The Reality War

The Combine invasion force came in through the portal at full might, completely bypassing the usual scouting force that they sent when they invaded Freeman’s Earth. Large ships the size of aircraft carriers swooped down out of the skies and landed on the ground wherever there was room. Even if that meant landing on top of certain… objects. Namely the dragons and griffons that had set up the first defense. It didn’t matter to the ships though; they were solid metal of some unknown but durable alloy so didn’t take any damage from the impact.

Marcus cringed as he saw one of the large ships land right on top of five dragons without warning. What made it worse was that all around him he saw it happening everywhere else too. In one instance it was a few griffons, another, some dragons and griffons. The point was that Equestria’s first line of defense was all but annihilated. What was worse was that even though ten of those large ships had landed, there were still more coming through the portal and instead of stopping and dropping their troops, they spread out, like ripples from a stone dropped in water. Some moved towards Canterlot, other Manehattan; and still more moved towards the Everfree Forest or the Great Western Frontier. These ships looked like large pieces of unrefined ore one might find in a mine. These carriers were coal black and managed levitation through some unseen force. They were longer than they were wide, making them look rectangular, but one end was slightly wider than the other. There were large right angles jutting out of them at seemingly random points and large blue fields surrounded various holes in these monstrosities that large helicopter-like ships came out of. The only thing off with these helicopters was that they seemed almost… alive. Not to mention that they could manage turns that would shear any helicopters Marcus had ever seen in half. Soon the sky was filled with these things and what few dragons and griffons that were left took to the air to fight the new foe. No sooner had this happened then large hatches opened on the sides of all of the ships that landed, creating gaps that could easily fit your average hydra through. These too had blue fields surrounding them and what walked through them were large tan hued spider-like creatures three stories tall. Flanked on all sides of these were smaller but sturdier built blue creatures. These had eyes on top of each other and made a horrible screeching noise. Behind them still were the Combine soldiers themselves. All of them carried some sort of weapon that Marcus had never seen before. They looked like miniatures of the large carriers that they emerged from.
The encampment had gone from one thousand griffons and one hundred dragons to only a handful of each in a matter of minutes. It was clear they had lost this battle, so Marcus, being promoted to commander of what had once been this formidable army, now a rag tag band of people who hadn’t been killed yet, did the only logical thing.
“Retreat! Fall back to the capital,” he screamed into his earpiece. His squad heard him and they made a beeline straight through the path of least resistance; meaning they ran through a hundred Combine instead of a thousand. Now, this wasn’t to say that the battle was completely one sided; the dragons made a tremendous effort and now that they weren’t being assaulted by giant hunks of metal but rather firearms, they were able to fight back. Some blasted fire at groups of Hunters, roasting them where they stood, some flew above Striders and latched on to them, flying higher and letting go of them right above a group of Combine soldiers. This too did a lot of damage and created a rather satisfying ‘splat’ sound. The griffons were busy fighting the choppers and using their talons and natural affinity for grabbing things at the right time managed to stop some of their propellers and subsequently jam them, causing them to crash to the ground, while others slashed at where they figured the cockpit would be, causing some to get disoriented and crash into something, sometimes even themselves. But the damage had been done and the fate of the battle was already decided. While the remaining defenders could do some things, it was really nothing more than a rabbit fending off against a lion, and eventually the Combine force overwhelmed them. The Striders shot down the griffons and the choppers and soldiers eventually swarmed the much larger dragons, not unlike bullet ants swarming larger prey and killing it with insect bites.

Delta Squad ran as fast as they could, but it didn’t seem to help at all. They couldn’t outrun the choppers or Hunters and had to keep taking cover to avoid damage. But before they could be overwhelmed, a familiar sound could be heard. Right in front of them appeared the TARDIS and out walked the Doctor, apparently un-phased by what was going on around him.

“Get in,” he said and without another word all four COGs ran past him and into the little blue box. The Doctor took one look around and quickly ran back inside. Marcus saw him run to the center of the surprisingly large room and hit a couple buttons and throw a few switches.

“I’m going to get us up close to the portal so I can shut it off,” he explained. “It shouldn’t take very long, but even if I do manage to get it closed, there’s still the rather large matter of ‘taking care’ of these remaining forces. And if this battle-if you could call it that- is any indication, it is a large problem indeed.” The Doctor reached under his console and pulled a box about the size of a lap top out from some unseen space. It pulsed faintly with a green light but other than that it was completely smooth with no obvious means of accessing its inside components- if it had any. Connected to it was a thick wire that ran another console on the side of the room and went into some sort of outlet.

“Marcus, I need you to take this and throw it into the portal. That will give me a direct connection to whatever is holding this thing open,” the Doctor said. Marcus took the box from the Doctor and walked to the door. Opening it, he came face to face with the edge of the portal. Emerging from it was yet another Combine carrier. Marcus thought it looked big from far away, but up close this thing looked colossal. It was already halfway through so Marcus threw the box as hard as he could toward the portal. While his throw was close to the edge of the portal, he was far from the center of it so he had no idea how it was going to work. But by some unseen force the box was pulled into the portal. Marcus looked behind him to see the wire that was connected being pulled taut. The TARDIS lurched forward and the Doctor quickly set to work at the central console trying to stabilize it so she didn’t fall into the portal. After that he ran to another console, this one on the edge of the wall near the outlet the wire was plugged into and started punching in commands. Delta Squad looked at the portal when suddenly the portal pulsed, sending blue energy in all directions. Dom stumbled and lost his balance, falling forward and out the TARDIS.

“Dom!” Marcus yelled. He jumped forward to grab Dom’s arm but too slid right out of the TARDIS. Cole jumped but the Doctor caught him before he could follow through.

“Stop, you’ll just fall out too; there’s nothing you can do,” he said grimly.

“Oh fuck,” Baird swore.

It had been ten minutes since the Doctor took off in his TARDIS to shut down the portal when a large pulse from it shook Canterlot Palace. Plaster from the ceilings and walls fell around everyone, threating them, but quick action on Luna and Celestia’s part caught the large pieces. The pulse upset tables and the shattering of glass was heard as the windows that Celestia had previously enchanted burst into tiny pieces. Before Shepard could say anything Celestia picked the diminutive shards up and using her magic reformed them into place.

“That doesn’t count,” Celestia remarked.

As Shepard was about to offer a rebuttal the TARDIS could be heard rematerializing behind her. Whipping around she saw a disheveled Doctor followed by a distraught looking Cole and Baird. But behind them, she saw no one else.

“Where’s Marcus and Dom?” she asked, fearing she already knew the answer. Cole didn’t make eye contact and just walked towards the balcony overlooking the palace gardens. Baird did look up to see Shepard but offered no verbal reply, his pained expression conveying the message. He too turned and followed Cole.
The air was silent and everybody had a morbid look on their face. Gordon looked at the Doctor and asked a question without stating it. The Doctor too simply nodded and Freeman turned to walk out to another balcony: this one facing the Combine Superportal. Everyone else followed quietly, the conversations of strategy and anxiety replaced by a looming silence. They looked up at the portal, that ship that Marcus had seen was almost completely out by now but the portal itself was different. For one it had changed color to a deep blue and it was pulsing and spinning wildly. Dark storm clouds surrounded it, giving off an ominous air. Anyone could tell that it was unstable and looked about ready to collapse. And it did just that.

The portal sent out another shockwave, only this time larger and much more violent, however Celestia was ready this time and no damage came to the palace. It then started spinning faster until it finally collapsed in on itself, sucking in everything nearby. The ship that was almost completely out of the portal was pulled back in in a much faster speed, cleaving it right down the middle. The half closer to the portal was sucked back in but the half closer to the ground fell. It fell slowly, speeding up more and more, before colliding with the ground in a brilliant explosion of blue and white fire that could be clearly seen from the balcony where everyone stood.

“I suppose that covers the issue of those carriers. But before that portal closed I counted at least thirty more ships,” Patton said. “We’re going to have to spread out but we just might be able to kill these things.” No sooner had he said this than a large explosion had been heard outside. Running to investigate Luna found herself face to face with a Hunter. A large crack resounded through the air and the Hunter dropped to the ground dead. Behind it holding a smoking shotgun was the calm as ever Dr. Freeman.

All around them what remained of the Alpha Garrison near the castle was fighting off the Combine forces that dropped seemingly from nowhere. Unlike the first defense though, they were having some success. Even the Striders dropping from the sky made things only a little more difficult. The tanks that the garrison had made dispatching them easy.

“I don’t get it; this battle is fairly evenly matched, but Dr. Freeman said that their war lasted seven hours with the Combine winning,” Rainbow Dash pondered, confused.

“Well, they were caught by surprise. Perhaps since we had warning to gather up all these soldiers we were able to fair better,” Twilight postulated.

None of the humans were listening though as the Doctor and Patton were forcing the ponies back inside and Normandy Team plus Freeman and the rest of Delta Squad were taking cover, helping to clear the garden of immediate threat.

A large roaring sound could be heard as several jets flew overhead, shooting down the choppers and transports to the whoops and cheers of the soldiers on the ground. While air superiority seemed assured for the moment, all focus turned to eliminating the rest of the ground forces. Out of nowhere, dozens of large blue balls of energy were seen soaring through the sky, landing on various objects, including tanks and crowds of soldiers, both human and Combine. These orbs pulsed for a short time before emitting a high pitched scream and detonating. Tanks and soldiers were completely obliterated as another wave of these grenades rained hell down upon the battlefield. Off in the distance Gordon could see triangular floating pod-like crafts, throwing these orbs like a catapult throws a stone. Gordon pointed this out to Shepard and she ordered the jets redirect and attack these things.

Right after leaving to eliminate the new targets, a large shadow fell over the battlefield. A Combine carrier had hovered right over them, blotting out the sun. Dropping from it were several smaller platforms that hovered to the ground. The humans blasted away at these with every weapon they had, but it was ineffective as the underside of this platform seemed reinforced by something as strong as the outside of the carrier. Everyone ran into cover, waiting to see what was being transported. Several Striders and large pods that looked sort of like the catapult ones that had assaulted them only moments before. These however had legs and as they stood up they each revealed a large Gatling gun on their underbellies. Before the tanks could even respond, the Striders started giving off a high pitched whine accompanied by what looked like blue tracker beams. These were aimed at the tanks and before anyone could react, the battlefield was covered in a blinding blue light as the Striders fired their massively powerful warp cannons, vaporizing their targets. Tanks were reduced to molten metal and soldiers were fused to their cover, screaming in agony.

At this time the jets returned from their apparently successful mission to see the chaos that had ensued. They hovered right over their newer targets, getting ready to fire when a large sound like an artillery shell being fired could be heard. Pods ripped through some of the jets unlucky enough to be right under the carrier’s Headcrab Shell Launchers. These landed on the ground roughly; the pods were like metal elongated pills and on the end above the ground a compartment opened up.

Celestia looked in horror as the human soldiers who hadn’t been killed, were assaulted by small sac-like creatures that landed on their heads and with a terrible cry they would collapse, only to get back up and attack other human soldiers. One of these face huggers turned to face her and screamed as it jumped at the princess of the Sun herself. She got a good look at its underside: taken up mostly by a mouth with jagged sharp teeth and short but strong legs. Before it could hit her though a flash of red metal intercepted the Headcrab’s trajectory hitting it and sending it flying like a baseball. Gordon Freeman was currently fighting off the nearby parasites with his crowbar when he heard Shepard scream to everyone, “Fall back! I repeat, retreat back into the palace!”

Everyone ran into the great hall as Celestia quickly used her magic, along with Twilight and Luna, to reinforce the doors, making sure no one got through. With this much magic they were actually able to turn the wood into metal with the use of a basic transmutate spell, which they rapidly repeated with the windows and other doors.

“The sound of gunfire could still be heard outside, but it mostly sounded like it came from the Combine, most likely them cleaning up the mess they made with the Headcrabs. Everyone was drenched with sweat, panting heavily.

“This is madness,” Twilight said, “how can we expect to fight all of these things when we can’t even fight one? This is complete chaos!”

Everyone was dumbfounded; they had no idea what to do. Luna paced back and forth, trying to determine a solution to their problem, before smiling and turning back to the group.

“Chaos.”
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