CANTERLOT, SOLAR AND LUNAR EQUESTRIAN EMPIRE
The warmth of Celestia's bright Sun woke Shining Armour out of his sleep. Yawning, his body began to move on its own towards the elegantly made bathroom to straighten his mane out. Blinking a few times to wake up, he poured water on his brush and began to run it through his mane. His room was one that he took with pride – a room that was made specific y to his royal requests.
A large bed dominated the center of the main room, with walls made out of gold and a large painting of him sat above his bed. The floor was a simple wood floor, smoothed and polished enough to sometimes blind him first thing in the morning. The bathroom was more normal though, as most of the times ponies did not see at all what it looked like. It wasn't as fancy as the rest of his room, but it was made very well. Bright white tiles covered the walls, with the bathtub being a matching white as well.
After brushing his teeth, and putting on his golden armor, he checked one more time in front of the mirror. For a unicorn, he was much taller than most other ponies that you find in the area, as unicorns where one of the smallest of the races of ponies. He smiled as he took his sword, and unsheathed it from the black leather sheath. The sword was fairly normal, except for in the blade read in elegant cursive, Forged by the heat of the Sun – Celestia.
After deciding that everything looked normal and was in order, he opened his door for some much needed coffee. The castle was massive, far greater in size than what most would think – and the inside hallways reflected this. 4 minutes of walking, and Shining Armour finally got to the barracks. A coffee machine was sitting there, and he smiled once again as the coffee flowed out of the nozzle. He walked over to get a copy of the Equestrian Times, the newspaper of the Solar and Lunar Equestrian Empire. Using his magic, he pulled the coffe up to him and began reading. His eyes widened as he read the cover page. In large black leaders read, "The start of the U.S.E.R.? Resistance movement in Eastern Equestrian increases dramatically. THIS IS A DEVOLVING STORY – MORE INFORMATION WHEN AVAILABLE…".
"What's wrong Capitan?", asked a deeper voice from behind them. Shining Armour turned his head in surprise of the voice and sighed when he saw who it was. Behind him was another pony, a little bit smaller than him but still pretty big. He was a pegasus, with a blue coat and a white mane.
'Nothing much Great Wings", Shining Armour said said looking at the paper. "The resistance in Eastern Equestria is growing quite fast. Much more fast than any of us could of thought."
"Are you scared captain – think about for a second", Great Wings said with a chuckle, "They are a bunch of farmers with nothing but pitchforks and a few locally made guns." Shining Armour sighed.
"Your right – hopefully this gets sorted out. I don't want to go to full scale war if we have too..."
NORTHEASTERN MOUNTAINS, EDGE OF THE DAWNS S.E.R.
A cannon cut through the otherwise still air. The shock wave was massive, cutting through the sir making a plume of dust rise from the barrel of cannon. The Northeast Mountains was perfect for a battle like this, with many valleys and places for the resistance forces to hide. The resistance was allied with a much larger international group, the Socialist Workers Alliance. The mountains continued on for about a kilometer of two, before turning into dense forests. The SWA put themselves in the mountains, risking their troops by hiding and opening fire at passing targets – guerrilla warfare in classic style.
"Raise barrel by 4 degrees up and 8 degrees left!", a thick heavy voice spoke. It spoke Equestrian, but the accent was much deeper and rolling than normal.
"Yes sir General Steel Bore!", another pony said. Loading the shell into the breach of the cannon. He then took a few steps back. "Permission to fire sir?"
The pony with the deep, rolling accent smiled. He was very tall, and had a tough build – reflecting that he trained for combat. His coat was hard to tell via the uniform that he wore. It was a dark green, with a cap with two "ears" coming down tied by a string at the bottom to protect his face from the cold of the mountains. His mane was a dark brown, with his eyes bing brown as well. His mark reflected his actions – a shell similar to the one being fired from the cannon.
"Yes Private, you my fire on my command – 3, 2, 1, FIRE!", Steel Bore said. The Private wasted no time pulling a string and the cannon fired again. The Private pulled the breach open, and another shell came out, the pile next to the Privates hooves growing in size
"Duck!", said a voice in the trees as the sound of the cannon was heard once again. This time, the shell was flying in a different direction. The shell impacted a large box nearby the edge of the camp. The box was filled with black powder, and exploded from the heat of the steel projectile. A large plume of black smoke rose out of the forest, and towered hundreds of meters into the air, moving in the direction of the mountains themselves.
NORTHERN MOUNTAIN BORDER, FEDERAL SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF GRIFFINLAND
On one of the mountains sat a few dozen of griffins. One of them walked from behind the other and cleared his throat. The others turned around and stood up, their bodies not moving an inch. The larger one spoke.
"You have all been summoned here for what purpose!", the large griffin said.
"To fight on the side of the U.S.E.R. resistance sir!", the dozens of griffins said in unison.
"Let me tell you that if you surrender, then I will personally kill you. Your mission is too fight for the ponies that need help, and to test out the effectiveness of our new weapons. All of you where given a rifle – the greatest piece of weaponry ever made for simple soldiers like yourself. I will count off 12 of you each, you will be either Bravo team or Alpha team, and before you say anything – don't bitch about your choices. Bravo will be carrying bricks of something called napalm, a very powerful insindary mixture, and you will do bombing runs on the Royal Guard.", the large griffin shifted his eyes to the left of the group, "Alpha will doing air assaults with your rifles, and don't forgot to take the cartage out after each shot and put it into your bag – we don't want to Royal Guard reverse engineering our weapons. Do you understand!"
'Yes sir!", the 24 griffins said without thinking.
The large griffin turned around to look at the Royal Guard forces and smiled, "Don't you ever forgot my name – Red Talon...". He turned back around to his troops, "You got 2 minutes, get in position to take off!"
The Bravo team rushed over to the small camp and each took out a white cloth box. The box was white, with a small layer of magnesium surrounding the napalm. When the magnesium hit the ground, it made sparks and set off the napalm.
Alpha team was getting their rifles ready for the fight. The rifles where made in a cheap and quick way, with the wood stock and forearm barely smoothed out. The action was a simple turning bolt, with no magazine. The sights where crudely made, with a simple "V" shaped notch on the back above the bolt and a simple front blade sight. On the barrel read the manufacturing date, and model number.
One minute and 30 seconds later, all 24 where back on the edge of the mountain, waiting for orders.
"I wish all of you luck – and whether you die or live, all of you will be heroes.", the large griffin said to his troops. His face turned back to its emotionless way. "Take off in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, TAKE OFF!", Red Talon said. Without any question the griffins took off and scattered to cover a larger area.
The griffins had great eye site, something that the entirety of the griffin race had and quickly bailed down to attack. The Bravo group however flew straight up and came back down at nearly a 90 degree angle. When reaching their targets, the Bravo team let go of the bags and came back towards the mountain camp with blinding speed.
At the border of the Federal Socialist Republic of Griffinland and the forest, the Alpha team took shots at the Royal Guard who scattered from the surprise attack. On the surface, the SWA troops used the unorganized Royal Guard soldiers as their advantage and regrouped their efforts. The concentration of fire was so powerful that the Royal Guard fled to the coastline to be picked up by their boats and return to the Solar and Lunar Equestrian Empire.
"I don't understand! How on Eques could they do that?!", the captain of the Royal Guard soldiers said with an equal mixture of shock and fear on his face and in his voice.
One of the other soldiers looked at the mountain and back at the general direction of the Royal Guard camp where the black powder carts where. He gridded his teeth, drawing attention to the other ponies. "Those bastards!, he yelled, "The used the smoke as a signal for the Griffins, how could we be so stupid?"
On the horizon, a large ship was sailing towards the coastline of the battle. The ship was massive, easily over 100 meters long and 20 meters across. The ship was a dull dark gray, with a dark red flag on the mast on the front. The deck was simple wood, reinforced with 2 centimeters of solid steel. In the midsection, was a large steel tower, 10 meters high with 2 large tubes sticking out. Above the tubes where a set of two windows of bullet resistant glass. On the side in dark black letters spelled out, "S.E.N. Stallion-3". An alarm range through the entire ship. Without a second thought the crew rushed into many positions on the ship as the shoreline became more detailed.
After three minutes of sailing the S.E.N. Stallion-3 turned around, the smaller automatic guns on the deck rotated to position. The air became still as the boat stood still.
The Royal Guard solders where scared, as the boat was clearly not of Solar and Lunar Equestrian Empire origin. The red flag on the mast in the bow of the ship made it clear. A loud, booming, rolling voice came from the boat.
"This is the Soviet Equestrian Navy Stallion-3, surrender or be shelled to extinction!"
The Royal Guards where too scared to even move, but one was braze enough to fly towards the beast. The automatic gunner on the midsection next to the tower opened fire with no emotion and shredded the pegasus guard. The others ran away in horror as the two guns opened fire, destroying the entire section of coastline. The smoke from the blast rose up and up. The SWA troops from the mountain ran over to the coast holding their rifles with pride and victory in mind.
CANTERLOT, SOLAR AND LUNAR EQUESTRIAN EMPIRE
Inside the castle, Shining Armour was not concerned about the battle that he had read about in the paper, there have been hundreds of small scale protests and rebellions by thousands of ponies. But that was the thing, all of those where small scale.
"I need your help with something sir.", a fellow guard said to Shining Armour. This knocked him out of his thinking. Shining Armour put the paper down and turned around to the fellow guard.
"What do you need?", Shining Armour simply asked.
"You've heard about the battle in the Northeast Mountains, right?", Shining Armour nodded to the question, "Well their has been some protests by the local labor leaders.", the guard said.
"How dangerous is the situation, are they armed at all?", Shining Armour asked, his voice and face becoming more serious. The guard shook his head.
"Will do, I'll be right there, thank you.", said Shining Armour as he walked over to the exit. Much to his surprise, the protest was right in front of the castle. He ran over to the large earth pony and looked at him. The large stallion then turned around. The stallion was massive, even for an earth pony. His coat was a dark black, with his mane being neat and a dark red. His eyes where surprising a dark green, a color that was very uncommon for earth ponies. His mark on the side of his body was simple – a red five pointed star.
"I'm here to help, what is the problem sir?", Shining Armour said.
The large earth pony chuckled and sighed, "Do you mind if I tell you the true problem, or do you want the simple version?"
The question was clearly aimed in a way to try to explain something, "Of course I would want the true version – even if it does take a while too explain. I have plenty of time sir."
The large earth pony made a gesture away from the street, and Shining Armour did fallow, although very carefully. "So, I first want to say that I highly appreciate your respect, not a lot of ponies call each other sir or ma'am anymore. My name is Crimson Hooves, local leader of the Workers Revolutionary Front of Equestria."
Shining Armour nodded, "Well Crimson Hooves, do you mind telling me why I was called too deal with a situation just a few minutes ago?"
Crimson Hooves looked Shining Armour dead in the eyes an begun to speak, "I'm going to assume that you have heard about the Battle of the Northeast Mountains? The SWA forces won the battle – and for a very good reason. The U.S.E.R. was behind the resistance, and the battle took place on the border of the Dawns S.E.R. The U.S.E.R., is officially named the Union of Soviet Equestrian Republics and fights for the Soviets – the workers. They have done nothing wrong, instead the Solar and Lunar Equestrian Empire has down the harm. How, you may ask? Well, the Empire never gave any attention to the ponies who needed help – they where too busy with the monarchy and making the capital their main priority. Think about it – why is is that 70% of the taxes goes too the capital and thus to the royal government. Taking that all in consideration – why is the guilty party here? It is not the SWA, it is Empire..."
Shining Armour stood there staring at the ground, "I hate to say it but, you bring up some good points sir.", Shining Armour said – his voice shaky. "I will think about it, but go you need to go, you get a warning next time that I see you, you're getting a ticket.
Crimson Hooves smiled and nodded, "I hope that you see the truth as well Shining Armour, have a great rest of your evening." With that, Crimson Hooves turned around and walked away, but Shining Armour heard what seemed to be like singing something from him.
"United forever in friendship and labor, our mighty republics will ever endure. The Great Soviet Union will live through the ages, the dreams of the ponies, their fortress secure . Long live our Soviet motherland, built – by the ponies mighty hooves. Long live our ponies – united and free! Strong in our friendship tried by fire – long may our Crimson flag inspire..."