It was not a good time to be on the city-plane of Ravnica.
Granted, it had been increasingly less of a good time to be on Ravnica for the last few months. Assassinations, plots by the ten guilds that kept the world-covering city running to sabotage the others, growing uncertainty among the unguilded as unending storms filled the sky and the undercity roiled with a fresh succession crisis, and more added up to a generally negative experience.
Then the Chamber of the Guildpact, symbol of the guilds’ tenuous unity, had exploded, and everything had taken a sharp turn for the even worse.
In the Chamber's place stood a hole in space leading to a vast stretch of sand-covered ruins seen nowhere on Ravnica. Even the most devastated regions wrecked and ruled by the Gruul Clans had more life to them than those worn pieces of impossibly primitive architecture. Yet the army that passed through the gate was anything but primitive. Line after line of zombies clad in strange, azure metal marched into the middle of the Tenth District, combining all the worst properties of the Golgari Swarm’s necromantic forces and the Boros Legion’s unbreakable military discipline.
Naturally, the Ravnicans started fighting back, up to and including the very guildhall of the Selesnya Conclave, the ten-thousand-year-old city-tree Vitu-Ghazi rearranging itself into a roughly humanoid shape and laying waste to the army of Eternals.
Then the four enormous, incredibly powerful, animal-headed zombies came through. One tore Vitu-Ghazi asunder, and that set the tone for the God-Eternals' impact on the conflict.
All the while, the Dragon watched.
There were plenty of flying, fire-breathing lizards on Ravnica, but only one true Dragon, a genius without compare, older than the City-Tree. But Niv-Mizzet was one of the casualties of the recent troubles, and his apparent replacement wasn’t content with indulging his curiosity and watching the resulting explosions. This one, with the head of a snake, the horns of an ox, and the luxurious scarf of an Orzhov dilettante, had arrived atop an entire temple-citadel dedicated to himself. From that monolithic edifice, he watched as his army spread out to subjugate an entire world.
Normally under these circumstances, any planeswalkers in the area, beings capable of moving between universes through an exertion of magic and will, would have long since fled unless they possessed a suicidal sense of heroism. But the mad geniuses of the Izzet League had been tricked into building an interplanar beacon that had beckoned most ‘walkers in this part of the Multiverse to Ravnica, and a relic from one of the Dragon’s old nemeses kept them from leaving.
It was them the Dragon wanted, after all. The conquest was merely a side benefit. Each zombie in His army could pull the Spark of the space between spaces out of a planeswalker and give it unto Him, gradually restoring the infinite power taken from Him decades ago.
There had been moments of hope for those opposing Him. The God-Eternals’ numbers had been halved. Niv-Mizzet had been resurrected as an avatar of the ten guilds’ collective power. A shining beacon of hope had streaked towards the Dragon, wielding a sword that had slain one of His siblings ages ago.
It shattered against His scales, for He had not forgotten that sibling’s fate. He then smacked that hero aside like the fly he was to BOLAS.
Some of the opposition, planeswalkers and Ravnicans alike, scrambled for an alternate plan. Two of them just kept working on theirs.
Pinkie Pie sighed as she watched Gideon Jura fall, barely saved by the demon lord Rakdos. “Well, that could’ve gone worse.”
“It is hard to imagine how,” rumbled Karn. The burly silver golem looked around at the Eternals clawing at the translucent pink sphere protecting the duo. “How long can you maintain the barrier?”
“It’s imbued with the conceptual essence of ABC gum. That stuff's just shy of indestructible.” Pinkie's grin faltered as a blue-plated minotaur's claws left visible scratch marks on the bubble. “Okay, maybe more than a little shy.”
“Even true indestructibility can be bypassed," Karn said, his barely mobile face managing to look more grim than usual as he continued his work. "We do not have forever in any case. The more who fall, the more power Nicol Bolas gathers. He will soon be unstoppable by any means imaginable.”
Pinkie smiled enough for the both of them. “Yeah, but we got this, right Arty?”
Karn shook his head. “Every day, I regret that you and Teferi met.” His expression stayed steady, but he couldn't keep the amusement out of his voice.
“You’re smi-ling!” Pinkie singsonged. "You know, for you."
A chuckle like a struggling engine rumbled up from Karn's chest as he continued to craft. “Yes. Because unlike my creator, I do not hate fun.”
Pinkie giggle-snorted. "Ha! Can you imagine if Urza were here?"
"All too easily. I am forever grateful that he and the Izzet League never met. No doubt this entire plane would be some enormous mechanism by now."
Pinkie just smirked at him.
"I am fully aware of the irony, yes."
"Wasn't going to say anything," she said as innocent as could be. The actual angelic halo may have been a bit much, though it did make the Eternals recoil for a few moments.
"You were thinking it loud enough to deafen telepaths." Karn nodded to himself as he secured the final piece of their collaborative work. "It is done."
"Looks fantastic! Think it'll work?"
"I can say with confidence that Bolas will not see it coming."
BOLAS saw all. HE knew all. HE could sense Liliana Vess's doubt, even as HE held her soul in his claws, feel her weighing the pros and cons of turning HIS own army on him with every ounce of her necromantic power only to get snuffed out like so many others. HE could all but hear the desperate thoughts of Ravnica's defenders scurry from possibility to possibility, vain hope to vainer, as HIS power grew.
It was beautiful.
But then a spark of... not hope. It wasn't quite that. Sharper. Brighter. Pinker.
BOLAS knew no fear. But HE did feel a moment of hesitation as HE realized that, even after planning this masterstroke for the better part of a century, HE had overlooked one detail.
"PINKIE PIE," HE grumbled in a whisper that shook the world.
And by the time HE located the one being in the Multiverse who had endured his sanity-destroying touch without even noticing, an explosion much closer to him revealed the nature of her scheme. Some tiny entity, too insignificant for HIM to easily perceive, raced towards HIS citadel. Liliana sent Eternals to intercept it, but nothing could catch its incredible speed.
BOLAS knew no fear. He could annihilate whatever it was with a thought. But it was at that point that Hazoret, jackal-headed god of zeal and the sole survivor of the pantheon of Amonkhet, stabbed HIM through the chest with a two-pronged spear that HE had given her, and thus could not immediately will away.
The distraction was enough for Pinkie's ploy to cover the remaining distance, leap into the air, and buck BOLAS into the waiting arms of HIS remaining God-Eternals, who performed exactly as designed: They stripped the sparks from him.
And, in His final moments before being stripped of all his power, one of the last things Nicol Bolas saw was a gingerbread pony perched on his snout, dressed in gleaming power armor.