Episode 4.6: Blood and Fire
Their enemy assembled in the light of early dawn. Their camps had been built exactly where Alex had suspected, oblivious to the mines they might trigger at any moment. There was no way to trigger them remotely of course, or else any unicorn might be able to find the spells waiting to activate.
Whatever discouragement the enemy might’ve suffered at their initial defeat, there was no evidence of fear in their behavior the next day. The streets filled with ranks so thick that in places their scouts could not even see the burned fields beneath them. The enemy seemed divided into four companies, each one with about five thousand ponies. Far fewer individuals than this city had once known walking its streets, but also an enemy many times their own size. A magical force many times larger than the one Archive had channeled to protect the city.
Assuming the king’s generals knew how to use it.
Only on the north and east was it easy to come against them, though at its widest the streets would permit only a hundred ponies to pass at once. Their enemy did not get nearly that close, but instead marshaled siege weapons atop distant hills. Crude trebuchets mostly, though Archive did not doubt they knew the range of their own weapons.
Distant war-drums echoed along with a single, blaring note from a horn. The trebuchets began to fire.
Archive did not shelter inside Command, just as she hadn’t done during the charge. She watched as huge stones came rolling through the air. Her own troops screamed, and inside the fortress civilian ponies did as well.
“Don’t be afraid!” she shouted, turning to face her fortress. “You saw what happened yesterday! A few more rocks aren’t going to hurt us!”
The first volley landed wide, striking the ground in front of the shield and tearing up unprotected dirt. Some of it splattered into the air, raining down on her. The shield would not waste energy deflecting particles that could not kill. A dozen separate trebuchets fired the second volley. Rocks streaked through the air above her, smashing into the nearby buildings. Most bounced off, though wood or glass gave way without much resistance.
At least ten large stones struck the shield, flinging back out in the direction they had come. The shield did not know how to properly angle them, it wasn’t trying to aim them back or anything. They all came up short, a splintering rain that littered the ground.
She turned away. The shield could handle a few rocks, they had proved that the day before beyond any doubt. Archive hurried back into command, where Jackie and Colonel Rhodes were both watching from the windows.
“You’re just going to let them pummel us?” Jackie asked, annoyed. “They can’t have many more siege engines than those. We haven’t even got to show off the Sunbeam yet.”
Alex pointed to the communications grid. “Are they sighted?”
Tom nodded. “Just like you ordered. I hope you’re done with the dramatic displays, President. It’s all well and good to encourage the troops, but if something unexpected happens, you’ll be the one we want in here.”
Another volley came raining down from above them. At first, Alex dismissed it as more stones, but her eyes lingered on the shapes as they drifted. Pots, trailing smoke and flame behind them as they went. They struck the barrier a second later, shattering at the sudden change in acceleration. Liquid fire roared out, thrown backward through the air and filling the air with billowing smoke.
Burning oil and tar would not pass through the barrier, though the smoke could, drifting over their heads and past the fortress. It would be difficult to aim in that pretty soon.
“I hoped we wouldn’t have to use them,” Archive admitted. “Mines are one thing, but… I don’t think Sunset would approve of using magic this way. Killing so horribly…” She sighed. “Guess we shouldn’t have invented them if we weren’t going to use them.”
“All men die,” Tom responded, not even looking up at her. “It isn’t the method that matters, Alex. Do you think they would thank us if we took the time to use a knife and slit their throats?”
“I know.” She sat down, staring out the window. “Cannons north and east, fire when ready.”
Jackie repeated the order, speaking into the spells. A second later, and sunlight roared into being on both sides of the structure. Command, positioned at the corner, had a good view of each, though Alex herself was only looking in one direction.
Equestria had not given Earth offensive spells in their books. Unfortunately for Equestria, their books had taught the principles of magic. Magic was really just another way to manipulate the physical laws, free to be manipulated in any way they wished.
The Sunbeam cannon had been developed as an answer to rampaging dragons, with their incredible strength and near-invulnerability to projectiles. For all practical purposes, they were really only light spells. Light spells as bright as little suns, with all their force focused into a beam only atoms wide.
Thunder boomed as the first Sunbeam fired. A little compression wave scattered dirt and dust and smoke out of the way of the beam. Archive looked away, following it only indirectly as it cut instantly to the siege weapons.
The second Sunbeam fired, and with it came another deafening boom of thunder. Molten lines burned through wood, metal, and pony alike without much slowing. A few seconds later and the charge was exhausted. Her ponies rushed to dump cool water onto the cannon’s metal and crystal apertures, which boiled up into clouds of frothing steam. At the back, an ounce of glittering molten gold would be hardened and icy cold, until it could be recharged at the Hallow.
Where there had once been a dozen large counterweight trebuchets on huge wooden wheels, there was now only a bonfire. Wooden parts, ponies caught too close, pots of oil waiting to be thrown—it all burned.
“Prepare second volley!” Alex shouted. Jackie echoed her cry into the communication stones, and far away ponies rushed to obey. Freshly charged gold would be loaded, the magic of friendship and hope surging and crackling to be released.
There was only one problem with the Sunbeam cannons: each one only had three shots. The Hallow could not recharge any more while also keeping the shield intact.
“Cannons ready,” Jackie responded a second later, one hoof resting on the “North” and “East” communication stones.
“Hold,” Alex instructed, still watching the windows. “We have to make every shot count.”
“Hold,” Jackie repeated into the stones.
The army began to move. Alex hadn’t realized what she was seeing at first, given the sheer size of their formations. Fluttering banners filled the city as far as she could look, except for the bare, burned fields immediately surrounding Estel and its fortress.
She heard the horns a second later, a thunderous, repeating note. Another second and the note changed, and the whole mass began to charge.
It was like watching an ominous, multicolored flood. There was no earth pony magic lifting the earth this time, for far more than just earth ponies ran. As they neared, pegasus ponies took off into the air, forming separate spear-formations going for the exposed glass windows of the upper floors.
So much noise, so much magic. Archive was momentarily overwhelmed by it all. Voices were drowned out, even her thoughts were lost in the charge.
Archive had fought in many skirmishes, but never in her life had she seen anything like this. Charging towards her, formations getting sloppier and sloppier as they neared, she saw more ponies gathered than she had ever seen in one place before. Maybe more than had lived anywhere on Earth at the moment of the Event.
“Orders?” Tom asked again, his shout calm despite the storm. The hopelessness she felt was not echoed in those big gray eyes. “We need you, Alex.”
She snapped out of her trance. “AA guns begin tracking targets but do not fire. Sky Battalion should be ready for takeoff if anypony gets through the shield. Snipers, aim for the ones in gold armor. Canons wait for my order and do not engage.”
She made her way to the general stone as Jackie and Colonel Rhodes relayed her orders to various positions. When she spoke through it, her voice echoed from every position. “Everyone else with a clear shot, wait until the army passes 100 meters. Aim for unicorns and pegasus ponies, don’t waste bullets on the ones without wings or horns. Anypony doing anything that looks magical is your main target.”
The ground shook again, and this time there was no magic involved. Ten thousand galloping ponies bore down on them from two directions, getting closer by the moment.
“Crossed 100 meters!” Archive barked into the general communications relay. “AA crews are clear to fire when ready!”
Somewhere above her, both mounted guns began to roar. The guns were a simple force-amplification spell, flinging fist-sized rocks loaded into them with crude hoppers at a dozen rounds a second. Each rock was accelerated to faster than the speed of sound, leaving the barrel with a crack and pushing at the building with the force.
Dead pegasi rained down on their fellows from above, whole straight chunks falling bloody from the thick formations. It was exactly what Alex imagined watching a large flock of birds fly into machine-gun fire might look like. Needless to say, the primitive armor did not offer them much protection.
The army reached the barrier. Many at the front were crushed against it by their own soldiers, or else thrown backward to rain onto the army behind them. Ponies had not been charging with their weapons drawn, apparently knowing full well what was waiting for them.
The flying ponies reached the barrier at about the same time, battering at it with their weapons. The army washed around them like a sea, crushing everything outside the shield. After the first to arrive had been thrown about a bit, the army’s front ranks stopped slamming into it, though the crowd behind them was getting so thick with bodies that the pressure of ponies on each other to the shield were almost painfully slow as they echoed back.
Estel’s shield surrounded half the city now, red-brown magic far deeper than it had been the day before. Sparks of energy crackled near it, melting dirt on the inside into fulgurite.
The shield began to deform, bowing inward. Her ponies fired into the enemy almost constantly now, and the ponies outside were so densely packed almost no shots missed. But whenever a pony fell, they were quickly replaced by a new one, their corpse vanishing in the sea of hooves.
“Cannons, sweep across the ponies at the front! Everypony else, fire at will!”
Devastation swept the front lines. The powerful laser was meant for penetrating the hides of the oldest dragons, after all. Turning it against ponies… she forced herself to look. Forced herself to see hundreds of soldiers sliced in half, their bodies charred and ruined. At least they died quickly.
It wasn’t like before, with most of the energy blasted harmlessly into the air and only some of it directed at siege engines. This time, all the charge went into killing. The burning light was the only mercy—at least Archive didn’t have to see the eyes of her enemy as they died.
The army stopped pressing forward. Those further back—shielded from the worst of the energy by the bodies of their fellows—dropped screaming with serious burns. The army stopped pressing forward, the war drums stopped beating, and even her own soldiers stopped firing.
“I am become death,” Tom muttered from behind her, staring out at the sea of smoking corpses.
Yet in reality, only a tiny fraction of the army had been killed. A hundred ponies, maybe two hundred if she counted the pegasi shot down by anti-aircraft guns.
After a few more silent moments, the army began to retreat. It wasn’t an ordered movement. It seemed, rather, as though the advancing army had suddenly lost the confidence to fight. Considering what they had just seen, Archive could scarcely blame them.
“I want the reserve out there, now!” Archive shouted. “Harry the retreat! We won’t catch them this unprepared again!”
“Reserve, through the postern gate!” Jackie repeated for her into one of the stones. “Form up!”
“Colonel Rhodes, take it from here,” Alex said. “As soon as they turn on us in numbers, get the reserve back inside the shield.”
“Don’t you think they’ve had enough?” Jackie asked, lifting her hoof from the stone. “They’re leaving. Collecting their wounded. Morpheans Alex, using the Sunbeam on infantry…”
Archive gestured back to the field. “That is a marauding army, Jackie Kesler! We wouldn’t hurt them if they would leave us alone. Would you suggest we fight them on even terms?”
“No,” she grunted, turning away from her. “I just thought maybe give them a chance to give up before we kill any more.”
“They haven’t given up,” Tom answered before she could, pointing far off. The vast majority of the army hadn’t even made it onto the streets—there just wasn’t enough space. Already, fresh troops were moving up to take the place of the broken company. “They expected heavy resistance here. I think King Obrican knew anyone who could kill his jailer and their army would be dangerous.” He advanced into the control area, beside Jackie. “I’ll handle it, Madam President. What are you going to do?”
“Join the Sky Battalion to harry them from the air,” she said, preparing to shrug out of her armor. There was no chance she would be able to fly wearing so much metal. “Jackie, stay here. If you see—”
Pain shot through her, sourceless, white-hot agony. Archive’s legs gave out from under her and she began to scream. Her wings spasmed, trying in vain to open against the wrapping and the metal shell of her armor.
Her shield, her enchanted armor, none of her spells had any effect. She kicked, flopping uselessly. Something tried to hold her—Alex hardly even realized it.
By far the worst of the pain was in her mind. A voice—a voice strange and ancient, screamed furiously into her concentration.
To say it spoke words would have been an unfair personification. Archive saw affection for her, a parental, protecting love for Estel and its ponies. Many visions of her city as it grew, as though many invisible eyes had been watching them.
Many times the strange presence had reached out to protect them from harm. She saw raider attacks in the night, thwarted by structural collapses. A group of Damocles’s remaining soldiers bringing torches and oil was set upon by wolves and devoured before they even reached Estel’s gates. Hundreds of images, filling her mind so swiftly that she convulsed and blood dribbled down her snout.
She saw the army and was furious as they violated her streets. A thousand hooves that did not belong. The beating heart of the city had been dead for so long.
“Alex!” Jackie’s voice from above her, sounding distant. Like Archive was separate from her body, and hearing something from far away.
The images kept coming, filling her head with agony. Bleeding corpses, crashing waves, crumbling buildings. She saw the city crumbling, swallowing the invading army dozens of different ways. Buildings fell on it, the water rose and washed them away. Living metallic monsters came from the long filled-in subway tunnels to devour them.
You want to help us, Archive thought. You want to, but you can’t.
She felt only sadness in response. Agony as something watched her little city wiped out. Ponies murdered, their nascent technology broken and burned in bonfires.
How? She tried to think, focusing her thoughts as best she could. In the presence of something so much older and larger than she was, it was almost impossible. They can’t get past our shield!
The presence showed her. Just out of sight of the city, around a large and sturdy building Estel’s own citizens had been living in days before, two dozen of the red-robed blood priests had already prepared a rune-circle written in wet red ink. A small mountain of slave corpses had filled two silver basins with deep red blood, seething with the power of death.
The spell was too complex for Archive to read at a glance, not with her mind in agony. The presence showed her the Hallow failing, the circle failing, and an ocean of invaders washing over them. Her ponies would fight bravely, perhaps through the night, but in the end they would all die.
At once, the pain stopped. Whatever had blasted its way into Alex’s mind withdrew, and her senses returned to her. She was on her back on the command table. A medic was standing over her, along with Tom, Jackie, and a few guards. All of them looked terrified.
At once she sat up, brushing another rivulet of blood away from her nose.
Dr. Mercer put a gentle hoof on her shoulder, trying to push her back down. “President, you shouldn’t be moving about after a seizure. Please lay back down. I’ve already called for my assistants so we can perform a healing spell.”
“No need.” Alex pushed his hoof away, though she didn’t stand. The truth was she was still shaking, the throbbing in her head remained, and all her limbs felt weak. “That wasn’t a seizure.”
“Sure as hell looked like one,” Jackie grunted.
Mercer only nodded in agreement, pushing her again. “Please, President. I have the authority to—”
Alex leapt to her hooves, landing securely and glaring around the room. She didn’t shout, but her voice was firm regardless. “The city…” she muttered. “It sent me a message.”
Blank stares. Lonely Day didn’t slow down, or give them any opportunities to interrupt her. Obviously it would sound crazy. Only one pony in this room would believe her. She spoke anyway. “Obrican’s blood priests are doing some kind of ritual out there. It just warned me—if we don’t stop it, they’ll take down the shield.”
“The city was talking to you,” Mercer repeated, raising his eyebrows. “Hallucinations are one of the possible symptoms of—”
Archive cut him off. “Doctor, that will be enough. Get back to triage, I think ponies are going to need you soon.” She wasn’t shaking anymore. Whatever agony the communication may have been, it didn’t seem to have done permanent damage. She was almost ready.
She looked to Jackie. “I’m guessing we didn’t press the retreat.”
The other bat shook her head in response. “We were going to. The reserve have formed up, but then you—”
Alex cut her off. “Pull back the reserve and get me the Hammer. Right now.”
“Alex.” Colonel Rhodes barked her name harshly enough that it cut through the haze. It was a greater shock that he had used her first name at all, given the military circumstances. “I don’t know where you’re going… but what do you plan on doing if they turn around?”
“I saw the city burn, Tom.” She started walking. “If we don’t gallop out there and stop them, it won’t matter for much longer. When the Hallow goes down, we all die.”
He saluted. “Aye, Madam President. Who certainly isn’t one of God’s angels, sent visions to protect his children. I will maintain the siege until you return.”
Jackie remained in command long enough to relay her last few orders before flitting after her, crossing the distance on her wings and landing at an angry trot. “You’re going to die on me again, Alex. I can see it in your eyes.”
She didn’t look away. In the trench all around her, ponies saluted. She returned each salute, without actually stopping.
A little further and she passed the north cannon in its sandbags, a spear of clear crystal surrounded by white-hot metal ribs and mounted on a pivoting base. The crew loading another round seemed a little stunned as they worked—barely even noticing her as she passed.
The reserve funneled around the building, and would get back inside using the postern gate at the back. That meant she didn’t pass them as the Hammer gathered in the patch of flat ground within their fortifications.
Her ponies looked a little weary from their battle by the ships. A few wore light bandages, though those that had taken more severe wounds weren’t here. In the short time it had taken Alex to make her way over, they were already lined up. Her best and bravest, sans the officers now assigned to command her crews.
She stepped up to the front of the formation, turning her back on the army surrounding them and raising one hoof in salute. They returned the gesture, hooves crisp and movement sharp. “I’m going to make this quick,” she called. “The army’s priests are preparing a spell to bring down our shield. We have to go out and kill them before they finish it. I don’t know how long we have.”
“We’re ready!” It was Silvia, looking far less shy than she had on the beach.
A dozen others shouted their agreement, raising their weapons and shaking them towards the enemy.
“We must not fail!” Archive shouted. “But we may not make it back. If the enemy turns their army on us, we’ll be cut down before we can make it back to the fortress. I invite anyone not prepared to die to step forward.”
She waited. Nobody moved.
“This is not a battle like before, carefully planned with victory almost guaranteed. If Obrican’s army realize what we’re doing, we will all surely die. No rescue can come for us. There is no teleportation conduit to get us back to safety.”
Nopony moved. Beside her, Jackie wiped away a stream of moisture from her eyes. “Couldn’t keep you around a damn year,” she whispered, so quietly only Alex could hear. “You’re a fucking idiot, Alex. A damn fucking idiot.”
“Protect my family,” Alex whispered back.
A massive earth pony stallion stood a little straighter from within his formation, his voice clear as he shouted. “Today is a good day to die!”
She remembered this stallion. “Everest” had been among the last to take the oath of citizenship and move into Estel. He had thought himself unworthy and committed to starve, after the many terrible things he had done. Some of his victims were cowering in Estel’s fortifications, far above.
The ponies of her Hammer shouted their agreement. Archive spent a brief moment looking into each face. Robert was there, her first recruit in the city. Silvia, who had mastered levitation on her own, and used it to do terrible things to those who found her. Every one of these ponies was at least a little like Everest. They’d done and suffered terrible things to survive, and their suffering had made them strong. “I can’t live with you,” many had said. “I don’t deserve to live with the ones I hurt.”
Archive had always said the same thing, and she shouted it now. “I don’t care who you were! I don’t care what you’ve done.” As she spoke, she felt the threads of attention narrowing on her. They didn’t have perfect memories, but they remembered this. She raised her voice. “I promised every one of you the chance to make a better future for yourselves… I promised you could be heroes. The debts you owe, replay them all!” She turned away, raising Kerberos high into the air. “For Estel!”
The Hammer echoed her shout, raising it loud enough to reverberate off the nearby buildings with no need for magic. You took rocks and made them into gemstones, Sunset Shimmer had said. In their many voices, Archive could feel their bravery, drowning out all fear. No more hiding, Archive. No more running away.
“Hammer, dense wedge formation!”
They moved, forming a tight “V” centered on her. Earth ponies formed the front ranks, with armed unicorns behind and pegasus ponies flying overhead.
They charged.
They stampeded past the trenches, past the cannons and the wreckage of their exterior defenses. They scattered burned and burning corpses before them as they crossed outside the shield, flung or crushed by the power of earth pony magic.
The battlefield ahead of them was clear except for the dead and dying, almost all the way to the end of the block. That far away, only the most distant stragglers were limping their way back to the main body of the army, which by then had passed the wreckage of the siege engines. These stragglers either got out of their way, or were broken under their hooves.
Archive did not turn along the road but kept straight to the center, as though her formation intended to take on the whole army. By the time they were halfway there, they had been noticed by many of the retreating soldiers. Instead of turning to fight, they only galloped faster, leaving the area almost clear as she reached the junction of the next block.
“LEFT!” she shouted, as they neared the edge of the block. Her formation turned with her, quickly rounding the corner of the building she had seen in her vision.
It was exactly as she had seen in the vision. Several dozen ponies stood in a loose perimeter around the blood priests, all wearing golden armor and carrying the best of their enemy’s weapons. They outnumbered Alex’s Hammer at least three to one.
“Hold formation!” Archive shouted.
Priests shouted and pointed at them, and soldiers rushed forward. One blew several sharp blasts of sound on their horn, a call that was soon echoed by a deeper-sounding blast of sound from the army a few seconds later.
“Send these slavers and murderers to hell!” Her voice carried over the sound of battle, though she knew for once she didn’t have to yell. It was hard to see something so unnatural, so wrong as this blood ritual and not feel furious. Using runes this way was blasphemy. Killing for magic was an abomination. Even if she could not feel it, Alex knew the strength of Earth would ride with her.
The enemy soldiers formed a shield wall of their own, forming their own wedge. Many thrust pikes forward, bracing metal shafts against the ground. One of them was right in front of her. Just behind them, the priests rushed into a new urgency of labor. They dipped large metal containers into the blood, carrying them dripping over the runes. Where the blood splattered, it boiled away instantly into a reddish cloud, imparting the magic of death as it burned. They were almost out of time.
Archive retreated a few steps at the last moment, into the squishier ranks of unicorns. Her weak bones and fragile body would not survive the force of impact.
Both forces met. Ponies screamed and died, impaled where pikes had pierced armor. Even so, the momentum went to her Hammer. Some of their ranks fell, but the rest pressed on. Unicorns fired rifles, pegasi threw spears or kicked out with sharpened boots. The strength of Earth carried most of her Hammer through the soldiers. For a few seconds they charged through open ground, then they reached the ritual.
Alex drew Kerberos and fired, felling one of the priests with several shots to her head. Another went down a second later, trampled by her stampeding soldiers. A third reached out and splashed his full carafe of red blood, splattering several of the pegasus ponies. The blood ignored their shields, landing to sizzle on their armor. It splashed onto the face of one stallion, and he went down with screams of agony, shriveling and blackening in an instant.
A second later, Everest struck the priest with a devastating blow to the chest, crushing ribs and trampling what was left.
The formation shattered. Alex ignored the fighting for a moment, making her way to the large silver basins. Several ponies joined her, and together they pushed them both over, careful to avoid the blood. It splattered and burned when it touched the ground, sparking and hissing like an electrical transformer left to short. Nearby, every plant living started to shrivel and die, and the dirt itself turned gray.
The battle didn’t last long, really. These priests had not expected to be attacked. Many held up holy symbols as her ponies ran them down, and seemed genuinely surprised when their ritual chants and relics offered them no protection. Her own ponies left none of them alive.
In less than five minutes, it was over.
“Everest, Robert, I need you!” Her voice carried over what was left of the battle, and in a moment the huge earth pony was there, blood splattered on his armor and eyes wide with battle-frenzy.
“What?” Everest asked.
Robert approached just beside him, looking a little more sane. He also walked with a limp, and a large piece of his armor was missing.
Alex pointed at the puddles of blood, at the runes still crackling with power. That power might still be released at any second, unless they did something now. “I need the magic of the earth you hold. One of you go to the runes, the other one to where we dumped the blood.” She waited for them to comply.
As usual, they moved without hesitation.
“This will cause you pain, but if we do not do it, this spell might be triggered at any moment. We must disperse this power before it is used.”
Everest grunted.
Robert nodded.
“The power of the Earth can destroy this evil magic. Stick your hooves into the blood, and be ready for the pain. Whatever you do, do not move.”
They did. Immediately Robert started to shake, his whole body rattling. His eyes widened, and he looked like he might be about to vomit. He didn’t.
Everest did not react, except apparently tensing up all over.
“Repeat after me,” Archive said, her voice clear. Would the ritual work in english? She could only hope; there was no way these ponies would get the equestrian pronunciation right without hours of practice. “The sun cleanses even a festering wound.”
They repeated, pain obvious even in Everest’s voice. To their credit, neither tried to move. They continued to repeat faithfully as she continued.
“In darkness, the moon offers her soothing balm of healing. I refuse the blight, I return the left-handed power his knife. There can be no chaos in harmony.”
As they spoke, the thick puddle of blood began to spin, growing, taking hideous form beside her. A monstrous figure, made only of blades and hatred. Her assistants, now barely standing, did not relent. Whether they could see the figure, or were so overcome by pain as to be dead to the world around them, she didn’t know.
Archive faced the figure without fear. Then she said the last lines of the ritual. “Take your gifts and go. We do not want you.”
Blood and rune alike exploded from around them, boiling to a foul mist in seconds and threatening to throw them through the air. That explosion came with a scream, more hideous than any she had ever heard, making her ears ring. Archive might’ve been blasted away, were it not for the bulk of her own armor holding her down. The earth ponies at the center of her ritual alone were unmoved.
“President,” came Everest’s deep voice. Archive looked up, where her own ponies had gathered their own wounded. There had been ten casualties in all—every pony touched by the hostile blood magic spells. They had been shriveled away like they’d been left to bake in a food-dehydrator. There was nothing even powerful unicorn magic could’ve done for them.
Between her and the city, a thick formation of enemy soldiers was watching, lined up with weapons in hoof. Many hovered in the air—at least five hundred pegasi, all waiting. There was no telling how many ponies were behind them, filling more of the space between them and the fortress.
“We did it, ponies!” Alex passed their dead, then saluted the three who were merely injured. There was no point in carrying them. Thousands of enemy soldiers were now between them and Estel. “The ritual is over! King Obrican will have a hard time getting more priests now that we’ve killed all of these.”
The Hammer did not cheer. Though ponies watched her, most kept glancing back to the army in front of them. Ponies raised their weapons, but did not attack. Why rush? More of their soldiers were coming down the street from the other end, cutting off Alex’s escape.
As her eyes darted across the field of battle, she saw only two options. Die fighting back to the city, hoping its cannons could clear enough space for them to make it back, or run into the nearby building and get picked off one by one like animals.
The smart thing to do was to ditch the armor, ditch her flightless ponies, and fly back to Estel. Perhaps Jackie would have been able to make a call like that. Archive could not.
If Estel sees you’re still alive, holding out in a building, they might send ponies to rescue you, Sky said, her voice harsh and urgent in her mind. Fight your way back, or at least let them see you didn’t make it.
Alex opened her mouth to instruct her ponies to strip the injured of their armor, but didn’t get a chance to speak.
The enemy charged, from both sides of the street at once, roaring with anger and triumph. They had lost over and over, the screams seemed to say, at least they could take their anger out on these.
“Hammer, lance formation!” she bellowed, using her magic to carry over the roars and the stampeding hooves. Even in the face of certain death, her ponies obeyed. She saw terrified, resolute eyes. They didn’t break. “Back to the city! For Estel!”
They charged.
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Looks like a green's staying green against all reds.
I guess I was right before. They will not be broken, because they either feel superior still, or have something terrible breathing down their necks if they fail.
Also, it seems that the force amplification spells were used anyway. I liked the idea of the Sunbeams, but if you had so much magic at your disposal, isn't it a bit overkill to use such costly magic? You didn't need laser sniper canons, save for taking care of the trebuchets. I'd probably look into creating a napalm-like spell, or at least greek fire, to spray along the perimeter of the shield.
let's see if Alex can survive for once.
It's damn nice to see Alex doing like a proper human and turning magic into a weapon of great destruction. If only they had more time...
So, archive shall die again. How long until she comes back? My bet is at a hundred years. At the least. Enough for Estel to become a nation, but for all that were lead by her to still be alive and remember.
It could be over a thousand too, though. This is a story that spans ten millennia, after all.
Greater love hath no man than this, that he shall lay down his life for his brother.
7885529 Eh...The only reason it took a millenia for her to wake up is because of her connection to magic being cut and deminc interference in the form of traitors.
This time, it would take her at most a month to come back. Or hell, a day maybe.
I wonder if any of those mines are located in the right place to break a hole in the invaders between the Hammer and Estel? Could the city activate them on its own initiative, or as directed by Alex? It's able to do some things, just not enough, so maybe all it needs is to know just where to push to get the result it wants.
I always thought the city should rise up....that communication confirmed something for me, that the city lives from so much magic on it....I hope it can do more to help
7885386
The engineer in me found this chapter really interesting, as neither Sunbeam cannons nor those AA-scattergun things existed prior to my death. Presumably Jackie and Ezri got the plans from somewhere...an Alexandrian research project, maybe?
As for the specific choice of weapons, it's probably a resource shortage thing. Estel already used a lot of incendiary fluid to burn the rafts, and is probably out of the materials needed to make more.
7885864
Uhh... But it says in the narrative you knew of them and they were anti-dragon weaponry. And only Erzi or Jackie could know the blueprints, which they probably wouldn't unless they had external memory storages with blueprints. Plus, you obviously know the magic needed to power both.
A little bit of inconsistency, or am I missing something?
EDIT: Ok, I didn't read your reply carefully enough. Regardless, if they truly did bring back some ancient tech with them, why not plans for something more efficient and personal? .-.
7885529
7885576
The amount of time it takes depends somewhat on the level of belief in humanity present in the world, but yeah, it shouldn't take very long...hopefully just a matter of days.
7885591
To quote the story text:
And to be honest, I doubt the mines would make much difference anyhow.
My hope's for Alex to survive. She needs a win for once. Her family needs her, Estel needs her.
Spoilers:
Were I my character, Alex would need but to ask, and she'd have at least half a dozen dragons to help; my character, their mate, and six offspring, plus maybe three of them with mates of their own, all loyal to my character.
The next week cannot go by fast enough!
Wow. Quite impressive so far. Raising the bar for us all, My hat's off to you (if I was wearing one).
I can definitely state NYC's 'city father' is a real mother. A big city's spirit is undimmed by time.
Another week to wait. Stay tuned!
7885885
I was under the impression that the reason it took her a thousand years to come back after Paradise Crater was because of a combination of the facility's anti-magic field and hazardous conditions. It's been stated that she just regenerates in place unless it's physically impossible. So for example, when she was killed and her body thrown in the mine, her body just healed itself up in the mine and she was trapped down there. But if, say, she were buried under a rockslide, she'd magically generate in the nearest spot, probably just on top of the rocks. Paradise Crater was flooded with radiation after the reactor meltdown, which made the entire area unsuited for regeneration. And it was only a thousand years later, after the antimagic field had died and the radiation dispersed enough to safe levels, that she was able to come back.
7885875
The events of this chapter haven't happened for me yet. From 7852032:
Sorry about the confusion.
This is weird for me too, and I'm still figuring out how to deal with it in conversation.
Keep in mind this hasn't happened for me yet, so I'm just guessing...but knowing Jackie and Ezri, they would have brought the best technology they could get. Either these were literally the best designs known to exist, or they couldn't access the better stuff for some reason (Politics? Destruction during the fall of Alexandria? Your guess is as good as mine.)
7886146
Ah, I never saw that post. Tht clears up a lot for me, thanks!
This was quite a powerful event! I didn't expect to just see you in a position where you would die, nor that the heart of the City was actually alive!!
How is it that the city itself gained a kind of sentience exactly? Enough where it could send wolves to eat bad ponies, for instance?
the streets are going to run with blood.
7886434
How about the streets are just going to run?
Like, without blood, because you dont need that for running, for running you just need ground and something to move with, like legs for us or wheels and a motor for a car :D
I'm sorry, but it's really the only way to sum this up.
i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/175/719/1155844718213mp8.jpg
I thought I'd read a story to relax before bed. Instead I'm just hyped up from the action and suspense!
7885388
She does have a habit of dying in very important moments.
[youtube=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PK1XCkeAeU4]
These cannons are canon.
Alex!!!! You need to survive!!!
7886141
My death in Paradise Crater was rather unprecedented, and given the number of unknowns with it, your description may not be completely accurate, but otherwise, yes, that is basically how it works for me.
However, according to the Equestrian princesses, the regeneration speed of Memetic beings is partially linked to the prevalence of and belief in their associated concepts. Celestia herself is apparently unkillable, as she can regenerate from a death in a matter of seconds.
7886242
It's probably a Memetic...enough people thought about and had affection for the city of New York that it gained its own consciousness. It seems relatively weak as memetics go, given that it's influence is mostly confined to passive suggestion.
And so the war trudges on, except seeming without Alex now. I hope there isn't any struggle for power, lockwood better stay the heck out of things.
Colonel Rhodes?!
as in War Machine?!