”Urban warfare is the most brutal, unforgiving terrain in today’s battlespace. You’ve got streets creating killzones, buildings turned into bunkers, higher floors for infantry to throw explosives onto tanks, air support is less effective unless you raze a block to the ground and all fighting is up close and personal, house by house, room by room, every window becomes a potential firing port. If you can’t get the civilians out, you have to watch out for collateral damage, worse yet if the enemy uses them as meat shields. If I was attacking, an urban fight is the last place I would want to strike, the absolute last. If I was defending, an urban place is the first place I’d want to put troops.”
-Field Marshal Blueblood, when asked about fortifying Equestrian cities

July 26th, 1012
5th Army, 13th ‘Baltimare’ Onhooves Division, 60th ‘Royal Rifles’ Onhooves Regiment
Bales, Central Equestria

“Down!”

Sergeant Macintosh Apple, better known mostly by his family and friends as ‘Big Mac’ was having a bad day. From the apartment building they attempted to hold onto, fire poured out of various windows at the streets below. But it wasn’t a very tall apartment building, and unlike Acornage and several other cities, they hadn’t fully evacuated before the northern horde came crashing down on them. Positioned on the ground floor, his Grump gun chattering, Mac could hear the screams and cries of civilians as they tried to bunker down in their homes, or made some mad dash to reach the basement or a storm shelter of some kind. The advance, when it had hit a month ago, had been too swift. Though a full encirclement hadn’t happened, the word was Bitterberry and Boulderfield had fallen. With that, the city of Bales was terribly isolated. About the only reason the city hadn’t fallen yet was thanks to the forked river sheltering them to their west. Royal Army engineers had blown the bridges and set up artillery to the east, shelling anything serious coming at them. This of course hadn’t stopped the Hegemony, but it had certainly slowed them down. The bugs of course could fly, and they could deploy their own temporary bridges. But the Royal Army could face infantry and battleshifters with their own mage and pegasi units, and anything light enough to send over the bridge either met determined infantrymares dug into the urban battlezone or the tanks that prowled along the streets. If ever there was anything they couldn’t deal with easily, artillery from up on the Heights was called in, carpeting whole city blocks with rolling barrages. Counterattacks to retake territory were common. The landscape of Bales was ever shifting, though it was quickly crawling closer to destruction every day.

It was remarkable to think, but just a few months ago they’d been up in Blackthorn Dale, preparing to throw the Hegemony out. That had been one humiliating meatgrinder of a fight, but what was worse was its after effect. Having run into a brick wall, the Royal Army had retreated step by bloody step, falling back behind defense line after defense line as it was slowly overrun. The issue wasn’t killing the changelings as they surged forth, no. The problem was that their new wonder weapons were far more capable of killing the pony troopers trying to stand against them. Between the MG 42 he was already intimate with and a preponderance of magic rifles, flamethrowers attached to urban assault Jager forces and a growing number of MP 10 submachine guns throughout the Heer made fighting them with continually dwindling stocks a hazardous venture at best. It was one thing to fight the enemy with anti-tank guns, but when the six-pounder that was most common to the troops on the ground had to face off against Tiger tanks, it was an admittedly unfair fight. Aircraft bombarded the city day and night, though the Royal Air Force made a good show of trying to mitigate the damage. Rockets streaked overhead, shrieking their ghastly wails as they pounded Equestrian lines. Lately, modified Panzer IIs that command had dubbed 'Luchs' had swarmed over the small bridges the Hegemony threw up, their small size able to traverse the rubble-choked city streets much easier, bringing needed fire support with 20mm guns.

And, above all, the infantry had caught up.

As Mac had understood it, a large part of why the bugs had overwhelmed Equestria so quickly was a combination of insidious infiltration sabotaging response forces and hard hitting, fast moving armored forces. Everywhere the Royal Heer found stubborn resistance, they either slammed into it with fast moving panzers supported by close air or simply diverted around it, cutting the city off and encircling it. By the time Equestria had thrown up a meaningful resistance, half of the country was lost. Then it had devolved into the slugging match everyone had expected. That was when the mauled and exhausted panzerdivisions were swapped out with the infantry units that had been steadily pacifying the countryside. Oh, the war may have slowed down now, but it was still grinding on in the changelings’ favor.

Except they weren’t just facing changelings now. Kanonvogel Stukas savaged the street, carving wide furrows through the already cracked asphalt with their belly mounted cannons. As Mac reached for another magazine for his Grump gun, figures moved into the smoky haze of the street. Several of them looked about pony sized, but he could spot several with antlers. They moved off to the side, avoiding the clear killzone that was the intersection he guarded, and he hastened to speed up, slapping the new mag in and working the bolt. One of the figures turned, and a green glow appeared in the eyes and around the antlers. Mac fired off a five round burst, and the Field Völvur disappeared.

“Damn!” hissed the trooper next to him, squinting down the sights of her Lavender rifle, trying to pick out a target in the gloom. “Where’d she go?”

Völvur were gifted does with heightened abilities, seers and mystics of exceptional power. Primarily, Olenian seers were capable of predicting short amounts of time into the future, and could gain visions of many places far away. But Völvur were another step beyond, practically able to dodge bullets and predict coming ambushes or attacks. Combined with their infamous Motti tactics of encircling and cutting apart attacks, and Olenian deer were more than capable of striking where a line was weak, withdrawing if the attack failed and then carving apart the counterattack. Mac, like most ponies, had assumed the changelings were throwing the deer at them as cannon fodder. No panzers or aircraft of their own, wielding Queendom arms and sent barreling at Equestrian defenses, it was a small wonder they hadn’t turned on their shapeshifter masters. But something had changed. Some bug general must have gotten an idea about how to break the deadlock, because no longer were Olenian auxiliaries sent at them in cervine waves but in effective shock warfare groups, supported by older tanks and planes crewed by Olenians as well. What had once been chaff had been turned to wheat, from mere servant to subservient partner. And they were just the beginning.

As Mac scanned the street again for targets, a vicious roar rang out, and with barely any time to react a massive shape came barreling out of a side alley. Panicking, Mac and several other troops dug into this building opened fire, but the quadrupedal form just kept bearing down on them like a freight train, shaking off the bullets like water droplets. A wall collapsed inwards, blasted down as the armored panserbjørn slashed at the two rifleponies on the opposite side. Metal sheathed claws tore at flesh and cloth, and the two troopers were cast aside as little more than ragged scraps, one smashing into a wall as the other was rent in two. He wasn’t alone. As the bear moved inwards to find more victims, claws flashing with blue enchanted power, another sidled up behind him, brandishing a machine gun like a rifle. Big, clunky and unsophisticated, technologically it looked like something from twenty years ago. But the large drum magazine, heavy cooling shroud and sinister axeblade bayonet under the barrel declared that though it looked outdated, it could still kill easily enough.

“COVER!” Mac shouted, rolling as the weapon began chattering, sending high-caliber bullets streaming into the apartment. Mac had been bunkered down here with two sections, twenty troopers. All of them began backpedaling in a rush, rifles banging away in fumbled panic as they tried to recover. Another six troopers fell under the vicious hail of polar fire, and the assault bear roared as he lumbered in for more victims. Something that damned big should -not- be capable of moving so fast. Behind the gunbear, more figures emerged from the smoke, Olenian and changeling grenadiers looking to sweep and clear the ground floor of this building, MP 10s stuttering and rifles barking. Something clattered near Mac’s hooves, but before he could grab the grenades that had appeared a magic aura snagged the explosives up, tossing them right back at the foe. While the griffon-like enchanted plate of the panserbjørn protected them from mere shrapnel as they turned their armored backs, their comrades were less fortunate, and screeching cries sang out as the hoof grenades exploded in their faces.

“Swivel! Crank that gun around!” cried Leftenant Pierce, and a volley of Lavender fire rang out as one of the apartment walls was smashed down from the other side, exposing the Buckstar .50 heavy machine gun nest they had set up and allowing the barrel to swing towards the unexpected attack. Having only just finished before this latest probe, the weapon’s sudden presence had turned an attempted storming of their urban bunker into a trap of their own. The charging handle was racked by the pony gunner, and then it roared. The Arisian machine gun thundered more than chattered, cracking carapace and tearing into fur with little care, splattering red gore across cracked plaster. The bullets even continued on to punch hoof sized holes in the wall behind the targets. It even pierced the panserbjørn armor. Mac sat up from behind his cover, letting the Grump gun sing as well, adding to the punishing barrage of repulsive fire. Even as the two panserbjørn fell, roaring their agony and disbelief, as a second wave of Olenian troops tried to push in through the breach. The looks of horror on their faces upon witnessing the torn corpses in that charnel house of their comrades and realizing the breach had been annihilated was only temporary, however. The Buckstar sang again, thumping and thudding away as a rain of hot brass clattered out of the breech and skipped over the ruined floor. A pair of Mills bombs appeared in the gap, and with twin detonations and under the chatter of machine gun and rifle fire the few survivors of the charge were repulsed in a blind panic, followed by the torn and shredded meat of their comrades. Even this flight was short lived, as with the clatter of tank tracks the Timberwolf tank that had been moving down the street opened up on the fleeing survivors with its machine guns, turret tracking and cannon booming to annihilate the dug in changelings trying to set up an AT-gun in the ruins of a coffee shop. Following the Timberwolf was another, and then two Swellert light tanks and a section of troopers behind, maneuvering carefully as they tried to keep up with the counterattack, with three Humber armored cars taking up the rear, machine guns chattering up at some elevated target Mac couldn't see. One of the infantry troopers readied a flamethrower, dousing the coffee shop in a gout of incendiary fuel, cooking off ammunition and roasting whoever was still taking cover in there. Overhead, a dozen pegasi skirmishers flew past, submachine guns chattering as they pursued a target on the rooftops.

“Hold here!” Lieutenant Pierce declared, holding up his Thundersplash submachine gun as he peered out the window, trying to gauge the state of the battle just outside. He ducked back down as, with a hiss, a bullet from some distant marksman nearly took his head off. Cursing, he changed magazines as he tried to form a close relationship with his cover.

“He got close that time, sir!” called Corporal Sweet Breeze, laughing as she fumbled for another clip to her rifle.

“Bet the arty walks over his nest again and he’s still just fine!” shot back Private Dim Haze as the thestral hauled his Nickers machine gun over to the new breach in the wall. They had a breach to cover, after all.

Mac rose to his hooves again as the troopers tried to clean up and restore their position. Nothing to do about the corpses right now, especially the polar bears. The most they had time for was to drag the pieces of the bugs and deer off to the side, reducing the trip hazard. The fallen ponies would have to be collected later, when the medics reached their position. Those injured could be seen to then, and the dead would have to wait their turn.

“Molasses, Starshine! Recover the wounded!” he called out to two of the rifleponies nearby, before kicking a deer corpse with his hoof. “And get this trash out of my way! A clean position is a safe position!”

“What do we do about the blood, Sarge?” asked Private Starshine while she started dragging a mutilated changeling corpse to the side.

“Nothing!” called out Private Hot Wind nearby, laughing as he slapped a new magazine into his Limestone gun. “Bug blood’s decorative! Good for morale! I know I like seeing it!”

Indeed, green changeling ichor was mixing with red deer and bear blood on the floor, creating a sort of sickly oozing puddle that could certainly be a trip hazard. Mac grimaced. Nothing to be done about the bears right now, but the mess had to be cleared.

“Wind, sounds like you just volunteered! Use some bug uniforms, get this mess sorted out.”

“Aw, c’mon Sarge!” the orange stallion whined, but Mac simply gave him a glare as he changed magazines for his Grump gun until the younger trooper groaned and moved off the wall. “Fine, but I get first dibs at the bug guns.”

As a pair of Hawker Typhoon fighter bombers began dropping ordnance onto the apartment building nearby to hunt for Jager skirmishing teams, Mac simply shook his head. According to the runners that passed information and orders back and forth, they had managed to hold this line, cutting the city of Bales in half. The furthest position forward, that of Leftenant Froster’s company of Colstream Guards, was bitterly fighting on in one of the most desperate positions forwards. The RAF base outside the city had long been abandoned, and most flights providing support here came from Manehatten or Fillydelphia. It was bad. But tomorrow, they’d probably counterattack, and retake two or three blocks and dig in for the next push. Another day at war. At least here, now, they were holding on.

Author's Note

Another lunch time idea that came to me, as I realized not only had I been under presenting Paige's perspective, but Equestria's fight as well. I mean, the mod is called Equestria at War. So I felt this was sorely needed to try and balance the perspectives out. Enjoy!