A Tenacious Unicorn
Lily looked over her battle-station, a custom built PC made a couple years before the pandemic. The speed of the hardware did not matter as much as the speed of the connection to the net though, because right now, she was stalking the local fascists. They had a fiber line installed on the ranch thanks to fundraised money when they put out their first alert of fascist infiltrators scouting out their land. Ever since that damned July 4th parade last year at the local town, and the fallout of insulting the local white supremacists, the ranch has been beset by infiltrators in the night, and threats during the day.
Lily was currently checking in on the threats of the day. From Twitter, to Gab, Discord, Mastodon, Telegram, Signal, and Twitch, Lily flipped through tabs, adjusted windows, scrolled through her phone, and listened intently to parse the few streams she had going in the background. She mainly had them muted, unless she knew something interesting was happening in one. A few of the streams were silent as the streamers were not on. So she noticed in the corner of her eye when one of the streams on the fourth window flicked on. That was a channel linked to a known member of the local WLF cell unfortunately. She got angry. "the fuck is this asshole doin..." she muttered to herself as she focused on that window. The streamer looked to be infront of one of the towns diners, but she couldnt tell, it was dark out and most of the lights in town were off, but she could see multiple trucks with their headlights on, and men milling around. Uh huh. She jumped into her Signal chats and blasted messages to the ranch group chat telling them to stand-by, and sending them a link of the twitch stream. Thank god the ranch had good cell coverage to make up for the shit wifi coverage.
As Lily hoped on other social media platforms she verified that right wingers have been talking about an event in the state recently, and started compiling all the information, forming as clear a picture as she could for someone in a black out curtain concealed room could get off the outside world. She could hear phones go off as others in the house got the message, and heard footsteps echoing everywhere. Her own phone was pinging from signal activity, her headphones had discord notifications overlapping the stream from the town, and she tried her best to keep track of it all. She took a hit of her vape and hoped for the best.
***********************************************
Early Warning Chat
Lily: twitch.tv/tylerashcroft sadfhcsbea
LlamaMomma: Got it, raising the dead.
Mothmama: Damn this looks serious.
Ash: All clear out here on patrol, no headlights spotted yet.
Briana: Is this another drill or are they finally gonna go through with their threats this is tiring.
Lily: Chatter about 'routes' and 'targets' in the background. Tyler is really excited to 'teach those t*****s a lesson', guns visible.
Alex: Pillbox manned, requesting firepower all I got is the Mossberg.
Ash: I'll send you someone with a crank M2.
Lily: That Carpenter dude, Ferenc, tweeted at us saying the caravan is 'leaving Walsenburg under the guidance of god'. Dont know if he has heard of the stream but thank god we asked for his support I guess.
LlamaMomma: Hopefully the fascists see it and decide to just haze us at most. Though I doubt they're too busy if they are talking targets.
PuppyAmy: Armory is empty. Everyone is awake. House posts manned, heading upstairs to post outside lilys door.
AnarchyCattress: Barn is secure, Alpacas are safe, posted with them

Lily: Good because they are loading into trucks and heading out. sit tight, will update until I hear gunfire. Hopefully, that doesnt happen.
LlamaMomma: Agreed
AnarchyCattress: Agreed
Ash: Agreed
Briana: Agreed
Mothmama: Agreed
Alex: Agreed
***********************************************
Alex and Manny sat in the pillbox, looking out at the darkness. The last update lily gave said that the caravan of WLF members were headed their way. Between them in the cramped, but well dug out pillbox (everytime a false alarm is over, someone inevitably remembers how poorly built it is and improves it piecemeal) sat a crank trigger belt fed gun, based off of an old museum piece. It might be incredibly illegal to own, the pillbox might also be illegal, but right wingers going out to murder them in their sleep is also illegal. So fuck laws they said. A few of those at the ranch were already running from the law as draft dodgers, whats a few more rules broken on the pile. As the two exchanged hushed whispers daming everyone and their mothers to hell and back, they spotted what they were looking for. Movement on the roads. The trucks had turned their headlights off before they had gotten into view. A tactic they had been practicing for a few scouting runs by lone trucks to spook them. The good news is they had managed to get their hands on a monoscope night vision scope, and they took turns looking through it.
"I count... 10? 11?"
"I counted 10 from two trucks."
"Alright, 10, sent."
"They're armed, there is a leader, and I can see the light from a few cellphones. I think I see that tyler idiot."
"I can not believe the motherfucker is livestreaming this."
"It would feel patronizing if I didn't already have no faith in them having brains."
"They're approaching the fence, shh. Loose formation, very loose, did these idiots learn nothing from Iran or are they LARPing."
"Maybe they think a thin line will be better to surround us or something?"
"God we might have to kill them, they're doing something with the fence, are you sending all this?"
"Yes, fuck, everyones ready, Lily sent out the tweet announcing the attack."
"Better hope she didnt just cry wolf. Wait fuck they got through the fence. Get the megaphone."
"Got it."
scree "Attention intruders this is priva-"
From someone outside the pillbox: "Go to hell!"
Crack
***********************************************
El was sitting with Ash behind the tractor watching the main road when she heard the first gunshot. One second she was nervously asking Ash something unimportant, and the next the world was exploding into a cacophony of cracks bangs, shouts, screams, and yelling. The crank gun was tearing up the field in a wide arch in front of them, men were scrambling this way and that, Some making their way past the pillbox through sheer luck, others managing to get back to the fence line into the ditch by the road, and others were still out in the field, using whatever they could as cover. El didn't see any of that, because she couldn't see much of anything past the pens. She didnt even have the capacity to aim her rifle, she didn't even know where to aim it. She just sat there behind the engine block of the tractor hoping to hades and all the gods of the earth she wasnt slayed by these
assholes.
She didnt know how long the fight had lasted. Time seemed to change its meaning as she looked back at Ash for some guidance, and noticed she was lying down. No, she had collapsed. Fuck shes hurt! Fuck she might be dead! Fuck! She finally managed to shout "Ash!" and ran over to her. At the sound of her name, Ash turned to El, and El could see the damage. A hole in her shoulder that was leaking a lot of blood. El knew what to do for this. She had been a street medic in Denver during last summer. She could stabilize a bullet wound. She got to work setting a tourniquet, and wrapped the wound. As she was wondering how she was going to get Ash back into the house, she heard a new noise enter the orchestra of chaos, what sounded like an engine revving. Were they retreating? She risked rounding her head around the fat tires of the tractors to see, and saw a flag with a cross on it. Fuck! Wait are those the Knights?
***********************************************
Archer sat behind some sandbags outside the barn. Taking aim and firing at pinpricks of light approaching from the north whenever she poked her head up. She noticed a vehicle coming up the road to the south. It had its headlights on and seemed to either to not notice the battle, or was heading to it. As it approached the front gate, she caught a glimpse of the flag in the brakelights. A red cross over a black crossed pitchfork and wrench in the center with a black AR-15 across the bottom on a green circle with a gold gear and grain surrounding and separating them from a black field. As the truck rammed the gate, a mounted weapon on top* opened up on the fascists. The pillbox had mostly silenced the ones to the south, but the group of them to the north was still trading blows with the defenders of the barns and ranch houses. So Archer sighed and collapsed behind the sandbags as she listened to the loud gun of the technical fire. All of a sudden the ranch went quiet. The quiteness surprised her for a second before she could hear over the ring of her ears. First she heard the Alpacas whining, then she heard the people moaning and crying. And she knew the battle was over.
* A/N: They set up the gun on the drive when they got the tweet that announced the assault. The diver and gunner were not expecting to arrive in the middle of the battle, they were glad they decided to finish the drive through the night instead of waiting until the morning for rest though.
***********************************************
Lily breathed out. She didnt realize she was holding her breath in. She checked in on the signal chat and tracked who was checking in, and the statuses of the attackers. She got informed of the technical, the Knights that brough it, the number of attackers, and the fact that some of them were still alive. She saw on the stream someone approach Tylers camera and turn it off. She made sure to coordinate and compile the information so she could tweet out a timeline later, she had a full screen recording of the twitch stream. She didn't know what else to do as she heard the pained cries of those taken into the house downstairs to be treated for their wounds. Whoever is stabilized will be taken to the nearest hospital. A few others are out at the front gate figuring out what to the do with the trucks, and the bodies. She was glad the fighting was over, and was surprised to see only an hour had passed since she saw the livestream start. She did know it would be best to compile a list of damages in the defenses so that they could be fixed later. Everyone was arguing what authorities to call, and someone said something about a sheriff deputy being among the dead. Lily took another hit of her vape. Fuck this is going to be a long night isn't it. And tomorrow is suppose to be a sheering day dammit.