They met in the center: a pair of alicorns, the twin goddesses of Destruction and Creation, and an abomination against nature, the last and greatest warrior of the Crystal Empire.
Daybreaker stopped walking. Her luminous slit-pupils stared hard at Scarlet Mist. Scarlet Mist’s eyeless slits stared back, and behind them the eyes of the body she inhabited.
“You even gave yourself a pair of wings. How pretentious.” Daybreaker laughed quietly. “But at least you were kind enough to clear the way to my new castle. I would thank you, but that’s what you’re for, isn’t it? To serve me. Why else would ponies exist?”
“And you’re far fatter in person than I’ve been led to believe. I had assumed you simply raised the sun, not that you had managed to eat most of it.”
Nightmare Moon made a small sound. Coughing, surely.
“Ah yes,” said Daybreaker, clearly not amused. “Wizard banter. How I hate it. Dueling really doesn’t have a point for me, does it?”
“And yet I’m still standing. Maybe you’re only willing to fight seven-month-old force-grown princesses? Because from here, it looks like you stopped walking. Who knows what ponies might think. Maybe you’re afraid.”
Daybreaker smiled. “Nightmare,” she said. “I believe I may have finally found something vaguely amusing in this cesspit of heresy and tragic design choices. Don’t interfere.” She turned to her sister. “If you do, I’ll roast you inside your ridiculous armor.”
“Sister, please don’t.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Nightmare. Leadership doesn’t suit you.” Daybreaker raised her horn, and light condensed around her body, hardening into a suit of golden armor.
She lowered her horn. In a flash of red, Scarlet Mist was on top of her, punching her squarely in the jaw- -to absolutely no effect. Despite ostensibly sharing a body with Celestia, Daybreaker’s physique gave no indication of a diet of mostly cake. Not a single part of her was soft or pleasant to touch.
Fire appeared around her, emanating from her body and burning mane. Scarlet Mist flipped backward, instantly taking four centuries off her host’s life in a single blast. It struck Daybreaker in the chest, and the goddess’s eyes went wide as she was forced to take a step back. As she was off-balance, Scarlet Mist lifted several of the heaviest buildings she could reach and dropped them directly on Daybreaker- -plus one on Nightmare Moon for good measure.
The buildings instantly began to heat and melt- -and the one thrown at Nightmare Moon was lifted and pulverized to dust by glimmering golden magic. Daybreaker stood from the wreckage, clearly unhappy- -only to be simultaneously struck by the cannon blasts of seven separate sky-ships, including the Monocerous’s main gun.
The shockwave pushed Daybreaker back, but even with the full force of the fleet directed against her she began to summon a shield, pushing them back. Scarlet Mist focused harder, driving her own magic through the amplification matrices of the crystals to the point where they began to crack and shudder high above.
Then with a roar- -and an incredible expense of magic- -Daybreaker sent a feedback wave that shattered the cannons. That was her weakness. It was the same as for Penumbra. Her raw power was nearly limitless, but she was incapable of forming true spells. She could only lash out in rage.
Scarlet Mist assembled her calculations and fired, orienting the force of several convergent spells into a single beam. Daybreaker, taking by surprise, fired back.
The beams met in midair, and in an flash the pair of combatants were spellbound. Neither one was able to break away without risking failure; it came down to single, final struggle of wills.
Scarlet Mist poured in everything she had, and the red portion of the beam slowly began to move toward Daybreaker. Daybreaker, enraged by this, put more force into her own beam- -and slowly gold began to overtake red as the centerpoint moved back toward Scarlet Mist, pouring out slag and sparks as it progressed.
Out in the kingdom, a skyship suddenly fell. Then another. And then the remainder, their hulls breaking apart as they descended without lift or magic to keep them together. Scarlet Mist did not intend to make the same mistake twice.
Although her forces had regained all the land they had lost and nearly ousted the Equestrians in the process, they suddenly paused and faded instantly, their masks falling to the ground inert.
Magnetic force lines had been to converge around the duelists, drawing material outward and in strange shapes as Scarlet Mist summoned the full force of her might and took a step forward. Daybreaker cried out as she was forced to her knees, and as the center of the spell began to move more and more quickly toward the tip of her horn.
“We have a chance,” said Scarlet Mist, quietly and internally. “I can win. But to do it, I need it all. I will expend your entire life into a single minute. That’s the only way.”
“So be it,” said the steward, smiling within.
Scarlet Mist summoned the power. Her body immediately began to drain, but the magic of burning such a powerful unicorn for fuel was unfathomable. She took a step forward. Then another- -and another.
The spell was now inches from Daybreaker’s horn, and she was barely holding on, using her full strength just to keep Scarlet Mist’s better-constructed beam at bay. Nightmare Moon stood quietly beside her. For some reason, she could not look at her sister, as if out of shame.
Scarlet Mist approached further, and with a groan Daybreaker dropped completely, her spell barely managing to sustain her defense. Inside Scarlet Mist, the steward was nearly depleted, although she still had more than enough energy to finish what she had come to do.
“I suppose I should ask if you have any last words for your sister. But I don’t really care.”
Daybreaker turned her dark eyes upward toward Scarlet Mist. “That feeling,” she grunted, her whole body shaking from exhaustion. “Do you know what it is?”
Scarlet Mist was confused by the question. It gave her pause, and she watched as a broad smile crossed Daybreaker’s face. A smile filled with so many pointed teeth.
With all signs of exhaustion gone, Daybreaker stood effortlessly. The sudden surge was so fierce that Scarlet Mist was sent sliding backward, her hooves barely catching in time for her to brace herself against the force.
“What are you doing?!” cried the steward. “Take more power! TAKE MORE POWER NOW!”
“There isn’t any more! I can’t!”
Daybreaker began walking toward Scarlet Mist, her golden beam easily extending into Scarlet Mist’s red. “I don’t know if you can comprehend it. Maybe you can. It’s called hope. It’s my very favorite emotion. At times like this, I like my enemies to feel it. Just the slightest glimmer, the barest glimpse of victory.” Her smile grew. “Because my favorite thing in the whole word is to crush it.”
Without any apparent effort, Daybreaker forced her magic forward. It instantly overwhelmed Scarlet Mist’s spell, tearing through the center of it back toward her. Even with the full force of the steward’s life force, there was nothing she could do.
Daybreaker’s beam struck the temple of the Mask of Red Death- -and continued past it, vaporizing its way through the city until it struck the shield dome around the Capital District. The Heart of Darkness instantly fractured and the clasp that held it detonated in a plume of gears, sending ponies flying. The unbreakable shield deformed and shattered in an instant, imploding violently as it died. The beam still continuing through and melting a hole two inches in diameter through the Crystal Citadel itself.
Scarlet Mist took one step forward. She said nothing as she fell, and as her body collapsed into a pile of shining silver dust.
Daybreaker laughed. She was not tired in the slightest- -because she had expended absolutely no real effort, except in her excellent acting.
“The only thing that would have made it better would have been to have seen the look on her face,” she sighed.
Nightmare Moon looked up. “Sister, why do you insist on doing things like that?”
“What? It’s not like it’s morally wrong. I did it. Therefore, it is just.” She walked up to the Mask of Red Death and poked it with her gold-clad hoof. It had a substantial hole on one side, but was otherwise intact.
“Do you even know who that was?”
“It doesn’t matter. Mortals don’t really have names. Or if they do, it doesn’t matter, they just end up dying anyway. Only I am eternal.” She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Or do you mean that she was Princess Platinum? So what? Did I put a hole in Celestia’s precious creation-myth?” She kicked the Mask into a ditch and trod through the dust of its former bearer. “If anything, removing witnesses will make the lie easier to tell, won’t it? You should be thanking me.”
“You used to be so kind.”
“I am kind. Any pony who is not me is in such a terrible state that they deserve release from that torment. Now, are you going to to continue to virtually beg for a relentless beating or can we keep going? I have things to do. Namely disassembling your army and government so that they can be given to a REAL princess.” She sighed, treading through the dust that had once been the steward of the Crystal Empire. “But Sombra comes first, doesn’t he? Oh well. If this was the best he had to offer, this should be easy.”
No one knew what happened. Each and every one of them had assumed that she shield would protect them, at least long enough for Sombra to return to defend them. They had been absolutely sure that if it were attacked, it would be a prolonged siege, and that they could put their trust and faith in Sombra and in his machines.
None of them had expected it to fall in a single blow.
Penumbra ran to the center of the Citadel, where the Heart of Darkness had been mounted. All she found was devastation. Ponies who had been near it had been sent flying outward in every direction. The only thing that had saved them from a worse fate was that very few dared to get too close to the Heart. They were rightfully terrified of it.
Penumbra ran to the machine, her hooves crunching over battered and melted gears, their perfect shiny surfaces quickly oxidizing in the cooling air. The clasp was in ruin, although it had not been destroyed completely. More than half of it remained at least partially intact, supporting the Heart in something like an off-center crescent. The Heart had suffered severe damage, but was still holding. Some of the gears were still attempting to turn, and some of the lasers were still firing.
“It’s broken!” cried Burnt, who had of course followed Penumbra.
“The shield is down,” said Facet, looking behind her. “We don’t have much time.”
“For what?” said Penumbra. “We’re surrounded. They’re on every side.”
“Then...then its over.” Burnt sat down and covered her face. “There’s nothing we can do.”
Penumbra stared at the Heart. For some reason, she could not take her eyes off it. Then she realized something. She had never looked at it that closely, but the Heart of Darkness almost perfectly matched the heart that made up her cutie-mark. She had never really understood that; her cutie-mark had existed for as long as she could remember, so she had never given it much thought.
Now, though, a realization occurred to her. She was not even sure if it was her own.
“I can power it.”
“What?”
Penumbra stood, facing the Heart. “I can power it. I don’t know for how long. And I don’t think I can make the shield as big. But if you get everpony close, I can protect them!”
“What?” said Facet, blinking. “You have no idea how it even works!”
“I think I do.” Penumbra lit her horn. “I think this is what I was made for.”
She fired a beam of magic into the Heart. Almost on contact the beam expanded exponentially, resonating between Penumbra and the Heart as the gears and damaged systems within its containment clasp began to rev to speed, harvesting what power she was managing to generate.
The strain was far greater than she had expected, but she was proven right as the system began to draw power. As damaged as it was, Al’Hrabnaz’s system still functioned- -and though cracked, the Heart of Darkness was still very much alive.
The dome began to flicker, and Penumbra groaned, pouring more energy into the Heart. It responded by allowing the shield to solidify. It was barely enough to cover the Citadel, let alone the crystal ponies at its base, but it was enough.
Burnt stared upward, wide-eyed. “Oh wow...”
“How long can you hold it, Penumbra?”
Penumbra smiled, magic still hemorrhaging from her horn. “As long as it takes.”
That, of course, was a lie, and Penumbra knew it.