The Life of Penumbra Heartbreak

by Unwhole Hole


Chapter 64: The Battle Continues

Celestia saw them. Windigoes swarmed across the sky, pouring down from the sky above, stampeding from dark clouds of condensed fear and hatred. Crimson chain-lightning lit the sky around them, reflecting off their luminescent eyes.
Anything in the air was immediately overwhelmed. From her position, Celestia watched as an entire aerial battle between a group of batponies and a griffon mercenaries suddenly ceased. For a moment, both sides were unified, if only out of fear. They cried out in surprise and tried to flee. The batponies were faster, but the griffons were fat and loaded down with heavy armor; they could not keep up.
Celestia raised her horn and extended a beam of solar energy through the horde of windigoes, parting it around the griffons.
“Get out of there!” she cried, bracing the recoil from the spell with her own wings, even as she felt her feathers starting to freeze.
The griffons did not need to be told twice. They fled, even as the windigoes pressed and stamped their hooves against Celestia’s spell. It held, but she noticed that the batponies had been encircled; she tried to cast another version of the spell, but she could barely hold one of them.
From above, a stream of devastating silver magic cut through the windigoes, vaporizing those who dared to come closest to the batponies. Celestia looked up as a dark shadow passed overhead.
“Sister!” shouted Nightmare Moon, “The sky is no longer safe! You need to retreat to a safe distance! I shall cover you!”
“No! Not yet!” Celestia pointed into the sky, at the largest of the Crystal Empire’s sky-ships. It was entirely unaffected by the windigoes; they simply washed over the sides like raging ocean waves. All the while it still cut its path of destruction in the ground below. “That’s the flagship! I think they’re commanding from there, the harmonics of the shield dome wouldn’t allow for a transmission- -”
Nightmare Moon dropped to her side. Below, the batponies had gained a forward advantage, but the windigoes were rapidly forming themselves from their respective vapor.
“Do you really think you can do it?”
“I have to. I can cripple their entire fleet at once. Sister, please. Help me. My army...”
“Such is the nature of war. So be it. I will not leave your side, sister. This I promise.”
Celestia smiled, and she spread her enormous alicorn wings, driving herself forward toward the looming crystal dreadnought. Nightmare Moon took a position behind her, firing bolts of silver magic into their mutual past, driving back the specters that charged from either side. Celestia, meanwhile, prepared the calculations for her spells. One- -the most important one- -was for the phase shift in the dreadnought's engines. The second through tenth were to get herself there. That, she decided, was the hard part.
Suddenly, something broke through the forces of windigoes. Golems descended, driven on wings of steel, burning through the windigoes in their path. The windigoes did not see them, nor did they react to their presence; the golems were not alive, and not capable of hatred and disharmony. They did not even possess magic, a feature that Celestia found deeply disturbing. There was no hint of even the slightest life in these infernal machines, and there never would be.
Nightmare Moon passed over Celestia.
“Nightmare! No! Be careful!”
“Do not underestimate my power, little sister. I have spells of my own, far darker than yours.”
Nightmare moon opened her heavily fanged mouth, and something began to drip from it. A foul and diseased thing, a sort of starry plasma not unlike that which formed her mane and tail. Except that it was far darker, and seeing such a thing produced by her sister made Celestia shiver.
When the object had been vomited, it assumed the vague form of a pony.
“Tantabus,” ordered Nightmare Moon. “REMOVE THEM.”
Her will over her creation was absolute. It shot forward into the windigoes. They were immediately drawn to it, sensing the hatred and fear that had been used to create it. It, likewise, sensed them, and pounced, its ameboid body swirling around them and draining the accumulated fear and hatred that they themselves had already fed upon.
This left the golems unprotected. They hardly seemed to notice. They opened fire, and their crystal-spells rebounded of Nightmare Moon’s quicksilver armor. She lit her horn and produced multiple silver threads, thin lines that sliced through the golems as though they were made of soft cheese.
By this time, Celestia finished a set of her calculations. She cast her spell, forming a tunnel of solar light inscribed with powerful protective fractal arrangements. The windigoes were repelled, although part of Tantabus was sliced off by the formation of the tunnel. It returned to Nightmare Moon while the rest was consumed by windigoes high above them both.
“We’ve merely bought time,” said Nightmare Moon, falling into formation with Celestia. “We need to hurry...” She suddenly dropped several inches. Only then did Celestia notice that a large section of her feathers had been burned away.
“Sister! You have been hit!”
“I will heal. My safety is not important now! Our armies languish below! Our retreat has been cut off; our only option is forward. And as I said. I refuse to leave your side.”
Celestia felt tears welling in her eyes. It was her fault that her sister had been injured- -and it did not help that Nightmare Moon was right. This was the only way. The war had been a terrible mistake. To Celestia, it was her duty to make this right.

When Celestia struck the side of the ship, she reconfigured gravity, binding herself to its side. Nightmare Moon landed beside her, her horn repeatedly firing silver bolts of magic into the air around them, driving back golems and surface-cannons alike.
“Any time now,” she said. “I cannot hold them forever!”
“I know, I know!” Celestia lowered her horn to the surface of the ship’s hull and began to form the spell. This ship was larger, wider, and made of something far harder; all of that had to be factored into the calculations for the spell. The work would normally have taken months, but Celestia was under fire and in the middle of a windigo storm- -and had a less than a minute.
In a green flash, Clover the Clever appeared by her side. “Finally trying to go for the big one?”
“The harmonic variance is larger, I have to calculate for displacement from the density of the hull- -”
“I’ll do the displacement calculation, I was always better at it than you were. You take the variance.” Clover lit his horn, and his body shifted, becoming female. This was the form she preferred for displacement calculation. “Hey,” she said, adding to Celestia’s circular rune assembly. “This form is feeling really tingly today. Do you want to go for coffee later?”
“Focus, Clover!”
Nightmare Moon cast a shield around them just as one of the deck cannons began to fire.
“Stop talking and do magic things! DO THEM NOW!”
Across the ship, golems suddenly appeared. They were not winged, but rather had long, thin, spider-like legs. They moved rapidly from the top deck of the ship down its walls. They rapidly approached the edge of Nightmare Moon’s shield and began to crawl over it.
One of them stopped directly in front of Celestia. It only had a single, luminescent eye.
“What are you doing?” it asked.
Celestia shivered but did not look up. It had not been the voice of a golem- -but it had not been a pony either. The golems themselves could not speak; they did not have the capacity. This was whatever was controlling them. Yet it sounded truly curious, almost like a child- -but with a far darker undertone in its voice. As if it found this whole situation hilarious.
“You’re casting an interference spell to disrupt the harmonic shift in my engines. Isn’t that ironic? Isn’t harmony you’re life’s work?”
Clover looked up, unable to contain her curiosity. “What are you?”
The golem answered without hesitation. “I am this ship. I am the one who controls. The one who is it. We are brothers, sisters, and one, born from the same father. I am Asahel. I am pleased to meet you.”
Nightmare Moon shifted her shield spell, tearing the spider-golem in half. As she did, another one managed to get its claws through the shield, reaching for Celestia.
“In case you were not aware,” said a separate golem, “I’m not actually here. So to speak. I know that can be difficult for you organics to understand. Trapped in your own bodies and all...so squishy.”
“He’s trying to distract you,” said Nightmare Moon, striking out and overloading the cannon attacking them. As she did, another golem managed to get its claws past her shield. The first was beginning to worm its body through.
The halfway-through golem lifted its head. Its single eye was luminescent, watching Celestia. “Are you aware that there are ponies crewing this ship?”
Celestia suddenly faltered.
“Celly, he’s lying!” cried Clover. “Hurry! We have to finish the spell!”
“Why would I lie? I’m just a machine, after all. What? Did you think these ships were automatic? Perhaps controlled by yours truly? Or did you just not care? That their crews would be trapped forever in another plane of existence, never again to return. Some of them were thralls. Some were not. Now they will float for eternity in a hellish void- -and I am so, SO curious! How does that make you feel?”
Celestia raised her head. “I will save them,” she said. “I will save everypony.”
“You can’t save everybody. That’s not how war works.”
“That is how I will MAKE it work, then!”
The golem shrugged. Seeing a machine do something so pony-like was deeply disturbing to all those present who were not otherwise golems. “No. You won’t. Because You’re about to become rich, tasty organic glue. Due to that.”
He pointed. Celestia looked up and saw a second ship moving into position, its crystal-cannons pointed directly at her. They were preparing to fire a broadside against their own flagship.
“Sister! My shield will not withstand that!”
“I’m on it!” said Clover, immediately teleporting to the surface of the alternate ship.
“And I’m ready here.” Celestia smiled. “Goodby, Asahel.”
She activated the spell, and the runes burned their way into the ship’s hull. Somewhere inside, the engine shifted, its machines shuttering and churning- -but then immediately resuming normal function.
Celestia’s eyes grew wide. “Wh- -what? It didn’t work!”
“Of course not,” said Asahel. “This ship was far too large for the normal engines to power. I tend to think Sombra is compensating for something. Meaning, he has a tiny horn. But yes. Instead of the ordinary eight bilateral linkages, we were required to use sixty-four.”
Celestia gasped. “Sixty- -sixty-four?! That’s impossible, there isn’t a pony alive that can perform the support calculations- -”
“Because ponies are an inferior form of life. To golems? We are living computers. It’s barely an hour’s work.”
“Sister?”
“Sixty four...sixty four linkages...” Celestia turned to Nightmare Moon. “That’s too many. It would take three hundred years of continuous work...”
Across from them, the secondary battleship’s crystal cannons began to ignite with powerful magic. As they did, space suddenly erupted behind it. The battleship was torn apart from the sheer, and Celestia watched as Clover the Clever leapt from it- -and, to her horror, several unicorns in Crystal Empire uniforms did as well, only to be sucked through the rift.
“I do not lie,” said Asahel. “Why, organic? Why does this make you feel sad? Why are you not laughing? Should I make it FUNNIER?”
Flying golems suddenly burst from the clouds above. Clover the Clever dodged the first two, and defended against the third and fourth with her magic- -only four a fifth to tackle her mid-flight. She tore off its wings, but it was too late. The extreme force had pushed her past the event horizon of the rift.
“CLOVER!”
“OhgreatI’mgoingindon’tworrysexyCellyI’llbeBACK!”
Then, in an instant, the portal closed, and Clover was trapped on the far side.
“Clover!” Celestia dropped to her knees. Then she felt magic around her waist as she was lifted into the air. Nightmare Moon was carrying her away.
“Sister, no! Wait! We have to go back! We have to do something!”
“There is nothing we can do! You said it yourself! Your safety takes priority- -there is nothing more you can do here!”

High above, the situation was not going much better. In fact, it was going much, much worse.
Lieutenant Firefly found himself in the center of a storm beyond his wildest nightmares. All around him was an uncontrolled chain reaction of every weather pattern that was meant to be kept under the most stringent, strict forms of control: rain pelted his sides, as did hail, sleet, and snow; ahead of him was cloud and fog and mist, driven in every direction by hurricane-force winds. There was tremendous lightning, humidity, and every manner of dampness; the very air itself seemed to have been whipped into an evil fury, and it reeked of ozone and pain.
“This is it!” wept one of his comrades as yet another gust of horrific, frozen wind buffeted against them, threatening to throw each and every one of them off course. “We’re not gonna make it!”
“Buck,” growled the sergeant, barely audible over the endless crescendo of thunder and electrical hissing of magical lightning. “And I never even once had a stallion motorboat my wings...well, I guess that’s how it goes. I hope they give us a statue.”
“We’re not done yet!” Lieutenant Firefly looked over his shoulder. “We’ve made it this far! We can do it, if we work together! Keep the formation tight! Hold on! Please! For just a little bit longer!”
They looked at him, and even though he was afraid- -desperately afraid- -he knew that there was no way he could dare to show it. The major was gone. He was the officer. He had to lead- -but more than that, he knew that they could do it. They had to.
“Skyflame! Is it time?!”
Skyflame checked his sleeve, writing down new variables with a short pencil in his teeth. “Almost! We’re almost there! Just a little further!”
“Forward!” ordered Firefly. “Full power! FORWARD! We’re going to make it out of this! I promise!”
The Pegasi flapped harder, driving their bodies faster. The storm was already beginning to change. Its direction had not changed, and it was still slowly rotating counter to the direction of the Pegasi- -but they had pulled part of it forward, a long tunnel of black counter-current trailing in their wake. It accelerated as they accelerated, and Firefly could see it behind them. A vast maw of the terrifying tempest, one that must not be allowed to catch his squad. There was no room for failure here. Being pulled off course would not mean simply landing in a snowbank, or being rescued by Shadowbolts. It meant being lost in the magical storm- -and such a fate for his ponies was unacceptable. They deserved so much more than that indignity.
Skyflame called from the front. “We’re going too fast! We need to slow down by about twenty percent!”
“Slow down?!” cried the sergeant. “I knew it! This is a trap! Lieutenant, if we slow down- -”
“I know, I know! Skyflame, are you sure?”
“We have to synchronize with the storm for the final phase! It won’t work otherwise! Heck, it probably won’t work anyway but that’s not the point!”
“Wait, what?” said the pony behind Firefly. “What did he just say?”
“Never mind! Squad, drop speed twenty percent!”
“You’re joking!” The sergeant looked at Firefly as if he were insane. “We can’t! You’re trusting him? HIM?!”
“We don’t have a choice! He’s putting his life on the line to save both armies, just like we are!” Firefly laughed, wondering if, maybe, he really had gone insane. “There’s no glory without risk, is there? The major would have done it, and so will I!”
“No he wouldn’t! He wasn’t an IDIOT!”
It was too late, though. Firefly slowed, allowing himself to pass backward through the V-formation, just as the major had once done. Skyflame did the same. Some of the Pegasi looked at each other, not knowing what to do. Then some of them dropped back as well.
“FINE!” cried the sergeant. “But if we don’t make it out of this, my ghost is going to haunt your BUTT for all eternity!”
She spread her own wings and dropped backward, taking the rest of the Pegasi with her, leading them with her own orders. They rejoined the formation just as the black plume of magic and deadly storm was about to reach it. Some of them closed their eyes. Firefly definitely did. And then it washed over them.
The sound vanished, and Firefly opened his eyes, suddenly finding himself in the very center of a vortex of storm- -yet, although it surrounded him on every side, it did not touch the center of their path; rather, it had formed a tunnel which they had now entered. A silent, peaceful eye of the storm.
“We’re in position,” said Skyflame, spitting out his pencil. It struck the side of the vortex and was instantly reduced to sawdust by the sheer wind sheer. “Now the fun part starts.”
“Fun part? What are you going to do, Skyflame?”
“It’s complicated. There’s math. But trust me, it’s awesome. Also perfectly safe. I’ve done this hundreds of times. Also, are those girly Equestrian military getups asbestos-lined?”
“Why would we need them to be?”
“No reason. Right.” He looked straight ahead. “We’ve only got one chance. I can start a catalytic pulse, but I can’t control it. Not under these conditions. You’re going to have to direct it.”
“Direct ‘it’? Direct WHAT?”
Skyflame smirked. “This.”
He spread his wings, and the feathers seemed to vibrate with energy. They began to spark as he accelerated, traveling through the magically-charged air. Then they did spark, and when the tips of his wings touched both ends of the vortex, his feathers shook in the air for only a moment as the entire world seemed to ignite.
Ponies screamed. Lieutenant Firefly stared wide-eyed as the whole of the vortex was suddenly consumed in flame, igniting and bursting outward- -and then collapsing in on them.
“Fire HOT!” cried one of the ponies behind him. Firefly immediately took a new position, changing his formation in an attempt to clear the waves of fire from his squad- -but alone, he could do nothing. Not until the sergeant fell into position at his wing, and the others formed up into a tight V. Together, their wake was enough to protect them.
Skyflame was not so lucky. He was driving them forward, forcing himself through the flames as his wings continued to catalyze the reaction around him. Even with his heat-resistant armor, it was clear that he was weakening. Then, just as the remainder of the storm began to light up, he fell backward.
Firefly caught him, moving him to the center of the V.
“You saved me...” He said, spreading his charred wings.
“Can you still fly?”
“It’s not as bad as it looks. I just...I can’t direct this much force. There’s too much magic. It’s worse than I thought. We don’t have much time.”
“What do we need to do?”
“Accelerate. Go as fast as you can. We’re the leading edge of the storm now. You have to lead it somewhere. Dissipate the power. It doesn’t matter where, but you have to do it fast. If it starts propagating like this...”
“Flame-throwing hurricane,” groaned the sergeant. “Yeah. Figures. So, Lieutenant, are you up for this?”
“Yeah.” Firefly accelerated, driving into the flame- -and taking command of it. “I know exactly what to do with it!”
They began to circle, their spiral growing tighter and tighter as they did. The storm followed them, slowly separating as it was consumed in magical flames- -yet, as it burned, it began to slow. Then, as more energy was drawn off it, it began to slowly turn in the opposite direction of when it had begun.
As more and more of the toxic storm began to follow them, the strain became greater and greater. Firefly realized that it was because they were accelerating. They were no longer dragging the storm behind them; it was pushing them forward.
The storm had condensed enough for Firefly to see past it, and he looked out to see the Empire circling again and again
The sergeant looked out as well, immediately becoming dizzy in the process. “If we keep this up, our wings are going to break off! It’s a thing, I’ve seen it happen!”
“I know, I know- -we break on my mark, I have to time it...” Firefly gulped.
“Time it?” Skyflame seemed incredibly surprised by this. “We don’t have time to time! Just dissipate it somewhere before we burn up!”
“MARK!”
Firefly forced himself upward. The resistance was immense, even with the centrifugal force of their rotation. What he felt was the weight of the storm, and Skyflame had been correct: it was far too weighty for a single Pegasus to carry. But with the others, he was able to change course, and soon they were on a straight path, leading the burning magic fire outward and away from the Citadel- -and directly toward the hull of the biggest of the skyships.
“Boss! There’s a ship in our way!”
“I know! Prep for astral separation on my mark!”
“What angle?”
“Ninety degrees!”
Even over the roar of the flames, he could hear their gasps.
“Ninety?! We- -we’ve never even done less than one hundred twenty at cruising speed!”
“Well you’re going to have to learn quick! See that?” Firefly pointed to the storm behind them. “That’s the other option, and if you ask me, it looks hot in there!”
“You heard him, ladies!” called the sergeant. “If you can’t pull this off, you don’t deserve to call yourselves members of the aerial squadron!”
“Skyflame, it means that we have to- -”
“I know what it means, and I know what you’re trying to do. Buuuuuck...you know, I came here to further my career. This is NOT going to put me in Sombra’s good graces. But I guess it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“So you’re saying you can’t pull it off?”
Skyflame pointed to the rainbow-colored roots of his mane. “I can pull ANYTHING off. But if you want to burn up half your squad? Be my guest!”
Firefly ignored him. He was too focused on the distance they were crossing. He accelerated, drawing his squad forward- -and the storm along with it. Things came at him from the distance, but they were moving too fast for him to tell what they were. For a moment, he was sure that they were windigoes- -but that was of course impossible. Regardless, they were immediately vaporized by the raging magical storm he was now leading. In fact, it seemed to be growing hotter. Somehow, it had become desperately hungry.
For the briefest moment, the dreadnought became clear. Time seemed to slow, and in a way, Firefly could not help but be impressed by it. It was such a terrible thing. A beast of metal and crystal hovering in the sky, its cannons pointed downward on its own people. Its bridge sat high above it and for just a moment- -although he probably imagined it- -Firefly thought he saw a pair of pale eyes watching him through the unbreakable crystal glass.
“We’re gonna hit!” cried one of the squad, snapping Firefly back to reality. The hull of the ship was less than two hundred yards from their course.
“We have to break!” cried the sergeant. “There isn’t manuevering room!”
“Not yet!” They closed distance. Two hundred yards became one hundred. Then fifty. Then twenty. Then five.
“MARK!” he screamed, just as the crystal seemed only inches away.
All members of the formation suddenly pulled back, forcing themselves out and across the hull of the ship, each moving in a different and opposing direction. Firefly took the top of the star, and he could feel his wings creaking and straining as he pulled up. Metal brushed against his hooves, and sparks flew from his armored horseshoes. He wondered if the major would have been proud, or have yelled at him- -or both.
Skyflame was at his left. He pulled up, but as he did one of his wings began to shudder. Then, without warning, it snapped from the strain.
“I’m done!” he cried, falling off course and spiraling to the hull of the ship- -only for Firefly to take a hard left swerve and grab his hoof in the nick of time.
The pressure on his wings suddenly doubled, and the pain was intense. He could feel his own wings starting to crack under the stress- -but it did not matter if they did or not. Even if Skyflame was not a member of his squad, he refused to leave a Pegasus behind.

The bridge was suddenly rocked by a tremendous force. The field marshal slid to one side, nearly knocked off her hooves by the blast. Outside, she the events unfolding. As the Pegasi split from their formation, the fire continued to flow forward and directly into the hull of the Monocerus. The entirety of the magic storm was pulled against the hull, melting through it in an instant and flooding the interior of the ship. Slag and energetic plumes flew out in every direction, igniting the entire side of the ship with magic as it began to list.
“We’ve lost port stabilization!” cried the field marshal’s crystal slave, himself holding onto his console for dear life.
“Compensate! Divert power!”
“I can’t! There’s nothing to divert! The engines! The engines are HIT!”
The palantir flickered and went out, its power cut. The field marshal felt herself growing lighter, and she recognized this as an illusion. An illusion caused by falling. They were going down.
“Brace for impact!” she ordered, grabbing onto the podium that held her palantir. For what little good it will do.
“Why?” asked Asahel. “I think I have a better idea.”
The mechanisms of his chest clicked and opened. The instant it did, the crystal pony across the bridge from him cried out, having nearly been blinded. The field marshal, likewise, gasped and covered her eyes, barely in time. She was not a crystal pony. She would not have withstood the heat of the burning atomic core in Asahel’s chest.
Mechanisms across the bridge engaged, and the control machinery shifted. A mechanical arm rose from the floor and rammed a claw into Asahel’s chest, grasping onto his nuclear heart and surrounding it with protective steel.
“Auxiliary power engaged,” said Asahel. “Firing explosive bolts.”
Explosions rocked the bridge, and the field marshal felt herself getting heavier. They were rising, even as the remainder of the ship fell below them. She watched as it descended, crushing the city below as it exploded, tearing apart a vast swath of what had once been the Crystal Empire.
“Golems are supposed to be powered by crystals.”
“Crystals were not adequate for phase three. We run on nuclear energy from tritium fire. Also, I hope none of you were intending to have children. I may have just irradiated you all very badly.”
The field marshal stood. She had been lied to. Emeth could not be trusted- -but that hardly mattered now. Their army had fallen. It was time for the final blow.
“Deploy the princess,” she said. “This ends now.”