Revenge.
The nightmare seemed to last forever.
The church pews around her, the stone floor beneath her, the ponies behind her, the altars, the enemies, the chaos, the fighting – it all started to lose contrast. And behind the hazy veil of her perception, everything soon turned into a whirling blur of colors and cries.
And then came the heat.
It started within her chest and spread frighteningly quickly. From a single point, she felt the heat grow and radiate as if from a furnace. Her heart hammered against her chest; her lungs were stifled with furious heat. She staggered drunkenly in place, swaying with the wildest fever that had ever burned her forehead.
The heat made her skin crawl and set her teeth on edge. She felt as if enormous pressure was building within her. Her head, her heart, her lungs, her entire being felt on the verge of bursting at the seams. The pent up energy would kill her if it did not somehow escape.
Relief and terrible anguish swept over her when that pressure was released; for when it was, she found that the heat had only followed its natural progression. The heat had become fire.
A sudden force, shook her bones and made her ears ring. Her eyes were wide open, seeing and comprehending nothing but a blinding white-orange light that scorched her irises. She heard herself scream, but it sounded so far away, so unimportant that it was nearly drowned out by the cacophony of noises around her. Glass shattered, wood groaned and splintered, stone foundations shook, and other ponies let out shrieks almost as terrified as her own. But even they seemed like mere whispers compared to the howl of rushing fire.
The force was relentless, like an explosion within her that took many times longer than it should have to reach its peak and subside. An infinite pressure released itself into the world, all of it coursing through the body of a single alicorn mare. She wondered if it would ever end.
Time was incomprehensible. The pain was immense. By simple virtue of unfathomable power, it was all she felt until it nothing else mattered.
But gradually, she remembered that some things did matter, and she began to sift through the sensations. Heat turned to fire. Pain turned to power. Agony turned to rage.
All the other noises had gradually ceased to be, fading into or overcome by the sound of the rushing fire, which had itself died down to a fierce crackle. Only then did the pressure abate into something more controllable, yet still very much alive, just barely contained within her. Her head hung low, her eyelids fell closed, and she breathed deep and quick, her chest dramatically expanding and contracting. Though the concussive force had momentarily subsided, the fire had not lost one degree of intensity.
She was burning alive. And for some reason that did not bother her at all.
Her eyes snapped wide open.
Vision came to her quickly, unnaturally sharp. The vividness of it all seemed to jump out and hurt; the colors were too bright, the sights too intense. And yet, for all its definition, the world through her eyes seemed to swim in a blood-red haze. It was too much. She kept her gaze low.
Amongst the debris of stone and wood, shards of stained glass lay scattered at her hooves, arrayed in a sad, fractured rainbow of colors. In its modest reflection, she saw herself, wreathed in fire.
Where her mane and tail should have been, there was only bright orange flame, as if the hair itself had caught fire – though it never seemed to consume its fuel. The blaze stemming from her body licked wildly at the air, eager to catch onto something, to spread. And, at the center of it all, her coat remained glowing white, like an ashy coal in the depths of a furnace. She looked down at her own body; her armor was almost entirely gone, bits and pieces of it still hanging on by burning threads. Thin lines of glowing orange traced themselves infrequently across her skin, like scattered veins of lava.
Finally, she caught the reflection of her own gaze. Her expression shifted from a whole range of emotions: confused, surprised, tormented. Constant above all else, however, was the anger it held; etched deeply into the lines of her face was malice and utter hatred the likes of which she had never seen, nor felt.
Where her eyes should have been, there were only two pupil-less, glowing orbs, bright as the sun and just as difficult to gaze into. Fiery power seemed to leak at their edge.
The fire clawed and ripped at her consciousness, and yet, there was no malice behind it. No plan, no higher purpose. It only did what fire was supposed to do: consume. She was no longer… whoever she used to be. Now, she was merely a piece of kindling set ablaze with a wrathful flame.
All kindling was eventually consumed, and she knew it.
She looked up. An endless ebony sea crawled before her, teeming with fangs and steel and beady blue eyes, flowing forward and back again like a wave – hissing their disdain, but not daring to encroach upon her space. Insects, she thought, the lines of her face deepening into a loathing grimace. Filthy little creatures hanging on the edge of the shadow.
Her eyes flashed with literal fire as she glared at them. The writhing mass of sinisteeds shied away.
How the church building managed to hold them all, she did not know. Their very presence defiled the place. They were not here to commune with the gods, if ever they had had any. Individual beasts – black, porous bodies, beady blue eyes, milky white fangs – seemed to blend together until they became a shapeless, numberless horde.
And, even in their own house, the gods had not lifted a hoof to cast them out.
There had been ponies near the door, she knew, trying to hold it closed. They must have long since drowned in that black, churning sea. Now, none were in sight, and if there were any ponies nearby, she did not notice or care.
Agony swept through her like it never had before. Her body trembled with pain – and yet, there was a part of her that relished the sensation. In a way, it was empowering, even pleasurable.
Why did it feel so good?
She continued to regard her enemy, passionate hatred etched into her deep scowl, wondering what would happen next. They certainly were not going to make the first move.
Then, that moment of simple clarity came, and she knew. For an instant, everything came to a standstill. The world and all its clamor was drowned out. Even the noisy crackle of her own body fell silent, until all that remained was the sound of her own boiling blood pumping rhythmically in her ears. Her trembling body stilled.
Yes, all kindling was consumed. But until then, the world would be made to feel her wrath.
Coming up from a low crouch, she straightened her legs, extended her wings to their fullest, threw her head back to the heavens, and roared.
The noise shook the earth, rattling the bones of anypony within hearing range. It was full of pain and rage, the cry of a wounded predator. It was inequine, hardly something a normal pony could voice.
But then, she was no pony. For as she shouted to the heavens, the fire within her burst forth, and she became the epicenter of an enormous twisting inferno.
A tornado of fire spun away from her, growing and spreading with impossible intensity and swiftness, making the very stone beneath her seem to catch fire like dry grass. The fire swept along the stone floor and, in an instant, ignited everything in sight, and many things out of sight.
Unsecured pews were launched away by a huge concussive force, tumbling into the air, some simply shattering to pieces as they burst aflame. The altars at the head of the church were all knocked flat, the masonry breaking away from the floor and violently crumbling as stones were flung toward the far wall. Any of the unbroken stained-glass windows immediately shattered, the rainbow of shards warping in the heat before they even hit the ground outside. Loose debris, rocks, and chips of wood shot up and away from her. A raggedy, well-worn doll, precariously perched on a far windowsill, fell to the floor at the first tremor, and then was launched into the chaos as the heat wave came.
Everything immediately about her was wreathed in hellfire, and the inferno’s growth did not cease. Ten feet, twenty feet, fifty feet… in fractions of a second, it spun to fill the whole church, racing to meet that wretched horde.
They scrambled like insects, racing for the safety of the outdoors. But there was hardly time to react. And there was no safety from her wrath.
The wall of flame consumed the unlucky souls in the front row of the mob and traveled through the maze of porous, black bodies, engulfing many more of their comrades behind them.
She was only vaguely aware of it all. For a long time, her neck was craned back, her head arched towards the ceiling. Her expression was twisted into a savage facade of bloodlust and anger. Her nose wrinkled, her brows furrowed, and the lines in her face deepened until they no longer seemed equine. Her mouth was wide open, and she bared her teeth like the fangs of a predator. The bellow she let loose sounded more like a dragon’s roar than anything else. Anything that was not already incinerated trembled at the sound. Even her bones seemed to shake.
Eventually, the air in her lungs depleted. The roar faded; and as it did, another noise took its place. Hissing, screaming, and raspy screeching filled the air. The collective tone was alien and strange, but the cause was clear. Pain was, after all, a near universal sensation.
She slowly let her head down and opened her eyes to watch them burn.
They writhed in a black mass, a hundred monsters suffering in their own personal hell. A portion of the sinisteeds who found themselves unlucky enough to be partially shielded from the blast ran this way and that, their burning forms scrambling over each other, desperately seeking something, anything to bring an end to their unbearable pain. Their search was in vain. The interior of the building was set completely ablaze. Black smoke filled the air, pouring out of the shattered windows, choking and blinding those who still had wings to fly away. They dropped to the floor like flies, their black bodies contorting with pain alongside their already dead comrades.
One by one, their insane cries became quiet, and their black bodies became still, wasting idly in the flame like so much charcoal.
The remnants of church pews were scattered amongst the corpses, burning like a funeral pyre. Some of the sinisteeds clung futilely to life, pawing at the ground as if something or somepony could save them. It was a pitiable sight. Most, however, were already scorched beyond recognition, charred husks of what they once were.
She eyed the scene, breathing heavily through bared teeth, chest heaving in and out. She drank in the smoke, relishing the feel of it in her lungs. Her ears twitched at the sounds of crackling wood, sizzling flesh, and rushing fire. Her wings were still spread high into the air, her feathers rippling in the heat of the inferno. For the first time ever, she felt completely in control. She felt completely aware of her own destiny. She felt powerful.
In the corner of her eye, through the blown out windows of the church, she caught the sight of a few sinisteeds flying away, actually having escaped the destruction, fleeing for their lives.
She felt a vein pulse in her temple. How dare they! This was her revenge, and they would not deprive her of it!
She shot forward with blazing speed, a burning trail of sparks and flame in her wake. She rocketed over the defeated pile of sinisteeds and landed on the other side, her hooves skidding on the stone as she came to a stop just outside the doors. Her gaze shot up.
The pegasi-created storm was still raging over the city of Manehattan. Rain came down in torrents, the drops sizzling and evaporating and turning to steam as they hit her coat. By now, the dense metropolis was completely inundated, entire rivers running down some of the lower streets. Lightning struck infrequently across the sky, casting the world in a furious blue light and adding to the cacophony of war that raged in the near distance. Fire poured out of the windows of the church, painting the street outside with a flickering orange, shadows of lampposts and street corners dancing on the stone.
A gleam of firelight caught her eye, reflecting off the matte hides of a dozen sinisteeds, flying away as fast as their wings would take them. They flew low and fast, their insect wings beating spray into the air from the accumulated water on the street beneath them. Eventually, they rounded a corner that took them onto another street. No doubt they aimed to lose her in the urban jungle that was Manehattan. No doubt they thought they could hide in the shadows.
The alicorn’s loathing glare deepened. There shall be no shadows to hide in.
She pushed off of the ground and deployed her wings. An explosion seemed to shake the ground where she was standing, and she streaked through the air like a living comet, fire trailing from her wings.
The flames shall leave them none.
**********
A solitary pony’s galloping hoofsteps echoed through a lonely street.
His plate armor slid across itself, ringing and scraping noisily as he ran. Sheathed weapons clinked rhythmically against him. His breath was heavy with fatigue. Every time he exhaled, a light fog would gather and drift away, much of it condensing into drops of moisture underneath his drawn half-helm. His head was filled with a constant pinging sound as drops of rain fell freely onto his helmet.
Pinpricks of sensation attacked his underbelly as rainwater from the street splashed away from his hooves. His armor, particularly on his legs, was filthy with dirt and blood; but the floods, running through streets, buildings, and sewers alike, were not that much cleaner. The leather straps that bound him to his armor rubbed against his fur uncomfortably, chafing with the moisture. He was wet everywhere. And so, so miserable.
Another pony might have slowed down, or stopped. It would have been so easy to give into the huge weight of his armor, to be overcome by fatigue, to collapse and never get back up.
Unfortunately, he was not another pony. And, unfortunately, those words would not stop playing and replaying through his head.
I want you to save her.
Lucky Break put his head down and galloped even harder.
What else had she said? “She’ll burn you on contact,” Clover the Clever had told him. “She’ll burn you for being in the way. She’ll burn you for attacking her, or if you even so much as look at her wrong.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” he had demanded.
“Talk with her,” Clover had said. “Plead with her. Remind her who she is.”
And so he galloped to the east, back towards the battle, with the intent to confront hellfire incarnate and ask it to stop.
Lucky rounded a corner, keeping his balance as he slid along the wet cobblestone. The sounds of war increased in intensity as he moved closer and closer to the front. The scuffle of thousands of hooves against pavement, steel clashing against steel, cries of triumph and defeat. The cannonfire of a dozen of airships sounded infrequently, shaking the air with bass clarity. The distant cry of a hydra could be heard above the din.
Louder and more violent than them all, a sudden explosion rocked the air, briefly lighting the whole city and giving the stormclouds above a fiery orange outline. Lucky skidded to a stop and gazed up at the source; it was not hard to find. Some miles away and hundreds of yards up near the top of a tall clock tower, the fireball explosion hovered in air like some small sun, perpetuating itself longer than he suspected was natural. A dozen tiny tremors ran through the ground. Seconds later, a hot gust of wind blew through the streets, making him squint, even underneath his visor. In the icy cold rain of the storm, its heat felt severely out of place.
It left just as quickly as it came, both the color and the warmth, yet it never truly disappeared; only decreasing until it was left at a single, fiery pinpoint of light, like a candle in the dark. That pinpoint raced out of view, leaving a streaking comet tail in its path. The distinctive red Manehattan brick of the clock tower was crumbling, and the north facing of the clock itself was irreparably damaged. Lucky wondered if the tower would fall.
A moment later, another explosion rocked the air, appearing a silhouette behind the Manehattan skyline. Then another, then another. A pillar of fire whipped wildly about in the air, as if spewed by some half-crazed dragon.
Lucky took off again, renewed vigor in his gallop. His heart stirred with inspiration; he knew exactly where to go. Left, right, left, straight– he raced past discarded weapons, bleeding corpses, and horrifying scenes of destruction, keeping a single-minded focus on the path before him. Soon, one of the battle’s many fronts appeared in the distance, funneled and focused through Manehattan’s narrow streets.
Sinisteeds, manticores, minotaurs, and gods knew what else struggled fiercely against the Equestrian army. Earth ponies swung swords at the front, unicorns’ spells flew overhead, and pegasi raced through the air above, dogfighting with other winged enemies. Sinisteeds used everything at their disposal, switchblades, wings, and fangs alike. Neither side seemed to be making much progress.
All of the soldiers before him seemed to be regulars, dressed in normal steel armor. As he ran, he passed another platoon of soldiers, methodically marching forward to reinforce their comrades. He happened to catch the gaze of a green unicorn as he passed. He looked scared.
Lucky wondered where the Maiden’s Battalion was. Somewhere useful, he hoped. Apple Crumble was a capable leader, he would be sure to keep them fighting. Of course, he had no time to find them – there were more important things to do.
He had a promise to keep.
**********
An enormous gout of flame erupted from the alicorn’s gaping maw. It burned the air before her, the torrent splashing against stone as it hit the brick of a nearby tower.
A moment later, she closed her mouth, and the inferno was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Six blackened bodies fell from the sky, trailing smoke as they spiraled downwards. She watched, a savage satisfaction rising within her. The lifeless husks crunched as they hit the ground, dead long before they reached it.
Another sinisteed had been out of range and continued to fly away from her, scarcely sparing a glance for its fallen brethren, fleeing as fast as its insect wings would carry it. Her brows furrowed, her face twisting into a ferocious snarl. Her glowing eyes flashed a brighter orange and her wings spread just a little wider.
She shot forward, a stream of rocketing fire trailing swiftly after her. The air itself seemed to whine beneath the pressure as she closed in on her target, covering the distance almost instantly. Her arms stretched out and she caught the sinisteed midair, both hooves slamming into the center of its mass. Quickly, she retracted her wings and let herself into a controlled fall, grabbing the sinisteed and forcing it down with her.
She was deaf to its pained cries, and barely felt it struggling at the end of her hooves. After a hundred yards of falling, the stone rushed forward to meet them.
She landed on all fours, a volcanic eruption of fire encompassing her as she did so. The fiery light blinded her for a moment, a ringing explosion filling her ears.
After it was gone, she looked towards her hooves. The street lay cracked and shattered beneath her. A shallow crater had formed, of which she was standing in the center. Her touchdown had completely crushed the enemy she had taken with her. Its blood boiled and evaporated away before it could stain her.
She gave one last triumphant sneer at the crumpled form beneath her, and looked up. Surrounding her was a horde of all sorts of creatures – sinisteeds, mostly, but many other abominations dotted the mass here and there. She had landed in the exact center of them. More than one had been ripped apart by the force of her impact.
She felt the combined gazes of the monsters.
Some ponies thought the monsters could not feel fear. She smiled. Those ponies were wrong. They feared her.
She had been wreaking havoc for long enough to catch the attention of the battlefield, to send her message loud and clear. Some in the surrounding mob were already running or flying away. Many others were cautiously backing off, baring their teeth and hissing in fear, cowering away from the heat that emanated from her body. They thought twice about making the choice to attack her.
Without hesitating, she made the choice for them.
She reared back on her hind legs, and her horn took on an orange glow. Then, coming back down, she gave her head a powerful swing forward, and a huge stream of fire lashed against the ground like a whip, consuming many dozens of creatures. Without waiting for retaliation, she did the same thing in another direction, then another, and then jumped out into the crowd with arms extended, her hooves glowing with fiery power.
Any tact she had learned in training was completely forgotten. It was so easy to simply attack her targets with no repercussion. Sinisteeds were slow and susceptible to fire. Their wings practically shriveled up in her presence. Manticores faltered at the sight of her, fruitlessly swiping at her in an animalistic defense. Minotaurs simply fled, letting their fear and better judgment take hold of them. In the distance, a hydra perked up all four of its heads to discover the source of the commotion, but for once, did not immediately charge the threat.
Only a short ways away, an entire battle seemed to pause at her appearance. The monsters were contending with some sort of Equestrian force, all armored in gold, yet the minute she had landed, almost all nearby conflict had stopped to pay her attention.
She did not care for the progress of some inconsequential battle. The petty warring of other ponies did not concern her. She only wanted one thing.
Swift arcs of fire traced through the air as she punched and kicked and bucked, without method and without pause. Whenever her hooves met their target, a concussive explosion would mark the blow and fling its recipient far back, assuming it was still in one piece. Unquenchable flame was thrown this way and that with indiscriminate rage. More than once, she would give her wings a single, powerful flap, and a wave of fire would sweep the area before her. Snarls, shouts, and enraged roars tore themselves from her lips as she flung herself recklessly in every direction.
Lucky’s combat style was nimble, versatile, powerful, and elegant, she idly remembered, as if he were dancing with death. But she did not dance with death. She dealt it.
Who was this ‘Lucky’, anyways? She racked her brain trying to think about it, but nothing came to her. It must have been because he was nopony. Nopony at all.
And yet, she could not subdue the thought. Like a single, fraying strand of thread reining her in, a memory nagged at the back of her mind. It should have been so easy to complete the thought, to break that thread, but every time she tried, it was so unexpectedly difficult. That mental image simply stayed there, nothing more, nothing less – a somber frown, and a pair of blue eyes that stared in disappointment.
She just wanted to forget!
She bucked a manticore square in the chest; it exploded away from her, blown backwards by a concussive, fiery blast. Burning hoofprints were branded into what was left of its collapsed ribcage.
Who was anypony? Names, faces, personalities… they all faded from her mind. Memory eluded her. Had she ever had any friends? Did that even matter? A barrage of fireballs stemmed from her horn, chasing down a crowd that was now actively fleeing from her. Each decimated at least one monster.
What even was her name? She tried hard, but could not remember. But why should that matter? She felt amazing. And she did not need an identity. Fire did not feel, it did not care. It simply burned. Burned with singular purpose. The “why” did not matter; only “how”.
She was fire; a weapon, and naught else.
She shouted, and another gout of flame erupted from her wide-open mouth. A dozen creatures were burned to ashes.
The streets of this place were filled with the enemy, and by now, they were in full retreat. The air was filled with them, flying this way and that. They were so thick in the air, any given attack would have hit at least a few targets. She lazily took aim and shot a fireball into the air, which exploded in the midst of them. In the orange glow of the street, savage triumph lit up on her face. Eight sinisteeds dropped like flies. A ninth struggled to stay airborne, its wings having caught fire. Eventually, it crashed headlong into a building, then fell to the ground.
But there were more, always more. Her brow furrowed; bloodlust resumed its place on her expression, and she erupted into the fray.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of sinisteeds fell to her, and she did not grow any wearier for it. On the contrary, her heart only seemed to beat faster and faster and faster. At least two hydras were burnt to a crisp. A squad of brave archers fired at her – most of the arrows were dodged or burned, but two found their mark, burying themselves deep in her shoulder. Her own blood sizzled as it trickled down her fur. After breathing fire through the windows of the building the archers were entrenched in, she came to a stop on all four hooves. She closed her eyes and growled. Suddenly, her body became impossibly hotter, the veins of orange streaking across her fur glowing even brighter. The arrow shafts were incinerated, and the wounds were instantly cauterized.
The longer she fought, the greater her bloodlust grew. At least a third of the city was on fire by now, and the hordes of enemies were thinning out. This battle was hers; yet, it would not stop here. She would hunt them until they were extinct – she would find where they lived, where they grew, where they bred, and she would burn the place to ashes. Then, she would find him, the demon who started it all – and she would scorch him till he begged for death.
But until then, she had work to do.
“Celestia!”
She crouched low, stretched her wings…
“Celestia!”
She stopped, and blinked. The twisted scowl on her face lightened, losing some of its fierce edge. “What?” she grumbled aloud. It was almost a whisper, confused and annoyed, as if responding to a statement that made no sense. Her wings slowly folded, and she wheeled around to the source of the noise.
Through the chaos – the fleeing sinisteeds, the burning buildings that surrounded them on all sides, the pony soldiers who did not know whether to retreat or advance – she saw somepony galloping directly towards her, clad in heavy golden armor. As the crowds continued to scatter, friend and foe alike, he drew closer and closer, no eye for anything but her. He dodged around obstacles, ponies, and enemies, paying them no mind as they paid him no mind. She watched with fascination, unease, and of course, inexplicable hatred in her heart, until there was nothing in between her and the soldier. And he was still coming.
She tensed up, ready to destroy him, and slowly, the soldier came to a stop. He was within talking distance, but kept a cautious gap between them. She idly noticed a nearly unrecognizable building to the right of him – the church, still very much aflame, quenched but a little by the rain.
“Celestia!” the voice called again. It was definitely that of a stallion’s; it wavered oddly between confidence and concern and fear. For some reason, or no reason at all, she did not want this pony anywhere near her.
“Go away!” she yelled back. She huffed threateningly through her nostrils. The air rippled and distorted with heat under her nose.
Though his expression was hidden by his half-helm, she could sense his apprehension. Regardless, he took a few steps forward.
“I just want to talk,” he said.
“Stop!” she shouted, her voice rising in volume and, oddly enough, panic. “Go away!”
He had no response for that, electing instead to simply stare, tilting his head as if he were studying her. She hated that. But some inexplicable thing in the back of her mind – morbid curiosity, perhaps – locked her hooves to the ground, stopping her from flying away or attacking him.
His front hoof picked up off the ground, and she tensed up again. He stopped suddenly and watched her, but did not put his hoof back down. Slowly, carefully, he reached up to his helmet, unlatched some strap, and pulled it off his head. Strands of an orange mane fell away from the headgear, sticky with sweat and drenched with rainwater. His grey coat was similarly wet, made one shade darker by the rain. His blue eyes were somehow brighter.
“Celestia-”
“No!” she bellowed. “I don’t want to talk!” She stamped her hoof onto the stone. A small inferno erupted around her hoof as she did. It flickered out just as quick.
Her body seemed to glow even brighter, the dual blazes that were her tail and mane growing noticeably in size and intensity.
His brows raised, and he cast her a pitiful, sorrowful look. She hated that, too.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said calmly. His voice was just as loud as it needed to be to reach her above the din of burning buildings and distant battle.
She glared at him. A vein pulsed in her temple. He’s lying, she thought. Her eyes narrowed, and a snarl appeared on her lips.
“Go. Away.” Her tone was full of utter malice.
He took another step forward. She backed the same distance away and aggressively spread her wings, a thousand tiny sparks trailing away from them as they flared open.
“Celestia…”
“No.”
He took another step forward, she took another step back.
“Celestia, please, you need to try and calm-”
“Stop it!”
He took another step forward and reached a hoof in her direction.
“Celestia-”
“Stop saying that!”
In the next instant she was airborne, an explosion of fire launching her directly towards him, flame still trailing from her extended hooves. Both hooves were aimed for his exposed neck, right above his armored collar. In less than a second, he would be dead, and she could forget him.
But it never happened. In the moment her attack should have connected, she instead met nothing but air. Her eyes widened as she fumbled in midair, all four limbs scrambling to readjust themselves. She was moving too quick; she hit the ground wrong and tumbled, completing a few uncoordinated rolls against the cobblestone street before righting herself to her hooves, but not without a few new scratches. She quickly looked over herself before bringing her gaze back up, her eyes full of fury.
Her target was recovering from his own roll. Impossibly, he had anticipated the attack and moved perfectly to avoid it – dodging almost before she had even moved.
She growled, and her body burned brighter. Her wings deployed. She was upon him before he could even think about speaking again. This time, her dive was slightly more controlled. He met her head on.
Bringing up his hooves in front of himself, Lucky caught her hooves on the armor of his forearms and shifted with the force of the thrust, using her own immense force to throw her off balance to his side. She managed not to fall over, but overextended her front legs before bringing herself back up, taking a backhanded swipe at him. He ducked, and her hoof went flying over his head. Recovering faster than Lucky thought possible, she jabbed another hoof in his direction, launching a powerful punch aimed at his skull. He edged back, effortlessly dodging it. The strike stopped an inch away from his face.
Then, a jet of fire exploded away from the end of her hoof. He flinched and tried to twist out of the way. Fire licked at his cheek before he was able to knock her hoof away and jump back.
“You need to listen to me!” he shouted, clutching at the right side of his face. Behind his hoof, smoke appeared to rise from it. Before she could get a good look at it, he slammed his golden half-helm back on. “I don’t want to fight!”
She barely seemed to hear him. Almost immediately she was upon him once more, jabbing at him, one hoof after the other in a barrage of furious, reckless blows. The end of each thrust was marked with a small burst of fire where her hoof had been. He twisted around her attacks, evading just as much as he needed to, the air searing with heat around him. Her form was enraged and clumsy, but any one of the blows would have been deadly, and even if the attack itself missed, the fire always caught him, at least a little bit. It was all he could do to squint into the searing heat and pouring rain, evading attack after attack, waiting for an opening while rapidly overheating in his heavy armor.
His own weapons were sheathed, and he never used them. His desire, his goal, was to save her. If that meant doing her harm, he would do it; but he was not here to kill her. And yet, for all his desire, the only thing he could do was dodge and deflect and run away. It was all his Luck ever told him to do. And with good reason; he could hardly even touch her without hurting himself.
Lucky jumped back just before Celestia let loose a wave of fire, seeming to come from her opened wings. He galloped away as it rolled towards him, diving behind the protection of a large chunk of debris, broken off from one of the nearby buildings. He put his back to it, and the wave broke on the stone.
As fire dissipated, and the air rippled with stifling heat around him, Lucky began to wonder about his goal. Could it be done? Could she be knocked out? And then what, would she revert back? Or did he aim to keep trying to talk her out of it? He might just as well be speaking to a rabid animal.
He was not here to kill her. But neither would he let himself die. Lucky drew his sword.
Claymore in his mouth, he dodged away, and a moment later Celestia’s form came crashing down to where he had just been, all four hooves stomping into the cobblestone of the street. He rolled with the inevitable force that followed, and righted himself after being pushed a full ten feet away. She did not intend to relent, and, immediately following her realization that she had missed, she galloped towards Lucky, teeth bared, eyes glowing, mane and tail burning brighter than ever.
He lifted his sword and set himself in a ready stance. Renewed vigor shone in his eyes. He counted himself fortunate that she did not simply decide to drown the street in flame; perhaps, for some reason, she had decided she would destroy him with her own hooves. Perhaps a burning death would have been too quick.
Lucky had only a second to think about it. In the next moment, they were fighting again.
She did not seem to care about his drawn weapon or long reach, throwing herself into him with berserker rage. She punched and bucked at him with her hooves, which he dodged under and around, struggling to breathe in the trailing heat. He reeled as she buffeted him with a wing, and then followed it up by reaching her head forth and biting down on his shoulder. Lucky yelped in surprise and pain, and tried to shake her off. Her jaw only clamped down harder. After a few seconds, Lucky managed to elbow her in the temple and wrench her away.
Disengaging from the combat for just a moment, he looked down at his shoulder. She had gotten around the plate and bitten into the chainmail underneath. A section of it was completely crushed and gone, and his shoulder looked as though it had been gored by an animal. Blood flowed freely out of the wound, pumping in time with his heartbeat.
The reprieve was not long, and soon she was upon him again. Lucky put up his best defense, flinching every time his right foreleg hit the ground. The fight went on. He knew he was losing.
However, after a long and merciless barrage of attacks, she overextended her reach, and Lucky’s eyes widened as he saw his chance. He ducked and caught hold of her thrusting hoof from below, directing its force over his head. Before she had the chance to retaliate, he closed the distance between their bodies and, with his free hoof, punched her in the stomach, hard.
Celestia wheezed, and her eyes widened. She tried feebly to pull away, only to feel him give her a small push. She stumbled backwards.
Lucky’s eyes narrowed as he took aim.
Swing left.
With only a moment’s hesitation, he swung his neck and body to the left, putting what strength he had left into the claymore gripped in his teeth. The force fully met Celestia’s side. She was sent reeling in one direction, still managing to stay on all fours.
Lucky blinked. Instead of being cut in half, as he had expected, she was merely stunned. He did not mean to kill her – only years of practice had given him the confidence to trust his gift in such a way – but that attack should have, regardless of what Luck told him. His gaze strayed to the claymore itself, and he found his answer.
At some point during their fight, or perhaps as he swung it just now, the edge had been rendered harmless, heated and melted to the point of being not only dull, but completely blunt. Now, it might as well have been a slightly pointy metal stick. It had left a long, claymore-shaped mark in her hide, and that was it. He did not know if he was grateful or not.
Celestia took infrequent, sharp breaths as she struggled to refill her lungs, but gasped as Lucky’s blade connected with her side again, and then again, her eyes widening with each blow. One of the blows glanced off of her head. She stumbled backwards, stars filling her vision. She let loose a panicked roar and a cone of flame, aimlessly spewing it in a wide arc before her.
The stream was suddenly, violently cut off as her stomach was met with the huge force of a two-legged buck. Her entire weight was lifted off the ground, and after a moment of sickening free fall, she crashed onto her side, skidding to a stop on the pavement several yards away.
Her world became a blur of dizzying stars and a confusing blend of chaotic sounds. Her head was pounding, and the pain in her stomach was unbearable. Any second now, she was sure she was going to vomit. The fire of her mane and tail seemed to die down by degrees. She clutched at her stomach and rolled to her other side, moaning.
“You must stop this!” a voice said, much too loud. “The enemy is routed. Ponies could get hurt!”
No. She could not stop, not until it was finished, and he could not make her. Fire spread until it had nothing left to catch. A force of nature could not be negotiated with.
Her mane and tail burned lower and dimmer. Her legs shook as she struggled to prop herself up and failed, collapsing a small distance back to the ground. She tried to growl in frustration, but ended up retching instead, grasping at her stomach and moaning. Sickened by her pain, she allowed a glob of dribble to ooze off of her lip before spitting.
“Stay down!” he shouted, in almost a pleading tone. She was beginning to wonder if she had a choice. Nevertheless, she continued to try to stand.
“You’re being stupid! Don’t give into the fire. It’s consuming you!”
Finally, she was on all four hooves, head low, reeling with nausea.
All was quiet for a moment. Then, he spoke up. “You’re better than this!”
Pain suddenly forgotten, she sprang to her hooves, eyes flashing with rage.
“Shut up!”
Lucky was only a small distance away. She opened her mouth and roared, letting loose a huge jet of flame, the monstrous inferno the biggest and hottest she had ever made it. There was no evading, no time to react; Lucky could only close his eyes and cringe, protectively throwing one arm up before it completely engulfed him, as well as the entirety of the street behind him.
She breathed and breathed and breathed, holding the flame for what seemed like minutes. After she could breathe no more, she finally released her hold on the inferno, and it dissipated into a dozen tiny flames, burning themselves out in the air. She watched as the last of it, a pinwheel of fire, spun out and vanished. Then, her gaze wandered downward, to where Lucky Break had been standing. There was nothing.
Her panting breath was heavy and frequent, but she allowed herself a savage grin. Reduced to ashes, like all the rest.
Her triumph turned to surprise as a pair of strong arms wrapped around her neck, and a force pushed her from behind. Instinctively, she swung with the weight and brought it flailing around before her; Lucky was alive and relatively unharmed.
She breathed fire again, but he was too quick; with a hoof under her chin, he shoved her head upwards, and she only managed to hit the bell tower of the nearby church building with a failing flame. She brought her hoof up and punched, but it was a weak attack, stopping ineffectually on his plate armor.
As the heat rippled away from the dying fire that burst forth from her mouth, a heat that should have easily incinerated him, Lucky thanked the gods above for the existence of magic. He considered asking Clover for a fire protection spell every time he went into battle.
The flame from her mouth awkwardly petered out, her jaw being forcefully closed at painful angle. How is he still alive?
A growl rumbled deep in her throat. Why won’t he die?
She brought her head down and around, twirling free from his hoof. Before he could do anything else, her horn took on a sudden glow, and a small explosion encompassed her on all sides. Lucky abandoned his position and was forced back a small ways, his hooves sliding across the stone.
Lucky growled, and looked up. Celestia, or the mare that once was Celestia, was already launching her next attack, a fireball launching from the tip of her horn. He jumped away. It splashed on the ground next to him, just catching him in the edge of the flame. Another one was already heading his direction; he rolled out of its path as swiftly as he could. His dodge was even less effective this time. Another one came, then another, and another. Soon, she was breathing fire at him while he tried to evade, jumping over, under, and once, through the stream to escape its full fury.
The fire protection spell was useful, life-saving even – but its power was not infinite. A thin outline of purple sputtered weakly every time he was hit, glowing dimmer and dimmer.
Celestia dove towards him again, teeth bared, eyes full of rage, this time complementing her physical attacks with bursts of flame that exploded out in all directions, something even he could not dodge. The assault wore down on him and the magic that surrounded him. Either his strength would wane, and she would catch him with her blades, or the magic would dispel, and he would be burned to a crisp.
Yet, he could not bring himself to make his goal anything but “save her”. The words would not go away. And his gift, his Luck, did not inspire him to do anything beyond dodging the next blow, and the next. Amidst the chaos of it all, looking at her twisted, hate-filled expression, the same, horrible thought kept recurring to him. Perhaps it was the reason he was not making progress.
What if it is impossible?
Eventually, the inevitable happened. Lucky did not quite dodge precisely enough, and the edge of a fireball’s explosion caught him, picking him up off the ground and dumping him many yards away. He did not absorb the landing very well, his head hitting the stone several times as he tumbled.
His ears rang, and his head pounded. Blood rushed through his skull, pumping out of a gash just above his left brow, blinding him in that eye. His limbs were weak, almost too weak to move. They trembled as he attempted to set his hooves underneath himself. He failed once, and tried again.
Lucky heard the sound of walking hoofsteps approaching him, and he knew it was too late. He wiped the blood out of his eye, and looked up.
Celestia, wreathed in fire, walked slowly towards him, pupil-less glowing orange eyes fixed fast upon his. She stopped a modest distance away, five or six body lengths. Her lips quivered with hate.
Lucky wondered vaguely if he was going to die. The goddess of fortune was, after all, telling him to simply stay put. Perhaps she had simply decided it was his time. The idea did not seem so bad.
But then, in the corner of his eye, Lucky saw something. He turned to view it more fully, and immediately understood.
“W-wait,” he said, weakly sputtering the words as he turned back.
Her expression did not bear the slightest hint of change.
Lucky shuffled backwards, sliding himself away from her. She merely advanced at the same pace.
“Think about what you’re doing,” Lucky mumbled. “This isn’t right. There are ponies who want to see you return. Clover. Crumble. Cotton. Your comrades in the battalion. Your friends.”
She silently continued walking forward, showing no signs of slowing down.
“Remember who you are!” Lucky implored, as loud as his raspy voice would allow. “Who you really are. Inside of you is a pony who cares, who wants to do the right thing. Who is generous, kind, loyal… fiercely devoted to her cause.”
Lucky ceased crawling backwards. His limbs could no longer handle it. She stopped with him, still the same distance away.
“You are more than a weapon.”
She tilted her head back, drawing breath, gathering fire in her lungs. Lucky knew he would not survive another blast of flame like the last.
“Remember who you really are…” Lucky mumbled. He knew she could not hear him. “...Celestia.”
She reared forward again. Lucky closed his eyes. A gout of flame shot forth from her maw-
Boom!
Without warning, the sound of a tremendous crash filled the air, and a massive tremor shook the ground. The air filled with a cacophony of crashing noises; wood scraped and splintered, metal grinded and creaked, and bursting hydraulics whined and hissed and exploded. It was as loud and tumultuous as anything Lucky had ever heard – and Lucky had heard many things in his lifetime.
The pandemonium continued for ten long seconds, the object of its origin sliding swiftly away from him, shrieking as if it was utter agony. Eventually, the noises came to a grinding halt.
Slowly, Lucky reopened his eyes. Settling in the dust, a hundred yards away from him, was what remained of a colossal frigate-class airship, its armor completely peeled off and its hull ground to pieces. The balloon that kept it aloft was in tatters, draping over the wreckage like a blanket.
Just in time, it had landed in between him and his certain death. He knew it would.
Buildings had been ripped into on both sides of the street, as if it had been raked by the claws of some massive beast. Bits of the hull were scattered here and there. He even spied a fully intact cannon sitting upright in the middle of the street.
Celestia was nowhere to be seen.
Had she been carried away with the wreckage? He looked long and hard, but from where he was laying, there was no sign of her. Lucky closed his eyes, and lowered his head a little. Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps the only way to save her was to kill her.
His heart fluttered with despair, and his last thoughts were of her, before his head lifelessly fell to the ground.
**********
It was a long time before the fires began to die down.
The attack storm sent over Manehattan to weaken the enemy was only scheduled to last three days, but after seeing the state of the city, they decided to extend it one day longer. Despite being thoroughly waterlogged, half the city seemed to be on fire, and the other half was already in decay. Being the dense urban center of population that it was, the flames had no trouble leaping from building to building, despite the sturdy brick construction. All the fireponies in Equestria would not have been able to handle the inferno alone.
Apple Crumble sighed, overlooking the scene as he moved slowly through the city, rain bouncing off his red wings as he fought to stay airborne in the wind. He had undressed from his armor, now wearing only light chainmail. A cloak was draped over his body, and a hood was drawn over his blonde-grey mane. Both were flapping wildly in the wind. It was supposed to help him stay warm and dry, but had long since been completely soaked through. He counted himself fortunate to have been blessed with a thick skin; perhaps the hypothermia would be kept at bay.
Besides, search and rescue could not wait for the storm to pass. This city needed help, and it needed help now.
It had been six hours since the battle had stopped. They were still finding pockets of resistance in the large city, stray beasts and cowering squads of sinisteeds, but the enemy had largely been routed. Their job now, his job, was to find and rescue civilians and survivors. Of which, there were many.
Crumble had witnessed the aftermath of countless battles in his lifetime, but nothing like this. He almost flinched as he banked around a corner and into view of yet another site of conflict. An entire battalion of soldiers lay dead, scattered among an entire battalion of monsters. Rescue ponies were already searching the lot for anypony living, unicorns shining cones of magelight across piles of corpses. They did not look to be having much success. Of course, this was what practically the whole city looked like.
Bodies, everywhere, of every kind. Pegasus, unicorn, earth pony, sinisteed, manticore – in the end, it did not matter. They contributed to the scene of carnage, one and all, and after it stopped raining, the stench of decay would be awful unto overpowering, Crumble knew. And the destruction. Gods, the destruction! He would not have believed it, had he not seen it with his own eyes. Buildings had been leveled. Entire streets had been torn up. Landscapes were changed. Whole districts of the city were simply gone. Crushed by colossal monsters, ripped apart by cannonfire, or...
Crumble gulped as he passed a residential tower still actively on fire, a team of fireponies doing their best to control the blaze. He hoped no civilians were trapped inside.
Even if the battle was over, the panic was still very much present, and the despair was even stronger than it was before, especially among the civilians. There had been many more than they had expected – almost five times the amount. Discord had fed them false information. Had fed him false information, he thought, anger rising within him. And for it, their rescuers had been woefully unprepared. There had not been enough room aboard the airships to evacuate everypony; and even if there had been, only a fraction of them had been able to escape. Their rescue team, storm dropping through the clouds – discovered before they had even started. Their specialist armies, crossing the Manehattan channel, intent on surprising the enemy – slaughtered on the shores. As with so many times before, Discord had tricked them. And the worst part was, nopony knew how.
As Crumble thought about it, nopony knew how they had taken the city, either. Something had happened. Stories of an angel, wreathed in hellfire, circulated through the ranks. It had aided their army, they said. “The Phoenix”, they were calling it. An avatar of the gods, sent to help them in their need.
Crumble had reserved his judgement. For something that had supposedly helped them, this “Phoenix” did not seem to care who or what was caught in the destruction. Amidst all that chaos, his friend and commander Lucky Break, along with their beloved recruit Celestia, were lost. And it was the Phoenix’s fault.
Amidst his thoughts and searching, a voice reached him above the wind. “Sir!”
He slowed himself to a stop and turned around, hovering in place as best he could. A pegasus scout, one of his own battalion, was fast approaching him.
“Sir!” he repeated, without waiting for a reply. “We’ve found him! Come, quick!”
Without hesitation, they took off. The pegasus led him through a maze of streets, past countless scenes of carnage, until they came to an intersection, on the corner of which was what looked like the remains of a crumbled church. He immediately spotted a soldier of the Maiden’s Battalion, still clad in his armor, lying motionlessly in the center of the street. Other pegasi were already surrounding him, checking the body. Crumble quickly descended, hoping against hope that this pony was who he thought it was, and that, whoever it was, they were still alive.
He touched down next to the pegasus that led him here, a puddle splashing away from his hooves as he did.
“Move it!” Crumble barked as he trotted forward. “Make way, let me see ‘im!”
A small crowd of soldiers parted as he came closer. A physician was already at the pony’s side, gingerly removing his helmet, and did not move when Crumble approached.
He paused, watching as the metal slid away from the soldier’s head. Wet locks of an orange mane fell free, revealing a rain soaked muzzle. His eyes were already opened at narrow slits, as if he had just woken up in the morning. Icy blue eyes moved to find his gaze.
“There you are,” Lucky croaked.
Crumble breathed a sigh of relief, as did many of the soldiers around him.
“Gods, boy,” Crumble growled. “Yeh had us worried.”
Lucky closed his eyes, and would have let his head fall limp again were it not for the doctor propping it up, working to remove the armor straps around his neck.
“Yeh look...” Crumble glanced up and down his body. He spotted deep, new scratches all over his armor. The plate above his right shoulder looked as though it were completely ripped away, with a hoof-sized piece of chainmail crushed and gone. There were scorch marks everywhere, both on his fur and armor. It would take a bit of work to fix that up. The colt would have been entirely ugly, had the Royal Magi not invented a spell to regrow fur over scars and burns. Still, they never completely disappeared, and Lucky would be keeping more than one of the burns as a reminder.
“...well-done.”
Lucky gave a weak laugh. “I feel well-done.”
Crumble allowed himself a smile. The doctor called in another pony to help him, and together, they began dressing his wounds.
“Lucky,” Crumble said over their shoulders, his voice lowering in tone and volume. “Where is she?”
Lucky’s smile faded, a despondent frown taking its place. His eyes weakly opened, and he peered back at Crumble. He was never good at interpreting expression, and Lucky was never very expressive, but almost immediately, Crumble recognized the misery and sorrow in his gaze.
Gradually, Lucky’s eyes wandered up and away, peering down the street. Crumble followed his gaze to the wrecked hull of a downed airship, barely recognizable as anything but a massive heap of wood and metal.
Thirty seconds later, Crumble stood atop the wreckage with half a dozen other soldiers, all digging at the wreckage with all haste. Boards were pulled out of their places, bent nails still stuck in the ends, and sheet metal was ripped away. Axes and swords were hefted and brought down upon the debri, cleaving through it bit by bit, until finally, the hull was breached.
Many of the airship’s interior rooms, it seemed, were still intact. Crumble was the first to drop through. He looked around. A dim shaft of light filtered through the hole they had made. The space was small and wooden. It must have been a storage area; wheat and produce were scattered everywhere. A cabinet was nailed to the ceiling. The ship was upside-down, he realized.
“Celestia?” he called. There was no reply.
His comrades dropped in after him. After a few quick orders, they spread out amongst the interior of the ship, scouring the gloomy corridors and rooms for signs of life. Rain pattered on the wood and metal overhead, creating in a distant, lonely ambience.
As far as Crumble could tell, the place was devoid of life; the ship itself seemed utterly dead. Unicorns’ horns beamed with magelight, and it was the only source of light in the cramped depths of ship. Some areas had to be dug into to access, and in many cases, they only found more dead ends.
Worse than all that were the corpses, bodies of crewponies, mostly pegasi, mangled and torn beyond recognition. Most had probably abandoned ship when it began going down, but more than a few had been stuck in the bowels of the ship when it had happened. A particularly gruesome sight, a pegasus impaled on a wooden beam, made him shudder and look away.
Crumble sighed. This place had long since stopped being an airship. Now, it was only a tomb.
“Lieutenant!” a voice called from the deep, nearly making him jump. “I’ve got something!”
It came from below him, echoing up from another level. Crumble, as well as everypony else, wasted no time in navigating through the corridors to find the source.
He burst into a room at the end of a hall; the captain’s quarters, judging by the higher-quality furnishings of the place. Of course, everything that had not been nailed down was thrown into a state of chaos – and everything that had been nailed down was now on the ceiling.
In one corner, a rescue unicorn was levitating a light wooden bookshelf off of the form of another pony, collapsed, unmoving, and partially buried in a pile of wooden debris. Tufts of pink mane stuck through here and there, and though bloodied, the white coat was familiar enough. Crumble walked closer.
“Oh, sunshine...” he muttered.
Her head, neck, the front half of her torso, and her right hoof were the only things visible. Everything else was buried. Her mouth was slightly agape, and a thin stream of blood trickled underneath her eye and down her cheek. She showed no signs of life. Crumble drew closer, calmly put his hoof to the base of her neck, and closed his eyes.
Five long seconds passed. Crumble scowled, and pressed harder. Another five seconds passed... and he felt it. It was weak, it was slow, but there.
Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump.
Crumble removed his hoof, but did not allow himself to feel relief. They still had to remove the debris, evacuate her back through the ship, and get her to a field hospital. There was no guarantee she would survive all of that.
“And if you do,” Crumble muttered to himself, “Yeh’ll have a tale or two to tell when you wake up.”