Bound By Stars

///LOCATION - NLTT-512-3A/EQUESTRIA/CANTERLOT///TIME - 12:43 LMT///DATE - 20-05-2232///

"They have cleared the outer gate!"

"How?! There's no way they could have opened it! It had one of the most powerfull magical locks!"

"They just blew it up! The gate is gone! It's completely gone!"

"What do we do now?!"

"WE STAND OUR GROUND!" Solar Streak shouted.

Everyone went quiet. In the midst of the defensive line in front of the inner gate, Solar had stood up in an attempt to motivate his fellow guards. He knew that his Squad, aswell as others, were starting to doubt their chances against the invaders. He had to keep their spirits up, if they wanted to have any chance against the aliens that had now entered the outer layer of the city. Their chances of succesfully defending against a full frontal attack were close to none, but the Guards had one advantage: The home ground. They knew the exact layout of the city, every corner, every building, every tunnel.

With this in mind, Solar Streak ordered his Squad to move with him furter into the Outer City, in an attempt to ambush the approaching convoy that was still closing in. The convoy had slowed down when it had entered the city, due to the many structures, blockades and corners, but it was still going at a steady pace towards the Inner City and the Palace. Before entering the Outer City, Solar picked up a batch of explosives, which he believed to have a good use for.

Solar's Squad was an 7-unit strong team of combat-hardened Guards, all of which had their own role. There was Sgt. Moonlight Hunter, the Combat Medic, who uses magic to heal wounds and to stop ponies from bleeding to death. The heavy firepower was provided by Ltn. Orchid Jewel, the team's Automatic Riflemare, equipped with a MK-2 REMAR Automatic Rifle. Because of the heavy weight of this weapon, only an Earth-Pony could carry this saddle-mounted weapon.

The Squad also had a pair of Unicorn Shield-Casters, Sgt. Thunder Horn and 2nd Ltn. Little Note. Those two had excelled at magic during Guard-Training, and had therefore been assigned the roles of Shield-Casters, which required the ability to be extremely focussed, even in a combat situation. The team's Forward Observer, Sgt. Onyx Star, also excelled in his field, though it wasn't magic. Instead, his expertise was in flying stealthly, without being seen. He was nimble enough to fly trough streets and between buildings, but fast enough to fly into cover before he could be seen.

A Squad can't function properly without a connection to HQ. To make sure that Solar's Squad had good communications, Comms Expert Sgt. Hazelblossom was equipped with a Magic-Relay Morse-Code Transmitter and Receiver or MRMCTR, nicknamed Mermcater. This device was similiar to standard Morse-Code systems, though this was a more modern wireless version that used Message Relay Spells. The Squad was also permanently joined by Rocketeer Ltn. Flawless Mustang, who was an expert in Anti-Tank work. Lastly, there was ofcourse Cap. Solar Streak, the most experienced soldier of the bunch, with experience in the field against Changelings, Dragons, and he was even part in a peace-keeping mission near Appleloosa, where there was conflict between the Buffalos and the local civilians.

As they were trotting between the buildings, Solar Streak once again considered his plan. His first step would be to dig a hole in the road that the convoy was expected to pass, and to place the majority of the explosives in that hole, which could be triggered using a remote detonator. This would hopefully destroy atleast one of the vehicles, and stop the rest of the convoy, where the other vehicles would be easy targets for their bazookas and anti-tank grenades.

Trotting towards the chosen location, the team tries to stay hidden from the metal birds flying overhead. Those large alien things had already destroyed several Flak-Guns and AT-Cannons, crippling the front-line defense severly, and causing the lines to be disorganized. Exact casualty-numbers were uncertain, but they were still rising, and at that time, they were standing at roughly 110 dead, and atleast 347 injured. This rivaled the largest battle in Equestria's history, the 40-Year Pony-Dragon War. That war happened many years ago, when Equestria was still at a very low technological level, remeniscant of the Human Medieval Era.

Solar still remembered how much pony-kind had advanced these last few years. Machines, Steam Power, Electricity, Gunpowder, all of these things, developed in the span of just a decade. How was it possible? All of it had been invented by the Royal Equestrian Laboratory. But what gave them such a boost in technology? It didn't matter, he had other things to worry about. He could ask these things later. Ofcourse, that would require him to survive this, which was something he wasn't too sure was possible.

As he returned his focus to finding his way trough the city, another metal bird roared above them, but this time was different. It dropped something. Something long and metal-looking, with... wings? Fins? He wasn't sure what to call them. As he was looking, the object continued downwards towards the block of buildings infront of his Squad. As it reached the roof of one of the buildings, it went straight trough it, erupting in an incredible flash just a tenth of a second afterwards. A shockwave knocked his Squad of their hooves, as it sent them flying back a few feet. The only Squad-Member who was still standing up, was Orchid Jewel with her Automatic Rifle.

Looking back up, Solar saw that the entire block of buildings had been completely destroyed, with just a few stone walls still standing. Fragments of buildings and furniture began raining down from the sky. Shards of glass and splinters of wood poured down onto the Squad, Showering them with debris. Solar quickly ordered his Squad to get into cover, to avoid being hit by falling rubble. The Squad dispersed, with everyone still in good enough shape to run. Nopony had really been injured aside from some scrapes and bruises.

"Okay, I guess that was a bomb then!" said Solar to Onyx.

"Yeah, apparantly." replied the somewhat shaken Pegasus. As they were talking, they heard the sound of more rapid firing in the sky, similiar to the sound they had heard when some bulkier metal birds flew over. Onyx and Solar looked outside, and as they did, saw a Pegasus fall out of the sky, crashing into the ground just in front of them at a bone-shattering speed. They could hear the Pegasus's bones break, making a horrifying crunching sound. The mare just layed there. She didn't move a muscle, if she even had any muscles left.

Moonlight Hunter quickly dashed outside towards the wounded mare, causing the other Squad-Members to immediatly react by securing the perimeter around him. He looked for her dogtags, but they were melted beyond recognition. He quickly checked the mare for any wounds, and he was quick to find a large chunck of her side missing, aswell as noticing her completely burnt-up wings, with some feathers still smouldering, emminating an ominous red glow. Moonlight focused his magic on the mare's wings, extinguishing them, and providing some relief in her ocean of pain and horror.

Moonlight did all he could, but it was to no avail. Even after almost 15-minutes of non-stop magic and conventional healing-procedures, the mare's condition was still deteriorating. He knew she was in severe pain, and he knew he couldn't heal her up. Nopony could. So, he did the only right thing to do in this situation.

*BANG*

The mare fell limp. Her eyes, still open, no longer showed any sign of life, her face not revealing the slightest hint of emotion. When he signed up, Moonlight knew he would see horrible things. That he would experience things nopony should ever witness. Yet here he was. He had no other choice. The unknown mare, resting now in Faust's eternal grace, finally received her well-deserved rest. He began to quietly cry, still holding the mare in his hooves, as a soft snowflake gently landed on the tip of his muzzle.

The cold feeling made him look up, staring in wonder at the sky. It was snowing, which was odd for the time of year. It was summer, not winter. As the haze of sadness began to leave his mind, he began to notice the drop in temperature of the air around him. It was practically freezing. In fact, he could see the frost on the windows, or rather, the shards of glass that remained in their frame after the bombs shockwave had shattered all panes of glass for miles.

"What the... Is it just me, or did the seasons just change?" asked Solar in confusion, as he too was staring into the dark clouds above them. No-one had noticed the build-up of clouds, and now, it was covering the sky in its entirety. "I don't know what's going on, but we still have a mission to complete! Moonlight, she's dead. We have to go. Hazelblossom will report her location to the base, so they can send a recovery-team, but we can't wait for them! Those vehicles have to be stopped, no matter the cost!"

"U-u-understood, Squad Leader." Answered Moonlight, still heavily shaken up. As the team began to trot on, he looked back one last time towards the downed Pegasus, and whispered.

"I'm sorry..."

The Squad had safely made their way to the target-area, with only a few more fly-by's from those metal birds, which someone noticed had numbers on them. Ever since that encounter with a bomb, every time one of those things flew over, the entire Squad would dive into a building, where they would lie down, as to prevent being hit with shrapnel, incase another one of those bombs was released upon them. Fotrunatly for them, no more explosives had gone of in their proximity, and no more Pegasi had fallen out of the sky, atleast not as far as they were aware.

After his Squad had taken position in some of the buildings on both sides of the street, aswell as a building at the end of it, Solar walked down towards the road, where he took the bag of explosives from his saddle. Checking the logs, he read that he was carrying around 20 pounds of C4, enough to breach a door, and demolish the house that is attached to at the same time. The plan would be to dig a hole in the ground in the middle of the road, and to place all of the explosives into it. They didn't know how strong the armor was of those vehicles, but he had heard rumours that they could survive a direct impact from an artillery-shell, so he didn't think using a 20-pound satchel was overkill.

Especially not after what they had done to his fellow Guards.

It took him a few minutes to remove the bricks from the road, and to then dig a hole underneath it. He was lucky that the Outer-City didn't have as good infrastructure as the Inner-City, but it was tough nonetheless. When he was done, one could barely see that someone had tampered with the road, with the only noticeable hint of an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) being the thin wire that stuck out from the side of the road, leading to a 2-story building besides it, which was connected to a detonator, held by none other than Solar himself.

A faint rumble could be heard, swelling up in volume as the convoy entered the street, some 200 meters away from the IED, and aproaching quite rapidly. "Get ready. As soon as I detonate this thing, you are free to engage. Remember to switch cover after every few shots, and NEVER poke your head over the same ledge twice, unless you want it blown off!" yelled Solar to his Squad. He was ready to blow the enemies to pieces, just like they did with their own.

The convoy kept racing trough the street, and was now 150 meters away. 125 meters. 100 meters. 75 meters. 50. 25...

*BOOOM*

The ground shook, windows were shattered alltroughout the street, and the leading vehicle of the convoy had been totalled. Some enemies made it out of the burning wreckage, running around ablaze, trying to extinguish the fire. As the rest of the convoy slid to a halt, the Marines rolled in the snow in an attempt to stop the burning, but it didn't work. They were burnt alive. All of them. The rear-doors of the other vehicles opened, turrets flung from side to side in search of threats, and Marines rushed out to attend to and retrieve the other Marines. Solar saw his oppertunity.

"NOW!" he yelled. As soon as the word left his mouth, guns went off from all sides, engulfing the street in hot lead, critically injuring another 4 Marines.

"WHAT THE HELL?!"

"ESPERS, UP FRONT, NOW!"

"GET THOSE SHIELDS UP!"

It was chaos. Turrets opened fire on anything that moved in the buildings, Marines rushed to cover, Esper's activated their shields to cover the medics who were dragging the wounded back inside, and Solar's Squad kept up their fire. It seemed the plan had worked. Solar was confident that they would win this, but as soon as he said that out loud, his Comms-Expert, Sgt. Hazelblossom, was hit in the left shoulder, cutting off a decent piece of flesh, and exposing the foreleg's bone to the cold and snowy air.

"MOONLIGHT, GET UP HERE! HAZELBLOSSOM IS HIT!"

"ON IT!" he heard from downstairs. Moonlight had stopped firing, but as soon as he popped up from his position to run upstairs, he was pinned down by automatic fire from the AVT-5's ForestKing Cannon. He had no way to move.

"COME ON MOONLIGHT, SHE'S BLEEDING TO DEATH!"

"I CAN'T! I'M BEING PINNED DOWN!"

"DAMNIT! I'M NOT LETTING ANOTHER PONY DIE TODAY! STOP FIRING! EVERYONE!"

"WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO?!"

"TRUST ME! I GOT THIS!"

Following Solar's command, the Squad seized firing, much to the confusion of both the Squad-Members and the Marines in the streets. Shortly afterwards, a white rag was levitated out of a window, which caught the attention of the Marines. They aimed their rifle at it, expecting it to explode, for some reason. They were confused, but then, out of one of the building came Solar Streak. He slowly walked outside, parallel to the Marines, who looked at him, wondering what he was doing.

As Solar reached the middle of the road, he stopped, and turned to face the convoy and Marines, who had their eyes and guns aimed at him. As he turned towards them, the Marines saw that he was holding, or levitating, a rifle. One of the Marines didn't hestitate, and shot at Solar. The round never reached him. Instead, it was stopped roughly a meter from his face, by one of the Shield-Casters, hiding in the building next to him. All the Marines stared at Solar, and Solar stared back.

Then, he dropped his gun.

The Marines lowered their weapons.

The snow stopped.