Equestria 2150

Night fell more quickly than Razgriz would have liked. Now was the time to start preparations for the second attack. The tired general sat down in the open hatch seat of his tank, not wanting to have to stay cooped up in his tank while they headed for Appleloosa.

“Hey, Razgriz!” He heard Jelly Bean calling out to him.

“Hey.” Razgriz answered in a mutter.

“The air force is ready to move out. The bombers won’t be in it, and the escorts will be flying at altitude increments to avoid any surprises. They’ll be flying in VTOL formation. Anything I left out?”

“Nope. Sounds good.”

“Alright. How about we hang out once we move all the bombers to the new airfield?”

Razgriz did not reply.

“I’ll catch you later.” Jelly Bean trotted off.

Razgriz drove his tank to meet up with the convoy. With the signal from Luna, the advance started, and they took off through the Everfree toward Appleloosa.

A solid hour of driving will bore anypony. The general was trying not to fall asleep, as the sleep schedule was shifted for all the ponies at this point. Razgriz rubbed his eyes, yawning as he looked into the woods.

A shadow moved up ahead. It looked, and sounded, big, cracking fallen branches and stirring up debris as it moved. Razgriz ordered a silent halt for the whole convoy, grumbling to himself.

The column slowly came to a stop. Razgriz kept his eyes wide open, trying to figure out what the figure was. Was it an animal? Bears weren’t uncommon in the forest.

“Everypony, power down their tanks and go silent. Be on the lookout for enemies.” Razgriz ordered.

Within a minute the noise of engines stopped. All the tanks settled onto the ground, and Razgriz’s ears gave the area his full attention. Movement, ponies speaking- nothing unusual. That was when he heard it. It was a slight chatter, breaking twigs, and then hushed voices.

“All tanks power up! Ambush!” Razgriz yelled.

Just as he spoke, the tank behind Razgriz exploded in flames. The forest was briefly lit up in a flash of fire, and the saw the troops in front of him, less than a hundred meters away.

Razgriz closed his hatch, turned his tank on and loaded a magic shell. He aimed at what he thought was a group of ponies huddled behind a tank and fired. Another fire ball engulfed the ponies standing near their cover, and they went running.

“Yeah!” Razgriz yelled. “All tanks in the column follow me to the right in line formation. Engage as you go. We need to flank them!”

Razgriz lead the column at high speed through the difficult woods, dodging trees in the darkness and trying not to break the barrel of his tank. FWOOM! The sound of a rocket flew over Razgriz’s tank. He looked in the direction of the shot, and a bipedal tank was crashing through trees toward him. This one was huge. It was taller, and had a bigger command cab. In the moonlight the general could make out a marking on the tank- a film reel and scissors. Odd thing to put on a tank, Razgriz thought.

“Alpha two, take over as column leader and get our boys out of here! I’ll take on this one!”

“Roger that Alpha one! Breaking off from you, good luck!”

Razgriz spun his tank around and slid it sideways to fit through some trees. All the while the bipedal tank continued to charge through the tree line to get to its target. The general fired a shot at the tank, but it was shrugged off. He tried again and that shot missed. The enemy fired several rockets toward Razgriz in retaliation, and he was hit not once, but twice. Both shots hit the frontal armor of his hover tank, and the alert indicator said he had lost some hover power.

“Damn! Alpha six and seven, break off from the column and assist me!”

“Got you, boss! Alpha seven on me!” Alpha Six said. The two tanks charged the Solar Empire tank from the side, firing as they went. The tank stopped in place and turned its turret toward the two tanks coming to Razgriz’s aid. It shot a spray of rockets. They all hit, blowing them up.

“Lunar home base, we’re under attack! Do you read me?” Razgriz said, his voice shaky with fear. “Lunar Base this is Razgriz, we are being ambushed, I repeat…”

BOOM.

Another rocket had hit Razgriz’s tank, this time taking a chunk of armor out of the turret.

“Oh, you wanna play? Let’s play, then.” Razgriz said out loud, just to himself. He kicked his tank into gear, and started an advance toward the enemy tank. The two tanks charged at high speed toward each other, firing as they went. Playing a game of chicken, they were only fifty meters away from one another. They got closer and closer and just before they collided, Razgriz spun around and hit the gas to slow down, switching his tank off. The Solar Empire tank tripped over his and went for a tumble.

Razgriz yelled in celebration, only to have his hopes crushed as quickly as they arose. The Solar empire tank had managed to stand back up. It fired a rocket at Razgriz, and it struck home.

Shrapnel sprayed the alicorn inside of his tank, ripping everything apart. Razgriz was barely able to throw up a protection spell around him. The tank caught fire and exploded, sending Razgriz skyward. He recovered in midair and started flying at the tank at full speed.

The determined alicorn dodged a few rockets launched at him in desperation, and started to charge a spell. He went to fire it at the tank, but it blew up in his face. He was sent into the ground from a magic spell failure.

Razgriz was on the ground, stunned. He looked up at the sky, expecting a swift death. The hatch of the tank opened up and something was speaking.

“Oh, dear Luna, this will not end nicely.”

Razgriz heard the trotting of the pony walking over to finish him off. He saw a brown pony walking closer, looking down at the wounded alicorn. He did not speak.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” Razgriz snarled, his voice more angry than afraid.

The brown pony lifted his head high, his eyes hooded, and turned to walk away.

“Hey! What the hell was that?” Razgriz yelled, but it was if the pony was deaf. His cutie mark was the same as the mark on the tank. Razgriz stumbled to his feet, groaning from the paint.

“Why don’t you just me?”

The stranger stopped.

“I don’t kill a pony that can’t fight.”

Razgriz wanted to hear more, but his wounds demanded he rest. It seemed like his leg was broken. The exhausted, bleeding general returned to his tank, and started to run to where there was sound of fighting from the convoy he had left.

It took only a few minutes before two tanks from the Lunar Army showed up. They were two tanks from Bravo Battalion, and the crew of each helped Razgriz into the second tank. They transported the general back to the home base for medical help. They could not have known that soon, he would not be the only one.