Julion looked at the approaching army, and smiled, Right into my trap, he thought, before bringing his hoof down violently, and soon Hoofington erupted in a flurry of sounds, meant to serve a dual-purpose, confuse the invaders on what was going on, and mask the sound of artillery being fired, snipers firing, and Vertibucks taking off. In the army, confusion soon reigned as explosions inexplictily exploded in the middle of them, craving out large chucks in the army due to their close quarters. Mines and bursting artellery shells made the confusion only worse, which was further complicated by the army's huge sized. Then artfully deployed and hidden units began firing at the army, giving them the illusion of having a much larger force than they did as machine gun fire ripped through the army, and waves of Vertibucks that had very quickly seized control of the sky began strafing the army. Arcade's massive army ground to a halt as it lost over half its mass in just 10 minutes, a massive phycological blow on those still alive. Commando snipers only confounded the confusion further as their superior CK-SR 12's fired bolt after energy bolt into heads of ranking officers. Julion watched the carnage through his rifle scope with a large smile, he understood warfare better than anyone else in the world, he understood that it wasn't about how big of a stick you were carrying, it was who was weilding it. And in this case, he was the superior commander, able to quickly absorb the information on the ground and very quickly give new orders to those under him, making the defending New Equestria's constantly moving, hard to hit, and made to look a lot bigger than they were. Then Julion gave the final call, "Fire XVIS." he said calmly into his Pipbuck. XVIS was Equestria's version of the Pink Cloud, only deadlier. One breath of even the lowest concentrations was fatal, it was in fact a non-radioactive version of a discontinued and destroyed gas called XVI, but XVIS still worked like a charm. As the slightly blue tinged gas spread across the army, further killing massive amounts of Acrade's men, then gave a command to his external units to cut off all routes of escape save one, and then radioed into Crimson, "Finish them." was all he said before turning his attention back to the battlefeild, were only 50,000 of Arcade's army remained, tied down, and trying to run. (This is what happens when you learn the tactics of the best tactians on the planet! I know a lot about military history, if you pay attention, I used tactics from everything from Sun Tzu to Powell.)
(Nice tactics, allow me to turn Arcade's world upside down) Crimson jumped from the 100 meter high walls and landed on his hoofs. He then used his energy swords(Think of an omniblade) and began to run at full speed, covering 50 meters every second. He then jumped across the first line of soliders and he began to take down the heavy units in the second line. thousands charged thowards him but could not kill him, yet alone touch him as they quickly got carved into shreads by Crimson. While Crimson was busy, he did not know the 5 miniguns being set up behind him. By the time he realised, the 5 miniguns centered Crimson and, as if on cue, began to created steel rain onto Crimson. This surprised the New Equestrians and Julion as tens of thousands of rounds slammed into Crimson without doing any effect. Crimson just stood there and watched. Once the Miniguns were out of ammo, he ran again and took down the gunners. Not only did the miniguns try to kill Crimson, but they killed most of their men by mistake. "IAM THE KING OF DIAMONDS, RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN !!!!!" Crimson shouted. The rest of Arcades army, which only had 2,500 soliders now fleed into the forest behind them, ending the battle with a victory for New Equestria
The battle had lasted barely an hour, but Julion saw no reason to end it there. Through his scope, he saw the commander of the attackers, he shouldered Silent Death, then watched as the energy bolt flew down range straight into the commander's head, "Perfect shot", he said to himself. After the last of Arcade's army had fled from sight, the defenders gathered in front of the site of the massacre, they had only sustained about 20 non-lethal casualties in the entire battle, odds that would not bode well for any attacker. As they walked through the dead, most of them just looked like they had fallen over dead thanks to the gas that has disappaited and the energy weapons of the Commandos. The only ones that had any visible damage were the ones blown apart by the explosions, by the regualar's rifles, or by Crimson himself. Not a single one lay wounded on the feild, all had been murdered. Julion looked towards the horizon, "Losing an army of that size will be devestating in more than one way for Arcade. Not to mention the Commando cells I have being sent there now." he said to really anypony. "It will probably take him months to recover, maybe years. Espically now that the populace knows that he isn't invincible, that he can be defeated, that a nation can curb his ambitions." Julion turned to the army, and yelled so all could hear. "We have won more than just this battle men! We have one a desisive victory over the forces of oppresion and have won an even more powerful victory, that of the homefront! We have shown we are the better, defeating a massive army against insurrmountable odds! You have won the most important battle men, that of resolve! May the Blessings of the Goddesses be upon you!"
The Crowd cheared out loud as they celebrated their victory. They Burnt the bodys so that there was no health hazard inside the city and took the weapons from Arcades army. While everypony was celebrating, Julion noticed Crimson sitting down at the front of the city's gate drinking a bottle of Vodka. He survived 5 miniguns being shot at him and stood there like it was nothing, not to mention taking out 1/3 of an army by himself. Some of the regular forces got his autograph until he noticed Julion walking thowards him.
(Uh, 50,000 is not a third of 500000, more of a tenth.) "Good job out there." Julion said plainly to Crimson, he didn't care that Crimson was incinvible apparently unlike most, just so long he got the job done. "But remember, it can be bad for morale if one gets over-confindent in ones abilities."
(You did the maths? I just made it up.) “I understand. Thanks for the tip.” Crimson said finishing his bottle of vodka. “It’s a good thing that Arcade has lost a part of his army. Maybe even more so th-” Crimson was caught in mid sentence when he received a message on his pipbuck, the message was from A.D and it wasn’t good. “Father. I just received news that what you just fought was not even a fraction of Arcade’s army. He knows that he lost this battle and is coming to invade Equestria himself. What’s worse is that he has been implanted with his versions of the Immortality chip and your augmentations. However, he is moving his FULL army at a very slow pace, but should arrive in Equestria in 2 weeks to 3 weeks. I’m coming to assist you and the Solider soon, good luck father”. A.D “Damn it. Solider, I think you should read this.” Crimson said to Julion. “You’re not going to like it.”
(How the hell would he get a hold of so many recruits? This is a post-apocolyptic world, its not like it's crawling with ponies just waiting for a fight.) Julion looked at it, "Well, if we just sit by, a repeat of this won't work. So, we fight him on our terms, and we must strike him where he is most vunerable, his supply lines. Any army of that size will require massive amounts of supplies, and cutting off those supplies..." Julion said thinking, gears turning in his head. What Julion was planning was coincedentally was very similar to what Dark Light did to the zebras, by cutting off their supplies, she forced a long, hard retreat on the zebras. "Tell her to prepare some of your best units for guerilla warfare. We will harass their entire march, any army of that size will be made of mainly drafted in ponies with not a lot of training or eprience, and not a lot of morale. And we must also decieve Arcade to go where we want him to." Julion suddenly got an idea, "Crimson, are your augmentations mechanical? If not, do you think Arcade's will be?" he asked, almost excitedly.
(Think of the NCR from F: NV. I believe their smallest army was at least 700,000, but the majority of them were unequipped. And also, think of the Caesars legion, there is no known amount of legonares but they have conquered 6 states, which might have over 3 million soldiers alone.) “My Augmentations were almost biological except for the immortality chip and a bone strength enhancement which wore off 10 days after my implantation, but I doubt Arcades would be. Biological Augmentations like mine have a 99.5% chance of death, now and even before the war, I don’t think he would like to take a chance like that.” Crimson said, looking at his left leg.
"Do you think an electrical pulse might disable them? Maybe a large EMP blast? If it would, that would mean not only would he become venerable, his army will not be able to anything eletrical, so no magic energy weapons, nothing like that." Julion said, "And I could have an EMP big enough to do that ready in a little less than a week."
Crimson received another email from A.D. Not only would she help Julion and Crimson, she sent them a picture of what Arcade looks like. He was gigantic, at least twice the size of a normal griffon. He replaced his claws with metal claws, enhanced his flight speed greatly, and he also used the augmentations to make his skin like Crimsons and has used his immortality chip to extend his life. Crimson noticed his weakness instantly, if an EMP was used, this would cripple his augmentations and let Julion or Crimson do the finishing blow, if Arcade was actually hit from the EMP. A.D would be arriving next week with 500 Securitrons and another 1500 soldiers from Los Pegasus. All they had to do was disrupt his supply lines and make sure that Arcade’s advance was slowed as much as possible.
(Wee, fast forward to when they meet.) Julion had organized a defense inside massive cliff face that Arcade would be forced to scale in order to continue on to the rest of Equestria, in two weeks, they had dug almost 100km's of concrete tunnels into the cliff face, with massive amounts of weaponry of every kind. The feild in front of them was crisscrossed with ditches and pitfalls and mines and barbed wire and many other things meant to disrupt and hamper a charge. Behind them, the small cruise missle housing a EMP large enough to shut down Canterlot back before the Great War was armed and ready. As Arcade's army approached, Julion targeted the army with the missle, along with many other salvenged cruise missles that still worked from before the war. When he was confident that everything was calibrated for maximum effect, he fired the missles. (I'll do this from the prospective of Arcade's army) As the huge army trudged along, hungry, tired, and beaten down from the harrasment that they had gone through, the looming cliff seemed to be a blessing, a possible escape, unknowing of the trap that lay within. Then, streaks of white clouds launched from the top of the cliff, making it look like it had grown spikes of curly white hair. Then, there was a blue flash as the EMP exploded over them, then explosions rained down upon them from the missles, soon followed by massive amounts of artellery. Arcade had been flying above the army, keeping an eye on it's entirety when the blue flash struck. He suddenly felt himself drop, and a feeling washed over him that he had not felt in a very, very long time; the feeling of weakness.
(Arcade’s prospective.) Arcade hit the ground hard. He struggled to regain his bearings; he got up slowly as he noticed his soldiers hitting the ground after they were being struck by blue bolts. When some of the blue bolts hit him however, they had no effect. His men were dying in a horrible fashion and he was paying the price for it. He then noticed a unicorn jumping from the Cliff and began slaughtering his people. He then recognized that this was the King of Diamonds, and that somewhere close by (as it said in his report) was the solider. He knew these two from his report. He wanted these two dead, and he was going to do anything because of it. He tried to copy Crimsons augmentations into himself, and he wanted the solider dead because of how much of a threat he was. He stood up and began to call Crimson and the Solider forwards for a fair, hoof to claw fight. Then he would prove how much of a threat he was to Equestria.
Julion scanned the battlefeild, almost laughing at how his defenses tore apart Arcade's army. Finding his way to join Crimson, he was surrounded by his ultra-tough black armor that made him almost as invincible as Crimson. Drawing Head Hunter, he charged the army to get with Crimson, almost causing some of Arcade's men to fall over laughing as the black suit of armor charged them with nothing more than a foot-long dagger. But they would soon find their heads rolling on the ground as Head Hunter grew to its full size (Somewhere between longsword and claymore) and easily cut through any armor that they wore. Julion punched in a few things to his Pipbuck and soon Silent Death was being used as an automatic turret on his back as he carved his way to Crimson, explosions going off everywhere, Julion a flurry of enchanted titanium and blue energy.
Crimson stood face to face at Arcade. Arcade wanted to settle this the old fashioned way, with good old hoof to claw. Arcades soldiers made room for Crimson and Arcade to fight and let them watch. Julion then arrived to notice Arcades and Crimsons on the ground, both of them going around in a circle waiting for one of them to strike. - - Auto Merge - - Crimson stood face to face at Arcade. Arcade wanted to settle this the old fashioned way, with good old hoof to claw. Arcades soldiers made room for Crimson and Arcade to fight and let them watch. Julion then arrived to notice Arcades and Crimsons on the ground, both of them going around in a circle waiting for one of them to strike.
Julion looked at the two, wondering if he should jump in. While the three were focused on each other, Arcade's army was reminded that they were in the middle of a battle by bursting artellery shells, sniper fire from the cliff, and Vertibucks flying overhead, strafing the forces below.
It was Arcade who made the first move. He flew towards and tried to claw Crimson across his face. Crimson dodged under his long and razor sharp claw and uppercut Arcade in the face. Arcade then got flipped up by one of his legs by Crimson which spun him in the air and got a solid punch directly in the stomach, sending him crashing into a cliff wall 50 meters away. Arcade staggered a little while stuck in the cliff until Crimson jumped and kicked Arcade in the face at a ferocious velocity, causing the entire cliff face to come crashing down onto Crimson and Arcade. Once the dust settled, Arcade was thrown out of the rubble by Crimson. Arcade landed in front of Julion, crippled and defeated.
Julion looked down at Arcade, "Sorry Arcade, but you lose." then he brought his hoof down hard enough on his neck to break it despite residual invenerability. He then took out Head Hunter and looked to Crimson, "You want to honor?"
“I would love to.” Crimson said. He took Head Hunter and looked at Arcade. Arcade had just managed to copy some of Crimsons abilities, but used those abilities for pure evil instead of good. Arcade looked up at Crimson, noticing his purple eyes. He knew he was about to die. (Going to rip off Benny here, I just love this line.) “Now, Arcade. From where you are right now you’re sitting on a 24 caret bar of bad luck.” Crimson then gave a signal for Julion to hold him up in the air. “But the truth is…..” Crimson said levitating Head Hunter. “The Game was rigged from the start.” Crimson then slashed Arcade in the neck as head hunter grew into a sword; his head was wiped off as the rest of his body collapsed down in a bloody mess. Arcade remembered the King of Diamonds, as the last thing he would ever see.
Head Hunter flung back to Julion the moment he wrapped just the tiniest bit of magic around it. Julion watched to make sure that Head Hunter absorbed Arcade's blood, trapping his essence inside Head Hunter so that not even the most skilled of necromancer's would be able to bring him back before returning it to it's scabbard in knife form. Julion looked around to see that the remaining fragments of Arcade's army had fled, barely a quarter of it remaining, and it hadn't even reached the cliff face. "I will say that this was quite the successful battle." Julion remarked.
“Quite successful indeed.” Crimson responded, a smile coming from his face. Just then, A.D and the Securitron army came out the distance, finishing off what was left of Arcades Army. “Sorry, I’m late Father. I ran into some slavers “ pointing to Arcades army. A.D was dressed head to hoof in Custom Combat armor. “And you’re the solider, nice to meet you. My name is Agileica Dash, or A.D for short, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” She said with a refined voice.
