The chariot swayed in the wind, the pegasi pilots hauling as fast as they could, the gusts whipping at the guard’s manes, the earth below zooming past. The chariot was only big enough for six ponies, but it would have to do, for now. Shining Armor stood up front, staring at the distant shape of Manehattan, smoke rising from the west side, where the unidentified objects impacted… It was shocking, a telepathic message, broadcast and relayed through every telepathically trained unicorn this side of Equestria, Manehattan was under attack by some unidentified enemies, wielding weapons and magic that seemed to far outclass anything the local guard garrison had… It was a slaughter, the few surviving guards were keeping a close watch on the area but panic was spreading, if the hostiles tried to push deeper into Manehattan, there was little the garrison could do to stop them, but, whatever they were, seemed content to stay in the initial attack area, around the crashed objects.

“Think the bird boys finally snapped?” A pegasus stallion, Goldhook, said bitterly.

“We had nothing to do with this attack, Griffons do not use magic!” A griffoness guard, Valeria, replied, her tone gruff and angry, like always.

“Whatever you say…” Goldhook sarcastically replied.

“Shut up, all of you!” Shining Armor announced.

“Well, I didn’t say anything,” A unicorn mare, Gladius Glaze, replied, only to earn a harsh glare from the captain.

“We do not know who, or what, is attacking the metropolis, it would be best to restrain judgment until after the situation is made clear to us…” Bitterly purred Eldergreen, his large rack of antlers glowing every so slightly with arcane pressure.

Finally, there was the quiet Starbright, her nocturnal eyes protected from the light of day by a pair of heavy tinted goggles, and her leathery bat-wings kept firmly to her side… Her only reaction to everyone’s squabbling was a simple scoff as she drew her musket and started to load it… Everyone wore heavy padded armour, the enemy, from what few reports could be trusted, used some kind of fire magic, one that could easily melt metal armour, so insulated and padded armour was the best choice short of dragon scales or enchanted crystal, and each of these padded leather suits was indeed enchanted, not that the spells seemed effective, all guard armour was enchanted to some degree, and that certainly didn’t save the Manehattanites.

“Everyone, get your weapons ready, we’re coming down on the battlefield!” One of the pegasus drivers shouted above the wind, and Shining Armor nodded, repeating the command. Soon everyone was drawing their weapons and loading them. Shining Armor double and triple checked each pistol on his bandolier and drew his shortsword, Goldhook started fiddling with the lock on his blunderbuss, Gladius loaded her double-barreled carbine and checked the sights, Eldergreen’s caliver was nearly eight hoof-spans long and nearly took up the back of the entire chariot, so he busied himself inspecting the spyglass he had fused to the barrel, and finally, Valeria hefted her massive culverin to her back, and action that jostled the chariot and eared the griffon harsh looks from the pilots.

The chariot came around, slowly landing in an abandoned street, it was gloomy, the midnight moon shining down, the eerie green glow from the dropped devices lighting the streets with an almost tartarussian ambience. Shining Armor was the first on the ground, keeping his shield spell in his mind, moments from being summoned into reality, “Elder, anything?”

Eldergreen raised his antlers, glowing with magical energy, trotting around for a second, he finally replied, “I feel… Something, it’s alive, that’s for sure, but it isn’t pony, or griffon, or anything I’ve ever felt before… It feels so… Empty…”

“Where exactly is it?”

“North-north-west, about eighty-two degrees… It’s moving, toward us… Wait, there’s more, somewhere due north, also closing in…”

“Alright, everyone, get in position, and do not make a noise…” Shining whispered.

Everyone followed without fuss… Eldergreen found himself a perch overlooking the street from atop a fire escape stairwell and drew his long musket, looking down the spyglass, looking for any movement. Valeria found a spot just behind a ruined wagon and kept her claw on the trigger. Goldhook was already rushing forward to the front, ducking into a shop a few meters down from where the chariot landed, and was accompanied by Gladius who perched her carbine on the trash bin just outside said shop. Starbright had vanished, in the typical night-guard fashion, and flew up, silent as a breeze, to a balcony overlooking the street, ready to descend on anything her bat-eyes saw. Shining Armor also took cover behind an overturned chariot and the crates it was carrying, he wasn’t used to all this sneaking around, he wanted a straight-up fight, not this tense waiting for an enemy to show itself, but he didn’t know exactly what he was dealing with, a stealthy approach was necessary in this situation… Going in muskets blazing and swords clashing was exactly what the local garrison decided to do, and a fat lot of good that did.

The chariot took off, and left the group simply sitting there, waiting… Eventually, after what felt like hours but was more than likely just a few minutes, there was movement, three figures, small, grey-skinned, bipeds with head that looked just a little too large for their almost malnourished-looking bodies, eyes glowing purplish red… They seemed to waddle around on all fours like a pony, then stand up and move like a biped at times, it was odd to look at… They didn’t seem to have noticed the guards yet… That changed when Shining reached out to Elder telepathically, sending a single word down the link… “Fire”

There was a tremendous BANG! And a bright bluish-purple puff of smoke as the magical propellant used in the cavalier did its job, in the distance a solid lump of iron tore through the creature’s head, a strange device mounted to its wrist detonated in a spark of green… One of the creatures scattered, taking cover behind an overturned wagon, the other turned and replied to Elder’s attack with one of its own, raising its clawed hand, upon which it has its own wrist-device, and let loose a fusillade of green bursts, three of four shots in just a few seconds, all from the same weapon… Everyone stood a little shocked at whatever kind of weapon or magic the creature was using, all except for Eldergreen, who decided to duck behind cover rather than marvel at the blasts heading toward his head, and just in time to, as one passed mere millimetres from his muzzle, close enough he could actually feel the intense heat lightly burning his cheek.

The shock didn’t last long, as soon Starbright leapt from her perch and flew down upon one of the fleeing creatures, ripping it to shreds with the claws on her armoured ponyshoes, the last one received a nasty surprise as a point-blank burst from a blunderbuss blew open its chest as Goldhook leapt forward, using his wings to propel himself into the battle… Somewhere up ahead there were more clicking-hissing noises, and green blasts started to fly from somewhere down the street, Starbright was quick to duck out of the way and fly back into cover, but Goldhook wasn’t as quick, several blasts flew toward his direction, but at the last moment a shimmering shield of blue magic sprung up, Gladius at his side, her horn glowing brightly, and the two rushed back to cover.

From her perch, Starbright fired her musket, then leapt down to avoid the retaliation, it was unclear if she hit her target or not, but Gladius rushed forward, getting behind cover and deflecting the bolts launched at her with precise telekinetic strikes… This wasn’t any magic she knew of, she didn’t feel any arcane pressure when the bolts struck her shield, they felt more like solid objects, light but flung at incredible speed and with tremendous heat, so she didn’t need a shield to block them, but trying to deflect them with telekinesis was a difficult task, the blasts clearly weren’t solid objects, it was like trying to scoop up liquid with magic, and she nearly took a bolt to the chest when she misjudged her spellcasting, but instead it slammed into the ground beneath her and she leapt to avoid getting hit with burning debris. Tumbling into cover she raised her carbine at one target, fired, then pointed it at a second, firing again.

Shining Armor dashed forward magical shield in front and took blast after blast, but even he had a limit, and each shot that scored against his defences hurt, badly, and his magic was starting to fail when he reached the hostiles in cover, drawing his sword he cleaved the large head of one clean off, yellow blood fountaining out of its neck, and twirled around to bash the other, hard, with his magical shield, sending the creature sprawling to the ground… This was the last one, apparently, and a jab finished the thing off.

“Regroup, reload those weapons of yours, there may be more out there…” Shining Armor ordered, and everyone followed, quickly retrieving their muskets and loading more gem-powder and shot.

“What in the world are these things?” Gladius said, looking down at the bleeding body of the creature.

“I do not know, but they aren’t pony, or griffon, or… Anything else I’ve heard of before…” Eldergreen commented.

“Well I-” Gold began to speak, but was cut off by the sound of a hostile weapon, the blast cutting through the air and striking Goldhook on the side, he fell over, swearing and grunting as the padding did little to stop the enemy’s strange weapon. Everyone was quick to scatter to cover, and soon Valeria raised her back-cannon and fired at the direction the enemy attack came from. There was a tremendous BOOM! And the cannonball tore into the side of the building, smashing in the side of the second-floor wall, and from inside came strange screeches.

Gladius opened a pouch and retrieved a small iron ball with a fuse set into it, with a touch of magic she lit the bomb and flung it through the window… A few seconds passed, then a loud, multicoloured, blast flung the bodies of the creatures out of the building. Somewhere around the corner of the block there were more distant noises, the same hissing-clicking the creatures made.

“Elder, contact the chariot, tell them we need to extract Gold, the rest of us will go on ahead and look for any remaining hostiles! Collect the bodies and anything you find on them too!” Shining Armor.

“Yes sir!”

“Come on you chicks! Let’s get moving!” Valeria shouted, tossing aside her empty cannon and drawing an axe from her belt. Shining Armor was still in the lead through, following the noises… They moved around the block, quickly but quietly, weapons raised and ready for anything.

“H-Help… Me…” Came a droning voice from behind them, at the entrance of the dark alley. Shining Armor raised his hoof, motioning everyone to stop.

“Identify yourself, I am Captian Shining Armor of the royal guard…”

Slowly, moving as if drunk, the figure of a stallion came limping out of the darkness, he was badly burnt on his sides and legs, as if he took dozens of near-hits with the enemies’ weapons… There was a slight purple glow around his horn, as if charging a spell.

“C-Commander Wintergreen, you’re alive? What is the status battlemage battalion?”

Shining Armor moved to get closer to the unicorn, but a telekinetic grab on his legs stopped him, “Wait…” Gladius said, “Feel that, his magic, it’s devoid of emotion, not like a pony…”

“What do you mean-” At that moment, the commander leapt at Gladius and knocked her to the ground, drawing a severed spearhead and trying to jab it into her eye, but a sharp telekinetic jab from Shining Armor knocked the commander’s weapon from his grasp, and before he retrieved it, Valeria leapt on him as Gladius squirmed free from the commander’s hooves.

Valeria clawed at the commander, her avian talons cutting deep and bloody gashes in his side, which was already covered in burn-wounds, and tried to bite at his neck with her beak, but a hard buck with his forehooves knocked the flailing bird off him. At the same moment, there came the hissing-clicking call from right behind them, and both Starbright and Gladius turned to see three more creatures blocking their escape, aiming their wrist-weapons, taking cover behind trash bins and rubble.

“Commander, what are you doing!” Shining Armor shouted at the commander turned in his direction, only to receive some kind of gargling shout in response, the commander drew his makeshift dagger and lunged at Shining, but Valeria had gotten back to her paws and leapt on the commander, drawing her axe and slicing Wintergreen’s neck. “Valeria! He’s friendly!” The shocked unicorn responded, only to get a grunt.

“Tell that to my bruised underside…” She huffed, then turned when she heard a shout.

Gladius stood her ground and raised her carbine, taking a shot at one of the creatures that somehow missed by a wide margin, the creature turned her way and fired a shot, the green blast piercing the air… There was a blur of blue fur and a loud scream as a pair of bat wings smacked into the mare. The next thing she knew she was lying on the ground, with Starbright lying atop her, eyes screwed shut. The mare’s back was smoking as the green bolt tore a chunk from her spine. The next moment, there was a grey blur as Valeria leapt into battle with frightening speed and cleaved the big head of the creature in half. Followed by a pair of gunshots as Shining Armor drew his pistols from his bandolier, and another other creature giving a scream as it was shot. The third one, a larger one with wrinkled ruddy skin and a fiercer glow in its cranium, ran.

There was a long pause as Shining Armor and Valeria looked, horrified, at Starbright as her breathing faltered, then, suddenly angry, Shining bellowed “After it!” and ran off with his griffon. Meanwhile, Gladius lie there, listening as this bat pony, a pony she barely knew and never spoke to her in all their time together in the guard, a pony that just saved her life, took her last breath for her own mistakes. Gladius felt tears well up in her own eyes and pulled the dying mare closer in a sorrowful hug.

Shining Armor and Valeria leapt out into the next street, the creature had just joined with a group of three more, and was talking in that strange clicking-hissing language it spoke, when the two caught up, Shining Armor fired his last two pistols, blowing off the heads of two creatures, and the griffon gave a battle cry as she dove on one more, ripping it apart. The red-skinned one continued to run, leaping behind another alley…

“Come on! Forward! After that coward!” Valeria shouted, her claws and beak thoroughly covered in both red pony blood, and the yellow blood of these strange creatures.

“No, wait… It could be leading us into another trap…” Shining said.

“We can’t let it get away!”

“Wait, let’s think about this for a second! Rushing blindly into that alley cost Starbright her life! Do you want to get shot in the back next!” Shining shouted, Valeria looked conflicted for a second, then put her axe down. Shining looked around, seeing if there was anything that could signal an ambush, but what he found instead was a lack of something… The strange pods, the devices that he had encountered, didn’t have any bodies around them… Normally, there were ponies or griffons trapped within the green fibres that came from those devices, but here, they were missing… No, not missing, taken… There were outlines of where ponies had been caught in the strange webbing, but they were missing now…

Then, a moment later, a loud droning noise, accompanied by a humming, pierced their ears, Valeria looked up and swore, and Shining stood speechless save for a whispered “By Celestia…” as they saw large disk-shaped airship taking off from somewhere just outside the city limits… The ship seemed to bend the air around it for a second, then took off fast enough he expected the thing to make a sonic rainboom as it zoomed off into the sky.

Author's Note

Our pony XCOM is here... Almost, the council hasn't been formed, but it will be when Celestia realizes that these enemies are not from Equus.