Author's Note

Quick note: This chapter contains some excessive blood shed, more profanity than usual, and just over all decimation of the changeling army. If you don't like reading about changelings getting shot to shit, this chapter likely isn't for you.

Also, I'm more than likely going to be creating a story thats a collection of alternate endings for certain chapters to this story, starting with the alternate ending to this chapter. I would like some input on this from you guys.

The second defense of canterlot

2 days later
Just outside the main gates of canterlot castle.
12:41 PM

Silver POV

This was it. Another changeling attack on canterlot was about to happen. Captain armors scouts had reported back half an hour ago saying that two extremely large changeling swarms were spotted rapidly approaching canterlot from the south and were less than 20 minutes away. Dakota and his friend sterling were almost prepared. Something had happened with a large box in the back of the truck he had initially arrived in equestria which now allowed him to pull out anything he wanted to so long as it could fit. Something similar had happened to the box that he had stored the ammo for his large cannon so whenever it was empty, all he had to do was close it and leave it closed for a few seconds and it would be fully restocked.

Scene music

Currently they were putting on these big bulky suits of armor from their world that could stop the projectiles that their weapons fired. They gave me some training on how to operate their guns as they called em and told me that I would hold the gate with captain armor and a few other guards that under went the same training while they charged head on into their ranks to inflict as much damage as possible. Captain armor was posted up in the wall in a peep hole with one of the rifles that dakota gave him to use for when the changelings eventually came up the road. The shield that was up around the city now had a magic suppression barrier that disables any and all changeling magic and heavily suppresses flight magic but many unicorns had volunteered to help keep it up during the attack. They stood very little chance of victory at the moment. Many roads were blocked off to try and funnel them all down the main road towards the main gates where we would be. Most if not all ponies in canterlot decided to evacuate while the rest that stayed in the city were told to head to the castle since that would be the safest place to be since it was locked up tight at the moment. Once they got close, some gaps would open up in the shield but the suppression barrier would still be actively in place, making most changelings fall to their deaths if they were too high up.

"We look exactly like proper juggernauts right now."

"You're telling me. Never before have I felt so powerful."

Both of them were talking about their suits right now. They still had their helmets and neck peices off and their weapons were not loaded right now either. I'm not sure what they meant by the term "Juggernaut" but I'm guessing it has to do with the suits of armor they were wearing and the juggernaut part having to do with some sort of miltary from their world.

"Hey! the swarms are less than 5 minutes away! get ready for their attack!" A runner had come running up the road reporting that the two swarms were rapidly approaching. I got back in the rear of dakota's truck and got on the machine gun like he told me to and got it ready. The two of them put their helmets and neck pieces back on and loaded their weapons. I could see the swarms approaching over the horizon now, merging to become one truly massive swarm. There is no doubt that queen chrysalis was with her army again. The gaps were opened up as planned and they took the opportunity to fly through, only to fall rapidly. The ones that were coming up the road tried to fire some sort of magic but failed.

Cha-chunk, Cha-chunk

"This is it. You ready to make history?"

"Damn right I am. Let's fucking do this!"

I could barely tell which one of them was which now with that weird armor on and both being virtually the same height.

"Silver, We're firing the heavy gun. We're gonna advance down the street and try to push them back out of the city. Watch your fire if you see one of us. These suits may stop bullets, but not one fired from that gun." Dakota said. At least the suits didn't alter their voices.

"Firing heavy artillery! Cover your ears!" Dakota shouted. He yanked a cord and fired the huge cannon. The shockwave from it firing still hit me hard and nearly knocked me over. As the dust cleared, I saw the large shell impact down range, taking out a large group of changelings.

"Let's go! We're gonna bring the fight to them, And were gonna make every bullet count!" Dakota shouted as the two of them took off down the road.

Dakota POV

Running as fast as you could in a full suit of body armor that weighed little over 165 pounds and could probably stop 338 lapua rounds from far away, Me and sterling were now running down the road to meet the changeling army head on. With our M240B and PKM machine guns in hand, they were now coming up the main road, coming right at us. Depending on where the fighting took us, Some vehicles were put in key locations around canterlot in case we need to make a quick getaway.

"Wait until they're at least 200 feet away, then we'll gun em down." I said. Our helmets had radio's built in to them to make communications a bit easier because trying to talk while wearing all this armor would probably be hard considering how much was on and around our heads alone at the moment.

"They're in range, Light em up!" I said.

We both raised up our guns and opened fire, mowing down the changelings that were charging at us.

"I told you, You'd die!" Aside from the bullets we were firing at them, shouting insults and other things as loud as we could to taunt and mock the changelings was something else we did as well.

The few Sniper's on the walls that we trained were providing some help but not too much to really make a difference that we could notice. Besides, 2 days worth of training Isn't going to be much anyways.

"Keep moving forward! We gotta push em back as much as possible! These ponies are depending on us!" I shouted.

"I know! It'll be our heads as well if we fail and they overrun them back at the castle!" Sterling shouted back.

"Overlapping fields of fire! Don't give them a chance to get close!" They were getting desperate to try and get close enough to stop us and it was showing. Despite the fact they couldn't fly higher than 10 feet, they could still fly relatively fast. Any changelings that were doing this were prioritized and quickly shot down.

"Come on! Who the fuck wants a piece of us!? You're nothing compared to us!"

The attack was going perfectly as planned, when suddenly-

Click

"Oh fuck! My gun jammed!"

"What!? Of all times, Fucking now!?"

"Shut up! Shut the fuck up! Keep em off of us!"

I started clearing the jam but the barrel was pretty hot but i could still fire it after it cooled to a reasonable temperature. I clearly wasn't going to be firing my PKM again anytime soon until it cooled down enough. I held the gun in my left hand while I drew my glock with the right. I don't know what it was the bottomless stuff in this place, but It had affected our magazines as well. Whenever a clip would run out with my glock, all I had to do was close the slide and it would be ready to fire again. Similar to my PKM which I couldn't use right now except that had a truly bottomless magazine, I would never have to reload it and the mag would never run truly empty. We kept moving forward, slowly but surely.

It was hot as hell in these suits of armor but at least I knew it would keep me safe from whatever these changelings had. We kept advancing to the point they were practically on top of us now. Some of them had melee weapons such as swords and daggers but what are those gonna do against layers of kevlar and hard armor plates? Nothing, that's what.

"It's gonna be hot where all you fucks are going!"

One changeling had actually gotten really close to me and nearly collided with me. I had quickly shot him down and smacked him with my PKM. it was cool enough to use again and so I continued my hail of 7.62X39MM ammunition into the changeling ranks. We had to resort to hitting some of them with the butts of our guns since they had gotten so close to us. I admired the attempt of them to try and bring us down with swords, spears, and daggers, but they just werent going to do anything against suits of kevlar and steel plates. I figured I might as well grab a sword off of one of them to keep just in case guns were no longer an option.

"Look at em run! They're scared shitless!" Sterling seemed to be enjoying this bloodshed judging by his tone.

"They're trying to regroup! Come on we gotta get after these shape shifting bastard!" I replied.

As we continued to run down the road, I looked up at the barrier around canterlot. They just kept coming. I could tell now our guns were likely gonna overheat before they called in a full scale retreat. Despite these suits normally being unbearably hot, that weakness was proving to be more of a benefit right now since its close to winter time and if we were just wearing regular kevlar vests and helmets, we would have been freezing our asses off. They got smart and figured out that if you had entered through a higher part of the barrier, they would die from falling to their deaths, but if they entered at the ground level they would be fine. We rounded a corner and saw the retreating changelings disappear around a corner on a street to the left, seeing that they couldn't go further cause the road was blocked. We had kept following them for a while and I was feeling quite exhausted already since these suits were so heavy but I knew that it was necessary to ensure we wouldn't get hurt during the fighting. The skull painted on the face plate did obscure my vision a bit but not by much so I was able to stay effective.

We had turned the corner together and saw an even bigger crowd of changelings standing in front of us but what was different, was that there were some huge ones with what looked like natural armor on top of its head and shoulders. These brutes as I decided I would call them, were at least a good 3 feet taller than the regular changeling drones that we had just cut down. We were just standing there, staring each other down, Humans to changelings. I had decided to try and update silver on the situation and report to her about the brutes.

"Silver, its me. We got a situation. These changelings have brought in heavy reinforcements they've got these huge changelings that have what looks like natural armor covering just about the entirety of their heads, and shoulders. Anything we should know?" I said into my ear piece .

"BZZZZZZZZZZZZ THEY'RE ZZZZZZZ GET BA ZZZZZZZZZZZZ EXTREM ZZZZ DANGEROUS ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ DON'T TRY TO ZZZZZZZZZZZ DIE TRYING ZZZZZZZZZZ FALL BA ZZZZZZZZZZ NOW!"

Her voice was coming back extremely garbled and staticy. I couldn't make out more than a few words of what she was saying.

"Silver? Silver!? Fuck!"

The barrier was likely jamming our comms since it was already blocking out all changeling magic. All I had gotten out of her was what sounded like extremely dangerous, and fall back now. If we fell back though, they could easily catch and kill us. If we were going to die, we were going to die fighting.

"Well, we cant runaway. Change of plans, load your black tips. They should punch through those things plates with relative ease." I told sterling.

The entire changeling army before us tensed up and got low into a fighting stance as the brutes gave a loud, guttural growl as we changed our mags. Pulling the charging handle on my PKM, Sterling followed suit. As we raised our guns up, The changelings in the front slowly moved out of the way to make way for someone. Seeing who it was, my will to fight grew ever stronger and I could feel some sort of new anger slowly building up inside me. Queen chrysalis, had decided to show her ugly face and approach us.

"GU ZZZZZZZZZZ NOW, SHES GOI ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ FALL BAC ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ DON'T TRY TO ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ"

I reached up and adjusted the radio piece on my helmet so that silver was barely audiable. I looked back at the castle and It was clear as day that she had a perfect vantage point and could see everything that was going on. I could barely see her at all, but it looked like she was trying to get backup for us. We were at least a good half mile away from the castle but I could see her perfectly.

"So, you two are the ones responsible for impeding my progress. Hmmph, I expected something a bit more, intimidating. It does not matter however, You two won't stop me from claiming what is rightfully mine. Surrender now, and I just might let you live." Apparently Queen chrysalis thought she could just tell us to put our guns and down and put our hands behind our heads and think we would listen. I decided I would try and force her to stand down by showing her dead to her.

"Lady, I don't know who the fuck you are, and I don't really care either. But you must be really fucking stupid, to think that two beings, not from this world, that also just killed a sizeable portion of your army is going to surrender just because you said so." This seemed to infuriate her, prompting her to stomp closer to us.

"I do not care how many of my kind you claim to kill!! Equestria will fall and bow before me!!! Both of you included!! You will bow before your queen!!!!!"

I decided that since she had gotten close enough to grab her horn and pull her close enough to get a chilling message across. I shouldered my gun and pulled her close enough to the point that she was basically touching my face plate.

"Listen here you dumb whore, and listen well. You, and your army are up against the wall, and we, are the fucking wall!! Our kind, is no stranger to genicide. I don't care what false kingdom you claim to rule over. If the two of us have to hunt down your species to protect the ponies of this nation, we will, and we'll do it ourselves if we have to. Do you understand!? This is your one warning to back down now, and get the fuck out of here, before I change my mind. If you choose to be retarded enough and try and fight, I will lash you to a cross, and pull your ribs out through your back into the shape of eagle wings, and nail you to the walls of the castle, so that all of equestria, can see what a huge failure you are. If I have to drag your ass back up the street to prove to you that i'm not fucking around and make you die a slow death, I will." I finished by pimp slapping her and waited for her to make her move. This new rage that was building up inside of me was reaching a boiling point.

"KILL THEM!!! AND REMOVE THEIR HEADS!!!"

Bad move bitch.

"Prioritize the large fuckers first! Try and aim for the same spot if you can!" the two of us resumed our killing spree as we opened fire and attempted to kill the brutes. They howled in pain as the bullets clearly penetrated their armor and were causing serious damage. Eventually, the brutes fell dead. I switched to the sword I had pulled off of one of the dead changelings earlier and decided to get up close and personal while sterling kept his machine gun out. I was removing heads one after the other and getting covered in blood. I had to try and wipe the green off of my visor since it obscured my vision. Never before had I moved so fast under so much weight but the rage burning within me and the adrenaline being dumped into my blood had allowed for it to happen. This was truly something else at the moment. Never before had i been so angry that i was able to be so agile and deadly in a suit of armor that kept me from doing much.

I felt something extremely sharp pierce me in a weak unprotected part of my armor where the kevlar wasnt as thick as it was in the front or back. It didn't feel like anything other than a flesh wound and I quickly turned my head to see what had caused it. Queen chrysalis had tried to stab me with her horn, So I decided that she would no longer have one. As soon as she retracted it from my armor and made to try again, I punched her in the face and momentarily stunned her and then put her in an arm lock. I wrapped my right hand the base of her horn and then, with all of my strength, pulled it as hard as I could. She let out unholy shrieking screams as the fighting stoped and as her horn started to seperate from her head. I was actually pulling it out of the roots as well. That had to have been extra painful. More blood had sprayed on me and some of it even got on sterling since he was standing right next to me. With one final pull, I had seperated her horn from her head. She dropped to the ground in pain and just layed there. All of the changelings stopped and stared at her like they didn't know who she was anymore. She just kept screaming as she bled out. I kneeled down next to her and decided to try and be as intimidating as possible to get a message across.

"I warned you dumbass, and you didn't listen. I wonder if your whole race is as arrogant as you are. however, its not too late to surrender. You can call off the attack and run away, and we won't pursue you and we'll let you be, or, if your still too dumb to take a hint, I can finish you right now, and put more of your soldiers in unmarked graves. What happens next is entirely up to you." I said as I stood back up.

She had a look of pure fear in her eyes but I could also see what still looked like blazing fury in her eyes as green blood continued to run down her face. I decided to get a message across to her army as well.

"Let this be a lesson to not only her, but all of you. This, is what happens when you piss off the wrong species. your leader is severly mutilated and made an example of."

"CONTINUE WITH THE ATTACK!!!!! WE WILL NOT FAIL, NOT AGAIN!!!! KILL ALL WHO STAND IN OUR WAY!!!!" She was really retarded as it would seem. After having her horn ripped off, she still thought she had a chance to take over equestria. She quickly got back onto her hooves and ran back into her crowd of mindslaves. There more brutes in the back of the pack that let out a loud howl as they charged towards the front to try and kill us. Realizing I still had chrysalis's horn in my hand, I tucked it away in one of my pouches and un-shouldered my gun as me and sterling opened fire again, bringing the brutes down as more of the drones charged at us but some of the dashed past us as they made their way towards the castle. We quickly put down the changelings that attempted to fight us but as I turned around and saw how many of them had bypassed us and proceeded towards the castle.

"Oh shit! Come on, We gotta get back to the castle!" I shouted

"How!? We'll never make it back in time!" sterling replied

"What street are we on!?" I asked. Sterling quickly looked around before he told me where exactly we are.

"Were at the cross streets of iverson and tension road." He said. Remembering what we had planned a day in advance, There should be a tundra parked close by in an alleyway that we can use to get back to the castle quicker.

"Check the alleyways! There should be a pickup truck parked in one of them that we can use to get out of here and back to the castle!" We had to find it and fast. The unmistakable sound of an M2 machine gun opening fire in the distance followed by other small arms opening fire as well indicated that we had to act fast or the castle would be over run.

"I found it! Over here!" Sterling called over to me. I ran into the alley as quick as i could and saw the tundra covered up by tarps and and trash.

We quickly removed everything and got ready to peel out. "Get in the bed! I'll drive, you shoot! Blast as many of them as you can!" We needed to get out of here as fast possible. I helped sterling climb into the bed before I jumped into the drivers seat and got going. Many streets we took were blocked as we were trying to get back on the main road to get to the castle. This usually took us further away from the castle but we eventually found our way onto the main road, Sterling was sliding around in the bed a lot because of my erratic driving but he was managing to stay in relatively the same spot.

"Silver, Silver if you can hear me, Watch your fire. I repeat, watch your fire. We're coming up the main road right now and we're gonna be in your line of fire." I really hoped she heard me otherwise we were gonna get lit up.

"Hey! what do we do when we get back to the castle?" Sterling asked me through the back window.

"When we get there, We get out and we hold the gate with the ponies for as long as we can. We may have bottomless magazines but we still gotta worry about our weapons over heating. We don't have any water to cool the barrels down so we gotta fire in short bursts instead of just holding the trigger down like we have been. I'm thinking that once we do get back, we can," My sentence was cut short by bullets impacting the front of the truck. My message didn't make it back to silver since she had opened fire on us.

"SON OF A BITCH!!!!! GET YOUR FUCKING HEAD DOWN AND KEEP IT DOWN!!!!" I heard a loud pop and lost control of the truck, meaning I lost a tire.

"HANG ON TO SOMETHING!!!" It was no use. Doing nearly 90MPH with a blown tire was not going to end well. As quickly as the gunfire had started, it had stopped.

KA-BANG

As quickly as everything had happened, it ended. I felt no pain as the crash happened. The airbags deployed, the horn got stuck, and I got knocked out cold.

Silver POV

"BZZZZZZZZZZZ We're co BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ Watch your ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ" I could not hear a single thing Dakota was saying. His voice was coming back extremely distorted. I couldn't make out a single thing he was saying except for something that sounded like he was saying "We're coming" and "Watch your" something.

"Sergeant! there's another large group coming up the road!" One of my squad mares told me.

"Get in position to fire again! Wait until they're in range then let em have it! Be careful though, I think the humans are coming back and they're likely gonna be right behind them." I warned her. We can't afford to lose them this far into the battle. I watched as the group of changelings got closer and closer and then, "Open fire!" numerous guns opened up and we watched as the changelings drop dead. I should have given the order to cease fire as soon as there were only a few left. Dakota and his friend sterling were in fact both right behind them as i watched them get hit numerous times as bullets impacted the front end of the vehicle they were in. I watched as glass cracked, sparks flew, and a wheel blow out. They violently crashed into a building right next to the bridge to get into the castle. Which ever one of them was in the back got violently thrown out and landed on the other side of the moat that seperated the castle from the rest of canterlot.

"Oh Buck! Oh buck oh buck oh buck oh buck oh buck oh buck oh buck!" I immediately took off to make sure they were alright. That crash was extremely violent and I could assume they would both be badly hurt. The horn was going and whichever one of them got flung from the back slowly got back up and waded through the deep water back to the other side to try and help the other one out.

"Sergeant wait!" I heard one of my squad mares call out to me but I had to help get them out and to safety one way or the other. I watched as the one that got ejected tried to open a door but couldn't. He quickly called out to me and said something I really did not want to hear.

"It's no use! The doors jammed shut! The crash caused the body to bend badly and Dakota's pinned inside! We gotta hold out as long as possible until they give up, Or you or whoever is in charge does something to get them out of here as fast as possible!" Sterling as I now learned, was the one that was still somewhat combat effective, and seemed to be in bad shape as he was struggling to run across the bridge with me. He quickly turned around shot a few more changelings that were coming up from behind, still not learning that the castles front entrance was a death trap. After killing them, He dropped his gun and dropped to his knees and slowly removed his neck armor, face plate, and finally his helmet. His face was soaked with sweat and so were his bangs. He then clutched his sides in what I could only guess was pain judging by his facial expression.

"Captain armor! What do we do!?" I called up to him, Hoping he knew what to do.

"I don't know! The princesses are in the bunker right now, The train carrying Reinforcements from ponyville is still more than 20 minutes away, and I'm really hurting from firing this thing!" He said. I was really panicking in my head now. If we failed, equestria would be under siege from the changelings. Suddenly, sterling got back up walked back over to the crashed truck that he was ejected from and reached through a broken window and grabbed dakota's gun and set it up on the sandbags we had setup.

"What are you doing?"

"It's looking...more and more like...were just gonna have to hold out as long as possible. I'm not much of a strategist, but I think...We might have a better chance if some of you...moved up across the bridge. If some of your soldiers with guns Get into windows on the upper floors of those buildings and take up defensive positions just in front of the truck...We should be able to keep dakota safe, and have a more effective kill zone." Sterling looked like he was on the brink of collapse. I rushed over to try and help keep him standing. It was extremely hard considering how heavy he was with all of this armor he was wearing. Instead of trying to carry him all the way to the castles infirmary, I decided to set him down behind the sandbags and to run and go and get him some help. The gates opened and out walked captain armor and another guard pony.

"Go and get a few medics and an engineer team together then inform the princesses, seargent! I'll take it from here for now until you get back!"

"Yes sir!"

Doing as I was told, I ran back into the castle to update the princesses on the situation and get a few medics.

Sterling POV

I watched as that pony named silver ran back inside and replaced by 2 other ponies.

"Corporal Halbred, Get on that machine gun and await further instructions!"

"Yes sir!"

The pony in the armor with the purple accents then turned to face me.

"You said your name was sterling right?"

"Yeah, always has been. Why?"

"You and me and the few guards that you and your friend dakota taught to use these guns are all that's standing between them and equestria's fate. I'm taking what would be his place here out in the front with you."

"Alright then. I put his gun over there against those sandbags."

I mounted my gun on this set of sandbags and waited with him to see when these so called changelings would show up. I took the time to try and load the large artillery gun sitting in between us. I recalled the steps dakota took to load and use it. Twist something to open the breach, put the projectile in, put the propellant in behind it, close it up and lock it, and turn something to make it be able to fire before yanking a cord to actually make it fire. I did those steps one at a time as best as I could. I didn't know how this thing worked like he did since he had an affinity for military weapons, equipment, and other things like that. After getting it situated and hopefully loaded properly, I slowly ran the cord through my hands and waited until more of them came. Slowly but surely, they had all amassed into one giant group now and were quickly approaching.

Scene music for closing fight scenes

Doing what dakota did earlier, I yanked the cord as hard as i could, despite how much it hurt. The huge gun fired, sending a shockwave out in all directions as it rocked back and nearly knocked me down. It was definitely disorienting to say the least. My had was spinning and my ears were ringing for a few moments before I eventually regained my senses. I quickly put my helmet back on and got back over to the sandbags before I crouched down and got ready. They were coming now, and they were coming fast.

"Here they come! This is it! It's now or never, Let them have it!" I shouted as best as I could.

I held down the trigger as a few of the other ponies quickly started firing. The faster cracking of the M240 I was using almost non audible over the rest of the gunfire and the slower chunking of the 50 cal machine gun from behind me was much more prominent. That pony that was called out, Halberd, I had glanced back when I had stopped firing to clear a jam and he had a look of determination, anger, and focus on his face. He looked a lot like that pony named silver that ran off earlier. As far as I could tell, the only difference between them was his height and a slightly different fur color, his being a bit darker. Focussing back on my gun, I cleared the casing that had caused it to jam and closed it up and pulled the charging handle and started firing again. I could feel the adrenaline wearing off, and the pain in my sides and head growing in intensity. Ignoring it and focusing on what was in front of me, some of them were trying to take cover behind the truck that we crashed in. Knowing what they were actually trying to do, I quickly mowed them down.

"Keep them away from the truck!! They're gonna try and use dakota as a means to stop us!!"

They kept coming and were gradually getting closer and closer, not caring that they were tripping over their dead comrades to try and get in. Some of them had gotten as close as 5 feet but they were quickly put down. It was looking more and more like they might actually overwhelm us until they started to fall back. I could hear some of them shouting retreat orders. It was about time their brains started working.

"They're running! Pick off any stragglers and finish them!"

Doing what that commander pony said, i picked out the ones that were lagging behind the rest and finished them off. Watching them fly off once they exited the city, realizing that they stood no chance of victory with us around, was a smart move. It was finally over. I made to stand up from my crouching position, but as soon as I did, the pain hit me harder than a brick wall. I quickly collapsed and soon felt what i could only assume was blood staining a lot of my clothes underneath this heavy armor.

"Oh no! Cpl.Halberd give me a hoof over here!"

"Yes sir!"

They both ran over to me as soon I collapsed, seemingly now very concerned with my condition.

"Come on Sterling! You've made it this far and the battles over now! Stay with me!"

"Don't forget about........Dakota. He's probably hurt way worse than me."

"Halberd, You go and see if you can help his friend! I'll do what I can until sergeant silver returns!"

"Yes sir!"

I was starting to blackout. The exhaustion from the fighting really was taking a toll on me. pair it with blood loss and I would likely be out like a light within the next minute or so.

"Hey, no no no no no! Come on man stay awake! Just try and stay awake alright!? helps on the way, just stay awake alright"

His efforts were in vein as my eyes closed on their own accord. His voice became distant and eventually there was nothing but darkness.

Silver POV

After having updated the princesses on the situation and gathering a team of medics and engineers, I was leading the way back outside as fast as I could. It sounded like the gunfire had all but stopped as I got closer to the main entrance. When I did get there, I opened the doors and opened the castle gates. The fighting had all stopped, but as I looked around, sterling was now laying on the ground with captain armor trying to remove all of his armor.

"Captain!"

"Sergeant! They both need medical attention now!"

I gave him 3 of the medics I had gathered and went across the bridge to where they had crashed. A familiar pony was trying to get him out but couldn't. He immediately stopped what he was doing and snapped to attention when he saw me.

"Sergeant!"

"No need for formalities right now halberd! Let the engineers do their thing then once they get him out, We're gonna try and remove all of his armor and let the medics go from there!"

"Yes ma'am!"

I had to partially cover my ears since the horn was still blowing and it was extremely loud. We watched as the engineers took a saw and started cutting the door open. Halberd had shielded his eyes as best as he could but he was still standing a bit too close. He was a great friend to have, My longest lasting friendship has actually been with him. We grew up together and what not, But he could still be a bit dumb at times, kind of like now. The saw stopped and they started pulling the door back, Allowing his heavily armored form to be freed.

"Hey sergeant, Can you give us some help here? He's pretty heavy."

"No problem."

I assisted the engineers in removing him from the truck. We fully got him out and were about to load him onto a stretcher when something fell out of one of his pockets. We all stopped to see what it was and it was...disturbing, to say the least.

"I-I-I-Is that...What I think it is!?"

"Oh my god! Silver I think I'm gonna be sick!"

"Why did he have this in the first place!?"

I picked up in magic and grimaced as I examined it. It was still dripping fresh green blood and there were parts of scalp and roots still attached to it. The shape was easily distinguishable as well. Dakota had removed queen chrysalis's horn and kept it. Maybe this is why the attack was called off. He had permanently wounded their queen and made her unable to lead in some way, possibly by removing her ability to attack, maintain her hive through the hive mind, and overall just keep herself safe from attacks.

"We can worry about what he did later. For now we have to strip him of his armor and move him."

Carefully and slowly, We started removing his helmet first. We then started with removing the armor around his torso. There were a lot of pieces that interlocked and connected. Trying to figure out what was connected to what was a hassle, especially considering his life was on the line right now. Once we removed all of his torso pieces, he had yet another piece of armor on underneath all of these pieces. He really was not taking any chances at all. We had to carefully remove that piece as well before we finally removed all of the armor from his torso. He had a facemask on still so we quickly took that off as well. It was nothing more than just a simple piece of cloth that went over his whole head with two holes cut out for his eyes so he could see. When we took it off, His face was soaked in sweat and most of it had been absorbed into the mask. The pungent smell of it was extremely strong and made almost all of us gag. Looking back at dakota's unconscious form, there was a large bruise on his forehead. We lifted up his shirt and there were fresh bruises and even a few cuts here and there but nothing super serious. Most of his injuries were going to be internal such as when he first got injured, judging by that impact from earlier.

"Alright, lets get him on this stretcher and get him to an infirmary. We need to act fast though, time is of the essence."

I reminded them about the severity of the situation and that dakota could have life threatening injuries. We carefully placed him on the stretcher and then started to carry him back into the castle. His friend, sterling was being placed on a stretcher to be carried inside as well.

They may have just saved canterlot, but now they needed to be saved. This is going to be a difficult battle now to keep them alive since none of us know anything about human anatomy.

"Come on dakota. Just hang in there a bit longer, you're gonna be Ok, I promise."

I let the docs take him and his friend as I know as i was going to be needed somewhere else soon. For now, the day was won.