Rubble

by Mitamajr

Rating: teen
Tags: Death, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Original Character, Violence
Length: 5750

Another day, another village to liberate.

As the Kosko Civil War drags on, a company of special forces is tasked with liberating a village from fanatic rebels. Once again the soldiers go to battle, hoping to one day see the end of the war.

Set in my friend's Guardverse AU, but no knowledge of the AU is necessary. He also drew the cover art.

Published 2025-02-09 22:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2025-02-09 22:00:00 UTC

Rubble

Another day, another village to liberate.

Among the better units of Kosko Republican Army, the Special Forces Companies bore the brunt of the effort of driving back the Chamois rebels.

The quartet of off-road vehicles swerved around a tank staring down a stretch of highway at a distant village, before curving off the road embankment into a small clearing behind a row of abandoned multi-story buildings. Once the gray houses had served as apartments for the workers of a nearby factory, now a few guards stood around as a forward observer did her work in the upper floors. A shell shrieked by overhead before slamming into a distant ridge as dozens of caprines poured out of the off-roads, stretching their legs after a long ride. They had set off at midday, and now the Sun was about to reach the horizon.

One of them, a twisted-horn antelope with a pale brown fur and a piece missing from her right horn, peeled off the main group, approaching the sentries.

“Is our ammo here?” First Sergeant Fesker asked a goat standing in the shade of one of the buildings. He was equipped a lot worse than she was, with an olive green steel helmet and a flak jacket of the same color on top of his camouflage uniform, with a worn gun harness sticking to the side, the barrel of the weapon pointing down. Fesker couldn’t tell at a glance if he was Army or militia. Compared to that, a black uniform with a low cut kevlar helmet and a plate carrier seemed outright modern.

And while nobody asked her, Fesker was also happy her squad did not look too “operator”, all wearing roughly the same equipment with minimal modifications, instead of high speed gear on top of Equestrian 3-color camo, or even worse, civilian clothes. Special Forces or not, they were expected to look like soldiers.

“Haven’t seen it,” the sentry answered, giving Fesker an interested look. He recognized the special forces instantly, either from their equipment or the patches on their vests, and seemed embarrassed he could not provide any useful information. Around the two more soldiers milled about.

“Are your mortars here?” the antelope continued, already guessing the answer.

“Nope,” the lone soldier began, before a loud explosion cut him off. Flames illuminated the gray walls a tank bought from Prance burned on the other side of the apartments. A few minutes later artillery pounded a distant orchard from where the ATGM had come. The sight of the burning armor was not encouraging, and Fesker could not help but worry about the coming fight.

The 93rd Special Forces Company had been tasked with clearing a village and the small hill next to it of ACL forces. The defenders were clearly prepared. Fesker supposed the village had a name, but she had seen enough of them for them all to blend together.

The well trained soldiers spread out as far as they could without exposing themselves to sniper fire. Before heading inside, their platoon leader, Color Lieutenant Kolarik had ordered them to drive their cars further back and camouflage them. He had no intention of letting his troops be shown in FPV drone footage the ACL published on the internet. There was little concealment to be found in the tall grass, but with even simple camo nets they had a chance to not be the first target for the enemy’s limited supply.

Fesker returned to her squad. Corporal Komnar, a young, dark gray bighorn sheep had taken his helmet off as he scanned the horizon, and was playing the soundtrack of some older Guardponies game from his phone, hyping the squad up. Attached to the servo of his combat harness was a relatively new assault rifle.

“No luck?” he laughed as Fesker sat down next to him, removing her helmet.

“Absolutely no fucking luck, the mortars are late and so is our ammo. Pass me a cigarette.”

They were the vanguard of the company. The rest were supposed to arrive shortly before nightfall so that they could attack in the darkness, taking full advantage of their night vision gear. They had little, their tanks had some more, but the Chamois had none. If their fire support did not arrive on time, any sensible commander would call off the attack. They knew they would advance.

“You should cut the music before Boss gets here,” Fesker said after finishing her cigarette. She squashed the stump underhoof. Far above they heard the buzzing of a drone. Fesker instantly recognized it as friendly from the pitch. It was a large fixed wing design with no weapons apart from its thermal camera, donated by Trotsylvania, which was not eager to see the Chamois rebels take over the neighboring country. They were a nasty cocktail of ultranationalism, drugs and war crimes, only made worse by their recent string of victories.

Fesker hoped Trotsylvanians had also donated some FO training with the drone.

After a while Color Lieutenant Kolarik returned. He had nothing else to tell than that the scouts had cleared a farm compound between them and the village. If they had seen something, they had not radioed it in.

Well after the Sun had set, a column of trucks appeared on the road, coming from the same direction that the platoon had. Trailing them was the rest of the 93rd SF Company, along with their three supporting tanks.

The mortar platoons did not explain their delay, nor were they asked. Instead they started setting up their heavy mortars, with the 93rd’s lighter 80 mm tubes going up a short distance away. From the trucks the troops scrounged extra ammunition and rockets. Every soldier in Fesker’s squad had two for the launcher, along with several grenades and extra mags and belts for the machine gun. All the equipment weighed like hell, but they knew that before the night was over they would have less than half left.

“First platoon, be ready to move!” Kolarik ordered. He had already lowered his monocular NVG, and the rest of his platoon followed suit, casting their world into shades of gray and green, with a nasty blurriness towards the edges. The goggles had not been the most modern pieces of gear when adopted, and they had not become any newer in the 10 years since. They were leagues above the naked eye, but nowhere near the marvels that combined thermals and night vision. In addition, aiming through iron sights with them was difficult at best, and as a squad leader Fesker was the only one in the squad with a red dot. It would be her task to guide others with tracer rounds.

“Where are we going, sir?” Komnar asked. “Frontal attack?”

“Infiltration. Get the platoon together.”

In the sheep’s experience infiltration was just a less flashy frontal attack. They were completely ignoring the hill next to the village, leaving it for the artillery to smack around. With only short grass and some trenches it provided almost no protection from anyone in the village, where the majority of the Chamois troops were expected to be, forcing the Army to fight street to street and building to building.

The platoon gathered for a briefing around the lieutenant, with the others receiving their orders nearby.

“We sneak in the same way the scouts went, then push into the village, one building at a time. Keep the main road clear for the tanks to advance until we get to this crossroad here. From there the second and third platoons go past us. Be sure to maintain contact with everyone around you, the platoon goes one block at a time.”

“Isn’t there a risk that the platoon gets cut off?” Fesker asked, looking at the lieutenant.

“We’ll just have to take that risk,” the lieutenant answered. “If the worst happens we’ll still have the tanks for support. And if Chams try to take the initiative, remember that we have night vision and they don’t.”

Nobody mentioned that if that happened, the tanks would also likely be without infantry support and easily destroyed. Their higher-ups had made the plan, and it was their duty to carry it out, regardless of their misgivings.

With no further questions the platoon moved past the still smouldering wreck of a tank and into a ditch running parallel to the main road. Kolarik led, followed by Fesker and Komnar. The corporal seemed to be completely in his element, scanning the fields around them for targets. He could only see the destroyed remains of up-armored pickups, the weirdest of which had an IFV turret on top of a cargo container.

With sudden dry coughs the mortars opened fire. The platoon did not stop, but all eyes turned towards the barren hill. A few seconds later flashes of smoke and flames illuminated the fortified hill, raising clouds of dust that lingered in the still air.

“Someone’s getting whacked,” Komnar observed, seeing distant shapes fall down in the barrage. The mortars had no clear target, simply dropping 120 mm bombs all over the hill, testing what they might hit. It was far from effective, but against the militias it had some merit. The poorly trained conscripts would likely try to flee in the chaos, and the better trained regulars had no body armor to protect them from the shrapnel. The mortar barrage was still going by the time they reached the scouts, reaching almost ridiculous levels. It seemed that the spotter had decided that the mortars were not too useful in the village, and had to splurge every bomb on the hill, making sure that nothing was left alive.

The village itself was left to howitzers, guided in by the drone that had flown over earlier. The platoon heard a howitzer shell zoom by overhead, and then something in the village exploded, sending pieces of glass and steel spinning through the air. Bejta, a female mountain goat from the capital carrying the squad’s rocket launcher saw a torn wheel crash on a building’s roof.

“Motherfucker, that was my kill.”

“You have a problem,” Komnar answered.

The doe sounded genuinely frustrated. “Fucking yeah. I’m anti-tank, and the best I’ve blown is a wall. Let me get at least one technical and I’ll be happy.”

“Keeps you warm at night?”

“And if it’s up-armored then maybe I can nut.”

“Shut the fuck up you two,” Fesker silenced their discussion.

They rose from the ditch and entered the compound through a hole blown into its outer wall.

“Hello, sir,” a Junior Lieutenant wearing only out of place woodland fatigues and a soft cap greeted Kolarik. She seemed relaxed, surrounded by lookouts in every direction. “We’ve seen no movement in the buildings here, so either they’re empty or the Iks are keeping a low profile.”

“And deeper in the village?”

“We saw some vics, but no idea who they belonged to. I reckon that one was an enemy, and some folks were walking about, but nothing concrete.”

“When?”

“Some two hours ago, we’ve been here all day.”

Kolarik was a well trained and experienced officer in a unit that tried to uphold its standards. In his opinion getting any information from the regular army officers was like pulling teeth at the best of times. It felt like what made Special Forces special was them being baseline competent.

A sudden noise from his radio prevented him from voicing his opinion. He listened to the message before waving for Fesker to come.

“Sir?” The First Sergeant asked, kneeling down.

“Artillery will stop in three minutes, so get your squad ready to cross.”

“It’s an open field. Will we get a smokescreen?”

“No, there are no smoke shells. Come on Fesk, it’s fifty meters, and you have two squads giving fire support.”

Fesker sighed. “Yes sir.” She was not worried about the distance, because she would spring any ambush the moment the attacker was at the building, forming a nice line against the wall or a clumped up target for a grenade. And after that the distance it took to run back would not matter. Shaking her head in dismay she returned to her squad and organized them into a line at the far end of the compound, taking shelter among the craters and wall fragments.

She counted the seconds to the end of the bombardment. When the last shell fell, hitting something fragile that exploded into a mass of metal fragments, Fesker rose from her cover. Without uttering a word she dashed across the open terrain, and her squad followed suit, servos holding their rifles high. By some miracle they made it to the worn, yellow house without getting shot at.

The antelope gestured for the others to follow, pushing the door open and entering the dark apartment. Even with her NVGs she struggled to see anything but vague shapes of cluttered furniture mixed in with rubble and dust floating in the still air, but her ears worked just fine, and all she heard were the sounds of her own squad trying to find its way.

With the Chams she could not tell if they were luring them deeper, or if they had not set up proper defenses. They moved slowly, leaving no unopened door or unchecked corner behind them. To their right the rest of the platoon spread out to the neighboring houses. In rural areas buildings were often built into small groups around a single, small yard. The entire block had to be secured at the same time.

A less experienced soldier might have breathed a sigh of relief as they reached the other side of the building without encountering any trouble, but the alarm bells in Fesker’s head were ringing loud enough for others to hear. Through the windows and broken walls she could see the buildings on the other side of the next street. The walls were filled with small holes, and the windows were barricaded.

To the right she could barely see open ground dotted with rubble… that wasn’t just rubble. The road had been intentionally barricaded. Were those sandbags in the building behind the barricade?

“Stop,” Fesker hissed to her squad before reaching for her radio. “Saber one, Saber one-two, possible ambush ahead.”

“Saber two, where?”

Fesker quickly explained her observations. The radio fell silent for a moment, before she heard Kolarik’s voice again. “Fire at the building on my mark.”

“Aim around the windows and murderholes,” Fesker ordered. “Komnar, chuck a thermobaric through the window with the curtain.”

The soldiers prepared around her, Komnar getting uncomfortably close to the window to throw his grenade.

“Ready.”

“Fire.”

With a double pull of a tail lanyard, Fesker sent three bullets through the thin walls, others following suit. Then the world exploded into chaos, as the Chamois troops emerged from their hiding spots, firing wildly towards the squad. A heavy machine gun tore hoof-sized holes into their cover, sending caprines diving for cover while multiple rockets hit the ceiling, sending the remaining plaster crashing down. The ground jumped below them as Komnar’s grenade exploded. Fesker thought she could hear screams of pain over the sound of gunfire.

“Two, can you hear?” A weak voice came from Fesker’s radio. At first she thought something had happened to Komnar, before realizing the problem was with the transmission.

“Two hears,” she answered, before rising fire a few shots out the window. She saw a head wearing a bulbous helmet drop down.

“I can’t raise the tanks. See if you can.”

“Understood.” She quickly switched the channel. “Sledge Actual, this is Saber one-two, relaying from Actual. Need tank support, facing a fortified enemy.”

The radio remained silent. “Fuck. Komnar! Go get the tanks, we can’t radio them!”

“Got it!”, the dark gray sheep responded, crawling away from the window. He was covered in a thin layer of brick dust and fragments, knocked from the walls by the heavy machine gun. For the volume of bullets flying through the air, the rebels hit almost nothing.

Once he was far enough away from the windows, Komnar got up, backtracking through the rubble. Reaching the door he peeked out, hoping the Chamois had not encircled the building and praying that the sentry from the regular Army was not trigger happy.

His head did not explode, and a quick look up did not reveal any drones looking for targets.

He ran to the rifle platoon, and the inviting sound of tank engines.

“Shit, password!” Yelped a sentry, raising their rifle.

“Bowl,” Komnar snapped, not stopping to hear the countersign. He waved at the closest tank to get its attention, before climbing on top of the turret, hooves finding purchase the numerous ERA bricks attached to the hull. The tank commander, a dark goral, peered out of the hatch, his soft tanker cap slightly askew.

“First platoon’s pinned down, Eltee wants tank support.”

The tank commander spoke into his radio. Komnar yelped in surprise as the tank started to move, almost dropping him off in the process. The engine went from a steady rumble to an ear splitting roar.

When the first bullets pinged off the armor, Komnar jumped off, deciding it was better to stick to the walls than to try his luck on top of the bullet magnet. Seeing muzzle flashes coming from a rooftop, he returned a few half-blind shots before ducking into an alcove. He saw the tank’s turret rotate and made himself small.

The muzzle blast slammed into him, followed a second later by pieces of stone, wood and flesh raining down on the ground. The tank followed suit with a long burst of the coaxial machine gun.

When Fesker saw the building’s outer wall explode, she wasted no time getting up, setting her sights on a disoriented rebel. A double tap dropped the fighter. The platoon emerged from cover, opening fire on shadowy figures stumbling around in pain. The tank fired again, and a part of the building caved in.

The firefight turned into a short execution.

“First platoon!” Color Lieutenant Kolarik’s voice was loud and clear. “Advance!”

They moved across the street as one, entering the torn apart building. They shifted through the rubble, trying to see if anything was still alive. The dust cut visibility to almost zero, and when Fesker saw the rising figure it was already too late. A muzzle flash almost blinded her, and the antelope heard a body drop behind her. Six years of training and experience were cut short by a barely aimed shot.

Fesker was about to gun down the doe responsible, when something slammed into her side, knocking the air out of her lungs. She fell on her side with her side stinging, hooves flailing as she tried to kick whoever had rammed her. Her kicks hit muscle and armor, but the figure trying to trample her did not give up.

“Stop!” She heard Komnar yell, and instinct gave way to training. Fesker stopped, seeing the female chamois towering over her. The chamois was reaching for a sidearm. Three bullets from Komnar dropped her.

“Thanks,” Fesker said as she climbed up. Blood from the dead chamois pooled around her hooves. The two survivors were killed, with all her soldiers calling out “all clear”. All but one of them. Vanita lay dead, a bullet from a battle rifle punching through his armor and vital organs. Fesker knew from experience that there was no point in giving him first aid.

“Strip his gear and keep moving,” the First Sergeant ordered, her voice emotionless. It was the norm for treating their dead, practicalities of war far more important than sentimentality. The bodies would be collected after the battle if possible, but there was no time for grief at the moment. “Good job getting the tanks.”

“No problem.”

They would have turned out the dead rebels’ pockets next if Kolarik had not rushed to them.

“Two dead chems, one dead friendly,” she reported to the officer, using one of the many names for the rebels. “Yellow ammo.”

“Understood,” Kolarik said curtly. “We’ll set up here. Get your squad to watch the eastern side. If anyone needs the medic, they’re in the previous building with the wounded. The rest of the company will leapfrog us.”

As the Lieutenant walked away, Fesker noticed a bullet had snapped off the antenna of his radio.

The platoon set up guard in the ruins of the house, looking down a crossroad blocked by rubble. Lacking depth-vision with their monocular goggles, the ruins were a flat, featureless mass, the layout of the original village only barely visible if one knew where to look for the twisting alleys between broken walls and the straight roads built through the village when people had still tried to reinvigorate it.

The sounds of fighting grew distant as the rest of the company pushed deeper into the village.Then a door to a cellar mere meters away opened, partially covered by rubble. Every rifle in Fesker’s squad snapped to the door, but experience screamed into the doe’s brain that they were not in danger.

“Hold fire.”

The word traveled down the line, and Fesker watched through her optics as one figure became two, and then four. Fesker’s eyes widened as she realized the last two were kids. She did not even bother swearing.

“Stop!” She ordered, the severity of the command halting both the civilians and her own squad. “Come here.”

The four civilians approached the voice with clear uncertainty, until the closest one squinted and spoke up with an ancient, wheezing voice.

“Army?”

“Yes.”

“See,” the old doe said to her younger companions. “I said Valkante would save us.”

One of Feskers soldiers almost laughed at her invoking the military dictator that had died a decade ago. Instead they merely guided the group into the building to interrogate them.

“Anyone else in the basement?” Fesker demanded.

“No, just us four,” answered the younger of the two adults, a female wearing jeans and a worn hoodie. Nights in the basement must have been cold. From a quick look the First Sergeant had identified all four as some species of caprine, which was a problem. Army of Chamois Liberation had a strict hierarchy for all the species, and caprines fell into the “tolerated” category, from which they could climb up by working for ACL. Back when it seemed that they would take over the country, many in the occupied territories had taken the opportunity. The kids were more than likely innocent, but the adults could in theory be fighters or informants.

“Do you have anything important in there?”

“No, all our belongings are here.”
Fesker continued the interrogation for a little longer, until she was satisfied with their answers. Both adults had been able to provide their ID, and neither appeared on a list of known ACL affiliates that every platoon carried.

“Komnar, Vepes, frag the basement and check it out. Sir, are we going to send them to the rear?”

“Looks that way.”

Three soldiers from the first squad escorted the civilians outside, to safety and out of their way. Mere seconds later something outside exploded, followed by sounds of gunfire and screaming. The kids ran back inside, followed by the does and then the soldiers who were all pointing their guns up.

“What happened?” Kolarik demanded, trying to get the situation under control.

“Fuckers dropped drone bombs on us,” explained one soldier breathlessly. “Mortar round and a frag grenade. Missed both, we shot one drone.”

“Fuck,” Kolarik muttered, frustrated by yet another complication. “You’ll all stay indoors for now.”

Three of the civilians cleared the debris off of an old, lime green sofa and sat down. The Elder meanwhile pulled out a pouch from under the sofa, completely oblivious to the tensing of her guards. To their relief and confusion, she only pulled out a camp cooker.

“Tea,” explained the doe sitting on the sofa. Fesker looked at her, and realized she had some light scars on her face. “You can’t escape it.”

Fesker actually laughed. Guests were often provided with very sweet tea, and old folks were especially demanding in that. Even being in the middle of a warzone was not going to stop them. The squad leader resumed her watch at the window, but still kept talking with the other doe, both for information and to deal with the boredom.

“So, why did you stay?” Fesker asked.

“The Chamois came so fast we never had a chance to flee. And when they were in control nobody could go, and they started taking people’s cars to make sure of that.”

It was a story she had heard many times. “I’m guessing the kids were not a help.”

“No. We couldn’t leave them and run for the river, so we lived, and hid when necessary.”

“Did the Chamois cause you any trouble?”

“The army did.” There was a cold edge to her voice. “They bombed this place constantly. My husband was hurt, and that was the last I saw of him. Rebels took him to a hospital.”

“I’m sorry,” Fesker said with a sad sigh. She was sorry, both for her loss, and for the way the military went out of its way to create new recruits for the rebels with its own incompetence. How many would look which side dropped the bomb, and which side treated the civilian. Even if they were not joining the ACL, the cows had their own rebellion, and there were dozens of groups underground. Why couldn’t they fight the incompetent fanatics of the old ACL?

“Did you drop the bomb?”

“No.”

“Then don’t be sorry. Just unfuck this all.”

“Understood. Is she your mother?”

“Mother-in-law. Took things quite well. You could shoot her and she’d still praise the army.”

Fesker did not have much to say after that, and instead focused on keeping watch. Behind her the water in the old doe’s camp cooker started boiling.

A few minutes later Fesker was poked from behind, and a large cup entered her field of vision. Having spent more than two minutes with old folks during her life, she knew it was not going away unless she accepted it. She gulped down a mouthful and passed the cup to the next soldier.

“Hey, no touching that!”

Fesker turned to look, and was greeted by the sight of a soldier herding the kids away from the rifle of a dead Chamois fighter. She felt a twinge of sympathetic pain at how little the sight of a mangled body seemed to affect them. Then her focus was on the weapon itself.

“Hey, pass that thing to me.”

She looked the battle rifle over, removing the magazine and clearing the chamber in the process. She saw a piece of metal where there had once been a trigger guard too small for hooves. “Sir, this is an Ornithian weapon.”

Kolarik moved over to her, looking at the stampings on the side of the weapon. “Well damn.” Then, with a perfect imitation of Ornithia’s foreign minister added mockingly. “Ornithia remains neutral to the internal affairs of the Republic of Kosko. Motherfuckers.”

Beneath the surface of training there still was a twenty-six year old buck.

“Are the birds fucking with us?” Bejta asked from her position.

“Who else?”

“Zebras?”

Fesker couldn’t disagree with that.

She heard a wet thwack and a body falling to the ground. “Sniper!”

The alarmed yell sent everyone diving for cover as a follow-up shot slammed into the inner wall, fragments of brick flying in every direction.

“Who’s down? Anyone have eyes?” She did not hear cries of pain, so she knew whoever was shot had died instantly.

“Pilt. Straight to the dome,” answered Bejta. “I think it came from that building with big windows on the first floor.”

Fesker twisted around to peer through a hole in the wall. She could see the building Bejta had mentioned. It was damaged enough to provide plenty of hiding spots. Then a bullet slammed into the wall an inch from her eye. With a yelp she rolled back to cover.

“Sir, you got that?”

“I did,” Kolarik answered, sneaking up to her. “The radio’s working again, so we’ll get a tank here in a few moments. Cap thinks it’s some stragglers, so third squad will stay behind, first and second go give it a look.”

After a few seconds he added. “I don’t think it is. Those shots were so accurate, you’d need night vision for them.”

Painful minutes of waiting later, the tank rumbled around the corner. A single shot from its 120 mm cannon hopefully taught the sniper their position in the food chain. Then, as though the crew had spotted something, the turret spun to face a new target. A rocket slammed into the hull. The ERA bricks would have defeated a normal rocket. Should have defeated it. The heavy tandem warhead carried two HEAT charges, the first detonating the reactive armor and the second burning through the armor into the crew beyond. All Fesker saw was an explosion, followed by volcanic eruption of fire from the tank’s barrel and every hatch.

“First, and third, covering fire!” Kolarik screamed into his radio, shaken by the tank’s destruction. “Second, flank that building from behind and breach it.”

Fesker quickly led her squad outside, past the cowering civilians and into the cold night. They moved deeper into the village, moving from cover to cover, until finding cover behind a pile of rubble that had once been someone’s home. On the other side the target building flashed with gunfire.

“Final stretch of the way,” Fesker encouraged the squad. “Bejta, your turn. Rocket through a window. Vepes, give us suppressive fire.”

The anti-tank and machine-gunner both nodded, setting up in good firing positions along with Vepes’ loader.

The two weapons adding to the suppressive fire, Fesker led the other half of the squad forward, moving at a quick walk and keeping her rifle up. She suddenly stopped, seeing a figure pop out of a window.

“Keep moving!” She yelled to the squad, sending fife shots downrange. The figure jumped, all its muscles spasming one final time as it died.

Fesker joined the others at the far side of the building. This side was relatively undamaged, and provided a good view on the once beautiful fields surrounding the village. She waved for the others to follow, and before long her squad of six was back together.

“One actual, this is One-two, we’re behind the building. Cease fire.”

The suppressive fire stopped, and in a practised move the squad slipped into the building. A small fire burned in one room, glowing white in their goggles. Two bodies lay on the floor.

Griffon bodies.

“What the fuck?” Fesker whispered as she looked at the corpses. They were both griffons, wearing different camo patterns, but both had the same plate carriers and rifles. A heavy recoilless rifle lay next to a dead griffoness. Fesker poked at her limp paw clad in a copy of Everfree’s green and brown camo. The first floor revealed four bodies in total, leaving only the second floor. So far nobody had thrown a grenade down the stairs, which Fesker considered a good sign.

The problem was that it could still change. She could not see what was at the top of the stairs, and did not want to risk throwing a grenade only for it to hit a wall and bounce back. The Sergeant quickly radioed her plan to Kolarik, before giving her squad the order.

They crept up the stairs in a single file, wary of an enemy popping up in front of them. The hallway came to an end just after the stairs, an open door on both side.

“Fesker, grenade through the left door. I’ll frag right. Lead enters right room, Support the left. Go.”

Two explosions later Fesker burst through the doorway, Komnar a heartbeat behind her. She heard the corporal yelp, just before the wind was knocked out of her for the second time that night. The griffon grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall. They were too close for her to use her rifle.

From the corner of her eye she saw Komnar come to her aid, but the bloodied griffon, eyes blazing with rage, threw her at the sheep. Both fell to the ground in a clumsy mess, and before they could do a thing the griffon was upon them.

Fesker screamed in pain as three pistol rounds punched into her armor. Had she worn a flak vest she would have died right there. Instead she kicked with her rear hooves, connecting with the griffon’s knee.

The griffon stumbled to the floor. Adrenaline coursing through her veins, Fesker bounced up and brought her hooves to the griffon’s face. It cracked open. She brought them down again, before taking a step back and emptying her magazine into the now dead griff.

Fesker took a deep breath through gritted teeth. Her squad was gathering in the room.

“Building cleared, no casualties,” she radioed.

Mopping up the village took the rest of the night, with the soldiers forced to go through every single room of every single building. Most of the remaining ACL fighters were conscripts of non-chamois species that had hidden during the battle to surrender at the first chance. Soon after sunrise, Kolarik’s platoon gathered around the building with the stiffening griffon bodies.

“Didn’t get your technical,” Komnar muttered to Fesker. The mountain goat shook her head in response.

“No I didn’t. Didn’t get to nut either, but they clearly did. Why the FUCK are griffons here? Because Chem muzzles feel better than beaks?”

The dead griffon provided no answers, unseeing eyes facing up.

“Sir, what do you think?” Fesker asked.

“Mercenaries?” The officer shrugged. “But that would be a hippogriff thing.”

“That one looks like he could have fought in the Pony-Griffon War. Making their unfinished business our problem.”

Kolarik had no answer. Kosko was never a great power, and never would be. The great powers in turn were sure to stick their muzzles into Kosko’s internal affairs. The joys of being a nobody on the world stage.

“Back to the cars,” Kolarik finally said. “A drive to the rear and then we can sleep for a day.”

The soldiers followed after the officer as the regular forces replaced them in the village, the thoughts of hot food and hot beds pushing them forward.

Another day, another pile of rubble liberated.