//------------------------------//
// Chapter 58: Battle in the Sky 
// Story: The Life of Penumbra Heartbreak 
// by Unwhole Hole 
//------------------------------//

The zeppelins had arrived. Airships of every size, from thirty-yard zeppelins of war to individual balloons. The Pegasi had cleared a path, and now the airship pilots took the city, raining down magical bombs from above. The unicorn mages had, at a significant cost, taken out the flak in accordance with the coordinates provided- -also at great cost- -by the air reconnaissance, and the battle had turned sharply with the presence of air support. 
Major Force led his squadron into a leading position in front of the airship fleet. Their flight time was almost up; the last part of their mission was to take point until they could switch out with Major Duststorm’s squad at the forward LZ. There were earth-pony medics there, waiting for them. Although Major Force had not dropped a single pony, one had taken flak bad and another had the tip of a griffon spear embedded in her helmet; the force had apparently derped her. There were injuries, but no losses- -something that the Major would, of course, never admit out loud.
“Squad at seven low, eight rear,” said the sergeant. From her tone, the major did not even need to look. He knew who was flying below them. 
“The Shadowbolts,” said Firefly, almost excitedly. He looked down and a hulking bat-mare tipped her wing at him. He blushed slightly. 
“Stupid bats,” muttered the sergeant. “What do they want? Just trying to take credit for our work, or do you think they’re going to go for the back-stab and switch sides?”
“Doesn’t matter. We just need to get to the LZ and switch out.”
“Yeah,” said one of the mares on the right flank. “Should be easy, right? I mean, look at this! With the griffons out, we totally have air superiority! I mean, zeppelins are the most technologically sophisticated war machines in all of Equestria! It’s not like the Crystal Empire has anything that can counter them, you know?”
Every one of the ponies in the squad looked back, their faces stricken with horror. 
The mare looked confused. “What?”
In that instant, the air behind them suddenly screamed with nuclear fire. In a single blinding flash, a bolt of unspeakable energy descended at an oblique angle from the clouds above. The zeppelins ignited in an instant, and the city below them erupted in fire and fragments of crystal that were rapidly reduced to vapor in a plume of magic fire, leaving nothing but ash in a two-hundred yard wide creator. 
“MY EYES!” screamed one of the Pegasi who had been unlucky enough to be staring at the explosion. The others tried to help him, but cried out themselves as the thunderclap of ionized air rushed past them, breaking their lift and sending them out of control. All around them, other squads fell into spirals, unable to regain a proper course; a few in the rear were consumed in fire, their feathers and tails burned away in an instant as they began to fall. 
“Follow! FOLLOW!” Major Force tucked his wings, dropping, and his wingpony did the same. The others followed, dropping hard toward the ground but not spiraling. Then at their commander’s signal, they opened their wings. 
“EEP!” cried the pony with the flak-damaged wing, nearly finding herself unable to correct- -but just barely keeping herself stable by virtue of the currents derived from their perfect formation.
“What in the name of Celestia’s fat and exceedingly soft rump was THAT?!” cried one of the Pegasi. He did not need a verbal answer, because as he spoke, a shadow fell over the Empire. From above, the Crystal Armada descended. 
Throughout the kingdom, ponies trembled in fear. They did not understand or comprehend the ships that came from the sky. They were not made of wood and cloth, but forged from crystal and steel;  they were not supported by hydrogen or by hot air, but by some unseen, unspeakable force. Some of the Pegasi nearest to them could feel the hum of the terrible engines and taste something foul and metallic in their mouths as the ships passed them. 
One or two descended from the lightning-marked clouds- -and then more came with them. There were ten, then fifteen, then thirty, then more. Among them were true giants, but even the smallest were well over one hundred meters long, their armored hulls festooned with strange machines made of conduits and enormous, flickering crystals. 
Yet there was hope still for all those except the ones who had seen the first blast. Only those close enough to see the initial beam had seen the angle it had come from- -and that no ship had even approached that blank spot in the angry thunderclouds overhead.
Then it descended. The clouds ruptured as it pushed past them, and in its shadow, all hope died. It was the flagship of the Crystal Empire, a flying dreadnought of truly gigantic proportions. Its body was forged from strange dark crystal and equally strange metal, and on its bow stood a trio of enormous cannons driven by crystals large enough to build a house on. It had been one of those that had destroyed a third of the Equestrian air-navy in a single shot. 
For one brief instant, the armada hovered with no sound save for its accursed and terrible vibration. Then the world came alive with fire.
They fired downward with a raging storm of lasers and shells. Entire sections of the city erupted in light and magic fire, and from above, Lieutenant Firefly watched in horror as explosions erupted in the freshly established LZ- -and throughout the territory they had gained. Ponies were flung everywhere by the blasts, crying out in fear. He watched as lasers ripped through the remaining zeppelins and balloons, and he saw the earth-pony pilots jump free as their craft exploded, deploying their parachutes- -only to have their parachutes ripped to shreds by coaxial lasers, leaving the pilots to plummet screaming to the snow below. 

The field marshal stared out her window, glad to finally be past the clouds. She ran her hoof carefully across the surface of her palantir, altering its behavior to resonate with the crystal tiles of the bridge floor. They shimmered and changed, gaining the illusion of transparency- -not just of themselves, but of the entirety of the HMS Monoceros. It gave the illusion of floating. Such a thing might have been disturbing, had she not overseen the designs of this particular dreadnought herself. 
“We are hurting them,” said Asahel.
“Is that a problem, golem?”
“No. I am merely surprised that I do not enjoy it as much as I  hoped. It’s just so...boring.”
“Don’t let that impact your performance.” She ran her hoof through her map, changing it to represent a long and broad triangle. “Link the the artillery frigate firing sequences. Engage a creeping barrage at these coordinates.”
“Field marshal,” said the crystal slave, looking up from his own console. “That pattern centers on the Princess’ current position.”	
“Yes, I know. Let them fell the pain they so carelessly threw their peasants into.”
“I have centered the barrage on Celestia’s energy signature. Or, visually, on her enormous butt.” Asahel giggled. “We’re good to go.”
“Excellent. Let the Empire burn in Sombra’s name.”

Nightmare Moon was a creature immune to fear. The pain of severing a portion of her own mind had been exquisite and taken decades, only for her to find that the mind could not sustain a void where something so critical had once been and since been removed. What had filled the whole where fear had once sat was instead hatred.
When she looked up at the vast ships descending from the clouds, she felt hatred. For them, for Sombra, for the ponies within them too blind to see the force of destruction they had come to wield- -but more importantly, hatred of herself, for she recognized her own failure. She was one of only to old enough to remember the last time these ships had come, and the only one left who had not repressed the memories of that terrible war for the sake of her own sanity. Though they were different now, built by different hooves with different materials- -a mere graying shadow of what had once been- -there was no mistaking the technology that Sombra had used to construct them. The technology that she, Nightmare Moon, had apparently failed to purge.
“The Exmoori...curse you, Sombra, would you truly make their sacrifice this meaningless?” 
The city was burning. Sombra’s fleet was leveling it, all in the name of defending the Empire- -or, rather, himself. Yet as Nightmare Moon watched, something thudded in the distance. Lights arced from the smallest of the ships, flying high into the air and cutting through the clouds. Then the city before her burst into flames and noise- -a conflagration that suddenly began to march toward her and her sister at incredible speed.  
“NO!” she cried, raising her horn and casting a wall of silver light. The ponies nearest to her ducked behind it- -Celestia’s units out of fear, but her own units from absolute faith in their queen. Faith that Nightmare Moon immediately knew was misplaced. 
The barrage struck her shield, and she cried out as the spell shattered under the force of crystal-powered explosives. 
“Get down!” cried Specter, tackling Nightmare Moon and shielding her with his own body. It was not the first time her body had been covered by his, and not even the first time while he was wearing armor- -but try as she might, she could not push him off to use her immortal body to protect his mortal one. 
The infernal strike consumed their position- -but as it struck, it rebounded off a dome of swirling magic. The spell was immeasurably complex, swirling with an array of filigrees and fractals alike, cast from both a shining golden yellow magic as well as a deep leafy green one. 
The complexity of the spell managed the feedback from the blasts without even bending, its forms sparking with light as it accumulated magical energy from each impact. Those beneath it stared in awe, but the most profound stares of disbelief were those from the mages. They knew that such a shield was an installation project, something that would take a team of ten wizards at least a month to complete. 
Yet this spell was cast by two. Celestia stood above the terrified ponies, her horn alight with gold- -and beside her stood a much smaller green mare dressed in a strange cloak, her horn burning green. 
“Sister!” cried Nightmare Moon, throwing Specter off her. “Our forces are being torn apart! My forces are pinned down, I can’t send in reinforcements with that bombardment!”
“I know, sister, I know!” Celestia looked down at the wizard beside her. “Clover, we have to move, and we have to do it now.”	
“I know, I know,” responded Clover the Clever, not taking her eyes off the object suspended before her. Inside a bubble of protective green energy, she held a small, disk-like object. It was badly damaged, with parts of its surface burnt or melted away, and it was possible to see the thousands of tiny gears forged from a peculiarly and unnaturally pale metal whirring away as she turned the angles and facets of the dial around a single, central crystal. 
“Sister, the bombardment- -”
“I have it!” cried Clover, looking up suddenly, her calculations complete. 
“Is it Al’Hrabnaz?” asked Celestia, desperately hoping it was not. 
“Most definitely. I’d recognize his foul stench of sexy on anypony or anything.” Clover projected a system of rune configurations with her horn. To Nightmare Moon, or even to the majority of professional mages overhearing, they were completely meaningless- -but to Celestia they made perfect sense. 
“The ships are powered by his engines,” she said. “They’re technetium draws but essential that’s just an anchor for what essentially amounts to a synthetic soul.”
“And it draws energy by creating asymmetric linkages through its non-bonding members,” said Celestia, her eyes growing wide. “Which means...”
“That the bonding members are asymmetrical!  And in EIGHT dimensions! And according to the Starswirlian theory of paradimensional harmonics- -”
“With a factor of eight on the transform, the only way it could possibly work- -”
“Is with a phase-modulated resonance of sixty-six degrees!” 
“Will either of you speak WORDS?!” cried Nightmare Moon.
Celestia turned to her sister. “It means that if we harmonize the frequency of their engines, we can break their connection to this world and send them back to whatever dimension they’re drawing energy from!”
“I have a spell,” said Clover, closing the spell around her broken dial and placing it in a special port on the left shoulder of her clothing. “You’ll have to learn by horn.”
“I can do that.”
“What do you need me to do?” said Nightmare Moon.
“Support us,” said Celestia. She spread her wings. “We have to get close to the engines for the spell to work. We need as much air support as you can give us.”
“You have it, sister. I will join the fight myself, and do what I can.” 
“Excellent,” said Clover. She turned the dial on her shoulder, and her body shuddered as it immediately grew taller. Her shape reconfigured, and in an instant Celestia found herself standing next to a tall green stallion. 
“Clover- -”
Clover looked up at Celestia, blinking. “I think my male form will have better stamina for this job. I can do you too.”
Celestia’s normally white face became a rather deep shade of red. “D- -d- -do me?!” 
“Yes. I can make you a stallion too. If you think that would help.” 
“N- -no,” said Celestia. “I like being a mare- -”
Clover shrugged and cast a different spell. Beautiful insect-like wings formed on his back. “If you like your marehood, I won’t touch it.” 
Celestia once again darkened as the shield around them dropped and, taking advantage of a break in the artillery, Clover the Clever shot into the sky. 
“Sister...” sighed Nightmare Moon. “You’re hopeless, aren’t you?”
“I am FINE!” cried Celestia, stamping a hoof. “Now if you excuse me I am going to go- -”
“Vent your frustration by breaking things?”
“N- -n- -YES!”
Celestia flapped her enormous wings and took to the sky. Nightmare Moon spread her own wings, but as she did, a bat pony ran toward her. He was haggard and his armor broken in several places, cleaved apart with vicious force. His wings, likewise, were torn to the point where he could not hope to fly. 
“My queen! MY QUEEN!” The courier collapsed at Nightmare Moon’s feet. “My queen! A knight harries our forces in the northern district! Nothing we do can stop him! Our wings- -he’s taking our- -”
Nightmare Moon lowered her horn to the young bat pony and cast a spell. In an instant, his wings were healed, the broken and injured skin knitting back into its proper shape. 
“My queen...”
“A pony who dares to hurt my children in such a way is not worthy of being called a ‘knight’. But I am needed elsewhere.” She looked up. “Specter.”
“Yes, Queen Khonshu?”
“I trust you to engage him. Show him what it truly means to be a knight, and drive his forces back.”
Specter saluted and bowed. “Yes, my queen. Thine will be done.” 
“And...”
The white-clad knight looked up, confused. “And?”
“And...promise to return to me. When this is all over, and there is no need to fight. Return to stand at my side.”
“This I give, on my word as a knight.” He bowed deeply. “I shall return, and I shall never leave your side, my queen.”
Nightmare Moon nodded, and both she and her knight spread their respective wings and took to the sky. 

The squad dived, pushing the limits of their wings, praying that it was enough. For them, it was: streaks of blue light sizzled behind them, tearing holes in the city below, but not hitting them. Some of the other squads were not so lucky. The impacts were severe, and there was no recovery. The impact resulted in mediated wing-feather incineration.
Lieutenant Firefly looked back behind him, terrified as one of the rear squads took a direct hit. The Pegasi cried out as they fell, and earth-ponies in a nearby balloon threw lassos, catching some but not all of them. The others fell to the battle below, deprived of flight and devoid of weapons. 
“Major, we can’t keep this up! If we don’t pull out, our squad is done for! There’s nothing we can do here!”
The major looked up at the sky. He did not respond immediately, if only out of pride. He was far too young to remember the era of Lyskymm, but he had grown up on the stories of heroes, of Flash Magnus, Derpus Maximus, Gigantes, and of course Commander Hurricane, the greatest of them all. His pride would not let him retreat, even if nothing could be done- -but he looked at Firefly, and when he saw the look on the boy’s face, he understood. There was fear, yes, but that was not what dominated. Instead, it was concern. 
Before he could answer, though, a frigate dropped from the clouds, blocking their path. 
“MAJOR!”
“I SEE IT! FORM FOUR! FORM FOUR!” 
They tried to break formation, but it was already too late. The vessel’s machines whirred, its robotics aligning crystal-driven lasers on target. There was no time to escape. 
Then there came a flash, and as the lasers fired the air ignited with a sphere of solar light. Celestia cried out, forced back by the blast, but she converted the refraction order of her spell, driving the lasers back at the ship. Several of the cannons were cut free, and two overloaded, causing the whole of it to violently shake.
Without a word, she shot forward, propelled by her vast alicorn wings. The Pegasi watched in awe as she charged it without even the slightest sign of fear, and when she had reached it, she tapped her horn against the hull. A spell erupted, and a powerful seal spell was generated. 
Suddenly the entire atmosphere seemed foul, as if it were filled with the scent of sour lightning. A somber whine emanated from the ship, and the sky above it erupted in light. The sky began to change. A hole formed. It was of course impossible to form a hole in the sky, as the sky was only an idea and not a solid thing, yet an opening formed regardless. An opening to somewhere with a dull, sickly, endless sky.
There was a rush like an explosion as the ship suddenly began to implode, breaking apart as it was pulled from within toward the void. Several Pegasi cried out as they were drawn toward it, their wings beating hard just to keep them in place. Celestia did the same, barely holding position.
They could scarcely hold on, but they did not need to for long. The instant the ship’s engine passed through the void, the paradox of a hole moving through itself caused the entire thing to detonate in a single brilliant flash. Then there was only silence. 
Across the sky, another hole suddenly erupted, this one created by the action of a unicorn wizard. Celestia turned her head to see, and then smiled. In a flash she was gone, halfway across the battlefield, already affixing a spell to another ship. 
The Crystal Forces did not seem to take this lightly. Other ships began firing on her, and on the mage. The mage was hit first and his gossamer wings instantly disintegrated. He managed to teleport in time to save himself, but ended up on the hull of another ship and was forced to deploy his shield.
Firefly suddenly heard something strange. It was a strange hissing or chugging sound. Nothing he had ever heard- -or would hear subsequently- -sounded quite like it, save for in the nightmares that would plague him for the remainder of his life. 
He looked up and saw them. They were like ponies, at least in shape, but made of metal. They were golems, and he knew that- -but he had never seen a golem fly. Especially not with such speed and power, each of them supported by three pairs of metal wings. Metal wings that did not seem to move, but that pushed them forward. 
“Major?”
“New orders,” said Major Force. “We have to cover the princess.” He pointed outward at Celestia, where she too had been forced to cast a shield spell that rendered her unable to disarm the enemy skyships. “We have to keep them off her!”
Firefly looked out at the battle in the sky, dismayed- -but he steeled himself. 
“Yes sir! Pegasi, form on the wing!” 
And with that, they rushed forward into battle.