. Smoke paused briefly to dip his silencer in a bucket of water and was rewarded with a hiss of cooling steel for his effort while Phoenix opened the front door. Phoenix, never one for a lot of words in a stressful situation did not deviate from character.
“Harbour guards here!” he screamed jumping away from the door and opening fire on the street.
Walking past them were 30 lightly armoured stallions armed with rifles and shotguns headed toward the docks. When they came under fire they scattered diving behind vegetable and silk stands or whatever else they could use for cover and began shooting at the house where the fire was coming from.

Smoke stripped off his silencer, jumped onto the floor and opened fire through the doorway blind firing into the street.
“Scorch! Blaze! We need some fire on the street!” Smoke screamed into his microphone as he jockeyed another clip into the gun. The return fire was filling the air with dust and reducing what had remained of the home to scrap.
Phoenix rolled over screaming when a tumbling rifle bullet slammed into his armour. Shaking his head he got back on task he began hosing down a fruit cart with bullets. The fruit exploded with visceral splatters of multi coloured juice and a dead guard slumped over behind it. Phoenix’s silencer was glowing red hot.

Up in the air the two pegasus got the message loud and clear and guessed easily that the gunfight breaking out in the street was where they needed to be.
“Alright let’s cook ‘em!” Scorch yelled over his com to Blaze.
The two flew apart and approached the street from opposite sides and passed each other directly over the group of soldiers. They continued down the street for another hundred meters or so before sharply turning up in a big loop. They met at the top of the loop and just hung there for a second before rocketing back down toward the ground on the others contrail.
They sped toward the ground only flaring their wings just above the rooftops. The wind on their wings sounded like hurricanes. As the two raced toward each other something truly magical started to come out of these aerial acrobatics, liquid fire was beading off their flared feathers like water off a duck turning the street below into an inferno which clung to anything that could burn. This was the beauty of the Buccaneer Blaze.
Just before the two collided they tipped onto their sides to let the other pass and bonked each other’s outstretched hooves in a double high five.
Smoke was alerted to the change by the sound of ground shaking winds and the heat of the blaze that something had changed before he registered that the shooting had stopped. Getting off the floor and shaking off the dust he moved to the doorway to look out. He saw thirty or so screaming ponies running around in the street trying in doomed panic to tear off their flaming cloths and even their own fur.
“Nothing quite as sweet as the sound of a bunch of enemies who didn’t expect to burn suddenly being on fire eh?” he asked Phoenix who was still on the floor rubbing his shoulder.
“I think I fucked this silencer.” He said as a response.
Snake stood and watched the burning men a while longer while he loaded another clip into his rifle. The one mercy of fire is that those engulfed by it die really fast. Already the whole group was still.
“Come on, we have pirate busters to find.” Said Smoke, as he began running through the blackened streets. Fire still burning where it had found purchase.
A black clad pegasus looking quite like an alicorn in his unicorn helmet on was doing his best to keep all the pegasus on the ground with the help of a converted griffin air gun and its hundred round plastic drums. He was hoofing another magazine into the hot gun when something cracked past him. He had just enough time to register he was being shot at when a second 50 cal slammed into his belly. His armour, some of the finest steel plate ever stolen, stopped the projectile. However, the shell sent the plate up like a pile driver, shattering his ribs and sent them stabbing into his lungs. His mask filled with his own blood long before he smashed into the ground and smashed like a bucket of eggs.
Blaze noticed the flush of pegasus that were suddenly getting away rather than being kept down by an absent wholesaler.
“Boss one of our rides just got swatted!” he yelled into his mike.

On the other side of the ship yard Turtle and Bear frantically ran through the terrified crowd nearly causing a crowd crush everywhere they went. Through the flashes of fabrics, hair, and goods Bear caught a glimpse of what he was looking for. A stallion in a green cloak carrying a massive magazine fed scoped rifle. Then he was gone.
Were his eyes playing tricks on him? He didn’t have much time to think about it as a voice came over his head set almost as he spotted the apparition.
“Everyone form up! There is nothing hear for us and we are leaving!” roared the voice on the radio.
“Request a stay. Pirate Breaker spotted.”
“Granted, animal team engage the breakers, everyone else assemble on the docks and make ready.”
Bear and Turtle looked at the panicked mass of bodies then at each other. Spotting the breaker once might have been a fluke but to see him again would take real luck.
“Are we on the menu right now? What kind of rifle did he have?” asked Turtle.
“Ya, looked like something Zebra. Big mag and a harmonica on the pipe.” Replied Bear as he franticly scanned the rooftops. “I think he ran between those two houses.” He continued pointing to where the apparition had disappeared and sprinted towards it.”
The pegasus EZ was flying overhead and spotted the two black clad ponies sprinting down the ally and straight into the set up of a green cloaked sniper. Acting fast he dive bombed the sniper from above.
‘No time to warn them,’ he thought. ‘luckily those bastards never think to look up!’ he thought with a smirk as he held out his hooves to slam into the target.
No sooner had the thought entered his mind than the earth pony sniper rolled onto his back pointing the rifle straight up and fired. The muzzle break kicked up dust on every side of him and knocked years of sand off the walls next to him. The big full metal jacketed bullet smashed through EZ’s hoof and tore out of his leg. The ceramic plates on his chest exploded when the big bullet slammed into them before tumbling through his body and exiting out through the plates on his rump. The carcass slammed crunchily into the ground beside the sniper who shielded his eyes from the light shower of blood, sand, and ceramic shards. Doing so he was caught completely off guard by the hoof in the side of his head.
“You just pissed off the wrong psychopath!” Bear screamed as he pointed his 5mm skirmisher at the snipers still dazed head. “I’m going to ask once. Where is the case of weapons grade gems?”
The look of shock on the snipers face shifted to one of surprise then mild amusement.
“There was a case of weapons grade gems here? Wish I was being paid to watch that damn thing! No, I just wanted to kill a Wholesaler.” to the rage of Bear he actually started laughing before a burst from the belt fed shut him up.
Back on the docks Pheonix and Smoke were helping to hitch up the surviving pegasus to the wagons when the bomb went off.
At the far end of the dock where a ship had just been was a giant crater in the land as if god himself had reached down and scooped it out, a huge hole in the water, and an impossibly white light. Ships rocked and capsized in its wake while whole blocks of homes and buildings were flattened. The winds knocked the fliers from the skies and threw anything lighter than a truck flipping through the air. Every window exploded. The ocean boiled. House fires were blown out by the impossible winds while new ones were lite by the intense heat. The smoke and dust blacked out the sun casting the earth a gloomy orange. Carts rolled unimpeded over the ground while the wind tore siding off of buildings. However, the most impressive display of the bombs power was its sound.
278 decibels of ear crushing, eye melting, organ rupturing sound raped the air deafening anyone it couldn’t kill.
“Get up. We are leaving!” came the voice over the radio that no one could hear over the deafening rigging of the silence. It came as text on the inside of everyone’s mask along with a readout of the dead.
Phoenix struggled to his shaking legs just in time to see a black clad pegasus sailing through the air on the blast wave slam into the ground and start rolling like a child rolling down a hill sped up a million times. Gear, armour, weapons, and limbs flew everywhere to join the debris. The body skidded to a stop near him and he limped over to it. Finding a mangled foreleg he checked the blue band worn around it like a watch.
Phoenix- It’s okay, it wasn’t a black knight.
The chat was soon clogged with the cries of the dying and wounded and orders to both evacuate and to grab any wounded that might survive.
The survivors started struggling to right the assault wagons that still looked functional and free the unfortunate pegasus who were haled along by their harnesses. With what power they had the wagons lifted off from the decimated port and out to sea.
Phoenix-hagghaggckokespri
Smoke, confused by some strange text next to Phoenix’s name looked at his friend.
Smoke-You okay?
Phoenix-Laughing then started coughing
Smoke- What could you possibly be laughing about?
Phoenix- We just started a war.