Dark instantly went into battle mode, she press in a sequence on her vambrance and sirens shrieked from every corner of Ponyville. Soldiers scrambled to the outskirts while the Pegasus division provided an air screen.
Ashes smiled. "Finally, i'll be of some use." He turned in ashes, and about five knives formed themselves from the ashes, floating in a circle. He could still hear and speak. "Shall we visit those spirits~?"
Fire looked closely into the forest, "I don't she anything!" He yelled out. "Over there!" A soldier yelled out. Fire looked where the soldier pointed to see dozens of singular red eyes. A voice was heard from the forest that said, "Charge! Kill the ponies!" Suddenly, a small army of Smoke Spirits began to charge at the army of ponies. 'Son of a-!" Fire yelled out before being tackled to the ground by a spirit, who held a knife to Breeze's neck. "This'll be over soon, little pony!" The Spirit said into Fire's ear. "You're damn right!" Fire said as he flipped the spirit to the ground, while taking the knife and putting himself on top of the spirit. "Nighty night!" Fire said as his put the knife into the monster's eye. The spirit gave out a pained scream before fading away.
Dark flew in at the head of a pegisi company, "INCOMING!" Dark yelled, energy guns blazing, strafing the the spirits. Dark landed next to Firebreeze and then shot a flare into the sky to mark the spot of the spirits, which would lead half the battleion to the spot of the battle. "Hang on Firebreeze, we need to hold this position while reinforcements come in!" She yelled to him, as the pegisi made another strafing pass.
"Makes me wish I grabbed the rest of my gear before this happened!" Firebreeze yelled out as he kicked a spirit back, "Does anypony at least have a side arm I can borrow!" A soldier yelled out, "Sir! Heads up!" The soldier threw Fire an energy pistol, which he gladly accepted. Fire picked up the pistol began to fire at the spirits.
Dark found herself isolated from Firebreeze and surrounded by the spirits, she looked feircely at them thourgh her visor. "Just give in so we can kill you so much easier." one said. "I think not." Dark said, she activated the weapon overcharge button and threw it on the ground, and quickly took off. Before the spirits could react the rifle exploded, vaporizing several of them, Dark pulled out her secondary rifle and landed again. From nearby bushes, a squad of 20 ponies burst forth, whom Dark quickly reconized as her old company, "I knew you guys would come!" Dark said, "You know what to do! Beta squad, you're on front first! Ready? CHARGE!!" and the group charged at the spirits.
Fire flew into a group of spirits, engulfed in his own fire. He smashed into the ground and watched as the spirits flew in all directions. The few that got back up were immediately shot by either Firebreeze or the soldiers. "Come on, boys!" He yelled out to the spirits, "I need a damn challenge!"
Ashes morphed in five knives, and threw himself on a smoke spirit, wich vanished instantly. He was about to kill another spirit, when a voice in his head yelled "Why do you kill your familly?". Ashes stopped, and turned in a pegasus Flapping his wings to give the illusion of flying, he looked around him. Where did that voice came from?
Ecliptic and the other surgeons were working as fast as they could while staying safe. His new upgrade allowed him to move much faster while retaining the precision necessary to install and activate the bionic limbs to the reserve ponies. Those who had finished the procedure were recovering quickly with the aid of healing potions and spells. They were ready to join the ranks defending the town if needed.
Dark took out another flare gun, this time for artillery targeting. She gave it a decent angle before firing it, the shot glowed as it flew through the air, before suddenly rocketing straight up, illuminating the entire landscape in a red and green glow. Dark then turned her attention to the problem at hoove, she was out of ammo.
Ashes was so lost, searching for the voice's source, that he didn't noticed the smoke spirit aproaching. The only thing he saw was a big cloud of solid smoke hiting him, and passing through him. He blinked several times, surprised, and threw an ashes knife to the smoke spirit. "Hey! That was unfair, y'know!" Then he rushed on him, and finished him. He will search and worry for the voice later, he was in the middle of a battlefield and didn't quite knew his camp.
Firebreeze was fighting for his life, when he ran out of cooling clips. He dropped the sidearm and began to kick the spirits. He continued fighting until he noticed a smoke spirit ontop of town hall. Fire listened closely and heard a familiar, demonic voice. It was the first spirit he encountered, and it appeared to be giving the commands. "Dark!" he yelled out, "I'm going to go take care of some unfinished business! No pony follow me! This is my fight!" Breeze flew ontop of town hall and said to the spirit, "Time to finish what I started, spirit!" The spirit leader turned around and laughed, "You fool! Prepare to die, foolish pony!"
Ashes saw firebreeze, at the top of town hall, with the other smoke spirit. He also heard not to interfere, but kept an eye on those two: If something appeared to turn wrong, he'll make his way up and give a hoof. He looked around him, half confused, half tired. He hadn't rest for a long time, and needed to breathe a little. All this smoke has made his way through his ashes lungs, and started to make him feel weird. The voices in his head had kept themselves silent, hopefully, and he wasn't surrounded by smoke spirits, as earlier. He made his way through the chaos, and sat at the shadow of a tree, coughing. A grey veil dropped on his eyes, and he closed them for a few seconds, uncouscious of the panic around him. Like earlier, he started to be unnoticeable, a thing he learned a few years ago, even if he couldn't really control it. As the noise around him started to fade out, he opened his eyes, and discovered that a lot of ponies and smoke spirits were looking at the affrontment between Firebreeze and a largest smoke spirit, wich looked like their leader. He tried to move, but his body didn't obey him: He could just sit, and watch.
The spirit charged at Fire, who jumped up and drop kicked him. "How do ya like that, freak!" The spirit laughed, "that was nothing, you weakling!" The leader launched a smoke tenticle right into Fire's jaw, who was knock up into the air as a result. Fire hit the ground and slowly got up, filled with pain. He smirked at the spirit, "Nice hit, pal. Now, let me show you how it's done!" He flew at the spirit, flames burning brightly behind him, and tackled it to the ground, leaving an imprint of the leader in the roof of town hall. The spirit tried to throw Fire off of him with his smoke tenticles, but they were pinned to the ground as Fire headbutted the spirit leader in it's red, glowing eye. He stepped off of the leader, who got back up and threw a weak punch with a smoke tenticle that hit Fire in the eye. Fire covered his eye in pain, but he soon got over it and charged at the spirit one last time and bucked him off town hall. The leader hit the ground and began to fade away, but before he died, the leader yelled out in a weak voice, "You may have killed me, but there are more! There are always more!" and then the leader spirit disappeared and the Smoke Spirit army began to retreat in a panic.
Dark watched as Firebreeze kiiled the Smoke Spirit leader and the spirits start to retreat. "Kill them all! Don't let one survive!" she screamed, pulling out a machete. She flew at the spirits and began hacking her way through them as they were to busy running to try to fight back. Within minutes, every spirit was killed and the battle was over, and Dark had the troops assemble in an old plaza from back to the Second Equestrian Civil War (or Resistance as Firebreeze knows it). It was called Remembrance Plaza and would be a perfect barracks until the crisis passed.
Ashes finally snapped out, and realized the presence behind him. A smoke spirit was retreating, but Ashes understood what happened. The spirit had make him breathe smoke, and making him feel dizzy: If Firebreeze wouldn't had killed their leader, Ashes surely would've been poisonned by the spirits, and been dead by now. He made wings with ashes, and flew to Firebreeze. "You okay? I watched the whole thing. That spirit had thrown you on the ground like he would've tossed a small rock. Are you hurt?"
Fire chuckled, "I'm alright. Just a black eye and a few bruises.". He looked down at the retreating spirit army, being murdered by the pony soldiers, "I'm just glad I finally killed that freak, but... Like he said, there will be more after him... I don't see a quick end to this conflict."
"May i suggest you... Dark had said something about another pony, Snow, if i remember well. She could help me to create an essence to get rid of those... Spirits. And, if we can make it to the source of their power, to their real leader, and kill him, maybe they will fear us and flee like this.", Said Ashes, pointing at the retreating army. "I'm pretty sure i could make the 'smoke' part of the essence with my ashes, and your fire. If we can fusion it to a suffiscient water essence source, and control it's energy, we may create the perfect weapon against them."
Dark walked through the massive camp being thrown up in the Plaza, more troops were arriving by air every minute and her original army of 1000 had already been bolestered to almost double that. Another promotion had come in after her destruction of the invading Smoke Spirits and now she had command of a whole division, or almost 20,000 troops. Orders have been given out as the division asserted itself over her alloted territory and scouts and spies seached all over for the Smoke Spirits home. She walked into her command tent and looked at the map of her Guard Territory. Cloudsdale, Ponyville, Fillydelphia, and an assortment of other small towns rested inside. She moved little peices around that signified troops to each of the cities and towns. She alloted 2500 troops to Ponyville and shared 7500 between Cloudsdale and Fillydelphia, and gave the remainder to each of the remaining towns and in stragetic locations. After she was done, she stepped back to admire her work, "Well, if the spirits want to attack Equestria, they better not attack my part." she said to herself with a chuckle.
"Sounds good to me," Fire replied, "let's go find Dark." He then flew down to the battlefield to located Dark.
