As the Noble Jury zoomed away, Shell wasn't looking at it. Instead, he shuffled limply across the deck of the Steel Wing, his labored breaths growing more and more frequent with each battered corpse and patch of blood he found. His eye moistened, as if seeing all of the carnage for the first time. At last, his pupil jerked towards the sight of a pale rod rattling.
Gritting his teeth, he slid over on bruised knees and scooped up Imre's horn. He held it gently in the crook of two hooves as his muscles went limp.
The tiny piece of alicornia rocked back and forth in his grip. A spark or two randomly darted against his limbs, and then the horn was dormant yet again.
Shell's brow furrowed, and his limp lips stammered, "Beloved daughter...?"
A voice wheezed to his side.
Shell looked over, and his expression hardened. He slid the loose horn into a pocket of his uniform and crawled over to the source of the pained breath. Leaning down, he slid both forelimbs and cradled the body of Enforcer Evans.
A sharp shard of wood had impaled the young stallion's chest, and he gurgled blood as he lay in Shell's strong embrace. Weakly, his thin eyes traced the burning overcast sky until they fell on the Prime Enforcer's scarred face.
Shell took a deep breath. "At ease, soldier."
Evans winced. He reached a hoof blindly forward.
Shell gripped it.
"Have... h-have I been..." Evans gulped, then sputtered, "B-been a loyal officer, Prime Enforcer...?"
With a deep breath, Shell nodded. "The loyalest, Evans." He clenched his jaw proudly. "The Spark will reward you in the darkness beyond."
Evans exhaled, and a tear ran down his bloodied cheek. "I hope... the Spark rewards you t-too, sir..."
Shell said nothing.
Evans quivered once, twice, then lay still, his muzzle locked in some indiscernible grimace of horror.
The resulting silence pulled Shell's face forward. He buried his face in Evans' soft neck. Something pronounced erupted between them, like whale song at the bottom of a deep well. The Steel Wing shook, and when Shell looked up, his eye sliced a venomous swath through the atmosphere.
The Lightning Bearer loomed within view, its smoldering figure devouring the east horizon.
With a grunt, Shell dropped Evans' body, galloped over it, and rushed to the ship's controls. The instruments were smashed, but that didn't stop him from channeling a burst of mana through his horn, forcibly operating the manaconduits of the panel from the inside out.
"I'm not even bleeding." He spat out the side of his muzzle, wiped his face dry, and hollered out loud. "All enforcers! Grab ahold of something sturdy!" He shouted to everypony and yet nopony. Limp limbs and broken bones echoed his commands. "We bring the end directly into their faces!"
The Steel Wing groaned as its surviving propellers rattled to life, accelerating the ship so that the Lightning Bearer loomed closer and closer into view.
Shell tossed his mane back and heralded the coming cataclysm with an eye brighter than a lighthouse. "Ramming speed!"
Throttling from bow to stern and falling apart at the seams, the Steel Wing roared its way toward the metal target.
Arcshod was in the middle of hollering a command at the cannons when his whole body went limp. A broad shadow swam over his knees, chest, and tattoos. At last, the Steel Wing blotted out all firelight, piercing through the columns of smoke as it bore menacingly down on the Ledomaritan flagship.
Xonans fled from their posts, shouting pleas of mercy to Nagu'n as they galloped in vain towards the stern of the broken vessel. Arcshod stood his ground, his body paler than a sheet.
At last, the two ships met, their bows converging like fragile icebergs. Thunder flew in a cascade of metal strips and burning machinery as the Steel Wing burrowed its way into the hull of the larger vessel. The avalanche of debris rolled halfway across the deck, mangling Xonan bodies and causing several explosions to erupt inside and outside of the beleaguered target.
Then the two dirigibles imploded, leaking gas and flames high into the air. The Steel Wing lodged halfway into the Lightning Bearer's metal corpse. Their support beams and cables entangled like mutated vines. With their combined weight, they fell in a crooked spiral, rotating wildly towards the sundered battlements below.
The crew of the Noble Jury heard the noise.
Eagle Eye sat up, craning his neck to see. The startled gasps of Ebon and Props tickled his ears as he trotted past Pilate and Bellesmith.
He squinted towards the horizon, his lips pursing as he saw the two massively conjoined vessels drift towards sea level.
"Hnnngh!" Josho slammed the shattered piece of a tent pole against the upper frame of Seclorum's metal brace. As he prepared for another swing, the shockwave from the two colliding ships reached the plateau. He gasped, glancing towards the northwest.
The Steel Wing and the Lightning Bearer had struck the foot of the mountains and were sliding down, leaving a path of broken earth and scattered flames.
"Bitchin' bridles a-burning..." He muttered breathily.
"Haaugh!" Josho's opponent slammed into the obese stallion with a metal shoulder-brace.
"Gaah!" Josho slid away from the blow, telekinetically twirled his weapon, and met Seclorum's next attack. The two struggled and parried their way across the muddied streets of the crater-riddled encampment.
Towards the south end of the valley, barely within earshot of the bloody fight engulfing the eastern trenches, a group of ponies—both Ledomaritan and Xonan—gathered anxiously in the shadow of a muddy hillside. They looked skyward and gasped as a managlider coasted gently towards them.
"Easy! Easy!" Rainbow Dash flew alongside the craft, guiding it gently towards the open spot of wet earth. The group of ponies shuffled backwards as the pegasus assisted the vehicle in landing. "There! Okay, everypony! You can get out now!"
A cluster of weak, emaciated equines stumbled out of the craft. A few of them actually squatted low and kissed the earth, weeping for joy.
"That's all of us, right?" Rainbow looked at the Xonan warrior at the managlider's controls. "There shouldn't be anymore ponies down in that ravine... uhm..." She twisted her muzzle. "Dreit?"
The Xonan nodded. "Dreit. It is empty of all that lives."
"Well, that's super."
"Look!" a Ledomaritan soldier shouted, pointing northward.
"By the Spark!" a nurse shrieked.
Rainbow Dash spun about, and her ruby eyes lit up, reflecting flames. After a few seconds of seeing it, the shockwave from the two colliding battleships finally struck her, flouncing her prismatic mane. "Whoah..."
"Unnngh... gugghh..."
Arcshod pulled himself over a stack of smoldering debris. All around him, ponies moaned and whimpered in agony. He squinted his eyes, seeing a crumpled deck of a ship lodged in pale brown earth. Ashes littered his tattooed hide as he stood up, glancing left and right, his breaths growing shallower and more panicked.
"Nagu'n!" He positively yelped, his smile replaced by a perpetual grimace. "Lasairfion!" He spun and hollered to any Xonan still capable of moving. "Trenna tenuul sakkar Lasairfion Xon-Nagu'n! Bleen! Bleen!"
"Looking for something you pretend to love?"
Arcshod gasped. Trembling, he stared up towards the blunt, shattered keel of the Steel Wing.
A dark shadow stood against the smoke and wind. Pale teeth formed a grin as Shell shrugged into the ashes. "Death is happy to meet you." Snarling, he twirled two sparkling tasers and galloped towards Arcshod's flailing figure, slicing the throats of two soldiers along the way without breaking his stride. "Haaaaaaaaaaugh!"