While the ponies couldn't understand what was being said by the blue giants, they could at least understand the excited tones the creatures had, and now that they were closer, Fluttershy could make out their appearances. These immense behemoths sported deep blue skin and large overbites with long and crooked lower teeth growing from their lower jaws. Their bodies were rippling with muscle and absurd strength judging by one picking up a pony-sized boulder to chuck it at one of Sombra's monsters with very little effort. Weirder still was the lack of conformity with these creatures: They all sported different types of clothing of various colors and states of wear as they rested underneath rusted and bent armor. Those closest to the survivors of the impact pulled out rusty mallets, bulky clubs, or spikey maces, and while these earth ponies and unicorns were beaten down by the brief confusion, Fluttershy and the remnants of her platoon watched as the creatures were gunned down by their rifles, artillery, and magic spells, but not without considerable effort.

"I...I thought they were going to break from that..." one of Fluttershy's soldiers said with a trembling voice.

Fluttershy watched as one of the visitors found his head taken by a cannonball and its comrade next to it pointing and laughing hysterically before having its head hollowed out by a piercing spell.

"They think this is funny..." Fluttershy gasped in disgust. She looked around, seeing the miles of trenches and craters, and grimaced. "If we can keep to the trenches, they'll get sandwiched between us and Sombra's forces." She turned to her remaining soldiers. "Ready lances and dive on my signal! We're doing hit-and-run tactics."

The ponies pulled out foldable lances hidden along their spines and unfolded them, their points sharp and hungry for carnage. Without a moment of hesitation, the pegasi flew higher before plunging, building up as much speed as they could and heading toward the massive brutes headbutting the fortifications along the many large hills dotted about the area. With screams of rage and dying breaths, the blue creatures were injured and fell backward, but Fluttershy realized their lances weren't dealing killing blows. The skin or muscles of these beasts were far denser and tougher than she initially expected. She continued undeterred with her platoon, joined by others that took to the skies from the backlines whether they were injured or not.

The lieutenant saw one of Sombra's bulky monsters using its four arms to stallionhandle one of the blue monsters when others seemingly came to its aid, only to join together and push the abomination away. She was horrified when a far larger and bulkier blue creature carrying a massive warhammer pulled away and tossed one of its kin over its shoulder to headbutt the abomination in its deformed approximation of a face. It did it over and over again to the cheers of the smaller things before being grabbed by the throat. She didn't follow further as she had done at one of the creatures climbing its kin to jump over fortifications and barbed wire, only for Fluttershy's lance to go through both sides of its neck.

"Lieutenant, watch out!"

Fluttershy's concentration was interrupted when one of her platoon soldiers was shot down by a flashing ball. One of the blue creatures was holding an assortment of cylinders that only vaguely resembled a rifle and pointed it at her. What was the rectangle sticking out of the side for?

She screamed in terror when the weapon started to fire off its payload, nearly missing her several times.

"They can fire in quick succession?!"

It was joined by the others throwing sticks and rocks at the defenders, often missing completely and hitting their own, only for it all to explode, something Sombra's forces suffered through as well.

"Lieutenant Fluttershy?" a garbled voice spoke to the mare in her ear.

"Oh, thank the Sun. The radio works again," Fluttershy said with a sigh of relief. "Yes?"

"Pull back! They're doing something to those carcasses that fell from the sky!"

There was barely anything left of the vessels that crashed down into the center of the battlefield. Instead, Fluttershy bore witness to multiple vehicles sporting metallic wheels or a weird system of interlinked metal plates she had never seen before. The lot of them were as mismatched as the vessels themselves, often sporting a cannon or so on them. A few were surrounded with hastily-soldered plates of metal while others seemed to revel at the feel of the wind across their bald heads when the vehicles all roared to life. A few exploded, leaving behind blue creatures left blackened and charred but laughing heartily at the outcome of their 'project' only to quickly get back to rebuilding somehow.

It was as quick as their intervention. It had only been two hours since this third party had arrived, but they already created working war machines while under a constant barrage of bullets and artillery.

"We need to fall back and regroup!" Fluttershy shouted. "I don't know what these things are, but they're loving this and actively attacking both sides with no regard to whom it is their targeting."

"But we can't pull back now!" the soldier on the other side said. "We almost--"

"We have no choice! It's either that or we all die and these things invade Equestria! Relay that to the lieutenant-colonel and his aides!"

"Yes m'am!"

Fluttershy readjusted her communications piece and spoke to her platoon. "Any surviving ponies of my platoon, pull back immediately. We're retreating! Watch the ground and drop whatever you have left as explosives on the heads of these blue things."

After several minutes of diving and dodging the bullets fired by these creatures' weapons, the rectangle constantly hitting them in the stomach while they did so, Fluttershy finally received a response.

"Lieutenant," the radio operator started. "The heads agreed. It's a general retreat on all fronts. These blue things have appeared everywhere. We're to pull back to the border of the Crystal Empire and Griffonia."

Fluttershy gawked. "That far back?! Fine!"

Most of the equipment and supplies meant to reinforce the frontline and replace damaged equipment had been placed there, so did that mean everything was going to be used actively in this war?

The mare grit her teeth, her bones rattling to the sound of repeated explosions followed by smaller ones crawling along the ground and destroying blue monster and pony alike. She paled at the source: Flying craft belching flames behind them as the blue things stayed on its hull and actively caught and resoldered plates of metal falling off of it. As the bulky metal beast flew past Fluttershy, one of the invaders made a grab for her and grumbled loudly when it missed, much to the amusement of the pilot. Three more of those things flew toward Fluttershy but made a u-turn, and unleashed a wave of screaming rockets at one battle site further away, peppering both the Equestrians' and Sombrian's positions in explosives, sending mud and viscera everywhere.

Artillery in the backlines began a rain of fire that kept the monsters at bay as soldiers retreated, but not without firing a round or two. Unicorns did their best to put up barriers, but the angry vehicles were coming, digging through the mud like it was nothing, and then they got close.

It was the worst thing Fluttershy had ever experienced so far. Hundreds of bullets going everywhere all at once like a dozen canister shells had been fired. Massive explosions coming from cannons as big as she was. A bunch of smaller explosions doing the same from smaller cannons. One pony that was caught in the mud had been grabbed and crushed against the cannon breech when it fired, horrifying Fluttershy.

Soldiers sat, exhausted, at the armored line in the Crystal Empire running along its whole border. It had taken them years to get so far in the war. They were just a few days of walking to reach the capital. They lost all that progress in mere days. Thousands dead. Millions injured. All for nothing.

It was insulting bright and sunny, too, and Fluttershy was blinded by the sunlight above. She and the remnants of her platoon were hiding away in a bunker, listening quietly to the radio as the ground troops readied their rifles and brand new 'machine guns' inspired by the creatures' weaponry, although it was allegedly already in development.

"We've been stuck here for a month, chasing those things off," one ground troop muttered to herself. She checked the trigger of her rifle and set it back into place. "All we do is sit here and chase them off when they approach. How much longer are we going to stay here?"

"They've just been using everything we left behind and using it against us."

"Or blowing up."

Fluttershy peered through the thin slit in the concrete building, grimacing to herself. "They're here again."

The soldiers scampered to their hooves and one rushed to a table with a radio on it and frantically pulled down several maps of the area, relaying the information to the other bunkers and defensive lines.

Once again, the air was filled with the sounds of bullets flying and explosives hurtling through the air while the blue monsters came in with their ramshackle weaponry. One of the flying machines was overloaded with the monsters and spun around when it got in place, chasing off and throwing its passengers everywhere onto their dead kin below in the muddy trenches.

"We can't keep doing this..." the mare from earlier whined. "I'm so tired!"

Another looked at the three clips in his bandolier. "And we're running out of ammo."

Fluttershy picked up a rifle from the wall and sat beside the soldiers. "Nothing we can do now but keep fighting until they tired out." She groaned and dragged a ragged hoof across her face. "I wish I was back in my cottage..."

She tensed up when she realized what had just come out of her mouth. The other soldiers stared at her, their faces starting to look just as weary and fatigued as her own. It was too late now.

The blue monsters attacked just as the clouds started to roll in on their own, unfettered by the will of the pegasi too embroiled in battle and industry to control the weather. The fighting continued like this for several more days until the ponies ran out of ammo and looked at their opponent in horror as they all adopted a rictus when they realized what had happened.

"Swords and spears to hooves!" Fluttershy and several other voices ordered loudly. "We can still funnel them into the bunker entrances!"

A familiar sensation crept along her spine and the loud, guttural cries of the blue beasts broke her from her panic as they all pointed in excitement at something coming from the sky. Several let go of the ponies they were about to kill to rush over to whatever it was instead. Two of their ramshackle craft flew overhead and started to open fire on whatever was coming, only for one to receive multiple massive shells in its body that ripped it apart in the sky. The other was pierced by a long vessel made of rings that were dented and folded in various areas, having caught the shells of its would-be destroyer.

Flashing lights could be seen far above, through the empty spots between the clouds, showing that these blue things were still somewhere in the sky of Fluttershy's world and attacking whatever these newcomers were.

"Don't be tricked like last time," Fluttershy said apprehensively.

"No need to worry, lieutenant," a mare whispered. "We learned that the hard way."

They watched as the makeshift ballista bolt spun around and landed on the ground with a violent thud. It slid across the ground, kicking up dirt and debris and crushing several of the monsters before finally coming to a halt. Several craft flew overhead, going elsewhere Fluttershy couldn't see. She couldn't figure out how they were flying as she didn't see the black fumes coming from anywhere, only a very loud humming that seemed to change in pitch as the oddly 'spherical' craft flew away.

"From the ship!" a soldier pointed out.

Several tall creatures covered in segmented armor protecting loose clothing beneath emerged from the rear of the craft followed by two, gigantic, bipedal machines topped with what Fluttershy could only describe as a weapons platform. They quickly unfurled themselves and let loose dozens of rockets, ripping apart the monsters as they stomped forward, ignoring every explosive they stepped on, their bulk, rectangular forms unbothered by everything around them.

The tinier entities immediately used whatever was around them as cover, much to Fluttershy's surprise, and started opening fire on the blue monsters. Three of them brought forth a glowing, blue machine that looked like several small rifle barrels floating in a blue cloud. A third brought a glowing blue pack and attached it to the machine, interconnecting the barrels and showering the monsters with a fire rate that burnt and consumed their flesh.

As this new battle raged on, several of the larger creatures used their kin as living shields and got into range to use their melee weaponry. Two of them had their torsos disintegrate instantly without so much as a pop. Another was blown apart with a single punch. Three bipedal figures had emerged from another section of the craft, these ones seemingly as big or slightly bigger than the blue monsters. They were clad head-to-toe in metal, as though they were statues made from a single block of steel. However, all their joints glowed a pale blue and created a checkerboard pattern with every movement. Two of them holding rifles seemed to have their weapons connected to their thighs by a blue stream of light holding bullets the pegasus couldn't recognize.

They were colored in bright, flash shades as their lower left and upper right sections were candy red while the other two were deep sea blue. The trim around their neck protection, shoulders, and knees were a golden hue, but only one seemed to have an orange trim on their left shoulder and wrist.

Finally, the one at their front was wearing sun-bleached armor and a pure black helmet. Fluttershy couldn't make out the precise details of said helmet, but she could make out the hands of this monster that were thrice the size of the others' hands' and crackling with brown energy that seemed oddly...pale.

"Now what?!" Fluttershy moaned.

Author's Note

You'll find the link to Lux Locus: The First Awakening here.

It's a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid spanning 82k words, set in a universe where eldritch aliens can come in from other dimensions with weapons that have odd effects within our reality and gods that can enter our plane with the right rituals, but that's for later books.

Here's the description:

Killigan Ghor, a blacksmith of the Calaghi System, explores the swamps beyond his village and discovers immense gauntlets that put him on the path to becoming a super soldier of the Terran Expanse: A Pillar Scieldan. As he grows in experience over the years, he returns to his home system with the promise of defending it from threats. However, due to his reckless actions, he awakens a rotting threat that casts its eyes over his home system. Its ever-changing tendrils grow closer to his home, and Killigan must find a way to stay its decaying flesh lest it destroys all of his work.