The Melding of Two Worlds Pt. 1: The Battle for Ponyville

Celestia

Canterlot was in ruins. This once great city, had been utterly devastated by the war that had been brought to our doorstep. The great parks I commissioned once held unparalleled pony-made beauty in plant life and water. Couples would go through them on romantic picnics, walks, and even some of their more leud acts, where they thought nopony could see them. The grass and earth was uprooted in ugly piles, now dominated by small pockets of friendly soldiers waiting for the enemy to come, hiding behind their pitiful cover in craters and behind dirt hills, further protected by dirt smudged sandbags to reinforce their position, if only slightly.

The great buildings built through the ages had been the pinnacle of our knowledge in magic and technology, stretching to the sky in wondrous shapes and sizes. Even the cramped, less impressive buildings that made up the residential and business sectors were still colorful and widely varied, until you came to the snobbishly rich ponies that made up the "elite". They made their homes exactly the same, prepared their food the same. Never mind that they had they had the money to get access to the most imaginative ponies in the country, they had to have the EXACT SAME THING built right next to each other. Before the war, it had looked like a blight to my old eyes, the sameness of everything the cause of it. To be honest now, though? It didn't sway me to think of it as beauty, or ugly. But the rest, where the common pony lived and did business? A complete and utter travesty. The first day of the bombings had caught half of the buildings on fire. The rest had been thoroughly reduced to rubble, which my army, freshly trained in this new warfare, and the Chestian army managed to rebuild into tough defenses.

Not before the evacuations, however. The moment the first bomber was spotted from the East, the civilians were hurriedly rushed to the trains, and sent to the other side of the continent to be brought into refugee camps, and Chestian volunteer "Haven" houses, which took in families of ponies into their own homes. I knew that they all made it safely, and that was all I really needed to know. My little ponies were safe from danger. Well, at least most of them.

I still had my Royal Guard, Day Guard, and Lulu's Night Guard here, ready to fight with weapons I wish they'd had more time to gain proficiency in. They numbered at exactly 31,402 stallions and mares, and were evenly distributed to accompany at least one Chestian unit. The Chestians were playing multiple roles, which made my head spin to think of how they managed to accomplish this feat. Namely, they pretty much baby-sat our units through urban warfare, took the forefront of the front lines, and provided all of our intelligence without fail, without mistake, and I had no idea how they managed it.

I looked at my city from one of the few still intact highrise balconies. Fires still smoldered in some of the furthest reaches, but I could feel at least a little at ease knowing that we'd managed to repel another one of the Federation attacks, and that thanks to the Europeans largely fighting between each other over the "rights" to our land, that only one faction actually managed to land it's soldiers. I could only imagine the devastation that several armies would do to us.

I also took solace knowing that our unicorns were easily making their ways around the city to extinguish such blazes, and that the snow gave some protection against the fires. However, it was most unexpected when they came. The human soldiers were not at all surprised with seeing such weather occur all on it's own. I asked one of the human generals and officers about this, and they all were in agreement. Weather, to them, was controlled by itself. One of them testified that weather was a result of uneven heating and cooling of the Earth, forming Cool and Warm air fronts. When I had asked him about this, he explained that he had aspired to be a meteorologist (somep-...someone who studies weather) when he was a kid. At my request, they had even airdropped weather towers that would help show us where clouds were, and other weather machines to help predict the coming weather. To my disappointment, to provide a wider, and thus more accurate prediction of weather to come, it would require many more stations, which was obviously impossible at the moment.

I was brought out of my reflection as a sharp *zip* sound came buzzing to my ears, and a bullet halting itself right in front of my face, pointing ever so slightly upwards. Good thing I have my protective barrier for such things. Having been given a demonstration of how human weapons work, and how deadly they were, I decided to strengthen my defensive spells to absolve these threats to me. Unfortunately, such as the spell was now, it takes a very intelligent, and very powerful spellcaster to use it. Therefore, it was limited to me, Lulu, and Cadence. Though I suspect Twilight could decipher the intricacies of it. All she needed was time to do it.

I sighed, and took the now misshapen piece of copper and lead into the holds of my magic, and went back inside the castle. The castle itself was mostly intact, seeing as much of the castle was practically as ancient as I was, and was thus layered thickly with protective spells of many different strengths and calibers. It was only the open areas and newly added sections that were devoid of the matrix of spells. Somehow, it had slipped my mind to add these spells to them. Thus, only a few of the towers, and their balconies, remained. Mostly due to my haste to provide the structural defense spells to them after the first tower had collapsed from a direct hit from a bomb. Fortunately, nobody died from it, but it took a very long time to add the necessary spells, thus I couldn't save very many towers.

I passed by the threshold into the tower, and past the two soldiers standing by waiting for me. One of them was dressed in the Equestrian combat uniform, a sort of ugly uniform consisting of a smooth mixture of dark brown and green under what the humans called a trench coat, which was an even duller grey. Though, if I thought about it, would help hide my pony-now-human guard when he had to venture into the horrors of war in the city. He was also wearing a metal helmet provided by our Chestian allies, which had, as all others, been given a mild protection against incoming projectiles. It was just strong enough to, working with the helmet itself, deflect the standard bullet caliber used by the enemy. This was Private Valiant Heart, a fresh addition, yet just as dedicated, to the royal guard. So fresh, his training existed mostly in the foreign and rushed training for the modern military. He'd been picked to guard me purely out of random.

The other guard was undoubtedly a human. All ponies in human forms had one trait in common, their wide ranges of skin and hair color. Humans always had the same white, black, or mix thereof, skin and a mix of blond, red, brown and black hair. This man was white, and had a shaved head of ginger red hair. The other telltale sign he was human, was his uniform of the Chestian Marine Corps.

This uniform was designed quite oddly. It was no different than any other normal uniform (i.e normal pants and jacket) They looked much like the patterns used for our own camouflage for the forestry, however the edges of said camo colors were given many small 90o angles that worked like steps until they came together with the opposing side of the line that had looped around the other way to join the other end. When I'd asked him about this, he'd simply said it had something to do with making it easier to hide at a distance from other eyes, but other than that, he didn't really care.
Said man's name was Matteo [Mah-t-eh-oh] McBride. He was a Private, though he had an impressive service record, having survived through countless missions against well armed pirates and criminal gangs.

At first, I thought that his track record had been the reason he had been assigned to protect me. But that was only a part of it. Back on the continent of America, inside of Chestia, he had been gathered with many other candidates for the task, and had been given a test during PT, or Physical Training. Said test startled me. The observing officer had tossed a dummy grenade into the fray of soldiers, trying to see if how many of them would dive for the grenade to "save" the men near them. Only a two of the few dozen had gone after it. The other soldier, Frank Fitzsimmons, was now guarding my sister with her hoofpicked Night Guard, whose name I couldn't remember.

I'd been given a demonstration of what a grenade could do, and it scared the daylights out of me! It had been tossed inside what a sandbag machine gun position would be in the field, and had watched as the straw soldiers inside had been thrown into the air in pieces, and the sandbags violently shoved outwards, though not as quickly as the straw men. Truly, Private McBride and Private Fitzsimmons were truly selfless people.

I tossed the mangled bit of bullet into the small cup across the room, bouncing off the inside wall of the cup, and walked over towards the stairs.

"That sniper took a shot at you again?" Matteo asked with a knowing look.

"Indeed he did." Every day I looked over the city, and every day, I'd be shot at from the exact same location, without fail.

"He's lucky that we don't have any counter-snipers, or he'd be dead by now." He continued.

I wonder what makes him think so highly of his own snipers skill, and how they might find the sniper so quickly. However, I didn't need to ask him. Valiant did for me.

"What makes you say that?"

Matteo tapped his metal helmet, the weak thuds echoing down the stairs, "Think about it. He shoots from the exact same location. Day after day. That means, our snipers would be able see the muzzle flash from the shot, and the reflection of the light off of his scope."

"Wouldn't your guys get spotted too?" I asked, "From the muzzle flash, and before that from the light reflection?"

By now, I'd passed him by, and was slowly walking down another set of stairs, "Nope. Our lens are polarized, which prevents a glare. So unless they make themselves easy and plain to see, it would practically be impossible to find them. The muzzle flash would only be enough to catch the eye momentarily to an eye that isn't particularly paying attention. All the sniper would have to worry about is retreating from the scene without being to obvious."

He certainly knows a lot about this topic. I wonder how? Could he have been wanting to be a sniper himself? I voiced my curiosity, but he managed to surprise me by laughing.

"What's so funny? She asked you a serious question." Valiant demanded to know. I will never get over how highly my ponies held me in their hearts. At times, it was endearing. However, at times it was annoying. They often demanded respect towards me from foreigners, where none was expected from me, or even wanted.

This didn't phase Matteo, as he tried to reel in his laughter, "I don't have nearly the amount of patience that a sniper needs! Hehe, no. It's just that when I had been stuck on the truck ride over here, the guy next to me wouldn't shut up about anything to do with being a sniper. Guy's a kind of endearing a**hole, if you ask me."

His little explanation made me smile. I too, understood how you tend to remember things from ponies who don't know how to be quiet about a particular subject. I just never had the heart to tell the other pony that I either didn't care or that they were being annoying, and just smiled back at them. He must've had a similar reaction with this sniper.

"So what did you want to be? In the military, I mean." Valiant asked.

"Well, I kinda wanted to be a tanker. But no one has known how to build them since the first half of the 21st century. So the next best choice was infantry, since there's such a need for them."

I had already been given the rundown of how the humans measured years in their time structure, to know that they first separated the years into 2 groups. All on the approximate date of birth of a religious figure. The larger the number, the further in time from either direction of this figures' birth. They counted the century of his birth the First century, and this one, the 22nd. Somehow, it still surprised me when Valiant asked him what century this one was. I swear, he was in the room at the time. Maybe I'm thinking of another guard. Oh age, how you play with me. Matteo gave the expected answer, and we continued along in relative silence, only broken by the cloppings from my hooves, and the thuds of boots slapping across the stone floor. Hmm, I would've expected Valiant to ask further to how humans came that number. I guess he came to his own conclusion.

The silence continued until we made it downstairs to one of the many hallways, and followed the path that would take us to the Planning Room, where Lulu was still drawing up battle plans for the future. We came to the great doors of dark, old oak wood. My guards kindly muscled them open for me, something which they did every time, without me asking. Private McBride always led Valiant into pushing it open. This never ceased to puzzle me. My ponies lived such a peaceful, and kind livelihood compared to Matteo's peoples' violent, and deadly one. In every human and humanoid anthropomorphic I had seen, they had seemed driven by an unstoppable compulsion to be kind in small ways as if it was by nature, such as holding open doors for others. However, this compulsion was only seen in those small ways. They would rarely go out of their way to sacrifice of themselves.

Compare them to how many of the ponies would act, the kindness that my ponies would apply seemed nearly fake, stuttered, or an afterthought. However, I did see that personal sacrifices seemed to be more common among us. I'd observed this for quite some time, but I wouldn't dare ask this to Matteo, or any other Chestian. I feared I would insult them, which is the last thing I would ever want to do.

Inside the Planning room was a table about the size of a standard door with many maps sprawled across it, Luna, and most of the generals and high ranking officers of the Chestian military. They were all arguing over where to put Luna's Guard.

"For the last time, get over your superiority complex, and actually put your troops to some use! My side can't front enough soldiers to cover everything! We need your troops to help bolster the perimeter, or when they attack, they WILL manage to get into the city!" That was Colonel Whitehall. He was an old, but very respectable man. His specific race was Catsian. So naturally he was covered in fur, which made it difficult to know his age if you weren't used to the anthropomorphic people. In the military, it was and is quite common for the leaders to stay to the rear, where little fighting actually occurred, but Colonel Whitehall went straight into the thick of every fight he could, opting to sleep in the cold, filthy, and unpleasant outside with his men, than stay inside with where he could stay warm and comfortable.

I knew this argument. The Chestians have been getting more and more insistent about Luna fielding her troops by the day. Every morning, I would hear them bicker about it. I'd already fielded both the Day and the Royal Guard as well as I could with the cooperation in integrating our units from the Chestians. In fact, I'd say that they'd learned exceptionally well considering how little time they had to learn. But Luna always resisted. She always wanted her troops to stay well away from the front lines and more centered around the castle. In one of her arguments, she even tried to say that with the Royal and Day Guard on the lines, that somepony needed to stay and patrol the streets and guard the castle. Everypony and everyone knew how much of a lie that had been. The streets and city was deserted when the enemy soldiers came in sight, fleeing overseas. And the castle? There was an entire army doing that. The Chestians had brought this up, only to largely ignored.

"Then pray tell, what have thou down so far?! Every attack the enemy has launched, thy men repelled." Luna said defensively. But I knew her. I knew that tone of voice. She was deflecting from the real reason she wanted to keep her soldiers back.

"Yes, but only just so. OUR troops are extremely tired, and the casualties exist only of OUR men. The troops will start feeling as though you don't really appreciate us fighting and dying for your people. In fact, I believe they might already. You might see us as great warriors who may be impossible to defeat, but we are beginning to break. It is only a matter of time." This was from Brigadier General Mark Hallen, a human with dark black skin.

A younger man, a Lieutenant I didn't know the name of, spoke up, "And when we do break without your help, one way or the other, you'll be left with STILL inexperienced troops, who will be fighting against hardened troops. Those Europeans have been fighting a lot over the past few decades, so they know their way around a fight. Your troops don't. If they get in, it'll be a slaughter for anyone who provides any resistance."

I can visibly see Luna begin to worry, and debate the touchy reasoning in her mind. I knew what it was about, and why. She was trying to figure out which option was the least costly to pony lives. On one hoof, ponies would be entering combat and dying while fighting to repel the invaders for an unknown amount of time. On the other hoof, in her hopes was a bad chance at occurring, when the break of Chestian troops came, her troops would be outright slaughtered. She remembered when she had been Nightmare Moon, and how she regretted hurting so many ponies.

Time for some sisterly advice. I bolstered up my breath to speak, "Luna, I know you still remember Nightmare Moon, and what happened. But you truly need to let go. That was over a thousand years ago. It is at this point that we don't adjust ourselves to the new world we inhabit, someponies will die in the process to make sure that we are all able to live happily in the future. Luna, please?"

Luna looked as though she was about to cry, "I just... don't want to get anypony else killed." Her voice wavered, teetering on the brink of crying. The Chestians no doubt could hear it, in fact they all seemed to visibly look confused and concerned.

Colonel Whitehall broke the ensuing silence, "Unfortunately, we have all found ourselves in the position of telling where our troops go to die. That is the nature of our job. Us," he beckoned to his fellow Chestians, "from our ranks as officers, and you, as a ruler of your kingdom. For the rest of time, our goal is to find victory with the fewest casualties. All we can do afterwords, is honor our dead, and further our attempts at being better commanders." Philosophical are we now?

Luna's face broke from her near fit of tears, to one of solemn acceptance, "I see." She took in a deep breath, and for the first time, truly evaluated the map for where she should place her soldiers. She took particular interest towards the North Eastern side of the city walls, where we knew that the enemy was building their mass of troops behind.

"I believe it would be wise to reinforce this section of the city. While we may have positioned our troops more densely here, we should add more in the case that they attack en mass." Not exactly what I would-, "However, only a portion shall do this. The rest should be positioned around the other gates, our most vulnerable points in the city." ... I stand corrected.

The Chestian officers all let go pent up breaths that I didn't know that they had been holding, weak smiles abound. One of them even muttered, "Thank God." I'd heard the men say this many times before, but I could never get a straight answer about who God was. As far as I could gather from the brief utterances, I would say that this God was a deity of theirs.

Our revelry was interrupted by a small burst of dark green flames, which delivered to us a scroll bound by a purple ribbon, the sign that the changeling hierarchy employed. I had been in contact with Thorax, the changeling King, for a while now, discussing the many intricacies of his difficulties involving training an extremely reluctant nation that had just surrendered its' violent past to the past.

Dear Princess Celestia,
I have wonderful news! We have now trained a full Division of Infantry, Engineers, Snipers, and Infiltration units, which are now currently on route to aid the soldiers stationed at Ponyville, and once they have repelled the enemy, they shall continue further to help relieve you in Canterlot. I would ask of you to please convince the Chestian Militia stationed there to aid us in your relief.
Furthermore, we have another two Divisions nearly ready, with another beginning to develop.

Sincerely,
King Thorax

I had read this aloud, and when I looked up from the fresh parchment, I saw smiles all around, especially among the guards in the room. Now how large was a Division again? I wish that we had the same names for our unit sizes as we shared the same language.

I looked to General Hallen, "How large was a Division again? I'm afraid that I am not well versed in the military's linguistics."

He didn't even look at me as he smiled at his fellow officers, "A whole 15,000 men! That will be more than enough to turn the tide of the battle. With the Battalion of New York City and Texan Militia, we are sure to see Equestria free, and the war across the sea ended."

"Truly?" Luna asked, with all the hope in the world gathered into that one word.

"As sure as the grass is green."