All would have preferred that shadowy stallion remained gone. But like a cancer he returned. He had metastasised and mutated, now a much greater power than before. Sombra was a Karkadann; a member of an ancient race of carnivorous unicorns. But they were not the same as the Unicorn that mended the garbs and studied hard. They were and still are a warped and unloving breed, spurred-on by one unquenchable need — the need for equine flesh between their teeth.
Twilight had banished him, destroyed him, or so they had hoped. But under the radar, he built his strength and reclaimed the frozen north. He enslaved the crystal ponies whom would perpetrate foul deeds in aid of that simple, unquenchable need of his kind and creed. He created harnesses which he used to control the annexed refugees as they fled, and pleaded. But solemn Sombra had no such ruth nor pity. He continued his vile agenda — razing settlements, towns and cities. And that pitiless stallion whom hungered for more enlisted aid from furthest shores. He found his routes in the colder north, where mountains pierced the sky. And the subjugated denizens of places lost were forced to do his bidding. Theirs’ was not to reason why.
Soon rushing from the deep blue dye came regiments of foreign Pegasi. The western flyer was oh so spryer but that saving grace offered little pause to the formidable flying horse that hailed from eastern lands. The Tulpars were built for the barren climes of tundra and taiga and steppe. They could snap the flimsy hollow bones of their western opposite when required. They were born and bred for war — none retired.
Such beasts blotted out the sun. One by one the counter-offensive of Pegasi were cut and threshed by the malign blades of Sombra’s Tulpars. They were laced with incurable poison so even if a flyer survived the mid-air flaying they succumbed to their scars. Veterans there were not from these doomed dogfights. Air-mares and stallions evasive enough to stay aloft would soon find a slower burn of fate. Thanks to their benevolent lord, the Tulpar were gifted artificial horns — harvested of felled Alicorn from once living Karkadanns. These faux features dictated awful spells — ones designed to confuse, curse, and repel. Most commonly a victim here would be struck by what first would seem to be indigestion. As the acid bubbled up their throats the truth would become clear. The churning of their stomach was the result of a heinous hex — not a product of cider, wine or beer.
A single flyer poked his head above the rest. He was not a stranger to the foe of faux horn and listless eyes. From since his wings could catch the wind he had trained and prepared. There was little other choice. With the tyrant’s return, Equestria responded in one single, unified voice. They shouted as one, “We will not be enslaved, we will not be overcome.”
The air-stallion had clashed wings with Tulpar before. He hadn't exactly built a rapport. But he knew his enemy better than they knew him. Aquiline was an ex ace of the Wonderbolts division. Their aerobatic clowning had made him look at himself with derision. Their showboating ways made them a joke and that was not the stallion his sire wanted him to be. It wasn’t the stallion he wanted to be. Aquiline, as the name might suggest, was a pony of colour purest and bluest. He nearly matched the sky under the noonday sun with his coordinated coat.
Sombra’s campaign was without wane. For close to seven hundred years he had commanded and controlled and taken vast tracts of Equestrian territory. Generations of soldiers had lived and mostly died in this dour wartime. The ones whom endured enough to produce the next were the strongest. And so a new race of ponies was born. They were stronger, faster, and less prone to illness than their mixed ancestry. Some called them the Xanthos for it was said they couldn't die. Those ponies lied.
As Aquiline fell back into formation his mind could not but wonder to the glorious past. He mused of the Cerapters now lost and ash. He daydreamed of the magic that once filled him with intrigue. The magic that once ordained day and night was a distant fantasy in the collective’s minds. But all that wonder was left behind. Immortality was rumoured theirs as well. But Aquiline had lived through enough to question the stories that some ponies tell.
The war in the sky had reduced the bustling townships and citadels of a once beautiful nation to rubble and dust. When Sombra’s allies first bombarded the outskirts of Equestria, magically infused bombs were dropped. These reconstituted the diverse landscapes and terrariums and left most of Equestria as a dry, impassable desert. The formation of Pegasi flew over one such example — a lacklustre terracotta desert. Ahead was a sandy cloud. But, nay, this was no cloud, but the Tulpar the Pegasi suffered nightmares of. No longer needing to flatten airbases and fortifications, they journeyed here only for sport.
A venomous green bolt corkscrewed threw the arid air and plugged a Pegasus flying near to the front. His lean muscles — only just tensed and eager to fight — fell limp. His feathers wilted and shed. His comrade’s muzzle showed a hint of concern as the grey coated stallion sank into the desert below.
Where Sombra fought with pernicious curses and spells, the west relied on technology. Aquiline undertook a line of his fellow flyers and returned to formation. He watched as the Wing Commander heading the group activated a beacon on his hind leg. This was the signal. Aquiline, along with a few other flyers, pirouetted and free-fell as more semi-seeking flashes of envious green headed their way. They regained control as they were about to plough into the ground, and dispersed in every direction.
The Tulpar were sluggish in their pursuits. Their large wingspans offered greater straight-line speed but they couldn't handle the g’s the nimbler gee-gees pulled with such ease. Aquiline broke away from his wing-mare and looped back on himself — at the same time he disengaged the magnetic tether on his concussive rifle and trained it on the gaining Tulpar.
They weren't the prettiest sight. They sported the elegant Arabian muzzle the east was famed for, but also the focused black eyes of an eagle. Their armour was less practical, looking like something more of Spartan descent. It was a mere fear tactic that they rode into war in their uniforms gladiatorial. When the western wings used responsive intelligent plate, the Tulpars’ was much more magisterial. Their wings too were more fleshed-out than the lighter limbs of the western equivalent. They were vaster than that of a Cerapter’s span (and they were no slouch.) The mane was supposedly straw-like and coarse. No pony of trust had ever been close enough to tell the tale.
Aquiline killed his speed and hovered momentarily. He spread his wings as thin as they would go and fired the rifle. The recoil was handily absorbed by his wings, which acted as air-brakes. The mixture of pulverized diamond and steel shrapnel accelerated out of the narrow barrel and bit into the Tulpar’s determined forehead. Its fictional horn snapped off in an instant before the payload reached the skull. The diamond particles passed straight through the beast’s tiny brain and a drip of drawl slipped out of the corner of the stallion’s muzzle. Its eyes began to fill with red until one eyelid dropped halfway and the fiend dropped to the ground.
Aquiline twisted and streamlined his wings. He was about to continue the manoeuvre when he saw the flinching remains of the fallen air-stallion. Checking the coast was clear, he landed and rolled the foetal stallion onto his back. He snapped the dog tag off of his neck and gazed woefully into his petrified stare.
“Your battle is over, Lamri. May your death bring us strength?”
It was at this moment the seasoned dog-fighter noticed the shadow bearing down on him. He spun around, untethered a smallish bow from his left hock, and unfolded it. It resembled a hash of two hacksaws welded together. As he felt the wind pushed by the mighty foe, he flicked the bow and a radiant violet stream of energy arced between the ends. The Tulpar sent heavy gusts of wind as he rapidly slowed his pace. It was enough force to roll the dead stallion onto his face and partially cover him with grit and sand.
Aquiline bore the brunt and parried the dripping blade as it made for his throat. The intense energy lopped the enemy’s blade in two — forcing the closing Tulpar to overshoot and spin a full one hundred and eighty degrees. The separated length of blade came within inches of Aquiline’s trembling larynx. The wary stallion shielded his eyes as the poison flicked towards them. He rolled out of the way of the Tulpar as it gouged a rut in the sand.
“Petulant Pegasus!” the cowering creature screamed. It ramped onto its hind legs and stomped weightily close to where Aquiline had been but seconds ago.
An alert sounded on Aquiline’s radar system and he promptly ducked as his wing-mare skimmed his dropping mane. She about faced and landed hard on the Tulpar stallion’s wide shoulders. She primed her energy saw and let it make a small impression on the beast’s throat. Flinch it didn't. Fear it didn't understand. They were born and bred for one distinct purpose, and they would not deviate on the march toward it. The pale purple mare ground her teeth and drew blood with her next cut. It was still only shallow — not yet reaching the vital veins and arteries that networked through the trunk.
Aquiline stared for a moment at the dog-tag draped over his hoof before he held it tight and fastened it around his neck. He disengaged another magnetic tether and trained his high-velocity rail-pistol at the stoic stallion’s head.
“This is what he wants. He wants us to become like his thralls — unable to display freewill, and unable to feel,” Aquiline begged. His hoof was shaking.
His wing-mare overcharged the ethereal blade of the energy saw and went to stick the beast with it. She was too slow. The sturdy shoulders she stood upon sloped and dropped as the ionised buckshot of uranium barbs cleanly drilled a hole through the Tulpar’s head.
Tears pooled on the sand as the mare fell to her hocks and cradled her head. The reality of war was cruelty. This war was only more so. Countless engagements with the eastern Pegasi had left a mental scar in the weeping air-mare. Aquiline allowed the lubricated barrel of the rail-gun to rotate into place before he changed his footing and aimed at the mare.
“Are you airworthy? Answer me! Are you airworthy?!” Aquiline shouted as the sounds of agonised shrieks and groans echoed above them.
She shot to her hind legs and reactivated the saw. She cleanly swung the stream through the inanimate neck of the dead Tulpar and sent his head rolling down a subtle dune.
“He was my brother, you monster. I wish you could die a thousand times over!”
“If you are not sound, you cannot re-join us in the sky. You are compromised. Turn around. I can’t bear to see your face,” said Aquiline. He shook the eager rail-gun to hurry her up.
She flattened her wings to her sides and did as she was asked. In the cold gaze of the sun she basked. An unsound flyer could jeopardise the entire formation. It was every air-mare and stallion’s duty to retain this status quo. And this day it fell upon the bluest stallion to pull the trigger, to exact justice without question, and to preserve the conformity of the formation. He shut his eyes and willed his hoof to cease its tiresome shaking.
“Are you going to put me down or what? Fire already!” the mare screamed at the top of her lungs. She turned around and swept the sorrow from her face. There she found Aquiline vaguely gawping up into space.
“Are you… alright?”
Aquiline focused back on the Pegasus and holstered the divining messenger of fate that hung so weightlessly from his chest. “There is hope for you yet. I spied the orange smoke shortly before I nearly had you court marshalled. The front-line has advanced to the stratocumulus barrage we were tracking. Now we can use our agility to its full.”
The purple mare gazed to the heavens and her mouth unhinged at the sight. The remaining Pegasi ascended rapidly into the clouds hanging above them. It was a rare spot of cover in the usual clear skies of the terracotta desert.
“Operation hailstorm. I know of it. I knew it was a stab in the dark. Now, just because some statisticians calculated a chance weather pattern, my brother is dead and for nothing.”
“He has not died in vain. I will postpone any judgement. Climb into the clouds and prepare to commence the operation. This will turn the tide,” Aquiline said confidently. He dropped onto all fours and pounced into the sky.
The mare followed closely behind. It was a matter of faith — reaching the cloud layer before the Tulpar brutes could get a bead and threw more awful curses. Many wouldn't make it. Aquiline watched in horror as stallions and mares gripped their abdomens and retched violently. But it wasn't entirely one sided. Now deep in the squadron of flying fortresses, allied Pegasi were able to mop up opposition with energy saws and concussive rifles. They surprised the vast beasts from underneath as they tore through the soft underbellies. Avoiding line of sight, other air-mares and stallions scored lucky hits with their covert rifles.
Yes, many Pegasi were struck by spells of fear, depression and guilt, but that couldn't dismantle the platform they had built. The advantage the Pegasi exploited was once of basic physics. The heavy frames and massive lungs of the Tulpar were not suited for extreme altitude, whereas the allies could glide in the mesosphere, and to this they owed much gratitude. It mattered not the numbers that fell prey to muttered verse and spells perverse — for any death so loud and so violent — paled in comparison to the murders in silence.
Aquiline thinned the numbers as he climbed. His strikes were precise and perfectly timed. He checked over his shoulder and grinned awkwardly at the mare behind. As he turned back, they pierced the vaporous fluff of the cloud and landed amongst the gathering crowd.
The Wing Commander was still in one piece. He encouraged his fellow flyers to the very edge. A strong gale could have knocked them from the perch. They watched below as the Tulpars made wide turning circles and headed back for their forward base.
“We must now fall blindly into the breach. Find comfort here. Find your feet and then lose them. We will be but hail in the sky. Once you begin your descent, engage your kinetic thrusters and pick a target. The window is closing. We go now!” Flight Commander Nimbus geed the charge.
And with his leonine voice, the ascended angels shunned their cloudy home and aimed for the brimstone depths of hell. The artificial assist produced a sonic boom. There was no shimmering wave of rainbows in their wake. The air bent in such a way that the cloud behind swelled and dissolved. The ground was rushing towards them at a blistering pace. But drawn in Aquiline’s lips wasn’t fear — not even a trace. It was excitement, rapture, it was living on a knife edge and it made the stallion feel alive.
He had quickly lost track of the trailing Pegasus. He struggled to think on such things as he stretched his forelegs toward the swiftly approaching ground. The adaptive armour high on his sleeves extended to the tip of his hooves. He started a spinning nosedive and glued his wings to his flanks. A sheath extended to cover his valuable wings as the target Tulpar passed meters underneath. Seconds later, Aquiline exited his steely cocoon and rapidly decelerated — the sheaths retracting to allow this. As his full field of vision returned, he saw others doing the same. Next came huge updraughts of sand and loud muted thuds.
The Tulpars had been caught by the hypersonic stealth missiles that had precipitated. The storm had claimed figures of fifty from the enemy ranks and the torn mesas of the Hayseed Swamplands and The Badlands were liberated at least for one more day.
Somersaulting, Aquiline landed in the sand surrounded by the spoils grand. Blood stained the barren dunes and valleys. His heart sank as he noted the desiccated thatch roofs also splattered with Tulpar blood. ‘Would once foals be raised and live here? Had life ever been extant here?’ Aquiline’s dry lip quivered as a meek and calcified skeleton was unearthed from the sandy veil. ‘Would once you hide among the straw bales?’ the fearless flyer thought to himself.
Aquiline’s armour telescopically reset to its original shape and he stretched his aching fetlocks. His cottonmouth was speechless. His emerald eyes were restless. He turned slothfully and dragged his four feet through the sea of silicone. He was too exhausted to launch again. Through the smokescreen of beachy bedlam he saw the misshapen silhouettes of other spent flyers returning to terra-firma. As the reality caught up with the racing hearts of the living, most paid respects in silent prayer. But belief was not a leaning post. There were no more gods to believe in. Then came the smell — the noxious stench of equine roast.
The Wing Commander as well as a few other flyers beat their wings to clear the risen dust. No plan was fool proof. A rather despicable canto of Sombra’s written magic concerned pyromancy. A flash of green is all it took to superheat their metal cages. They could make the death unbearable and swift, or drawn-out — where some had burnt for ages. The blistered flesh of the fallen flyers would attract Sombra’s kin. Though they preferred flesh raw, they wouldn't sniff at a barbarous barbecue. They’d eat every morsel, no matter how burnt or how thin.
The dust cleared to premier the horror show that Sombra loved so. Bloated bodies leaked out of brutal kilns. Some still burned from the incantation of incineration. Worse still; some still lived. Some still were able to feel every popping bubble of skin as their frazzled stripped coats wafted away in front of their eyes. Their breaths were shallows and aching with effort. Their eyes seemed to plead for death. It wasn't lack of talent that threw them into accursed talons, but the sheer amount of sibylline spells that answered the hailstones from clouds above.
Their faces were so changed that friends could not recognise each other. Aquiline grit his teeth in grief as he found a pale purple pustule covered Pegasus half-exposed in the deployed armour. He dryly whimpered as he heard a struggled breath.
“Aren't you going to shoot me already?”
Aquiline gripped the handle of the rail-gun but didn't let it leave the tether. “I'm sorry your brother died. I'm sorry that we live like this. How badly are you burnt?” he asked, barely able to finish the sentence.
“It feels… like… I’m on fire. We knew what we were signing up for. Please… oh please… take my life.”
A tubular wave of sand washed by as Commander Nimbus touched down. He snatched the gun out of Aquiline’s hoof and broke through the mare’s front teeth as he shoved it in her muzzle. “For Celestia’s sake, man, put her out of her misery!”
Aquiline shut his eyes and blocked his ears. When he reopened his eyes, nothing was left of the Pegasus mare. Her head was a spurting fountain of over-boiled blood. Nimbus slammed the railgun back onto Aquiline’s chest and uppercut him to the jaw.
“Do you revel at this time, Lieutenant? Answer me!”
“I… I thought she’d be okay. She was swifter than I. It’s just the luck of the draw, I guess,” the shamed stallion said in disbelief.
Nimbus’s icy coat was rendered blinding as he screwed his head around and looked behind him. There was a visible sense of urgency upon his muzzle — his eyes twitching, and his mouth agape. He dug slightly into the sand and drew the loose grains into a compact heap — a nervous habit he had picked up. He composed himself and gazed back into the apologetic eyes of Aquiline.
“You were going to execute her, weren’t you? Don’t bother answering. I saw the exchange. It was not your place. Only I and my squadron leaders may dole out such a punishment,” Nimbus patronised.
Aquiline put on a braver face and steadied his shivering shanks. He took a large stride forward and challenged his superior, “She was acting irrationally, Commander. She threatened the stability of the formation. Without that we are—”
“Inexcusable. You are not fit to make such a call. You are lucky I am not stripping you of your title. Were it not for your adept and masterful airmanship, I would have executed you myself,” Nimbus cryptically complimented and insulted at the same time.
“Why are we arguing the toss? Do you have a point to make?” Aquiline asked and turned his head to the side as he did so. He showed disrespect for his betters at every opportunity.
Nimbus stroked back his smoky mane and bowed, too tired to continue the drama. “I knew your parents well. They made certain you were taken under my wing when they died. But you’re reckless, and you don’t listen. You remind me very much of—“
Before he could finish, a red mare touched down beside him and sprayed him with sand. “Sorry for interrupting, Commander, but scouts have reported in.”
Nimbus hid his frustration convincingly and nodded to the fiery mare. “Please. What have they discovered?”
“They have spotted common Karkadanns. They surfaced in a cave not sixty furlongs away. They must be using tunnel networks to evade detection. If they are digging their own systems, they would need to be hunting and feasting in order to maintain their strength,” she relayed, hardly pausing to breathe.
“That is worrying,” the Wing Commander began. He lifted the flaccid limb of the executed mare and placed it back it with the utmost care. “We do well not to bait our enemies. These reserves could keep those fiends fed for weeks. The likelihood is that they won’t stray far from shelter. They wouldn't risk it. Luckily for us, their magic is limited in terms of transportation. We need to cut off their supply. Squadron Leader Porpora, how many flyers can you spare?”
The mare took a quick cursory inventory of her remaining pilots and bit her lip in thought. “Of the two hundred I started with, I have barely a fifth of that. And some have suffered crushing losses. They want to return to the safety of our borders, to their families, to normality.”
“So you have forty airworthy flyers to send? Dispatch them at once. Then we might starve those savages before they taint our waters and—”
“What about the clean-up? The dead need to be destroyed before the Karkadanns get to them!” Aquiline interrupted.
“I cannot knowingly throw my flyers into the shredder you propose. In such small numbers, it will be a massacre if the Karkadanns venture out and find us depleting their food stock,” Porpora voiced timidly her worries.
Nimbus shoved past his second in command and positioned his hoof in front of his lips. He shrilly whistled and the disordered mess returned at his behest. They held their heads as high as they could and saluted where they honourably stood.
Nimbus eyed the red mare behind and sniffed, “I don’t need your permission. Company, are you still loyal to president Wassail Abraxas? Are your hearts still pure? A most harrowing threat is on a direct course for our capital. But an army marches on its stomach. Half of the survivors will accompany Squadron Leader Porpora to remove the food supply before our enemies can benefit from it. Squadron leader Luci Rosse will remain here with the rest of you. Build bonfires and get rid of the dead in any way you can.”
Porpora reluctantly saluted and started in a gentle trot for a taller dune in the beachy battlefield. She turned and looked behind as the surviving flyers chose sides. Neither option was particularly attractive but both of the evils were necessary. Cursed stallions and mares still littered the area. Those struck with fear couldn’t mouth a word. Those plagued by depression stared onward past the dead around them and contemplated joining them. These effects would not fade. There was no cure for those emotionally spayed. They could not be rehabilitated like addicts or rebooted like machines. They were dead weight — a burden to those United States.
Luci Rosse, a vibrant red mare was one of the remaining three squadron leaders. She had had to perform a death march before. Each afflicted pony was given a choice — to accept the judgement of the officer and opt for death, or to find their own way back to the border and live out the rest of their limited lives, however depraved and destitute. Most chose the ceremonious route. They bowed their heads forward and welcomed readily the painless reward. Very few took the second path and braved the cold desserts and semiarid boreal forests. The further they progressed towards the border, the more diverse flora and landscapes they would encounter. At the closest locations there were temperate rainforests and great expanses of moist scrubland.
Rosse marched down each semi-organised line and stared at the quarries. She didn't need to say a word. It was similar to a cat uncaging a bird. It had the split second to decide whether to flee or to die. Hundreds of flyers forewent themselves and remained still. The rail-guns chattered over and over — rending heads and sending the spellbound sick to eternal beds. Twelve rows up, a slender stallion by the name of Bayard did not even offer the choice. He expended a full reel of ammunition before the first one he had shot had hit the ground. Another grey, rather squat stallion knelt with the quarry and listened to their last words. In the background, the Pegasus pilots worked in teams to gather the festering fallen into neat towering heaps. Some vomited and reeled as they moved the bloated, boiled bodies.
The company had evenly split and the flyers heading for the east were assembled around Porpora. She thanked them for their commitment and led them from the heaving stacks and ponies suffering aching backs. As the fires animated and licked at the masses of botched flesh, the dull red mare went to the sky.
Aquiline tipped another two wasted lives onto the pyre. He took a small glass phial from a pouch in his armour and smashed it against the pathetic flickers of the flame. It was a potent cocktail of chlorine trifluoride that soon reduced the organic pile of guts and things most vile to a carbonized monument to Nimbus’s failure.
Nimbus brushed the ash from his icy white coat and pulled Aquiline away from the screaming chemical mound. He turned him around and gathered himself. “You remind me of a young pilot I once knew.”
Aquiline scoffed at Nimbus’s attempt to be pally with him. He about faced and stared off in the direction the second half of the survivors had disappeared to. He turned his back only enough to catch Nimbus in the corner of his dry emerald eye.
“I suppose you were talking about yourself. I am not you. So many lives were needlessly lost today. We arrived here with a thousand fully armed and trained flyers. Now we have less than half of that. The movement of Tulpar from the Atlantic was barely two hundred strong. We might have whittled them down, but we made much greater losses.”
“Have you lost hope, Aquiline? Is that why you challenge my orders?” Nimbus calmly asked as he walked into the lieutenant’s field of view.
“This war machine we tried to build ran on hope. Now it runs on fumes. You sent about a quarter of our airworthy Pegasi to their deaths. They’ll be but sinew stuck between Karkadann fangs before this day expires,” Aquiline mocked the Wing Commander.
Nimbus pursed his balding lips and plunged his hoof into the sand. “We need to relay news of those sickly unicorns to high command so that they may prepare. I make the hard decisions and I live with them. You think your father whiter than white? I could tell you otherwise. But that is for another time. You are by far the fastest flyer we have. Inform field marshal Roan Barbary of this impending nightmare and leave the consequences to those in charge,” he barked. He slowly walked away from the sky coloured stallion and throatily chuckled to himself. “Fly safe.”
Aquiline started in a fast trot between the great phalanxes of fried feathered fellows. He broke into a gallop and kicked up dust as he passed Bayard and his itchy trigger hoof. He spread his wings and leapt into the air. His body was wrecked by the encounter with the enemies unchecked and his flight home would prove torture. But these were the products of intensive selective breed enhancement. They had all the benefit of technological advancement. They would not fly the white flag, nay, they would endure.