Tiberian Maelstrom

The loud voice of Kravchenko didn’t stir up any response, much to his dismay. “Damn! I thought that would be something…”

“What? A battalion's worth of Allied tanks?”

“Maybe, now what should we do? No contact with the Motherland for all we know,” the operator said as he grabbed a radio and tweaked it towards their usual frequency. Hearing only static, he grunted in frustration.

“Damn! I was right, no contact at all.”

“I can suggest something, how about we secure this area first? Might find something worthwhile.”

“Good idea,” Kravchenko replied as he quickly opened up the top hatch to get a better look from the inside of the Apocalypse. He scanned around with his combat helmet on, and found no traces of anything they had. Not even a single piece of machinery, only rows and rows of somehow colorful houses. When he looked behind, he found a large red barn and fields of trees, farmland.

He grunted in disgust, he hated colors this bright. “This place isn’t Allied!”

“No shit, maybe it belongs to Yuri then?” Petrenko replied sarcastically, knowing very well that the psychic commander lived in a castle in Transylvania.

“Obviously it is not, I will be willing to secure an important building…” Kravchenko pulled out a pair of binoculars and spotted a building, with a stage in front of it, aptly named “Town Hall”.

“There’s a building of importance, a town hall to be exact,” He said to his awaiting driver.

“Then let’s roll over there.” Petrenko gave the Apocalypse a reboot of it’s system, it’s reactors powering up loudly and soon it was rolling its way toward this odd building in a land they do not know of. The grinding of tank threads sounded  as they slowly continued their way, the barrels of the tank accidently sweeping the side of a building.

“Where we are, it is most strange, I spy a building made of confectionaries, surely Romanov must’ve been playing with our heads…?” Kravchenko said in disbelief as they spied a house made out of candy.

“I can see it too, I’ll make it a point to blow it up later.”

“Good call,” Kravchenko replied as he once again closed the hatch and got back to operating the tank’s barrels as well as managing their amount of rockets.

“We have about a hundred AP shells, and about 150 Katushya rockets, how about our fuel levels?”

“Enough for a trip from Stalingrad to Sicily.”

“Very good, at least they have the politeness to give us enough fuel.” The tank finally reached its destination, right outside of the town hall. In that moment, Kravchenko took this time to find an AK and clambered out to investigate the building.

It was when he noticed something out of place here, something was staring at him, something inhuman. Turning around, he found himself face to face with a pony.

“Petrenko… take a look at this…”

“I am… should we shoot?” the nervous driver said, confronted with such an oddity for the first time. The Apocalypse continued rumbling as the pony gulped in fear, Kravchenko slowly leveling his AK up.

He felt pity, for once.

“…No, don’t shoot it.” He let the AK down, and went back towards the door, leaving it shivering in fear of him and the Soviet war machine.

He cleared his throat and knocked on the door, rather than breaching it as he was taught to. There was an audible groan, before the door opened.

“Darn, what do you ponies want-This pony was brown and its mane all frazzled with a touch of silver and right now she stood there rubbing her eyes with a hoof.

“Sweet Celestia… I think I must be dreaming…” Kravchenko never felt more offended in his life.  But nevertheless, he straightened up and remembered what to say for this situation.

“Ahem, I am Sergeant Kravchenko of the 55th Armored Column, we will claim this place in the name of the Motherland- The door slammed shut straight in his face. He grunted at this show of disrespect.

“Did it just slam the door on your face?” Petrenko said as he managed to find his operator’s frequency.

“It seems so, I’ll give it another go before I blow this place up.” He knocked the door again, rather bluntly. The same pony appeared again, still in disbelief.

“If this is one of their pranks… I’m going to evict them from their property…” It said again.

“Ahem, as I was saying. We will have to claim this place for the Motherland as a temporary base-Again, the door slammed shut. He was very pissed off now.

“Fucking hell, this shishkebab of a pony is annoying!”

“…Green light for firing?” Petrenko asked as he sat in his chair, waiting for his operator to return.

“…Good to fire, it deserves the pain.” Kravchenko said, venom seething out of his words. Even the conscripts treated him with a level of respect, but not this pony. Walking back to the Apocalypse, he heaved himself up and opened the hatch. Dropping inside, he immediately spun the barrels towards the building, priming the missiles.

“Danger close in three…”

“Two… One…”

“Firing cannons!”

Fullerton rolled around in his bed, mumbling about his life in the military. After being rudely awakened in the morning, he had managed to cause another hole in the ceiling of Vinyl’s house while Norma and Six remained below, and with Octavia resting in another room.

But today morning would have another rude surprise for him as a gigantic explosion rocked the sleepy town, waking up almost every.

Chrysalis was snooping closer to the town, when Discord contacted her again to her dismay.

“Hello again, Chrysie! Whatcha doing? Still busy finding the humans?”

“Fool, you ditched me back in the forest! And because of that I was attacked by Timberwolves!”

“Not my fault! Or was it…? Bah! Who cares? I sent over another pair of humans and as of now they are-A loud explosion sent Chrysalis reeling behind a bush, as well as Discord stopping for a brief minute.

“What was that?!”

“Chaos! Don’t you love the sound of chaos?”

“…That’s it, Lyra! I’m calling the police on you!” Bon Bon echoed in anger at her downfallen friend, who actually looked pitiful for once.

“But…!”

“No buts! You’ve murdered a living being, two beings in fact! Now go! I don’t want to see you around here!” Lyra wanted to sob, but she still had a weapon and a damaged psyche.

“But what if you didn’t exist…?” Lyra muttered, reaching the breaking point as the shotgun floated next to her, pumped and ready to fire.

“Lyra…? What are you doing…?”

“Oh, it’s nothing really, just putting you out of your misery-A loud explosion rocked the house, causing the shotgun to fall and misfire, hitting the closet.

“Whoa! What was that?” And the response that came was quite terrifying.

“ARMAGGEDON IS HERE!”

A minute after, Fullerton had gotten up and dressed again in his armor, sighing away and cursing under his breath.

“Fucking pieces of fuckin’ wankers… Twats…” He mumbled as he clanked downstairs, holding his carbine with one hand and adjusting his helmet with the other.

“I sense you are up…. I presume?” Six mentally said as he rubbed his body in dismay to the explosion, Norma was just stumbling around for her pistols.

“No shit, fucktard! If its those two fuckbuddies again then I’m gonna blow up their house like Sarajevo!” Norma hissed, half asleep and half awake with her laser pistols glaring red.

Meanwhile, Vinyl yawned and also clambered out of the bed wondering what had just taken place. She trotted outside, her goggles strapped on to her face and met a frazzled Octavia who looked at her with contempt.

“Did that heck of a boom wake you up?”

“No, maybe it was just your snoring!” Octavia growled, angry that her sleep had been interrupted.

Downstairs, the three commandos had equipped themselves with their equipment and prepared to investigate the explosion when Vinyl saw them attempting to leave the house.

“Wait! Don’t go out! Somepony might see you-

“Sorry, miss Vinyl! If there’s explosions goin’ about, I think it’s our business to keep you guys safe from whatever it is!” Fullerton said as his visor polarized and his armor clattered, magazines included.

“…I can’t believe we’re going out in the open for this damned event.”

“Me too, I’ll rather teleport but it’s best not to, lest I want to kill myself.” Six said as he skittered towards the door. Norma holstered one pistol and reached out for the doorknob, and spun it.

It was then another echoing explosion took place, and the familiar shrieking of missiles sounded.

“HOLY FUCK! MISSILES INCOMIN’!” Fullerton barked as he immediately ran out of the door and slammed into a wall, taking cover.

“Wait, how on Earth are there missiles here…?” It was then Norma activated her stealth generator. “Wait here, I’ll investigate the source.” She pulled out a radio, one that she never used broadly but now had a reason.

“What’s your frequency, Fullerton?”

“Umm…” He knocked his helmet, trying to remember while in cover. “Err… Ah hah! 567.267.1337!”

“Got it…” She tuned the radio to the numbers that he had given her and gave it a quick test.

“Can hear you pretty clear, now go ahead and see what’s in store for us. Can’t hurt, can it?”

“Copy that, going low.” Norma slunk away into the shadows of the morning as Six looked around in perpetual fear.

“Be warned, I sense something extremely dangerous… That of your accursed twin barreled monstrosities…”

“Mammoths? How is that even possible? Unless that rainbow thing sent them here too!” Fullerton said as the missiles hit home and exploded somewhere far. “Shit! I think we should go closer!”

Fullerton got out of cover and quickly sprinted to another building. Six followed by scampering about, trying to stay quiet.

Norma meanwhile, had reached near the source of the explosion and what she saw wasn’t pretty.

A building completely shredded and on fire, and the perpetuator was an oversized tank with two large cannons and twin missile pods.

She assumed it was a GDI Mammoth 27, until she saw the emblem of a long dead faction that the Father had once served in as an intelligence officer.

The hammer and sickle, imprinted on the side of the tank.

“Fullerton, get to a higher vantage point. There’s something I need you to see…”

“Roger that! Firing ‘packs!” The sound of a jetpack was enough to tell her he was on top. Fullerton was now surveying the beast of a machine that had demolished a building with ease, the words ‘Town hall’ on a sign in bits.

“Holy shit… Is that there a…?”

“It’s not GDI, take a look on the side.” He zoomed in on the side of the tank and found something only buried in textbooks old. One that had been the enemy long before the Tiberium century.

The emblem of the Soviet Union, the most brutal of them all and there stood their trademark tool of destruction in another reality had Tiberium not crashed into Earth.

The Apocalypse tank.