Twilight, Soldier of War

Seven days until return

Field Marshal Konrad was the leader of the 38th Commonwealth Combined Army. He sat in his office aboard a commandeered balrog, that he used as his mobile command center. The balrogs were a fascinating piece of engineering that Konrad had to respect. The Commonwealth didn’t use such machine of war. They were too slow and bulky, and unfit for his rocky homeland. His people’s military doctrine was one of speed and flexibility, and even Osana only used them as transports. But when Konrad had first laid eyes on a balrog, he couldn’t help but to compare them to war elephants of old, and like war elephants, his balrog would send the accursed Osanens running.

From the window in the room, Konrad could see the Eastelf only a few miles away, and the high concrete walls that surrounded it. The wall itself was practical but imperfect. It stretched along with the city for miles in a zig-zag that showed the cities expansion throughout the ages with its sudden sharp turns and dead stops. Perhaps at one point in time this city was a true fortress, but that was a long time ago. Now that wall would be more of a hindrance to Osana then they believed.

Eastelf could be divided up into four sections, the inner city, hidden behind its own wall; the Industrial District, the Commerce District, and the Waterfront District that blocked access to the Inner city. Konrad had divided his forces in three and would attack all the outlines districts at once. The primary targets were the Industrial District, to cut off Osanen supply of new weapons, and the inner city, to capture the emperor and force him to surrender and finally put an end to this war.

Konrad glanced to a folder sitting at the edge of his desk. It was a dossier on key personal to be kill or captured: Generals and high ranking military officers, the Royal family and other politicians, but what stood out the most to him was the page on a seemingly ordinary soldier, a one Lance Corporal Twilight Sparkle. Family: unknown. Place of birth: unknown. Anything before the start of the war: unknown. It was as if this woman just fell out of the sky one day. That alone wouldn’t be enough to draw so many eyes to her, Konrad knew, but he had seen the footage of what she could do. Everyone in the Commonwealth knew of Osana’s failed attempts to make super soldiers, but it would seem that it wasn’t a complete failure after all.

As impressive as she was, in the end she was only just one soldier.

Konrad’s internal clock told him it was time to get moving. He rose and stepped out into the hallway. A large hulking juggernaut standing ten heads tall guarded the hallway, and fell in line with large, yet graceful, steps. Modeled after the silver knights of old, juggernauts were the ultimate soldiers in ground warfare, and more than a match for the Osanen berserks. Konrad’s escort took up most of the hallway but had little trouble traversing the stairs to the roof. As the cap of Konrad’s hat broke into the air he heard the voice of his men greeting him, “Field Marshal!”

Konrad returned the salute and waved the few officers present to return their duties. He stepped closer to the front and to the man waiting expectantly. “Brigadier, how goes the preparations?” Asked Konrad.

Konrad looked out at his surrounding army: a full legion of five thousand juggernauts stood in formation, supported by another forty thousand troops, tanks, wolverine, and artillery. “Preparations are complete. The air assault will begin momentarily,” said the Brigadier.

From the distance above the city’s horizon, dots could be seen, dozens upon dozens of them. All of them growing larger and all of them heading for Konrad’s encampment. “Just in time, it would seem. The Osanens have sent out a welcome party,” looking behind his line he spotted his own aircraft coming to join the fray by the hundreds. Since the beginning of this war the Commonwealth had maintained the advantaged in military technology, and their aircraft were no different. By night fall, the air would be theirs. “Send word,” Konrad spoke to his Brigadier, “Begin the attack!”

***

Twilight fired her weapon over the thirty meter wall that she and her platoon were stationed on. After Cotreau had died, H.Q. decided to use her squad to bolster the ranks of a more depleted platoon. Twilight was simply glad that in the end they were kept together. The platoon was assigned to the Waterfront District and was tasked with keeping the rats from breaching the Waterfront Gates. Though the gates were made of reinforced steel and barricaded from the other side, Twilight knew that enough firepower would turn it into a heap of scrap metal. Aside from her platoon, others were stationed atop the wall with them, spaced out every few hundred meters. While other still were stationed within the honeycomb-like walls itself, firing their weapons from gun ports in the walls.

Below them dozens of the fast moving wolverine were charging. Unlike others she had seen, these were not equipped with machine guns but plasma cannons. She had expected them to fire at the gate, but as an explosion reached her ears from the far east of the wall, she heard Skyler exclaim, “There targeting the turrets!”

The heavy weapon platforms were stationed along the wall much like the platoons, and they were the only thing keeping the rats from bringing up their heavy armor. Once that happened the gate wouldn’t last for very long. Teagan rose up next to Twilight, a triple barrel rocket launcher on his shoulder. “Target locked!” He cried. “Clear!” With a pull of the trigger three rockets fired out, each one staggered a few seconds after the last. The first missed the wolverine by a large margin, but the staggered launch of the other rockets allowed them to redirect their flight path. The second one impacted the ground mere feet from its target, forcing the wolverine to swerve away, right into the path of the last rocket. The wolverine soared into the air as it was consumed by fire.

Near the edge of her platoons kill zone, and well outside of her firing range, was an over turned troop transport. It had been taken out during one of the first assaults the rats launched, and normally Twilight wouldn’t pay it any mind, not with other threats about, but the glare of the light drew Twilight’s eye and her curiosity. She looked through her scope at the wreck to see the edge of a head peeking over. As if sensing her platoon’s ire was drawn elsewhere, a dozen soldiers burst from around the wreck and charged for the wall.

“They’re advancing on the left!” Twilight called.

The platoon Sargent turned around and looked past Twilight. “Because we don’t have enough to deal with as it is,” He pointed to Twilight and Skyler as he called out, “You two get over there and reinforce our flank!”

Skyler rose from his spot and began to sprint off with Twilight close on his heels. The infantry was in a dead run for one of the blind zones on the wall, where anything short of a ground team wouldn’t hit them. The foundation shook with the constant sounds of battle. Twilight glanced a look into the battle as she ran. Tanks burned in the field, from both their side and hers, and the evidence of the failed assault, just hours prior, could be seen everywhere. It was too early to know if the lifes sacrificed there ultimately helped the war effort, or if it was just a wrong call, an order misinterpreted, an attack too haphazard.

The sounds of a heavy turret firing grew louder the closer to their targets there drew. A gunner team was aiming the dual barrel gun in the air and strafing the enemy aircraft, as the constant dogfighting played out over their heads. A rat fighter broke off from the melee and aim the bow of its craft for the turret. The gun team was quick on prioritizing the new targets and unleashed a hell of bullets. Round after round bounced off the fighter’s shield, and shimmered in the air with each impact. Until at last the shield popped like a bubble and reduced the fighter into little more than a flying hunk of metal. But it was a hunk of metal careening straight for them.

“Double Time!” Skyler yelled.

Twilight clung tightly to her rifle as she pulled every ounce of speed from her exo armor as it would give her. She barely noticed when one of the gunners jumped ship and raced along with them, leaving his copilot to his fate. The fighter impacted a moment later, taking the turret and a sizeable chunk of the wall with it. The shockwave that followed knocked the group off their feet. The fighter bounced off from were it hit, but instead of falling to the city below it impacted a shimmering blue shield of thousands upon thousands of small hexagons interlocked together. The shield covered the top of the city like an umbrella, though it didn’t drop passed the walls. The Zechiel Shield Grid was the most powerful shielding system to date, and from what Rolland had told Twilight, she was the inspiration behind it’s design.

As Twilight picked herself up she couldn’t help but feel in awe at the sight of a fire burning in midair.

“That was a close one,” said the surviving gunner. Instead of the exo armor she was so used to seeing, the man wore a bulky suit that wrapped him like a turtle’s shell, but by the way the man had sprinted with them, it didn’t seem to impair his movement. The aptly named ‘turtle armor,’ was a cheap and effective piece of equipment for the soldiers who didn’t need the more advanced equipment that came with the exo armor, but from what Twilight had seen it was mostly only used by conscript soldiers.

Not forgetting their purpose for coming there, Twilight turned on the man. “Your name?”

“Umm, just call me Red,” he answered too slowly for Twilight’s liking.

Skyler was already moving ahead to the edge of the wall. “You’re with us now,” Twilight said as she followed along. Red had nothing but a sidearm on him so Twilight past him her rifle. “Take point with Skyler. I’ll support,” Red didn’t argue and took the gun.

With a bare eye, Twilight could see the rats sprinting across the field. The two that led the charge were each holding what resembled tower shields with its flat surface shimmering with a blue light. Sentinels, they had first appeared a few years ago but had grown rather popular among the rats, and they were a pain to deal with. Plasma shots fired from Twilight’s team hammered into the shield, but the blue energy just soaked it up. Returning fire came back almost immediately, but with their pace they were anything but accurate. Still with ten rats firing at them, Twilight had to put up her shield as the occasional shot found them.

“Dammit, we don’t have the firepower to get through their shield before they reach the blind zone. Twilight, do you have any more tricks up your sleeve?” asked Skyler.

With a calm expression, hidden behind her helmet, Twilight watched the charging group. Calculations were running through her mind, their trajectory, their speed, the amount of power she would need to do this. “Yes,” she answered only a moment later, “But I won’t be able to shield you,”

“I can live with that,”

Twilight nodded. She unzipped the medical bag on her hip and took out her supply of Anzion Her new platoon had its own dedicated medic, yet no one blinked at Twilight keeping her supply of drugs on hand. She loaded the injector gun and pushed the needle into the port on her arm. She already had the drug in her system, but for this she was going to need the edge it would give her.

Twilight took in a breath and let the drug run its course. She could almost feel the cold sensation running threw her veins, and for a brief moment she savored it. She raised one arm out stretched towards the rats, with her other hand grasping her wrist. In her minds eyes, she could see her target, feel his muscles pushing him harder, and heard the pounding of his heart. Twilight closed her open palm and trust her arm to the side.

Her target exploded as a shield rapidly expanded outward from the center of his chest. The shield was visible for only a few seconds before Twilight’s power was used up, but the blast was large enough to knock the other sentinel off his feet. The other rats behind them didn’t stop for a moment.

Twilight dropped to her knees, panting heavily. “Please tell me I don’t have to do that again?”

Twilight’s team didn’t waste a moment and poured plasma on the charging group. As each rat fell the others only seemed to run faster, harder. Using the wall to brace herself, Twilight got back to her feet. Just in time to see Red fly back with a gurgling cry, clutching at his throat. He struggled for a few moments but was silent before Twilight could even to move to him.

Skyler checked the fallen soldier, but with a shake of his head she knew she had been right, not that she felt good about that. Skyler stripped off ammo and other supplies, and Twilight retrieved her borrowed gun.

“What are we going to do about the rats that got past us?” Twilight asked.

Skyler peeked over the wall, his head barely moving past the pillar. “There’s nothing we can do from here. We’ll have to hope the battalion on the ground can deal with them, for now let’s get back, and hope we don’t lose anymore turrets on the way,”

With the ruin of the path behind them they set off at a jog back to where the platoon had set up their firing line. The constant fire of plasma rounds heated up the air, even as the sun hammered down on top of them. Twilight’s exo armor, and that of her platoon, didn’t have cooling units like power armor did, making heat exhaustion just as big of a threat as being shot.

“Did you take care of our little rat problem?” Asked the Sargent just as Twilight and Skyler can into sight.

“Yes sir,” said Skyler as he took a place next to the Sargent. “But one of turrets and the gun team was lost,”

The Sargent stopped firing his weapon over the wall and looked at the man from a crouched position. “Shit, if that turrets down that means we have a big ass hole in the defense grid. We won’t be able to hold off their armor with just a few rockets,” even as the two talked Twilight took her position with the others, and added her own weapon to the downpour of fire on the advancing troops.

“Sargent, we need to get some portable artillery cannons up here, if we want to have any hope of stopping their armor.”

“Son, you know what I would like right now,” Sargent began, leaving no hint wither he was being serous or jovial. “For my momma to hug me and tell me everything’s going to be alright. But Son, my momma’s dead. We don’t have any more APCs!”

“Umm, Sargent,” Nadia spoke up next to Twilight, as she looked through her scope at the battlefield.

“And even if we did have some...”

“Sargent!”

“What!” The Sargent snapped and turned to her.

Nadia wasn’t fazed by the outburst and continued like normal as she replied. “Why the hell are the rats bringing up a balrog?”

Everyone within ear shot turned their gaze to the lumbering balrog. The enemy line was dividing down the center, making a path for the balrog. Twilight had seen those machine countless times before, yet she had never seen one quite like that. Running the length of the balrog was a cannon. The tip was slowly spinning to life and even as Twilight watch she could see red energy gathering at the mouth. A knot formed in her stomach when she realized the cannon was pointed right at them.

“Everyone move!” The Sargent called. And for the second time that day, Twilight was running for her life.

When the balrog fired it cut through the distance with a red lance of light that could have swallowed a tank whole. It hit the wall and cut through it like paper, piercing through to the other side and whatever poor fool that stands before it. The rampart collapsed down into the now vacant hole, as fast as everyone could run. Twilight glanced behind her to see the falling rampart gaining on them, and the unlucky soldier about to be caught in its path. He was hefting a heavy weapon on his shoulder as he ran that looked heavy even with exo armor.

Twilight shouted back to the man even as she turned on her heals, “Drop the gun you idiot!” Twilight’s shields had little in the way of utility, but when you are used to being able to cast dozens of spells at a whim, being reduced to a single one can make you rather creative, if only by necessity. She placed a shield directly behind the man, with a flash explosion the shield popped with a snap. The resulting air pressure sent the man flying forward, out of harm’s way.

The same could not be said for Twilight.

She tried to turned and propel herself toward the others, but the rampart was already giving out. As others called out her name, Twilight lost her footing and descended down into the dark.

It was only the quick thought of wrapping herself in a shield that saved Twilight’s life, still the impact had knocked her out. It had been an hour, maybe less, by Twilight’s calculation. She was lying in a heap of broken rubble and stones, the light from above shinning down on her. She set up and gave her armor a quick once over, nothing looked broken, but she sure felt like it. She got to her feet and looked around the room she was in. It was an old maintenance tunnel used to make repairs on the wall, and by the looks of it she hadn’t fallen that far, maybe a few stories, certainly she wasn’t on the ground floor. After a few moment of searching she found her rifle, or what was left of it, buried in the rubble, useless.

She still had her sidearm, but felt naked without a rifle on her. She tried the radio, but unsurprisingly it didn’t work. It was always difficult it get a signal through thick walls, and as fall down as she was the only way to get a message out was through a hardline. Unholstering her pistol, she began a slow job.

Red swirling lights past by her every few feet, and time seemed to blend together as she ran. She wasn’t sure how long it had been when she reached the first access door, and the sound of fighting. Peeking through, the floor for the that part of the tunnel had fallen in, giving Twilight a perfect view of the firefight below. A squad of five was exchanging fire with a group of over twenty rat infantry and two juggernaut. The only reason the squad was still alive was due to a shield generator that was barely holding together, as every round on the shield gave the impression that it could fail at any moment.

“Chaos grenade out!” one of the soldiers called. The grenade flew through the air, it’s sides broke off and ready to unleash it’s deadly cargo. The rats fell back behind cover just as five sentinels moved to the front of the line. They angled their tower shields upward just as the hell of balls began. The chaos grenade hammered down on rats and comrades alike, showing no favoritism in its wrath. One sentinel fell as the energy failed on its shield and he was cut to ribbons, but when the dust settled few rats had been hurt for so few lost. Twilight could almost admire them, the way they so selflessly stepped forward into harm’s way, if not for the fact they were doing that in order to kill her comrades.

Twilight tried to think if there was anything she could do to help them. She only had a pistol and a few drugs on her, and even at the best of times she never carried that much gear on her. It was her job to shield her team, Teagan was always the pack mule of the squad. She considered trying to support them with a shield, but after summoning one, the size of a soap bubble, she could tell by the shaking of her arm that it was out of the question. There was nothing she could do, she realized with a sickening feeling. If she tried to help she would only end up sharing their fate.

“Stand aside!” A loud, deep voice, lased with a strange robotic undertone, called from the back of the rat line. A line formed and the path cleared for a new juggernaut. Unlike the two juggernaut already in formation, this one didn’t wield their standard gatling gun. Dread for the soldiers below filled Twilight as she realized what that weapon was: a flamethrower. The soldiers directed their fire at the new enemy, but his shields practically laughed off their attacks. They would never be able to drop the shields before the juggernaut unleashed it’s weapon.

As if to prove her point, the juggernaut lowered the nozzle of his flamethrower and fired. Hellfire blanketed the room, forcing Twilight to pull back from the heat. The battled energy shield protecting the soldiers lasted all of ten seconds before it gave way.

Twilight turned away and quicken her pace down the tunnel, there was nothing she could do there.

As she walked bits of radio chatter broke through the static, leaving her with little more than garble messages, “General… fallback to… lost… … … Berserk in route,” if even that much of the signal was getting through than she couldn’t be that far from the surface. It was nearly another twenty meters of wondering the winding tunnels before Twilight came across a set of stairs leading up, and she could see cracks of light from the top. Twilight took the stairs two at a time with a feeling of relief for finally getting back into the sunlight.

That feeling died the moment Twilight opened the door and set eyes on three rats passing by. They stopped in their march down the street at the loud grown of a rusted door, and as one turned to face Twilight, rifles raised. Time seemed to slow as her mind went into overdrive. She had only a pistol with 9mm rounds, even if she had pinpoint aim and fired at their heads, their helmets could withstand one to two shots at pointblank range. And there were three of them. She was still too tired, so her shields were useless. There was no room to run.

The radio buzzed in her ear, “This is Guardian Angel, I’ve got eyes on the Wicked Witch. Engaging hostiles,” even through the static of the radio Twilight could never mistake Nadia’s voice.

Three loud pops echoed through the air in rapid succession, and the rats fell to the ground like their strings had been cut. Twilight looked out to one of a dozen tall building in the distance and for the life of her she couldn’t see where Nadia was. She waved her arm over her head as she spoke over the radio, “Thanks for the assist,”

“Anytime. In case you didn’t hear the orders during your dirt nap, our section has been ordered back to the secondary line. The rats control this wall now and are pushing in hard, so don’t waste time. Get your ass in gear and get over here,”

Despite all that had happened that day, Twilight couldn’t keep the smirk off her lips. “Understood. Moving out now,”

It had only been one day, but this battle was far from over.