Odrsjot

by Imploding Colon


When Chaos Came Early

A patch of flak exploded off the Noble Jury's stern, throwing the entire ship forward.

"Ooof!" Ebon slumped hard against the back of Floydien's seat. He looked up, his wincing muzzle lit up by streaming serpents and explosions. "So, when do you think the 'fireworks' are gonna start?!"

"Floydien doesn't need sailboat's spit!" The elk channeled mana through his horns and into the ship's cockpit, causing the Jury to dip as low as possible, avoiding most of the errant shells and manablasts. The trenches of the wasteland loomed beyond the ship's rattling windshield, full of soldiers from both sides scurrying for their lives. "Keep with it, Nancy! The sky just has a disagreement with itself! Yes yes yessss!"

Everypony in the cockpit grabbed ahold of something as the Jury lifted up, skirted over the muddy surfaces of the battlefield, and lifted back up amidst explosions and artillery fire.

Shuddering, Props stammered, "H-how are we supposed to find Rainbow Dash in all of this cray-cray?!"

"I'm trying my best to spot her!" Eagle Eye shouted from deckside. He clung to the cockpit's entrance, his mane billowing from the ashen winds as he gazed thinly into the air battle around them. "There's just too much to take in!"

"Never mind Rainbow Dash!" Pilate shouted. "She can take care of herself!" His striped features hardened. "The Steel Wing! My beloved's on board! Is Shell's ship in one piece?!"

"Uhhhhh..." Eagle Eye paled as a chunk of burning wood flew off the vessel in question.

"Well?!" Pilate barked. "Eagle?!"

Eagle glanced back with a nervous titter. "Define 'in one piece.'"


"Aaaaaaugh!" A Ledomaritan crew member flew off the Steel Wing's shattered edge, flailing. Several shrieking stallions galloped across the fresh smoke and debris, furiously trying to prime the cannons.

The ship rocked, leaning hard to its starboard side as it banked towards the east. The deck slanted, dipping under Bellesmith's loose hooves.

"Unngh!" she gasped, slipped, and rolled several times. Her body plunged towards a battered piece of the hull. Deathly gray battlements loomed far below. She clenched her eyes shut and prepared for the fatal fall.

A strong hoof grabbed her by the tail at the last second and hoisted her onto a sturdy stack of crates. Breathless, she looked up, her body encased by a shadow.

"Fret not, dearest Imre," Shell snarled, turning to give the body of the Lightning Bearer a wicked, one-eyed glare through the smoke. "I shall vanquish our enemies until there is nothing left but the shriveled husks that they were born as."

Evans trotted up, coughing, his body covered with ash and soot. "S-sir! The enemy ship!" He pointed a shaky hoof. "They're coming about!"

"Well, won't they be damned?!" Shell spat. "We're coming about to!"

"But sir, between their cannons and those horrible abominations—" Evans shook as a wooden chunk of a mast fell between them. "We can't survive another wave!"

"Neither will they..." Shell jumped up onto a stack of crates and shouted. "Hear me, my little ponies! Focus on their demons aflight! I'll take care of the rest!"

"Sir...?" Evans stammered.

"Keep bringing us about! Ready the port side cannons!" He jumped down and approached the bow as the shadow of the Lightning Bearer loomed closer through the smoke and madness. "Fire at my command!"

"Aye, sir!"

"Aye sir!"

"Sons and daughters of Ledo!" Evans hollered. "Muster your courage! The enemy approaches!"

Shivering, Belle clutched to the stack of crates where she was situated. Her chestnut eyes darted towards the explosive skies. There was still no sign of the Jury. She exhaled with a shudder.

"Here they come!" shouted a stallion. His outburst was soon followed by waves of shrieks as an entire line of serpents darted their way. Some of the larger vipers were being ridded by Xonans with magically sparkling polearms in their hooves.

"Ready your manarifles, ponies!" Evans shouted.

Shell, in the meantime, stood at the railing's edge. Sneering, he unsheathed two double-sided tasers. The weapons flickered to life, slicing the air with vibrant energy on either side of him. He spun the weapons like burning pinwheels right as the serpents descended. He held his ground, slicing several of the creatures to ribbons. Soon, the swarm was hurling straight past him, scraping past his already battered body.

With a prolonged growl, Shell bravely stood his place. Cuts and bruises sliced across his flesh. Panting, he looked up. A single Xonan rider guided his serpent towards the Prime Enforcer, raising his polearm high.

Grunting, Shell lifted one of his tasers up and tossed it forward like a javelin. The weapon smashed through four snakes before embedding chest-deep in the armor of the gasping Xonan. Firing a charge of mana into the impaled soldier, Shell exploded the taser from the inside out. The Xonan turned to red mist, and the large serpent he was riding careened blindly into the hull of the Steel Wing. As its body flailed and fell, it was grabbed in glowing telekinesis. Writhing, the translucent viper was lifted by Shell, who positioned it just in front of his horn. With deep concentration, he dissolved the monster—one scale at a time—and absorbed the pulsating mana into his horn.

Across the rest of the deck, the attacking swarms were being dealt with by the frenzied crew. Weeks of fear, cabin fever, and food deprivation exploded outward from every pent-up soul. The Ledomaritans attacked each flying enemy with animalistic carnage, shredding the reptilian summons to ribbons. Those who were bitten or injured were carried down below, but they managed to fire a few pot-shots with their manarifles even while retreating.

Belle found herself having to buck and kick a few snakes that made their way to her. It wasn't until a ten-foot long python with flaring dragon crests lunged at her that she felt overpowered. She fell back on her flanks, scooting nervously away from the monstrosity. With drooling jaws, it snapped at her neck, only to receive a taser through the skull. Grunting, Prime Enforcer Evans hoisted the massive wyrm over and stomped on its spine. He cast a twitching glance at Belle and reached a hoof down.

Gulping, the mare took his forelimb. The stallion pulled her to her hooves... just as a heavy shadow loomed over the beleaguered vessel. As the snakes cleared, everypony nervously looked up.

The Lightning Bearer was hovering down, lining its virtually undamaged starboard cannons with the Steel Wing's damaged port side.

"Spark save us all..." Evans stammered, then winced at a pulsing glow to his left. He, Belle, and everypony else looked over.

By now, Shell had absorbed the entire viper into his leylines. The very end of his horn shook like a magnetized rod. As the air thundered from the Lightning Bearer's proximity, his eye reopened, glowing with bright blue energy. Snarling, he bent forward on tight limbs.

The first of the Lighting Bearer's cannons fired. Everypony on board the Steel Wing flinched, waiting for the inevitable.

Shell's body slid back, his whole face tensing. Only when the bursting gunpowder cleared could anypony see the enemy's cannonshell levitating in the air between the two ships. Something else sparked around his neck in time with his horn. The blinking light cut through the air like a lonely comet.

From afar, Belle gasped. "Imre...?" Her lips quivered.

She could no longer see the necklace pulsating, for Shell was galloping down the port side. The cannonshell levitated parallel to him, and soon it took on fellow siblings as—one by one—the Lightning Bearer's guns fired, and Shell nimbly caught them.

Evans and the other officers watched with amazement. The flames of war returned to their quivering eyes.

At last, Shell came to the end of his gallop. The last of the Lightning Bearer's cannons fired. After the entire affair, only three shells had gotten past Shell's shield, but the damage was minimal. As flames and chunks of wood fell, Shell collapsed, his telekinetic field loosening. The enemy's projectiles fell towards the earth, where they culminated with dull explosions, but not before Shell lifted his sweaty snout towards the sky and hollered: "Now!!"

Evans slid forward, howling. "Fire!"

The shouts of the Steel Wing's crew almost drowned out the resulting cannon blasts. They caught the stern of the Lightning Bearer before it could pass on by, and every cannon shell hit. Chunks of metal flew from the rear of the enemy vessel. The blasts were so intense that it caused the dreadnaught to pivot in a clockwise fashion, almost clipping the drigibles off the top of the Steel Wing in the process.

The ponies on board Shell's ship were too busy cheering to register the near-miss. Belle watched as Evans ran up to the controls himself, sterring the vessel hard to the right. The Steel Wing swerved dramatically through the air, and in its banking motion, the starboard side lifted up in time to face the underbelly of the burning Lighting Bearer as it thundered past above.

Shell sat up, his ears bleeding from his magical exertion. It didn't stop him from howling, "Shred them apart in Ledo's name!"

"Fire!"

"All starboard cannons! Fire!"


The bottom decks of the Lighting Bearer were instantly decimated. Chunks of debris exploded upward, incinerating Xonan engineers mercilessly as they floundered for safety on the inner levels. Inside the captain's quarter, Princess Lasairfion and her serpents grabbed ahold of whatever they could as the walls collapsed and shattered on either side of them. Huge metal panels fell, murdering screaming maidservants under their toppling weight.

Hissing for breath, Lasairfion gazed out the aperture window.

Through cracked glass, she could see a battlefield engulfed in explosions and intense shelling.

Disheveled, the Xonan monarch only smiled.


Flames erupted across the Lightning Bearer's deck. Xonans scrambled to put out the blazes as Arcshod marched through a plume of smoke, glaring angrily at the Steel Wing from beyond the crooked ship's edge. An officer ran up to him, pleading in a whimpering tongue.

Angrily, Arcshod shoved him away and whistled towards the ponies minding the swiveling gun turrets. The Xonan crew members gazed back at him.

The head stallion pointed towards the battlements below. Shouting, he launched several bloodlusting orders into the air.

Nervously, the Xonans nodded and piloted three out of the four turrets that had survived the most recent bouts of cannonfire. Gears grinding, they swiveled the weapons about and fired on Seclorum's camp below.


Props gasped. "Look!" She pointed at the Lightning Bearer through the careening Jury's windshield. "What's it doing?"

"Looks like it's firing on Seclorum's camp!" Eagle Eye exclaimed.

"Why?!" Ebon shouted. "The Steel Wing could finish 'em off on another pass!"

"I don't think the Xonans are out to win any war here..." Pilate said in a dark tone. "Just wage it..."

"Huh?" Props spun, blinking. The air outside the cockpit lit up with hissing shrieks. She turned to see two Xonan warriors having dismounted from their viper mounts and landed on the ship's open deck. With gleaming scimitars, they marched menacingly towards the cockpit. "Gaaaah! Ebony!" She hopped into the stallion's forelimbs. "Snake ponies! Snaaaaaaaaake ponieeeees!"

"Propsy!" Ebon wheezed, slumping under her weight. "For crying out loud—"

"Glimmer phlegmer!" Floydien shouted, glancing over his shoulder. "No worms allowed on Nancy's flank!"

"Everypony!" Pilate seethed, his runic plate flashing like an alarm. "We have company—"

Snarling, one of the Xonans lunged into the cockpit and lunged first at the zebra's throat.

Clank! A shield of industrial steel blocked the blade.

"Hrrrrgghhh!" Eagle Eye shoved back against the Xonan's sword.

The warrior stumbled back, bumping into his companion. Both tattooed ponies slid into the middle of the Noble Jury's top deck.

With a mad glare, Eagle unsheated his sword. His weapon and shield floated before him as he jumped onto the deck and faced off against the two invaders. The stallions' viper mounts orbited the Noble Jury as it roared through the air battle on sputtering steam thrusters.

After a tense face-off, the two Xonans finally dashed forward. Eagle Eye grunted, deflecting one off with his sword and the other with his shield. He criss-crossed his tools of war, causing the Xonans' blades to intersect. He drew back and then thrust forward again, warding the two off at the same time with his shield, then darted forward with his sword swinging. "Haaaugh!"

Ebon and Props watched nervously as their companion squared off with the two larger attackers. Meanwhile, Floydien had to dip the ship to avoid three managliders streaking past him. Little did the elk know that they were being piloted by Arcshod's stallions, and that they were in rapid pursuit of a prismatically-maned pegasus.

Rainbow Dash dipped low, panting and sweating as she fought to shake off her pursuers. Every other second was filled with bright flashes of light as they fired stream after stream of manablasts at her vulnerable figure. The chase bent low through a muddy path in the middle of Seclorum's camp. Soldiers and medics were running frantically from one tent to another while the Lightning Bearer's gun turrets sent pieces of earth flying sky-high with merciless ordinance. Dead bodies littered the mud, and those ponies who weren't dead found themselves having to fight off waves of otherworldly serpents descending upon them with thrashing fangs. Rifle ponies lined up, firing in loud phalanxes, cutting chunks of the reptilian onslaught to ribbons, but powerless to stop the shelling that continually reduced the battlements to rubble. All the while, the overcast sky boomed from the continual exchange of long-distance cannons between the Steel Wing and the Lightning Bearer above.

A pocket of earth exploded practically beneath Rainbow Dash. She covered her face with twitching forelimbs as she pierced the flying debris. Coming out the other end, she cast a nervous glance past her beating wings.

The managliders closed in. The Xonans on board reloaded the ships' mana cartridges. Crystalline dust flew into the air as they trained their sights on the pegasus and prepared to fire.

That was when the first of the three vessels exploded in brilliant flames.

Rainbow Dash gasped. Her left ear twitched, so she shot a glance to the east.

Heavy machinery had lined up across the trenches. Lights flashed. The air whistled.

A second managlider exploded. The leftover chunks fell, rolled across the ground, and careened into a Ledomaritan tent where it burst into chaotic flames. The last glider veered off, breaking from its chase and climbing high into the sky.

Rainbow Dash ascended to a safer altitude. From here, she caught a better look of the artillery that had lined up along the Xonan front.


"Rekku threen, trenna Xon-Nagu'n!" a gray maned officer shouted, thrusting a sword westward as hundreds of tattooed warriors charged over the trenches with one combined war cry.

Artillery cannons that had been rolled into position fired several murderous volleys over the charge, impacting both the Lightning Bearer and the Steel Wing. Neither Shell's nor Arcshod's forces were spared as the Xonan army took advantage of the chaos, charging desperately into Seclorum's battlements to finish what had been started decades ago.

The Ledomaritans rooted in the western trenches were ready, and several of them greeted the Xonan rush with manarifles blazing. Xonans fell by the dozen, but their combined gallop was simply too much. They dove into the canals like panthers, and soon everypony was fighting hoof-to-hoof, spilling blood and wet muscle into the sundered earth. The trenches filled up with clashing blades and screaming lungs. Soon, the battle formed a new line of demarcation as the sworn enemies held back no longer.


All of this, Seclorum watched from the open edge of his tent. His weathered eyes reflected every cannon fire and the hairs of his ears twitched in time with the booming artillery. He took a deep breath, not moving, not bothering to budge from that one spot.

When a set of heavy hooves shuffled behind him inside the massive tent, he barely flinched.

"Where is he...?"

Seclorum was silent.

"Where is my old friend?"

Slowly, Seclorum turned around. Through the bars of the metal brace that framed his skull, he made out the panting figure of Josho.

The obese stallion sneered, "The Secchy I knew was no coward, and he certainly didn't waste any opportunity to spill the blood of tattooed freakjobs." Gulping, Josho aimed his shotgun at the Prime Enforcer from afar. "So... what did you do to him?"

Seclorum swiveled until he faced the other pony across the quivering tent. He spoke dully beneath the errant claps of thunder. "You and I both died long ago, Josho."

"Bullshit." Josho gritted his teeth. "We had nothing to lose. That's why we joined Ledo's ranks in the first place. If there was anything worth protecting, we would have stuck with our beloveds and lived a simple, boring life." He narrowed his eyes. "But you and I both know what we're worth... what we've always been worth. That's why it pisses me off to no-end to see you bringin' the whole world down with you like this..."

"There's more to this world than you could possibly underst—"

"Understand what?!" Josho barked, squinting down the sight of his weapon. "That one morning you went bonkers and forgot what was most important about being a soldier?! At least I had booze and the memories of best-buds blown to bits! And I sure as Hell didn't make illicit deals with absolute demons!"

"Josho..."

"Turning Nightshade against Ledo? Shaking hooves with Lasairfion? Making a pact with a giant devil dragon?! For Spark's damn sake, Seclorum!" Josho hissed. "Why not piss on the continent while you're at it?! What's your gain in all of this mess?!"

"You came here to do something." Seclorum's eyes took on a knifing glint. "I think you should get it over with."

Josho's eyes twitched. He lowered his shotgun with a gaping expression. "Now I know my friend is truly gone." He gulped. "What's the matter, Secchy? Did they have to replace your spine as well?"

Something flickered across Seclorum's eyes, like the reflection of bright shells exploding behind him. He suddenly smirked. "You want violence?" He sneered. "I am violence."

Josho's mouth opened to retort—

With his rear leg, Seclorum lifted a table full of maps and war documents. He spun and bucked the thing in mid-air across the tent, sailing it straight towards Josho's skull.

Gritting his teeth, Josho stepped back and fired at the table. The object burst to wooden shreds, through which Seclorum was already bursting through with a steam-propelled leap. In slow motion, the augmented stallion flung his left forelimb forward. A blade extended from his brace, glinting in the lanternlight before landing a blow across Josho's left cheek.

"Gaaaugh!" Josho spat blood, reeling from the scarring blow.

Seclorum landed before him with four heavy hooves. With bursts of steam, he swiveled in his metal braces and slammed two limbs hard across Josho's chest.

"Oooof!" Josho flew back, smashed through a gun rack, and reverse somersaulted onto his flanks.

"Aaaaaaaaugh!" Screaming bloodily, Seclorum stomp-stomp-stomped towards him.

Josho readied himself, firing a blast of crystalline mana straight into Seclorum's metal-reinforced chest.

The canvas flaps of the tent billowed outward from the explosion resulting in the center of the Prime Enforcer's hideout.