Jackie flexed her limbs one at a time, staring up the last few steps of light slumber that would lead to the waking world. All she had to do was climb them and she would be conscious again.
“What are you nervous about?” Misty asked from beside her. She was back to her normal size, floating through the air near Jackie’s head. “You’ve fought bigger things than this. You won against Charybdis.”
Jackie turned the knife between her hooves, feeling the handle that hadn’t ever worn down, despite being almost as old as she was. But like her, it had become more an idea of itself than the real thing. Time didn’t wear ideas out and make them grow old, not when there were still ponies who believed.
“I’m not thinking about this fight, I’m thinking about the one I’m starting.” The stone steps of lighter slumber were thick slabs barely close enough together for a pony to climb. And around her was nothing but dull rock, trailing into mist at the threshold of sleeping and waking. They would’ve been perfect for a human, which was why most bats she knew just flew over them.
“It’s too bad Athena isn’t more like I designed—like she was designed to be. She was supposed to look out for ponies, not try and take over the world.”
Jackie shrugged. “She’s not a mind like ours. Even you—you might be a figment, but right now the way you think is based on me. You see the world the same way. But Athena… I guess she mutated ‘protect Earth’ to include her as the ruler. No matter how many bodies she had to climb over along the way.” She sighed, making it to the last step. One more, and she would wake, and set the entire disaster in motion.
“I’m going to kill her.”
Misty circled around her, making a nervous fluttering. “That doesn’t sound… very possible. She’s had whole sections of her blown up before. Space stations crashing down from the sky, planetary surfaces obliterated. You should’ve seen what Charybdis did to Europa.”
“I saw,” Jackie snapped. “I know what it would take, Misty. She’s made herself invincible in the arenas she understands. There are so many satellites hidden away that no matter how many we destroyed, a few probes would always escape to rebuild somewhere else. I’d be surprised if she didn’t have one floating out there on every rock in the solar system by now.”
Misty landed on her shoulder. “Then you aren’t going to kill her. Negotiating is easier, and probably better. I don’t think the real me would want her dead, even if she is a monster.”
“Your real self can suck a dick,” Jackie snapped. “Actually, no she can’t, because she’s going to help me do it. I’ll need her, and Eureka, and Oracle too. We’re going to put together an Imperial spell.”
“She’s not a god of civilization anymore,” Misty squeaked. “The war changed her. You should see her dreams.”
“I have.” Jackie shoved the little seapony off her shoulder. “I made you, Misty. Everything you know is in there because I put it there. Lonely Day isn’t the Archive anymore. Now she’s god of something else.”
“Death,” Misty whispered. “That’s the real reason her sister is immortal, isn’t it?”
Jackie nodded. “We’ll have to go to all of them to construct the spell. Travel far, and not have much time to do it. But not now. Stay close—once I kill this thing, we’ll want the fairies on board as quick as possible.”
Misty saluted with a foreleg. “I’ll be staying close. Just… not close enough for the monster to attack me instead of you.”
“You’re all heart,” Jackie said. Then she stepped into the mist.
Her body awoke curled in her bed, with sheets twisted around her legs almost like restraints. But no, there was no one here, and she hadn’t been tied up. It was just her own tossing and turning, before she sat up abruptly.
Athena’s battlecruiser wasn’t as luxurious as it had been during the war, when captain’s quarters like this would’ve been filled with beautiful things. Everything was white as Jackie rose, and went through the routine she had memorized for Evelyn, knowing she was probably being watched at least a little. You’re with me here, Ezri. I know how to act thanks to you.
A glance at the terminal told her that they were about to launch. She delayed a little, setting her fake mane in perfect order, straightening her uniform, and otherwise making herself look presentable. The closer this ship was to Mundi when she took it, the less likely she’d be able to succeed.
Then she stepped outside, and found a Servant waiting just beside the door. Had it been there the entire time? Shit, does it suspect me? Can it somehow sense dream magic? But no, it didn’t move violently. Didn’t lunge, or do anything but watch her as she shut the door.
“I was about to wake you. I should have known you would not need it.”
“I don’t,” she agreed, setting off for the bridge.
There was more acting to be done over the next few hours. Instructions to give to the crew, conversations and speeches and many opportunities to give herself away. But somehow Jackie managed to keep from getting shot as the massive battlecruiser left its mooring and soared up into the atmosphere.
She sat on the bridge for a few hours, interacting with the crew as little as she could get away with. Every conversation was another chance to get caught, after all.
Besides, every member of the crew and marine in the hold would probably be dead within the hour. Jackie hadn’t gotten so good at killing people by making friends with them first.
She went over the spell in her mind, though the comparisons to unicorn magic were flimsy at best.
She rose to her hooves. “Second officer, the bridge is yours.” She turned, marching straight into the lift. As she expected, the Servant followed. Jackie even held out a hoof, keeping the elevator open for it.
“Cargo hold,” she instructed the elevator, then settled back as it began to move.
“There is no need for a manual inspection,” the Servant said. “I verified the manifest myself. It is all as you requested.”
“Perhaps,” Jackie said, kicking the emergency stop button with one hoof. “Athena, can you hear me?”
The Servant’s eyes shifted, and its motions changed. Instead of bobbing gently up and down, it froze in the air, perfectly still. “Of course, Evelyn. What is it?”
There was barely a foot between her and the monster, and Athena was controlling it directly. She might be the most intelligent being alive, perfect in every form of magic and every fighting style that could be imagined—but she still had to obey the speed of light.
Jackie released her spell, and for a moment the elevator became the Dreamlands. Jackie’s knife appeared in her human hand, wearing the armor and spellbook that Archive had taught her to create so long ago.
The Servant pushed back, it’s magic enough that the walls of the elevator turned to liquid metal and boiled away around her. But this was Jackie’s dream now, and in her dream she was invincible.
Her knife cut through every protection spell with the same swiftness it cut through physical barriers. It passed through the dense fiber-weave of the creature’s brace, then into its neck. Black half-rotten blood sprayed around her, steaming away as it struck molten metal or splattered against her armor.
The dream faded around her, and the elevator returned. Its walls cooled abruptly, solidifying into a room-shaped shell of molten slime that ground painfully against the side of the shaft.
The monster crumpled at Jackie’s feet, still spurting blood. “I thought about fighting you fairly. I was pretty sure I could do it—but then I realized that would be fucking stupid and I want to live.”
The monster pointed its horn, and Jackie threw herself aside.
There was a roar of sound, as metal tore and sparks flashed through the air. Atmosphere roared out through the new hull breach, and alarms all over the ship began to wail.
She ignored them, taking her knife into the creature’s gut this time and diving down with all her weight. She was still human, or at least still looked it. Her weight hit the creature like it was a package of meat at a butcher’s shop, deforming hideously.
“Last chance, Athena,” Jackie whispered, holding her dagger backhand against the monster’s neck. “Turn this ship around. Leave Meliora alone.”
“Or what?” the monster croaked, its voice echoing only feebly from the intact parts of its mechanical superstructure. “You’ll kill Mundi?”
“No.” She leaned in close, right next to the rotten flesh. “I’ll kill you. And anyone else that takes along the way.”
“Might be… hard,” the voice spluttered, distorting wildly before every light on the circuit went out.
Jackie could sense Athena’s attention on the battlecruiser, even as marines outside the elevator began to pound on its melted door. And not just that. There was something building, something terrible.
Jackie sliced her way across to the Dreamlands the same instant the vessel exploded into a torrent of flame. She collapsed onto the mossy floor of the enchanted wood, dirt clinging to her skin as bright orange flames glowed on the physical side.
I guess I don’t have to worry about taking thousands of prisoners anymore.
She rolled onto her back beside the portal. The idea of killing was nothing novel to Jackie—she had probably killed as many people as were on the battlecruiser in her life, maybe more. But to slaughter her own side, for a remote chance of killing an enemy?
“You look bad,” said a voice from behind her. Artifice, striding up and sitting down on her haunches in the loamy soil. The stars shone above the enchanted wood as they always did, oblivious to the slaughter that had just taken place. “Nice human, though. I’m surprised you remember it well enough to make the transformation stick.”
“I had a good teacher,” Jackie croaked, rising shakily to her feet and sheathing the dagger. She towered over Artifice now, as humans always did over ponies. But after seeing so many die because of her she had a hard time mustering any enthusiasm. “Can we skip the banter this time, please? You can’t even imagine what I just did.”
The bat made a face, then held out a hoof with a towel. “Maybe not, but I can smell it. Get the necromancy off before it sticks.”
She did, cleaning off as much of the bloody slime as she could. “I used to laugh at the ponies who made terminator jokes about Athena,” she said, tossing the towel onto the floor at the bat’s hooves. It caught on fire instantly, and a plume of thick green smoke rose into the air between them. She could make out the distant screams of terrified zoogs, frightened into madness by the smell. She couldn’t really blame them. “They were right all along. I was wrong.”
“That bad?”
“I ordered an entire division of marines.” She gestured into the air, where a fireball now spiraled down towards a distant ocean. There would be no need for Avery’s boarding crew. “See what she did to them. People who hated me, people willing to die for her.”
“On the bright side, they got their wish.”
Jackie shoved the bat away from her, annoyed. “That’s it. We can’t both keep living anymore.” She stepped forward, dismissing the transformation at last. “Talk to Eureka for me, please. Tell him I’m bringing the others.”
“Sure,” Artifice said, spreading her wings. “Bringing them where?”
“Up,” Jackie answered, dismissing her portal to the dead ship and cutting open a new one, straight into City Hall’s heartwood.
Time to kill a god.