Sunrise War
“Princess Luna, all our ships are entirely out of bombs,” Spring Rain reported. She stood beside her Princess on the deck of the Fulmen, surveying the horde of undead below.
“We have depleted their forces, but it seems air support alone will not win this battle,” Luna replied. She was surrounded by her panoply of seized Khadoran weapons, which drifted lazily in her magic aura like weaponized mist. “There are still far too many, and even now their engineers salvage their fallen. Give the signal to release the warjack bombs.”
“Immediately!” Spring Rain turned to the aft of the vessel and called out to a soldier standing next to the banner cable that ran from railing to balloon. “Signal! Wisteria-juniper-bloom-aster!” The flags went up as the crew of the Fulmen, hearing the call, prepared their own 'jack bombs.
The Fulmen's first warjack bombs were followed almost immediately by the first wave from the Lumière. In a span of minutes, the Lunar Sky Fleet had dropped over six dozen rampant warjacks amid the Cryxian vanguard. Princess Luna had given them telepathic commands to offer no quarter and fight as long as even a single piston could pressurize. Nomads crashed into Slayers and Harrowers, carving their black iron armor with heavy blades. Freebooters crushed mechanithralls and bile thralls in their clamps and under their feet, heedless of steam fists and acid alike. Buccaneers trapped brute thralls and Deathrippers in their nets, to be pierced by Talon spears. Still the massed abominations pressed forward. Outside of their master's control, the Equestrian warjacks were limited in their ability to fight. Seethers tore off warjack arms while Ripjaws carved their knees. Leviathan spikes punctured armor and piston alike, felling warjacks as Night Guard thestrals and pegasi took to the skies to guard their ships from winged Scavenger and Shrike bonejacks. Soulhunters and bane riders crashed into the Equestrian warjacks that had landed on the flanks.
“The Night Sky Fleet has played its part,” Luna said calmly. She singled out a Scavenger a hundred feet away and blasted it to scrap with her magic. “Raise the signal to fall back, I will not have my ponies torn apart by those warjacks.”
“Of course, Princess,” Rain called out the signal to the flag pony. When she turned back, Luna was gone.
The Princess of the Night hit the ground hard, just behind the Cryxian vanguard. Without hesitation, she laid into the rear lines of the undead, her collection of weapons becoming a whirlwind of mechanikal death. Necrotechs and necrosurgeons were cut down by the one-pony engine of destruction. Crowds of misguided scrap thralls detonated in chain reactions started by Luna's explosive spells. Warwitch sirens, the only living members of the Cryxian throng, cried out in shock as the lunar nightmare slew them. Stitch thralls were cut to ribbons as they tried to collect the sirens' bodies for masters who had already been terminated.
Princess Luna sensed the presence of Lich Lord Asphyxious in the split second that his teleportation spell was cast. She looked in his direction even as he manifested, Daeamortus gripped in one claw.
“Luna,” the iron lich intoned in his sepulchral voice, not offering the respect of her title.
“Asphyxious,” the princess replied, returning the disrespect. “Tell me, abomination, are you aware of the fine art of the magic duel?”
“Ponies by the dozens have had their every secret laid bare from beyond death by our exhumators. The existence of magic dueling and the meaningless pretense of honor that defines it came as no surprise to us. Others engage in similarly meaningless foolishness with firearm, blade, or their bare hands.”
“And here I was ready to invite you to settle this battle with one,” Luna replied with a sneer.
“Thou are suggesting that I would assemble such a force, plan such an invasion, only to decide it by single combat? The very idea is as ludicrous as it is insulting.” Asphyxious took Daeamortus in both claws and leveled it at Princess Luna. “Still, if thou wishes to add thy soul to my personal collection, I would be fascinated to taste it.”
“You know, I can't help but pity you,” Luna replied. “Even I, at my very worst, was never as tainted as you. You've drifted so far into corruption, I don't think it's possible for you to escape it any more. You've gone so far as to warp your very soul.”
“Escape? Corruption? Pity? Nonsense. In the end, all will serve Lord Toruk, body and soul. Those of us who serve willingly receive glorious blessings proportionate to their value to Him. The unwilling gain an eternity of servitude in mindless undeath. I see potential in thee, so I will allow thee to choose.”
“In the same way that you allowed Twilight Sparkle to choose, I imagine.”
“She was offered a great opportunity. She declined. It is her loss.”
“The worst part is that you believe every word you're saying.”
“That thou dost not reveals thee as the one in need of pity.” Asphyxious rushed forward, gliding above the ground. Luna parried with an ice axe and swept three annihilator blades at the iron lich, but Asphyxious vanished in a burst of runes. Luna vanished as well, just before an explosion of necrotic energy detonated at her former location. Both warcasters teleported back to the forest edge. Daeamortus was a blur as Asphyxious deflected blow after blow from Luna's collection of armaments.
Suddenly, Luna felt a presence behind her. She swept an annihilator blade over her back just in time to deflect Wraith Witch Deneghra's polearm, Eclipse.
“Surely thou thought not this battle a duel, regardless of my words?” Asphyxious asked the Princess.
“A mare can dream, can't she?” Luna quipped. Nightmare charged in, forcing Luna to bring three ice axes around in order to deflect its wicked claws. Attacked from three sides, Princess Luna devoted her entire collection of weapons to stopping the various blades coming at her from the helljack and warcasters. She released a pulse of arcane power, driving her assailants back.
“Deneghra, please entertain the lady a moment.” Without waiting for a reply, Asphyxious vanished.
“It seems that your master has chosen to sacrifice you rather than face me himself,” Luna taunted, turning to face her new adversary.
“Mortals often boast that they will give their last breath for whomever they serve,” Deneghra replied, idly twirling Eclipse. “I gave my last breath for Lord Asphyxious years ago, yet still I serve him.”
“That makes it acceptable for him to throw you at me like a grenade?”
“It amuses me that you show such concern for your enemy's safety.”
“I suppose I'm too nice for my own good. I do seem to have a gift for getting my enemies to talk aimlessly.”
“Perhaps it's your 'special talent,' as your kind enjoy calling it.”
“More likely you've picked up your master's fascination for hearing his own voice. He does tend to carry on, wouldn't you say?”
“Lord Asphyxious has a reason for everything he does. His plans often take decades or even centuries to come to fruition, but in this case we need not wait so long.”
Just then, Luna sensed a dark and twisted presence. This feeling was immediately followed by the sight of Cryx-light from the forest, the glow rising fifty feet off the ground. The corrupted thing glided, incorporeal, through the woods until it emerged from the treeline. It was a massive, hulking machine, with a line of smoke stacks rising from its curved carapace. It moved on a serpentine cluster of necromechanikal tubing, and had long, slender arms. The hateful machine stared at Luna through the eye sockets of its huge, humanoid skull, and the countless souls that the Princess could sense animating the construct resonated in primal, incoherent hate. Suddenly, the machine was much closer to her, and Luna teleported into the sky as it swept its bladed claws towards her. Sensing the activation of several more of the terrible constructs, Luna whirled towards the Equestrian forces and activated her Royal Canterlot Voice.
“WRAITH ENGINES!!”
Princess Luna's warning echoed throughout Ponyville, causing Twilight, surrounded by her friends in the library, to drop her copy of Victor Pendrake's Monsternomicon Volume II with a gasp.
"That's bad, right?" Rainbow Dash asked rhetorically.
"A little, yes." Twilight's eyelid twitched. "I was hoping to have more time to prepare, but I don't really have that luxury if there's Wraith Engines on the loose."
"So, explain t' me what you're up to here," Applejack said. "I mean, ya just said ya had a plan, and then ya brought us all here to watch you read some."
"I'm going to do something that's either absolute genius or incredible idiocy." Twilight offered by way of explanation.
"I was afraid you'd say somethin' like that," Applejack grumbled, flicking her tail.
"Now, I'm sure you're all familiar with Starswirl the Bearded's Omniamorphic Spell?" Twilight asked. Without waiting for an answer, she continued, "I can use it to transform into any kind of creature. Something big and powerful enough to turn the tide of this battle. At least, in theory. The problem is that it demands a huge amount of magical power, more than even I can channel. At least on my own."
"And we come in... where, precisely?" Rarity prompted.
"Friendship is the most potent source of magic in Equestria. We're going to focus the full power of the Elements of Harmony directly into me, giving me the power to cast the Omniamorphic Spell on myself."
"Whoa, hold on!" Rainbow Dash interrupted. "That sounds incredibly dangerous. I mean, I'm cool with putting myself in danger to protect my friends, but this is more like putting my friend in danger to protect myself, and that seems kind of backwards."
"Don't worry about a thing!" Twilight said reassuringly. "The Elements of Harmony are only really harmful to monsters and evil-doers. Worst case scenario is the spell backfires and all the magic is released in a massive shockwave that turns all the Cryxians to stone. Come to think of it, when we have some time to spare we should figure out how to do that on purpose."
"Darling, I really think this is unwise," Rarity said.
"We don't have much of a choice," Twilight replied, her horn and Element starting to glow. The others exchanged nervous glances, but decided to trust in Twilight's arcane wisdom. Each pony closed her eyes and rose into the air as the familiar power of the Elements flowed through them.
Princess Celestia was getting frustrated. The iron lich called Admonia had learned to cancel out Equestrian magic with shocking speed, and was nullifying her defensive spells almost as quickly as she cast them. Unable to rely on their Princess's protection, her soldiers had to engage the enemy much more cautiously than normal, a problem exacerbated by the struggle to keep her warjacks from falling to the Withershadow Combine. Despite Twilight's warning, Celestia had been forced to sacrifice a Nomad to slow the Cryxian advance. The Combine had used its cortex to summon a Harrower, which had broken through the Paragon's force field and gouged several deep rents in the great machine's leg before being crushed under its massive fists.
Celestia perched on the Paragon's curved shoulder and began coursing magic through its cortex to replenish its power field. The colossal warjack fired both of its Hullbuster cannons into a Seether, crippling the machine. Below, Solar Royal Guard ponies stood fast against a wave of mechanithralls, with fire support provided by a pair of Mule warjacks. Then, Celestia heard a sharp, familiar cry. She looked up to see Philomena circling overhead. Celestia raised a hoof for the phoenix to perch on. Philomena obliged, looking to Celestia's eyes. The Princess looked at Admonia, then returned her focus to Philomena.
"I hate to ask this of you, but-" Celestia started. Philomena spread her wings and took flight before she could finish. Then, the phoenix burst into flames and shot like a rocket directly at the iron lich. Admonia saw the bird coming, shooting gouts of hellfire from her claw. Streaking through the air with a trail of flames behind her, Philomena avoided Admonia's spells, stuck her steel chest beak-first, and exploded in a blaze of white-hot flame. Admonia screeched in rage as her metal body was reduced almost instantly to slag. From the ashes Philomena rose, soaring back to Celestia.
Maelovus gave Mortenebra a baleful look. "I was not expecting that," he admitted. Tremulus, meanwhile, stooped down and took Admonia's tome, protected by dark and ancient magic, from her still-molten remains. Holding the book under his arm, Tremulus next retrieved her skull, also undamaged.
"She'll want these when her new body is assembled," Tremulus explained to Mortenebra.
"We must fall back," the Master Necrotech replied. "Lord Asphyxious-" Mortenebra was interrupted by a sound like an eagle's call, but impossibly loud, which echoed across the battlefield. A shadow swept across the field as a massive bird, electricity coursing across its lavender-feathered wings, flew over the Ponyville wall. The mighty storm raptor cruised over the front line to slam talons-first into the nearest Wraith Engine. The raptor tore the machine's armor to ribbons as lightning arced from its beak and claws into the swarm of thralls surrounding the giants.
"Run!" Mortenebra ordered, telepathically commanding her remaining warjacks and thralls into a suicidal charge against Celestia's forces.
The Deathjack trampled heedlessly through the mechanithrall horde, eager to taste the soul of this new enemy. Suddenly, the gigantic bird was gone, replaced by a massive dire troll - a mountain king. The gargantuan troll seized the Deathjack in a single, meaty fist and hurled it at another Wraith Engine. As the abominable machines crashed to the ground, Celestia noticed a distinctive marking on the mountain king's upper thigh.
"Oh Twilight, what have you done this time?" The Princess asked under her breath, melting a Desecrator's cortex with a flash of sunlight. Without Admonia to counter her spells, Celestia was able to send her magic coursing through her soldiers, protecting them from the Cryxian onslaught.
Twilight Sparkle had never felt so absolutely powerful. Fueled by the Elements of Harmony, the Omniamorphic Spell had put her in a constant state of flux. One moment, she was a serpentine tatzlwurm, using her arm-length fangs to seize warwitches and worry them like a dog at a bone. Then Twilight was a dinosauroid rhinodon, sweeping her clubbed tail through the teeming mass of thralls. Next she was a slag troll, ignoring the corrosive spray of purging bile thralls while dragging bane riders from their undead steeds. After that she was a dracodile, massive scales deflecting attacks as she released a bilious spray from her huge maw into ranks of bane knights. She thanked any and every deity that might have been involved for the time she'd spent in the hospital, memorizing both volumes of the Monsternomicon. Then she turned into a huge Raevhan buffalo and used her mighty horns to pitch a Slayer into another Wraith Engine. Twilight felt magic coursing through her horns, and was curious. She tried to cast a spell, and was thrilled to discover that it worked - a blast of arcane power detonated in the midst of yet another wave of mechanithralls. Twilight became a frost drake and took to the sky, arcing lightning from her horn into Scavengers and Shrikes. With a little imagination, she became a warpwolf with wings, and swooped behind the Cryxian front to tear apart iron lich overseers and necrosurgeons. Next Twilight was a massive, five-headed desert hydra, five jaws hurling helljacks about like ragdolls while five horns blasted arcane destruction in every direction. She spotted the final two Wraith Engines in time to watch Celestia and Luna bring them down in almost perfect synchronicity. Twilight's other four heads swept their gaze across the battlefield, and the unicorn was confused. All the Cryxian warjacks were wrecked, all the thralls destroyed. She had slipped so completely into the flow of battle that she hadn't considered what would happen when there were no more enemies. Twilight's five heads blinked in sequence: Center, far left and right, then smaller left and right. A small part of Twilight's mind was fascinated by this, and made a mental note to try to find out if natural desert hydras blinked in this way. A somewhat larger part of Twilight's mind realized that the Omnimorphic Spell was wearing off, so she reverted back to her natural form while she had the chance. Twilight took a moment to reorient herself to being a unicorn, then trotted off to assist the medics with the injured Royal Guard ponies.
Warwitch Scylla slowly forced herself to stand up, staring dazedly across the battlefield in the pre-dawn light. That strange, purple tatzlwurm had pushed its fangs completely through her, but Scylla ignored her confusion at the utter lack of agony and bleeding as she made her way to a pile of twisted scrap metal that had once been a Wraith Engine. Surprising herself with her raw strength, Scylla shifted and pulled large hunks of steel and iron aside until she found what she was looking for: The scrapped remains of the Deathjack. The Skulls of Hate caught Scylla's eyes. There was something she needed to do.
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Omnimorphic spell for the win. That would be insanely funny to see on a table. Clearly Twilight's plan was indeed both insane, and functional. Crazy works sometimes. Also, you made the Wraith Engines much more deadly in writing than they are on the table. Perfectly fine really as they sound like true necromantic abominations, but really come off kind of blah on a table.
I love Asphyxious. XD
Will this just be Warmachine, or will Hordes play a part too?
7153411 maybe they will be better in Mk3
glad to see this story is still going
I really, really like it 
7153411
Twilight has something like a 50/50 success rate for long-shot ideas involving spells she's never tried before, so I figured I'd give her this one.
I love my Wraith Engine, but it just never seems to work quite right. Same for the Kraken, really. Maybe MkIII will make them better.
7153748 - The problem with at least 2 of the hordes factions... Circle and Skorne is that all the Equestrians have to do is send out Fluttershy.
That almost instantly stops any warbeasts not under direct control of a warlock. Circle is working with the Equestrians to send them home, Skorne has other elves to fry and their exploratory group got spanked, Legion may show up, but really Equestria doesn't have anything they want, at least not for the cost they'd pay to get it and Trolls don't have reason to attack the ponies either.
Nothing from the Protectorate of Menoth, but that's fine... ponies aren't humans and clearly don't worship the Wyrm, so Menoth really doesn't have an opinion on them.
Farrow/Crocs may still come up, but I honestly don't know where else this could go, the ritual is due to complete fairly soon, assuming it works. Could use a timeline on that btw.
7154303
so tell me how the circle could control those beasts without a warlock?
a warpwolf, except for the pure-blooded variant, are just mostly-mindelss ex-humans, afaik the Satyrs are fiercly aggressive and territorial and the wolds are created to be controled by a Warlock, the only exception for circle could be the Argus as two of their kind are used by Komander Zoktavir as 'pets'
now why the beast of the skorne haven´t already turned on their masters is anyones guess, but just seeing the poor things in that condition would probably trigger some kind of 'mother bear'-instinct in flutters and drive her to do something she will regret later.
Skorne warbeasts are kept in line by the Paingiver caste when not linked to a warlock. They fear the barbed whips of the Beast Masters more than they fear death itself, and for that reason the are the most loyal and obedient military assets a skorne could hope for, warlock or no. I doubt Fluttershy would be able to overcome skorne conditioning, except perhaps through months or years of re-conditioning with a warbeast that had just finished its training. Even then, she would probably only see success with a titan, as they are peaceful herd creatures be nature. That said, Silver is probably right in that seeing the way the skorne treat their animals would trigger the Flutter Rage. If you see a herd of titans wandering around Western Immoren with no armor and faded scars where their pain barbs used to be, it'll be easy to guess who's responsible.
Those who have consumed the warpwolf elixir are typically viscous and feral for a month or so, but afterwards are more pliable. The untamed few that exist completely in the wild acknowledge only other warpwolves as friendly, but most are tamed by Circle Orboros blackclads, and fight alongside the Circle and its allies. When not called upon by their masters, tamed warpwolves live and hunt in the wild, though they still recognize the Circle as friendly, or at least as not prey.
Satyrs are brutal, instinct-driven animals with little capacity for reason. The Circle conducts a form of selective breeding on many satyr herds to bring their most useful traits to the fore, but wild or manipulated, Fluttershy could likely calm a satyr as easily as any other belligerent animal.
Although Butcher 3 is the only non-Circle model to have argus, taming them as guard dogs is not unheard of in Khador. The two that currently run with Orsus were originally captured in the wild for that purpose, though their would-be trainers found them unusually intractable and were about to put them down before he stepped in. The common variant is usually tamed in this manner, as winter argus are too difficult to break and argus moonhounds are bred by and for the Circle Orboros exclusively.
Fluttershy has demonstrated the ability to affect and control (more or less) living Circle warbeasts, though they answer to their blackclad masters first and foremost. She could likely achieve similar results with other warbeasts, except those used by the skorne, as noted above. She would likely have the greatest ease with beasts similar in appearance or behavior to Equestria's fauna, such as argus or ironbacks. Drakes probably look a bit much like Equestrian dragons for her taste, as with dragonspawn. Boneswarms and other undead are likely beyond her influence as well. On the other hand, it would not surprise me if Fluttershy were among the very, very few who could tame a pale tatzylwurm -creatures so intractable that not even the Circle Orboros will try to control them.