A guard in golden armor calmly marched atop the wall of the outpost he was stationed at, it was a quiet day but then again most days out in the Badlands. It was always quiet but that's how he liked it, calm, peaceful and-"Hey Steven!"-god damn it.

The Guard, Steven, turned to look at the other guard who was too damn cheerful for the early morning he had been enjoying. "What do you want Roger?" Steven asked in annoyance.

Roger grinned as he ran over to Steven holding up a paper. It was a few days old now, about a week, but that was pretty common for out here. News rarely traveled so far quickly and when it did there was trouble, and how was it trouble if what the headline plashed across the front read. Steven grabbed the paper quickly reading it, his eyes narrowing under his helmet as he read quickly the newspaper before looking at the grinning guard beside him. "And why are you smiling Roger?" He asked in a frustrated tone. "War has been declared and our little outpost has just risen from being the most insignificant backwater of the Kingdom staffed by a bunch of shinny recruits to the most important station of the Kingdom that's still staffed by a bunch of shinny recruits." He asked earning a frown from Roger.

"Don't have to be mean sir, I just though that it might make you happy to know we're now important." Roger said as he took the paper back and folded it nicely. "Besides, the boys have been itching for a bit of fun anyway. Taking out a few Changeling Infiltrators might lighten their mood."

"Or get them killed." He said as he turned and marched his way back down the wall and headed down the stairs for the main command center of the base.

Calling the little fort they were at a base was honestly giving it far more credit than it was due. The fort was old, made during the old days when the Kingdom of Equestria was a more militaristic force in the days before the great Lunar Rebellion. Back then the Kingdom of Equestria was known as the Equestrian Empire with Celestia and Luna leading the Empire far more directly than they did now.

Back then Equestria and Saddle Arabia hadn't been allied kingdom's and rarely saw eye to eye. Given they bore differing religions and beliefs, with Equestria following their Princesses and Saddle Arabia trusting in the power of their Sultans, the two nations ended up at odds with each other quite often. As a result of these fights a total of twenty monitoring stations had been set up to act as an early warning system to warn Equestria if an invasion was coming.

Now days the two nations were mostly at peace with one another but the Outposts had remained in operation, though now days they were more often used as training stations or as punishment detail for unruly guard trainees.

Steven sighed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, this could not have come at a worse time in his opinion as the men manning the station were all a bunch of brash hot headed morons in his opinion and as he stepped into the command center of his outpost he was proven right once again with one of his men, a big muscular man by the name of Brick Wall loudly proclaimed that he would rather keep arm wrestling his fellow soldiers than look at his monitoring station because the site they were at was the most boring places in Equestria. "And as of one week ago, one of the most important." He said in a serios voice.

"Attention! Sergeant on deck!" One of the troops said as another of the troops quickly hit the 'sergeant on deck alarm' causing all the troops to stop and salute Steven, causing the man to frown more.

"At ease." Steven said as he sighed and stepped to the center of the room. "A week ago Changelings murdered Princess Twilight Sparkle and war was declared." He said as Roger came up behind him and handed him the paper which he took from his second in command and threw on to the table showing the headline announcing the murder of Twilight Sparkle and the declaration of war against the Badlands Changeling Hive of Queen Chrysalis. "Even though you're all new here, I shouldn't have to remind you that this station is key to the security of Equestria." Steven stated calmly as he walked around the command center looking at the troops under him. "If the Changelings get past this station, they could launch an attack on our home nation and the guard would be none the wiser till it was too late so I want everything squared away and done by the book. Understood?" He asked in a harsh tone as he looked around as the troops under him, their looks now more series as they realized he wasn't just bullshitting them.

"Sir! Yes, sir!" The troops shouted as they quickly began to run around cleaning the command center up and getting their armor and equipment ready.

Steven sighed as Roger stood next to him watching the chaos unfold. "Were all gonna die." He said sadly as Roger looked at his commander with concern.

Steven stood calmly looking out over the Badlands, the silence broken only by the wind blowing through the baren land. Around him the outpost was awash with activity as since that morning the troops had been working to prepare for the coming attack they knew was coming.

At his side stood Roger, is second in command and a normally pretty chill pony but now he was dressed in his armor, a concerned look on his face. "Sir, outpost 17 just went dark." He said as he looked up from an enchanted map that showed a network of signals designed to help monitor the many monitoring stations set up. Each station had a transition enchantment linked to a crystal all commanders had, in the event of an emergency the commander was to crush the crystal and disable the transmission. Outpost Sixteen was a bit important for the coming fight however, the reason being if five or more crystals were to be disabled it would override the whole network and send an emergency signal to Canterlot.

Steven looked at Roger with a determined look. "If we so much as see a single changeling I'm breaking the crystal." He told Roger calmly. "We're already dead so the best we can do is let the Princesses known before we punch the ticket." He said as he looked back out at the desert before them.

"Hey Sir? If it's any consolation, I'm sorry it had to be this way." He said as he joined his commander looking out at the desert.

"It's fine Roger, I kind of expected this to happen." Steven said as he slipped his hand under his breastplate and what sounded like breaking ice was heard. Roger twisted, a blade flashing into existence as he lunged at Steven. "Let's get this over with." Steven said calmly as he thrust his other hand up, a knife flashing in the sun as he sunk the blade into the part between the hyoid bone and mandible of Roger. There was a green flash as the Earth Pony like facade of Roger fell away revealing the cold black chitin underneath. "Good bye, old friend." He said as he ripped the knife out and swung it again this time into the forehead of the now revealed changeling.

Steven took a deep breath as he looked at the changeling, his breathing heavy from the sudden exertion before turning to look out over the desert, and the now black tide of figures charging with near feral like madness toward his outpost. "All units, OPEN FIRE!" Steven roared as behind him the sound of cannons firing and artillery spells opening fire were heard, their impacts killing maybe a couple dozen of the feral changelings as they swarmed forward.

From the heart of the Swarm a creature as tall as Celestia walked, her chitin shining in the desert suns light. A laugh could be heard from her as from amongst the many changelings her voice was heard, "Go my children, drain them of all there love, leave nothing more than husks to join us! Go and feed!" Chrysalis yelled before laughing madly, the swarm charged forward, descending upon the outpost like starved locusts. Sergeant Stevens grit his teeth as he drew his blade and braced himself for the coming fight.

The first wave that hit was obliterated almost as soon as they came from the canons and artillery from the fort as well as the spells from the unicorns who were acting as snipers, launching beams of magic from range to keep the Changelings back. Sergeant Stevens narrowed his eyes as the few Earth Ponies that were present joined the line beside him, their eyes narrowed and weapons drawn, as they prepared for the coming swarm. Only a few made it to their line actually able to fight and were killed swiftly as they leapt at their line only to be run through by the spears but then the next wave came and broke through the bombardment to close the gap.

With a roar of rage Sergeant Stevens leapt forward, his blade slicing through the changing before him as he turned and pivoted meeting the blade of a changeling as they tried to take him from the side, his spare hand going to his combat knife and quickly drawing it as he disarmed his opponent and drove the knife into their throat. With precision honed form years of training he turned and thrust his blade into the throat of another changeling while slashing the eyes of one behind him causing them to scream only for it to be cut short as he killed them too. Taking a moment to survey the situation he saw that to his left he sees some of the recruits struggling against a group of changelings and moved to help them, wading into the carnage with no hesitation.

As he approached thew group taking down any changing that approached him he grit his teeth as a heavy blow landed against this side from a surprise tackle, keeping his breathing steady he drove the knife between the changelings shoulder blades and threw the corpse off standing quickly as he turned back to see the group over whelmed by the numbers, his men being grabbed restrained but rather than killed he saw a changeling open his mouth and inhale.

As the Changeling inhaled he saw something leave the restrained soldiers mouth and be drawn into the changeling, the stallion screamed the longer whatever was being sucked out of him continued to be his body began to grow emaciated and turn black. Sergeant Stevens watched in horror as the recruits body turned black and he slumped forward as he was released only for the recruit to shoot up, his eyes open and glowing blue as he screamed, a horn split his forehead open as it grew from within and insect like wings ripped form his back. Slowly the recruit stood grabbing his face and ripping it off to reveal new carapace slick with blood and grin as he turned to another of the recruits licking his lips.

Sergeant Stevens grit his teeth as he watched his men become changelings. "Bastards." He whispered before charging forward to where the recruits once fought, a yell ripping from his throat and halfway to them he leapt into the air, his blade raised as he launched himself at the changelings only to find a blade being driven into his stomach. Sergeant Stevens looked down at his stomach and back up at the changeling, this one still having half the face of one of his recruits, City Slick was his name, and with a final groan he pulled a grenade from his belt, running it across the rough metal of his damaged armor and lit the fuse with a grin. The last thoughts of Sergeant Stevens being that he was just one week from retirement.

Author's Note

Merry Christmas Everyone! This is not a big update but I felt I should get something written for Christmas.

I hope you all enjoy the chapter and I'll see you all in the next one.

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