//------------------------------// // V. To War // Story: The War in Heaven // by voroshilov //------------------------------// “The first soldiers to leave Chronove fought with chants of ‘Emperor’s Glory’, which later evolved into ‘Imperious Dominous’ meaning ‘Imperial Lord’. Amongst the Emperor's own Guard was the chant of ‘Death! Death!’ which was later primarily replaced by ‘In the Emperor’s name, forwards!’“ - A Scholarly History of Imperial Warfare by Lucius Hali - They had flown for at least an hour, the soldiers answering all of Rarity's questions and bringing her up to speed on the operation. The entire force had landed, all seven and a half million of them, around the Gate of Tartarus to guard Emperor Nicholas whilst he completed his "ritual." Whatever that entailed. Her companions had admitted they didn't know what the ritual was but were still prepared to fight to protect it. "We're coming into land, ma'am," the pilot said over the inner speakers, "gonna drop you right at the command post, won't be far from the front." The landing was surprisingly soft, with Rarity foolishly believing, through the relative silence of the dropship, that maybe out beyond its walls wasn't so bad. When the bay doors opened, however, she was met with a far grimmer reality. The roar of a million engines hit her like a wall, the ground was grey, the air full of dust and the sky black with choking cloud. All around her was the vision of coming war. The soldiers led her forwards, the dropship lifting off the moment she left it. As the pilot had said, the command post was barely a metre behind the trench lines, which were filled with soldiers and lined with gun emplacements. Every few dozen metres, a larger pit had been dug to hold a tank, whose size Rarity couldn't help but gawk at. Even as she did, the soldiers with her pushed her forwards towards the command post, whose screens were manned by a mixture of black and white armoured soldiers, as well as Luna herself. "Is he ready?" Luna asked a soldier, a Captain by his red cape. "Yes, ma'am," was the answer, the Captain saluting before returning to his screen. Another came up behind her, "ma'am," they said, "the final dropship has arrived." Luna turned to Rarity and her group and smiled warmly, "Rarity!" She cantered up to her and hovered her taloned foreleg in the air for a moment, before patting Rarity on the shoulder. “Good. You're here. Join me in the command post. Don't worry, we'll keep you protected." As she followed, the four soldiers who had arrived with her jumped into the trenches, taking up positions in the firing line just in front of the post. Luna gave Rarity the quick run down, informing her as to what each console did and who was manning them. "Now," she said, after showing Rarity the large holographic map in the centre, crouching to align their faces and putting a foreleg over her shoulder, "when the Gate opens, you're going to see a lot of things. I won't lie to you, it won't be clean, it will be violent and loud and terrifying. You're going to see death first hand, live it through those around you. I will protect you, but I can't protect everyone, even the others in this post may die. Are you ready?" Rarity nodded. "I'm ready." In truth, she wasn't. The most violence she had ever seen was the Changeling invasion years ago and even then that had been tame in comparison to what she was expecting from the coming battle. She was somewhat thankful Luna hadn't introduced her to anyone by name, she didn't know how she would feel if faces began dying around her. As they were, the soldiers were just that, soldiers, they were like the pawns of a chess game, you didn't cry when they were taken. Luna gave her a warm smile, as calming as she could make it. Unfortunately for that plan, however, a rumble shook the field. Both ponies looked at each other, confused, before a soldier in the post shouted out. "Make ready!" They both turned, beholding the titanic Gate of Tartarus. It was obsidian, fortified with a blood red metal and covered in three massive locks, each bearing a single, unique rune that glowed. Or, at least, they should have. The locks had crashed to the ground, their runes dark, and a sliver of light had penetrated through the Gate. The Gate was opening. Within seconds, even though the Gate was barely open, shapes began to swarm from it. From a distance, they appeared as ponies, though all a uniform crimson with thin black hair. Close up, however, it was clear that they were not ponies. They had no fur, or skin, just a writhing mass masquerading as flesh, their hair was like wire and their eyes were nothing more than pools of whitish liquid. Those who had horns were either blunted or razor sharp, more knives than horns. Those who had wings appeared almost malnourished in comparison to the others, their wings were mostly transparent, with their bodies thin and emaciated. With a blood curdling screech, the fliers climbed into the air and those with horns fired off bolts into the trench lines. The first salvo landed harmlessly just short of the trench, though a fair few soldiers ducked back. There was silence from the trenches, before a hundred thousand sergeants all cried out in unison, "fire at will!" With piercing shrieks, bolts of orange energy launched from the trenches, the soldiers discharging their rifles for the first time before Rarity's ears and eyes. With a hum, followed by a thunderous, guttural roar, the larger weapons fired, firing off molten pulses. In the distance, the daemons were torn apart, either dispelling in clouds of ash or melting into puddles of blood on the floor. As the door opened further, larger creatures, more in line with Rarity's initial ideas of daemons than the quasi-ponies that surrounded them. They were tall, gangly, horned and bore either flaming swords or wicked claws. They charged forwards, slower than their brethren but less vulnerable. Concentrated fire brought them down, that or the fire of a tank's cannon. When the first tank fired, Rarity thought it had exploded. She had heard cannons before, especially Pinkie Pie's party cannon, but nothing like this. Like a clap of thunder, a glowing blue blob, swirling with lightning, launched out of the barrel, slamming into one of the larger daemons with an audible thud, before it detonated in a brilliant flash of colour and rush of noise. The daemon was atomised, with those around it being reduced to red clouds that hovered aimlessly before gradually dispelling as more and more creatures ran by. There followed a larger creature, similar to Tirek though bourne on two goat's legs. It stood twice as tall as the largest other daemon, holding a crimson war axe and its flaming eyes set on the Command Post. With a guttural roar the creature charged, its brethren close around to shield it from attack. The fliers formed physical shields, intercepting projectiles before they could get close, whilst the horned pony-daemons formed rudimentary magical shields around the creature, giving their own lives to keep the energy charged. Rarity took an unconscious step back, the front of the daemonic horde was uncomfortably close. The larger creature, joined in the rear by three more of its kind, was still quite a distance away, but the daemonic ponies had proven incredibly fast. By her estimate, it would be a few minutes before they reached the trenches, and then onwards to her post. It was clear the soldiers in the trenches knew this too, as they rotated back and forth on the firing parapet and their commanders took up positions at the front. A soldier in a yellow Commander's cape rose out of the trench, a sword made of orange energy in their hand. They raised their weapon into the air, as a horn blared from their armour. It was followed by hundreds, then thousands more, as their brethren climbed ladders out of their trenches, either bearing swords just like the Commander or bayonets attached to their rifles. As the daemonic wave continued its rush forwards, a wave of white armour and orange bolts and swords rose to meet it. The lines met in a brutal melee. White armour crashed against daemonic flesh as sword and bayonet tore a path towards the Gate. From far behind the trenches, with a terrible whistling, came a torrent of artillery fire. The centre and rear of the daemonic lines detonated, bodies were thrown hundred of metres in all directions. As the daemonic fliers circled overhead, readying for attack, a scream from the skies heralded the arrival of air support, sleek, silver craft sliced through the clouds like knives and tore at the fliers, whilst their larger brethren bombed the ground. The battlefield became little more than a cacophony of noise and flashes, with Rarity immediately finding it impossible to follow the action. She could just barely see the Gate of Tartarus, which was now fully open, and marked by a shadow that was at least half of its overall size. It took the vague appearance of a bipedal, though one with massive horns and wings. Rarity hoped to every god there was that it wasn't and just a trick of the light. To her horror, a titanic daemon crossed the threshold. It was similar in looks to the middle sized daemons, though at least a hundred metres tall, clad in black armour and with eyes and mouth that burned like a furnace. The wings on its back stretched out to their full span, shrouding half of the battlefield in darkness. To their merit, the soldiers continued to fight, though it was clear from the appearance of the largest creature that theirs was a losing battle. Even as the tanks rolled out of their firing pits to join the fight proper, tearing vast swathes into the daemons, Rarity despaired. Yet, Luna still stood firm, barking orders to everyone who could listen. The artillery behind the lines changed its firing pattern, aiming mostly at the titan, which was staggered but not heavily damaged, the aircraft focused it where they could, though individual swings of its sword would rip entire squadrons from the air. "Ma'am!" A soldier, a Commander by his cape, shouted from the trenches, his armour covered in dirt and blood, "the daemon is shielded. We can't damage it!" "Continue fighting," Luna said, "kill its support." The Commander nodded, drawing his sword and clambering from the trench, running back into the fray. Rarity would have shouted for him to come back, had her attention not been forcefully stuck to the titan that slowly waded through its allies towards the advancing line of soldiers. The sky grew dark, as though the sun itself was gone, and the air seemed to freeze. Rarity shivered, certain this was the coldest she had ever been. The ground below, grey dirt and the odd scrap of dead shrubbery or grass, became covered in frost in an instant. The wind, which had been a light breeze previously, suddenly became a gale, before ceasing all together. The battlefield fell silent for a brief second, before an ethereal bellow filled it. "Stand firm, soldiers of the Empire. Our enemies shall now know true power." A beam of cyan light, surrounded by a writhing mass of black, flew from behind the line, impacting the largest daemon with an explosion of white. The creature was thrown backwards, a vast hole in its chest armour. From the point of impact emerged Emperor Nicholas, half the height of the daemon, his obsidian crown covered in runes glowing orange. His sword, Oathbreaker, was tinted with green and purple, and sliced through a pack of daemons with ease. In his left hand, he held aloft a sphere of darkness, whose black lightning arced out and destroyed any daemon that came close. "Forwards!" The Emperor roared, throwing the sphere forwards. In his hand, it was instantly replaced. The thrown sphere, meanwhile, impacted the ground, burrowing in. The ground was turned to liquid as rivers of light swum and spread just below its surface, sending arcs of cyan and black lightning up and into anything they came across. Half of the daemonic force was atomised in seconds, the other half gradually being hacked down by the Imperial soldiers. The titanic daemon rose with a roar, injured but still definitely alive. Emperor Nicholas struck his sword into the ground, holding it in place, whilst he split the sphere into a channel between both his clawed hands. Slowly, he lifted his hands, causing the daemon to rise from the ground with a roar of confusion. As the daemon flailed to try and bring itself down, he rose it above the upper rim of the Gate, before steadily pulling his hands apart. The massive creature wailed as its armour began to rend and moan. A viscous, glowing liquid spilled from rapidly forming wounds, forming a small reservoir below it. The creature cried out in pain, before letting out a final wail as it split in two. The fire in its eyes and mouth went out, its blood dimming as its now halved form crumpled to the floor. Nicholas let out a sigh of satisfaction, before grasping his sword again. With a single, spinning swipe, he cut another swathe through the daemons. The first of the Imperial soldiers reached him, covered in dirt, ash and blood, but rifle still in hand and bayonet alight. Nicholas smiled at them and the soldier nodded in return. They were soon joined by more of their comrades, as the daemons collapsed back against the tide of soldiers. "Come," Nicholas said, "let us return to the trenches, and prepare the evacuation." The soldiers began a march back, several running, the more tired preferring to walk. The injured were carried, either by an arm over the shoulder or on the backs of a comrade. Nicholas followed at the rear, ensuring no more daemons could harass the soldiers. The injured daemons were executed by the soldiers as they walked, some not even bothering to stop their march to shoot them. Nicholas dealt with what few of the larger daemons still lived, either slicing them in two with Oathbreaker or using his powers to simply end their lives. When Nicholas reached the Command Post, he was greeted by relieved soldiers and Rarity held by Luna's wing. The unicorn was in a state of shock, only natural for her first experience of battle. Luna, nevertheless, was fine to speak. "Is it clear?" She asked, pointing to the Gate with her horn. "For now," Nicholas answered, "the evacuation ships are already inbound. How many ponies did you gather?" "All you requested," Luna replied, "as well as at least ten thousand more. Why?" Nicholas was silent for a moment, "we are to leave this planet." Luna gasped, "what? Leave?" "Yes, Luna." Nicholas crouched down to bring the two face to face, in his unshrunk form, he was almost twice her height. "This world is not safe, it has not been for some time now. Tartarus is open, its ancillary gates already spew forth daemonic cohorts. The purification has already begun, but the infection must not and cannot be allowed to spread beyond the atmosphere. If we evacuate, we save some of your species." Luna's jaw quivered, and a single, minuscule tear rolled down her left cheek. "What will you do?" She asked, at last, "to the ponies?" "They shall be reseeded elsewhere. Do not worry, Luna, your race will not go extinct. I know you care about them, but we must leave this planet with what we have. If we try to leave with everyone, we shall leave with no one." Luna nodded. As much as she hated to admit it in this case, she knew he was right. "What of my sister? And Twilight Sparkle?" "Twilight Sparkle is currently aboard the Day of Jubilance, I shall have her transferred when our reinforcement fleet assets arrive. Your sister is aboard the Spirit of Eternity. She too, shall be transferred soon. I have scattered the ponies about the fleet and none are currently on vessels still in atmosphere. All that is left is you, and Rarity, who shall be moving to the Night Truth." The evacuation shuttles broke the cloud cover as he spoke, massive, mostly cuboidal vessels that were clearly for little more than ferrying up and down from a planet. Despite their ugliness and clear lack of aerodynamics, they were more than large enough to hold hundreds of thousands of people. Fifteen of them broke the cloud and began to land in the grey plains behind the trenches, with another lowering below the horizon to pick up the artillery. Nicholas led Luna, and the barely recovered Rarity, towards one of the shuttles, which was already filling with battered soldiers. When they entered, Nicholas was greeted by cheers from the soldiers. He returned them with a simple nod, before raising his sword in salute, to which the crowd grew even louder in their support. As the shuttle's ramp closed, its maximum occupancy reached, two cruisers, identical to the one which had destroyed Canterlot, drifted through the clouds, their weapons already charged. Though they did not see the glassing, they heard it clearly. The sound of melting metal and stone, combined with the hum of the shuttle's engines and the roar of the beams, filled the bay. To Rarity, it was terrifying, but Luna kept her wrapped in a wing and protected from the most of it. It was a mercifully short trip to the orbiting ship, which terrified Rarity even further, as well as entrancing her, when she looked out of the hangar shields. "We," she stammered, "we are in space?" Luna nodded. "Yes, yes we are." "Wow." Equestria from above was beautiful, verdant green plains, crystal blue oceans, golden deserts and emerald jungles all painted an image into Rarity's mind. She would make a dress of this, she decided, or perhaps many. Yes, she thought, a whole set dedicated to each of Equestria's diverse biomes. She planned them out in her head, the materials she would need, the techniques needed to create the product she desired. Sapphires for the oceans, peridot for the plains, emeralds for the jungles, golden sequins for the deserts, and rubies for the expanding stretches of melting ground. What? Rarity took another look. She fainted when she saw her home being burned. What had happened to Canterlot was happening all over Equestria. The land was being scorched by hovering, purple shapes, becoming nothing but ash and glass when they were finished. The only location she recognised before she blacked out was the Crystal Empire, visible from space through its unique biome. The massive, crystalline structures were melted, the grass incinerated and the snow that bordered it instantly vapourised. It took little over an hour for all major population centres to be destroyed. Emperor Nicholas had retired to his personal quarters in the belly of the ship, his mind plagued with the screams of incredibly powerful psionic creatures. Luna, too, was stricken by the screams, they were not as strong as those in Nicholas' mind, but they hit her harder. They were, or should have been, her subjects, and now they were little more than ash on the wind. She knew her sister would have likely been hit too, probably even recognised many of the voices. She only recognised one, and even then only from a single word she had heard the pony say. She kneeled next to Rarity and let herself be taken by sorrow. All ponies were afflicted by the screams, many broke out in tears, entirely inconsolable, others tried to end their lives, having to be restrained by the soldiers with them - with a small minority unable to be restrained. Celestia, as Luna had suspected, recognised a great many of the voices, and wept for their deaths. Iron Shield, by Celestia's side at the medical bed, allowed himself a single tear, before collapsing into his own hooves. From hundreds of miles above the surface, they watched the destruction of their home, the glassing of Equestria. It was Twilight Sparkle, though, who was hit the hardest. Not for the destruction of Equestria, or the deaths of millions of ponies and millions of other creatures, but for the death of a friend; Pinkie Pie had not left the planet. Her pitiful cries were later silenced, as were all the tears of ponies, when a pair of blue beams impacted the surface. The planet, verdant green and crystalline blue, covered in scorch marks, cracked. Its atmosphere burned away instantly, its surface beginning to liquidise and shatter as its mantle froze on contact with the vacuum of space. For the briefest moment, Twilight caught a glimpse of Equestria's core, a hollow, perfect sphere of metal, insides visible only through a pair of holes cut into it by the beams, before it collapsed in on itself. Equestria was no more. Only continent sized chunks remained, all traces of life extinguished. Twilight looked on at the sight, as did Rarity in a far off ship, with morbid fascination. There was something strangely beautiful about the slowly cooling remains below her. The core had clearly been artificial and nopony had ever seen the inner workings of the planet before. Nopony had also wielded such power before. The planet had been destroyed, cracked open like an egg, as if it was nothing. The chunks that now floated aimlessly in space were all that was left of her old home, but also a testament to those who had destroyed it. With only two beams, an entire world, teeming with life, had been rendered ash in an instant. As her companions looked on, horrified, or too hardened to it already, Twilight laughed. "Beautiful," she said, her voice cracking, "beautiful." Shining Armour said something to her, but her head was swirling and it was only audible as a faint hum. Cadance caught her body, with Twilight not having realised it had fallen. With a final word, "beautiful," Twilight's vision faded entirely, and she allowed herself to be taken by the realm of sleep. The unicorn was roused from her sleep as she felt her horn tingle. The reason she reacted so violently to it, besides from the fact it had just woken her from what was quite possibly the most comfortable sleep of her life, was that the horn was inert and had no nerves in it, and was thus unfeelable. The fact she could feel it caused her some alarm. Little did she know, every unicorn and alicorn all got the same sensation at the same time. All reacted in a manner of confusion - differing from Twilight's pacing and recitement of biological journals - besides Luna, who knew what was happening. She directed Rarity to the observation deck's window, telling her to look out into the void. A tiny blip of purple quickly expanded, forming a black hole hundreds of kilometres in diameter, it was followed by thousands more, some smaller and other larger, then millions more. Soon, the whole sky was either black or lensed. From the first hole emerged a vessel, similar to the one she was on. From each hole emerged a vessel, from tiny, ugly, blocks of grey metal to massive warships that seemed almost artistic in their design. Each hole receded and vanished when its charge was borne, allowing the sky to again shine brightly as a background to the arrival of a force Rarity's mind could barely even comprehend. A console blared to life to her left, an authoritative voice announcing itself over the speakers, "this is Imperial Grand Admiral Catherine Skye, to all Imperial ships. The Shadow of Sundered Star has arrived."