The Everfree Campaign

You’re going to die.

Overwatch jumped in shock at the voice. He had no idea somepony was in here with him. But wait, where was he? He glanced around, but all he could see was darkness. And then his training kicked in. He had to analyse the situation, and either find a way out of it or make it favorable to him. He assumed that he was indoors, because the last time he had checked it was daytime. He would have kept gathering information about wherever he was, but apparently he had a conversation to keep up. This being was clearly hostile, so maybe he could distract it…

“Try me.” he said, the words coming out far shakier than he had intended.

Do you really think any of you are getting out of this city? The unknown entity said, amused.

"Any of us? This city? What do you-”

Suddenly, Overwatch cut himself off as images began to flash around him. He looked around and saw innumerable golden spires, gleaming in the light from a beautiful sunset. He would have enjoyed the scenic image, if he didn’t see Equestrian Royal Guards everywhere. He examined the scene further, and saw that they were scrubbing away some sort of strange green splotches. One of them tripped over a severed head, causing Overwatch to giggle despite himself. Then, he froze. That was his head. That meant the splotches were--

Splat go the little bugs. He heard the voice giggle. He tried to pinpoint it’s location, but it seemed to come from everywhere at once. As he was trying to tell where the voice was coming from, he ended up twirling around, and a look of horror froze onto his face.

Oh, I see you’ve found your little queen. The voice teased. You really are a smart one. You know, after all this comes to pass, I might just spare you so I can keep you as a pet. You certainly seem like you could learn a lot of tricks.

Overwatch tried to come up with some sort of witty retort, but he was too transfixed by the sight before him. The Queen was lying on her back, gasping for breath. Her exoskeleton was scratched and torn open in a number of places, but most notably her underbelly. Overwatch could even still see her beating heart through all the blood and pus that was desperately trying to cover the wound. He held his breath as he realized a guard could see it too. He tried to close his eyes, to spare himself from witnessing what the guard would do, but it was too late. The guard thrust his spear straight up into the hole, and through the heart and spine, and the Queen collapsed, twitching.

“What do you want!?!” he screamed at nothing in particular, his voice barely audible through all of his crying.

What do I want? Oh, I already have what I want, my little Changeling.

The room-or wherever he was-became dark again. This time, though, he could see something. A blue Alicorn mare walked towards him slowly in full battle regalia, grinning maniacally.

Blood.

Overwatch snapped awake in a cold sweat to hear the sounds of collapsing buildings and hornfire, and he remembered exactly what he was doing, just as a small drone ran up to him.

“General Overwatch, sir! You’re awake! When that brick fell on your head I thought --- We need you to direct the forces attacking Canterlot’s South gate! Come with me!” the drone said quickly, nearly out of breath.

Unable to resist a small smile at the fact that it was only a dream, the general happily obliged.

He had a battle to win.

When he got to the city's South gate, he nearly gaped. It was, to put it lightly, heavily fortified. There were ramparts everywhere, with towers lining the approach, each containing two Combat Mages, one conjuring shields and the other raining all sorts of weaponized spells on the Changelings below. The pegasi swarmed around these very towers, easily gaining aerial superiority. Amidst all this, the ground had several tightly-packed combat formations of earth ponies, each of them looking strong enough to crush the skull of even the largest Changeling Soldier.

And he, out of all the generals on the War Council, got to bring it down.

He grinned.

These ponies may have had the upper hand in brute force, but not in intelligence or planning. Whereas this battle was actually a first contact scenario for the equines, Changeling infiltrators had been slowly creeping into their ranks for decades and acquired all the information any invading army needed to know about the defenses. That was actually how they even knew about this supposedly secret escape route. Some of the Swarmers fighting up in the skies may have caught a glimpse of it, but they were busy concentrating on not being killed.

As for what he knew about the defense forces, the pegasi had no ranged attacks when away from a cloud bank, so they would resort to slamming into whatever they wanted to kill at very high speeds. Fortunately, what the Swarmers lacked in speed they made up for in maneuverability, and the pegasi would never target anything on the ground because they were afraid of slamming into the ground. The Unicorns up on the towers had to alternate between one casting offensive spells and the other shielding the tower, and the Earth Ponies' formations only protected them from melee-oriented ground forces directly ahead of them, and even then only when it was unbroken. Any of the Changelings at his disposal capable of both flight and ranged attacks could eliminate them with little to no effort.

Speaking of which, how many Changelings were there for him to command? He looked around. There were a few isolated deployments of Soldiers and even a squad of Elites on the ground, but they were under fire from the Unicorns, so they were pinned down behind whatever cover they could find. The Elites sensed his presence and telepathically reported in, not knowing that he had already seen them. Then he looked up. There was a veritable army of Swarmers up there, using their exceptional maneuverability to evade the pegasi's mad dashes like it was nothing.

Overwatch scurried up to the top of a mound of nearby rubble and let loose a series of sharp clicks, which conveyed his strategy to the rest of the Changelings there. The ponies, not used to seeing a fully-fledged Changeling General in his full black and red armor, froze for a moment, perplexed at this new developement.

The Changelings made no such pause, and leapt into action immediately. The Swarmers began circling the top of each of the towers containing the Combat Mages at close range, which caused both mages in each pair to forego the shields in favor of rapid-fire energy blasts, succeeding in eliminating many of the Swarmers, but not enough. Once that happened, the aerial assailants quickly scattered just as the Pegasi attempted to ram them, hitting the towers instead, causing them to crash down on most of the Earth Ponies. The rest were thrown into disarray by the scattering of their formations, and were quickly mopped up by the Soldiers and Elites, who had taken the opportunity to charge. Soon, none of the equines remained alive.

Overwatch couldn't help but grin as he took the first step into the Castle, his troops following closely behind. Whoever that Alicorn was, she was wrong about today.

At least, he hoped she was.