You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.

Ho Chi Minh

The joint force of ponies and Terrans trudged through the worst terrain Matt had ever seen. A random assortment of all different kinds of flora surrounded them, and the thick canopy made it feel like perpetual night. The foliage regularly reached waist height, making the experience even more miserable for the land-locked unicorns. They stepped as lightly as they could to ensure noise discipline, but more so that they wouldn't accidentally find a patch of uneven ground and break a leg. Despite their best efforts they managed to accumulate numerous scrapes and bruises, making every meter hard fought for. Not even the jungle training center on Tyrador had been this bad.

It was such slow going that Dory had to refresh the troopers' translation spells three times. Every time Matt saw her she looked a little more disheveled and worn down, twigs and mud lodged in the holes in her legs. Even the green membrane that made up her mane and tail somehow looked out of place. If the Terrans and Royal Guards were tired, he could only imagine she was exhausted. While he'd learned not to underestimate her, Matt worried how many more kilometers the unconditioned changeling had left in her.

Not to mention, each time she did Matt's headache came back stronger than the last, thus laying to rest any hopeful optimism that it was all a fluke. The revelation put him in a deeper funk than the misery of trudging through the thick forest.

Matt fought back a groan as he pulled himself over a fallen tree. His foot caught on a broken branch and he tumbled over the side, landing hard on his shoulder with a loud rustle of brush.

How the hell are we supposed to find anything in this mess, let alone track it? he wondered as he pulled himself to his feet and continued onward, rolling his now aching shoulder. Long Shot had reported hours ago that he'd spotted tracks. How he could find and follow them was a mystery.

To be fair, Matt was no stranger to tracking Zerg. Even though decades had passed since the Swarm had been expelled from Dominion space, there were still feral hives deep in the barren wastelands of Mar Sara. Zerg hunts were a popular sport among the arid world's few inhabitants. He'd been fourteen when he bagged his first zergling. A runt, if ever there was one, but Matt never forgot the prideful grin on his father's face as he posed for a photo with his catch.

But this... this was something else. Most of the time he could scarcely see the ground he walked on with all the underbrush. It's gotta be magic, Matt mused. Can't explain it any other way. Never thought I'd actually accept that as a valid reason for anything.

Even so, Matt was amazed when he finally saw a single print in the mud. It wasn't any larger than that of the dog-sized zerglings, but true to the namesake of whatever these creatures had been mutated into it resembled the pawprint of a large wolf, or maybe the lyotes of Mar Sara. Unfortunately it was just the one. He had no idea how large the force they were trailing was.

What I wouldn't give for Bo right about now... Matt thought wistfully as he thought about one of the domesticated lyotes they kept on the farm. Out of all his littermates, Bo had the best nose. Matt smiled to himself as he remembered the alien canine once sniffing around the cactus fields all day, only to come back carrying a pair of shears Matt had dropped with his scaly tail high in the air as if he'd found the Holy Grail.

He switched his visor to thermals and scanned the area momentarily; the only notable heat signatures he could see were those of the guards ahead of him. As Matt looked around the forest through the grayscale image, he shuddered at how foreboding it all looked. The Commander had mentioned it was abnormally high in chaos magic - a fact that was painfully confirmed by the unpredictable foliage - but to him it looked downright evil.

The branches of the trees hung low and wide, blotting out the sun almost completely and producing an almost claustrophobic atmosphere. Even the shape of the plants themselves held a certain malice, having all jagged lines and where they didn't, thorns.

As he looked up at the branches above him Matt swore he could even... see...

... Claws...

He struggled to comprehend what he was looking at, as whatever it was was the same temperature as the trees. Matt switched off the thermal visor and stopped in his tracks as he gawked.

Perched in the tree was an odd, canine-esque creature about the size of a pony, but that was where the similarities ended. Each of it's four paws had four wicked claws digging into the bark it stood on, and a long prehensile tail wrapped around the branch like a monkey's. The snout of it's wolfish face had extended into a pair of narrow, vertically aligned pincer-like mandibles as long as its body, the tips of which hooked inwards. With some imagination, Matt could make out jagged ridges along the inner edge where the teeth came to shallow points. Even the hooks at the end appeared to have once been canine fangs fused together.

The entire creature appeared to have been made of sticks, logs, and other assorted chunks of wood. Dusty brown bark covered each piece, giving it the same color and texture of its perch. A pair of pupilless, sickly green eyes stared down at him as they regarded each other. Neither Terran nor creature moved or made a sound.

A jolt of panic rushed through Matt. That's definitely what we're looking for, he thought. But I honestly can't tell if it's Zerg or not. For all I know the damn thing could be sapient!

His eyes flicked away from the wooden beast as movement in his peripheral sight caught his attention. Two others Matt hadn't noticed before slowly turned their menacing maws in his direction, fixing him with the same cold gaze from separate branches. The soft creak of shifting wood, an eerie sound they'd been hearing all day came from the creatures as they moved their massive heads.

"Hobbes!" came the hushed voice of Long Shot up ahead. "What is it?"

Matt's gaze flicked down the patrol of guards ahead and briefly saw their golden helms sticking above the brush, their concerned faces looking back at him.

Before Matt could respond to the guard sergeant, a deep, mournful note like from some kind of woodwind instrument sounded above him. He returned his gaze to the creature in its arboreal perch and saw its long head raised to the sky, its jaws revealing themselves as the source of the haunting howl. Its two companions quickly joined in, adding their own sorrowful tone. Suddenly the entire forest echoed with the sounds of dozens of the creatures.

"They're in the trees," Matt muttered as a chill crept up his spine. "Eyes up! THEY'RE IN THE TREES!"

No sooner had Matt shouted his warning did the nearest mutated timberwolf leap down at him, jaws nearly as wide as he was tall. He cursed himself for not having his rifle at high ready as he dove to the side, narrowly avoiding its wooden maw as it snapped shut where his head had been just a moment before. The sound was like the crack of a whip as they closed faster than the eye could see.

Something about the sound sent a spike of pain through Matt's skull, exacerbating his already pounding headache. The edges of his vision went red as he fired a burst of laserfire into the timberwolf the moment it touched the ground. The searing rays scorched holes clean through the monster, blasting chunks of charred bark and wood pulp in all directions. To his satisfaction it dropped to the ground, its cold eyes now lifeless and dark.

His reprieve was short lived as Matt saw the other two pouncing down on him through his peripheral sight. He fired another burst at the nearest one even as it was still in the air, killing it instantly with the same effect as the first. Unfortunately, Matt was painfully reminded of Newton's first law of motion as he failed to not be the outside force.

The timberwolf's husk crashed into him like a truck, sending both Matt and the corpse sprawling across the forest floor in a tangle of limbs. It was all Matt could do to keep hold of his rifle. He practically threw the timberwolf off of him as he scrambled to his feet, wiping off sticky, greenish plant guts from his visor. The moment his vision was clear his eyes were met with the third pouncing mid-leap. Still struggling to get a proper grip on the rifle, he reflexively held it out in front of him like a shield.

The timberwolf barreled into him, snapping its jaws on the rifle with a crunch and knocking Matt flat on his back. With all his might, he forced the now-ruined rifle further into its maw even as it stood over him, pinning him in place. His mind raced, vision red as he fought to keep the deadly mandibles open. Needing both hands to keep the rifle in place, he found himself locked in stalemate, neither man nor beast willing to give ground.

With his rage growing in him every passing moment he growled, "Get... The fuck... OFF OF ME!"

With a shout, Matt dropped his arms slightly and pushed as hard as he could. While no slouch in PT, he wasn't anticipating the timberwolf to go launching as it did. It practically flew nearly ten meters where it slammed into a tree trunk with a loud crunch, rifle still clutched in its mouth as it slid to the ground where it lay still.

Did... Did I do that? he wondered as he drew his pistol and sprang to his feet, keeping the sights trained on the timberwolf.

He looked left and right, but could only see the commotion of the guard patrol fighting off mutant timberwolves of their own. Balls of fire and javelins flew in every direction as they held their ground. Matt swore as he dashed to pry his rifle from the timberwolf's death grip. Had he not been rushing to help the pony guards, he would have been dismayed at the loss. He sprinted, not even feeling his feet hit the ground through the adrenaline, and fired at the few of the remaining assailants.

As a javelin buried itself deep in the chest of the last mutant, the forest fell silent once more. Matt's gorge rose as the scene conjured images of Braxis. The forest floor was littered with the timberwolves, blasted to pieces by fireballs, or stuck through with javelins like pin cushions. Amidst it all where the bloody, shredded remains of ponies, torn to pieces so small Matt couldn't tell how many were dead. A quick head count told him they'd lost two.

Matt's eyes shot wide as he saw Long Shot. Two of the guards were cranking tight a brown tourniquet on his right foreleg, just below his shoulder. It was missing halfway down, and judging by the tattered bits of loose flesh and skin, had been forcefully ripped off.

Good, they've actually got some CLS training, Matt thought with a bit of relief,

"Hey, Hobbes," he said, forcing a smile. "Thanks for the heads-up. They were on top of us in a second." Turning to one of the guards not administering to him, he barked, "Set up a perimeter! You want the buckers sneaking up on us again?"

With a strained laugh, Matt said, "Gotta admit, you guys are tougher than you look." He dropped to a knee and helped pull security around the fallen sergeant. Checking his HUD, the rest of his squad was still alive and well.

Long Shot groaned and laughed, "Hey now, give us a little credit. This might be the first time we've seen any real action but we're professionals here."

"Fair enough." Turning away to allow the guards to finish treating his injury, Matt keyed the radio. "Squad, SITREP. We just took contact in the lead element by the timberwolves. Took two fatalities and the patrol leader is wounded."

"Sergeant, this is Ivanov: took contact as well from a squad sized unit of the same. One fatality, no other wounded. Over"

Matt nodded, wincing slightly at the news of one other casualty but otherwise they were doing more damage than they received. Still, something wasn't adding up in his mind. The tactics aren't too far off from small zergling groups... Lie in wait, then ambush and catch them by surprise. But these things are even squishier than zerglings so why even bother? Is this just a field trial? he remembered hearing of unconfirmed reports from the Second Great War about multiple variations of combat strains briefly appearing, only for one to remain in use for the duration.

"Roger. Archer, Clay?"

"This is Archer: we co-located with Sergei when they took contact, same report as his. Over."

"This is Clay: No TIC, but Mike thinks he saw some red air."

Red air? Shit, that's not good. "Roger. Keep an eye on it. Let us know if you can get a PID. If you think you've got a clear shot, go ahead and take it."

"Roger all, over."

"Stu, is Dory with you?"

"Got 'er right here."

"Have her go check on the rear patrols and report everything to the LT. Oh, also have her mention to maintain tight formations in the patrols. You guys pass that on to your own, too. Over."

"Rog'."

"Also..." Matt sighed. "Sergei, pin the location of your casualty. We'll... collect them on the way back," he said as he did the same for the two fallen guards.

"... Roger, Sergeant," was the grim acknowledgment.

Matt turned back to his own patrol as he finished, watching as the guard sergeant staggered to his hooves on three legs. A bandage of white gauze was wrapped around the stump like a mummy. "Oh, hell no, you can't move like that."

"Why not? We've trained to move and fight with disabled legs."

"Not in this terrain you haven't. I'm not doubting your training, but this shit is rough enough even at a hundred percent."

"Not that I disagree, but unless you know any tracking spells I need to stay in front."

Dammit, he's got a point. I knew it had to be something like that. "Fine. But we're keeping a tight formation on you, even more than we normally would with zerglings."

"That's a typical maneuver?"

"Only for zerglings. That way only the outer troops are in direct contact. Probably why we got fucked so bad on Braxis: too spread out."

"Guess you need to make some sacrifices against these things..." Long Shot nodded in grim agreement.

"Ideally we'd have heavy armor units like firebats that can take the punishment," Matt admitted, "But that's not a luxury we have right now."

"Then we'll have to make do." He pointed his chin at Matt's broken laser rifle. "What happened to that thing?"

Matt unslung it from his back and inspected the damage for the first time. The receiver looked like it had been caught between jaws of life. The polymer shell was shattered, revealing the irreparably warped aluminum frame and crumbling circuitry. The only thing salvageable was the grenade launcher and loaded power cell. He pocketed the cell to use in his pistol and pre-loaded an HE shell in the launcher.

"Got pinned by one of them," Matt explained. "This was the only thing between me and a French Revolution reenactment."

"Well, better that than your head," Long Shot said, cluing in on the meaning. "Any word on casualty extraction?"

"We can recover them on the way back, unless-"

"Sar'nt, Sergei, this is Clay: got a relay from the LT, over."

"Speak of the devil... Send it."

"Rearmost patrol is being split to bring the casualties to the CCP at the exfil site and reinforce the front two patrols. Over."

Good, she's not completely useless. "And LT?"

"Staying with fifth patrol, over."

... Just mostly useless. "Roger all, we'll hold position until they get here. Over." Matt turned to Long Shot and relayed the news.

"Horseapples... More dead than wounded? Is that typical?"

"When fighting Zerg? Yeah. But trust me, they can do far worse than that... Or that," Matt said, gesturing at the remains of his leg.

"Yeah... I got the brief on Appleloosa. 'Don't get captured'."

"That about sums it up."

The reinforcements eventually arrived, along with a pair of unicorns acting as CASEVAC. They looked green around the gills as they collected what body parts they could and carried them off to the landing zone, levitating them with their horns.

Rough introduction to real warfare, Matt mused with a pang of sympathy. Still, they're handling themselves pretty well.

They pressed on, the once spread out formation now clustered in a tight ball centered around Long Shot. To Matt's surprise, he was actually able to see how his tracking spell worked. Innumerable wolf-like paw prints seemed to shine through the underbrush like the overlays on his HUD, showing the previous movement of a sizeable force larger than what they'd already faced.

That's amazing! Matt thought. If only we could do something like that... Shame Long Shot's the only one who knows how to do it though.

To his even greater surprise, Long Shot's mobility was hardly hampered, even with his new hobble. Granted their progress was slowed somewhat, on account of his needing help climbing over some of the obstacles, but they were still making decent progress. Though the pony remained as light-hearted as ever, Matt could see the tension in his jaw as he fought back the discomfort.

Dory renewed the translation spell once more, driving his headache even worse. It felt like his skull was going to explode from the pressure. Fighting through the pain as best he could, he kept a close eye on the path ahead. Before long he spied a purple hue through the undergrowth.

"Halt," he said, throwing up a fist and dropping to one knee so only his head and shoulders were above the brush. The ponies ducked their heads down, showing only their eyes.

"What do you see?" Long Shot asked through gritted teeth.

"I think I see creep up ahead. Hold here, I'm gonna go check it out." On his radio, he keyed, "Squad, this is Hobbes: possible creep ahead, hold position while I go do leader's recon." A chorus of strained "roger"s came through, likely from the shared migraines they were all dealing with.

Going low and slow, Matt crept through the brush towards the purple. As he drew near, he started to see... sunlight through the trees on the other side.

That can't be right. Must be a clearing over there. Does creep absorb trees? Man I should've paid more attention in that class...

He pushed further, trying to get a better look. Sure enough, the purple revealed itself to be the glistening, fleshy goop that covered the ground like some kind of pulsating, living carpet. The slimy mass had replaced the dense undergrowth that made their journey so difficult, replacing it with a smooth surface. There were a few sickly looking trees just within the creep like the masts of a shipwreck sticking above the water. Beyond them, the creep was bare, and Matt could see scores of the mutant timberwolves patrolling the area, thus confirming the association.

Curiously, he also saw worker drones floating all about, carrying bits of material in their crablike claws he couldn't identify. Matt pulled out his binoculars and watched them for a moment, wondering just what it was they were harvesting.

They were carrying... wood. Wood? He followed a drone not carrying anything, and watched it approach one of the sickly trees and start cutting it down. Nearby, a trio of drones were busily removing timber from an already fallen tree.

Matt lowered the binoculars and considered what he'd seen. The puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place.

Zerg timberwolves made of actual wood, presence of a Zerg base, and drones collecting wood... They're making the timberwolves here! They've gotta be. If I could just find the main structure... Aha!

Raising his binoculars again, he looked past the swarm of timberwolves and saw a huge tree growing out of a pool of disgustingly green ooze at the clearing's center. Its trunk was a corpulent mass of pulsating black bark with exposed roots flared out wide at the base like a demented mangrove tree. Drones were busily dropping bits of harvested wood into the goop before returning to get more. A wide, flat canopy towered above the clearing with leaves made of flat plates of bone-white wood.

And hanging from the canopy were massive, oval green seed pods in varying stages of growth. Matt already knew what they contained, but the tree showed him anyway as one dropped to the ground. It split open on impact and not one, or two, or three, but four mutant timberwolves burst out making harsh barking sounds before joining their brothers.

Bingo, he thought with a grin, Now to burn this place down.

He waved over his shoulder to the hidden guards and heard the light rustling of movement from behind.

"Squad, this is Hobbes: PID on Zerg base, confirm mutant timberwolves as Zerg ground forces, defense consists of company sized element of-"

"Timberlings?" John interrupted.

Timberlings? Matt thought, rolling the word in his head. It sounded oddly fitting, considering their tactics and the way they hatched - sprouted? Yeah, that works.

"Chto? 'Timberlings'?" was Sergei's reply.

"Think about it! It works!"

Matt shook his head with a smile as Long Shot and his patrol joined up with him. "Roger, a company sized element of timberlings."

"Pravda, serzhant?"

"Ha! Go pout, I win."

"That's what you get for needing the support by fire instead of being it, Sergei," jabbed Stuart.

He could almost hear the roll of Sergei's eyes as he let out a sarcastic, "Da, kapral"

"Alright, that's enough," Hobbes admonished. "John, get that intel relayed to LT. We're still undetected but I don't know how long that'll last."

"Copy, Zerg base located, confirmation on timberlings, company sized element in defense."

"Good copy, over."

Matt broke comms and turned to Long Shot. "I think we've got 'em."

"Whoo... I've seen some crazy stuff in the Everfree, but I think that takes the cake. What exactly am I looking at?"

"Hmm. Don't know if you got the briefing about Zerg needing certain structures to be able to use different combat strains, but I'm guessing that's what we're looking at for timberlings."

"'Scuse me?"

"Clay came up with it."

"Buckin' privates, I swear," he grumbled with a shake of his head.

"At least Sergei's got someone in his corner," Matt chuckled.

"Well, any ideas on how we go about this? Surprisingly, assaulting alien facilities wasn't taught in basic."

"Did they ever teach about how to deal with timberwolves?"

"A little bit. Use fire and aim for the neck and chest."

"What about clearing out a population of them?"

Long Shot gave him an odd look. "We don't. We're not like you Terrans."

The sudden biting tone caught Matt off guard. "So I've gathered," he said, restraining himself from saying any more.

"In any case," Long Shot continued, "This isn't how timberwolves naturally reproduce. There is no one big central tree that they all sprout from."

"How do they reproduce, anyway? They're technically plants, right?"

"They plant seeds and nurture them while they grow. Takes about three months for a timberpup to pop out of it's pod."

"Sounds a lot like laying eggs."

"Not too far off from how Starswirl the Bearded first described them, really."

"... Who?"

"Never mind."

Right then... "How're you holding up, by the way?"

Long Shot looked down at his stump. "Lost all feeling below the tourniquet a while ago. Probably for the best."

"I am gonna put my foot down and say that you're not fighting here. At most, rear guard."

He let out a long sigh before agreeing. "Yeah. You're probably right. Gonna need you to take charge of the patrol then."

"Will they be okay with that?"

"I don't know," Long Shot said. Then with an edge of authority asked them, "Will they?"

The guards all turned and eagerly said, "Yes, Sergeant!"

Matt eyed each of their long faces. It didnt feel right, being in command of another's troops. "I'll try to keep them safe."

"Good luck." They heard the thud and following barks of another seed pod spawning more timberlings. "I think you'll need it."

As it turned out, Lieutenant Slipstream decided to have the guard platoon group up in a nicely hidden hollow not far from where Matt identified the Zerg base. As before, her and all the NCOs were gathered to discuss the coming assault.

"Alright, let's get down to brass tacks," Slipstream said. "We've identified that the Zerg base up there is the source of the mutant timberwolves, which we'll be referring to as 'timberlings' from here on. We're to find a way to take down that central tree and neutralize their combat power. As it stands, they've got us outnumbered nearly three to one and growing, but we've got the advantage of range and firepower. One thing I want to emphasize is that these buckers are fast. If we're not careful, they'll be on us like white on rice.

"Now, we need a game plan for how to tackle this. Suggestions?"

"Don't suppose burning it to the ground is out of the question?" One of the patrol leaders - a corporal from previously the rear patrol - brought up.

"In theory, no," Long Shot answered, still present despite his injury. "The problem is getting close enough to use any kind of fire spells."

"Right, that 'creep' will alert them the second we put a hoof on it," another sergeant mentioned.

"What about the pegasi?" Matt asked. "It looks like there's enough room in the clearing for them to fly, and we didn't see any anti-air units."

"We could harass them from above," said one of the pegasus sergeants - this one one of the few mares. "Though we don't have anything that could start fires, unless the unicorns put fire enchantment on our javelins."

"I think we can make that happen," Slipstream said. "Though it might be better for them to focus on the seed pods. For whatever reason those things are maturing in less than an hour, and we need to cut off their line of troops."

"Depends on how good those javelins are at piercing armor," Matt chimed. "If they're anything like Zerg eggs, they'll be stupid tough to break."

"Then we'll add that to their enchantments. Still need a way through the ground forces though."

"Don't suppose your colts have anything in your box of tricks?" Long Shot asked Matt.

He ran through the list of weaponry they'd brought with them. He'd opted to leave the nukes behind, rightly expecting a forest to be a bad place to launch such a high-yield weapon. "We've got the machine laser for crowd control, a couple frag and perdition hand grenades each, some grenade launchers, a few rounds for the wrecker, and four missiles in the hailstorm for air defense."

"Any ideas on how best to use those?" Slipstream asked.

"Much as I'd like to go all out, we've gotta make our ammunition last three weeks. So unfortunately we'll be forced to be selective with our targets." Matt saw the Lieutenant's jaw clench in irritation. "But what we do have available should be pretty effective at thinning their numbers, especially the machine laser and perdition grenades. If we use those where the swarm is thickest we can do some solid damage to their ranks."

"Don't suppose you have anything that can take out that tree?"

"Honestly, probably not anything better than what your unicorns can do with their fireballs." He shrugged. "I hate to admit it, but taking out the ground forces enough to put sustained fire on it is gonna be our best bet. That's usually how we would clear out a hive anyway."

"So we focus on eliminating the timberlings first." Slipstream picked up a stick with her wing feathers - Okay, THAT is the weirdest thing I've ever seen, Matt thought - and started drawing a rough sketch of the clearing on a patch of exposed dirt. "We'll establish three positions of unicorn patrols at the clearing's ten, twelve, and two o'clock positions. The pegasi will stage at the four, six, and eight.

"When I give the signal, the patrols at the four and eight will arc north and hit the pods from the four to twelve, and eight to twelve respectively while the six engages the four to eight, priority targets being the most developed ones. Hopefully, that'll draw attention away from the unicorn patrols. Once the timberlings get riled up, the unicorns will start raining fireballs on them from the twelve. Hobbes, I'll need one of your troopers there since they'll likely take the biggest push."

"Aye aye, ma'am. I'll put Ivanov and myself there with the machine laser, and I've still got grenades to shoot."

"Good. Once they start converging on the twelve, the ten and two will hit their flanks. Check your sectors of fire; the last thing we need out here is a fratricide. Once the timberlings are neutralized, we'll advance to the center and start laying into the tree. Anypony have any more to add?"

Dory was surprisingly the next to speak up. "What about the flying forces?"

"Good question. Have we gotten any confirmation on that?"

"Nothing solid," Matt groused. "But my guy that saw it is pretty confident it's an overlord."

"Then that'll be our secondary target. We take that out, it'll make our jobs that much easier. Once the pods nearest to dropping are taken care of, the pegasi patrols will split and go above the canopy to hunt whatever it is down.

"Any more questions, comments, concerns?" Slipstream was met with silence. "Then you have your orders. Brief your patrols and get ready to move into position: we start in fifteen minutes."

Well I'll be damned. She's still a bitch, but at least she's a smart bitch.

Author's Note

PT: Physical Training
CLS: Combat Life Saver
SITREP: Situation Report
TIC: Troops in Contact
"Red Air:" Hostile Air Forces
PID: Positive Identification
CCP: Casualty Collection Point

Retroactively changed Slipstream to a pegasus. No idea why I thought she would be a unicorn in the first place. Tiny brain move.