Mordite
To call the battle apocalyptic would be a terrible understatement. Unlike those initial specters she had summoned, her two armies were intelligent, powerful, and filled with rage. Her army of dead ponies, revenants instead of wraiths, were even more powerful than the Romans, though they traded a little rationality in the bargain. As Ironblood had pointed out, it was hard for such a creature to feel anything but rage. In time, Archive suspected they would feel nothing else.
But they retained their minds long enough for this final confrontation. They did not come against the river as mad beasts, but a magical army. The rage they felt was warranted, considering all Charybdis had done to them.
As more of her faint spirits fell, Archive’s strength returned to her. As it turned out, her undead could be killed. Even the Romans could fall, as she had learned after a night of holding Mundi.
The greatest brilliance and strategy that could be employed by her generals were brought against their adversary. They slaughtered seaborn monsters in their tens and hundreds of thousands, and cast many corpses into the sea.
Then, for the second time in Archive’s long life, Charybdis itself stood before her. No sending spells, no possessions, no water illusions this time. She had seen such terrible things before, more than once. But all had been shadows compared to what she saw now. The battle on both sides parted around him, undead and sea-monster alike sensing enough of the power of this being. Those few that did not resist were ripped apart by invisible tentacles, returning their essence to the sea.
In her ancient past, it was likely she would’ve broken and fled as so many of her troops had done. This time, she didn’t. We can fight him. This is our triumph, Archive. He cannot die, but he can be returned to where he came. When his magic is gone, we will be free to rule this planet as it should be ruled.
He had brought a little of the river with him, doubtless saltwater still connected to the ocean through some sinuous tentacle. To eyes alone, he seemed deceptively ordinary—an adult human male, well-groomed and mature. He had short-cropped red hair, dark eyes, and an ancient-style suit.
Even humans without magic to them would have been able to sense there was something more to him. This was every uneasy feeling a person could experience—the sense of eyes watching from behind them, the sense of a predator stalking them, the sense of being chased in the water, swimming desperately away, but never fast enough.
Archive could see death behind his eyes, the will that had helped him claw into the universe to ravage and claim. It was not evil, because such assumptions of a human mind behind the eyes would lead one to serious miscalculation. However good a job he could do imitating humans, however much he could make himself look like one, he lacked any part of a mind as they had.
Charybdis was an unmade creature, a demon of endless madness. He could not be persuaded, deceived, convinced, or converted. He was the cold death in the water, the jaws that came for the weak and the sickly.
The terrible magic around him was a vortex that consumed all that entered it, including his own. His two Deathlords kept fifty meters away at least, far closer than the other creatures dared to approach. And there were others. It didn’t matter how many Archive had taken, or how many she had killed. The masses behind him covered everything, blanketed every surface, packed so closely their breath seemed to weigh down on her.
Archive touched the sturdy weight around her neck, and the feeling of something she had never imagined she would ever know: the touch of Mordite on bare flesh. It consumed all living things—even Alicorns.
She wasn’t alone—her procession was large, just as Charybdis’s had been. But only two had the strength of will to approach Charybdis beside her—Sunset Shimmer, and Cloudy Skies. The Emperor had gone to fight on another front, no doubt, or else she suspected he would’ve come as well. But her ancient friend was here—there was no blood on her armor. It didn’t appear Cloudy Skies had been fighting much. She wasn’t a warrior, even in death.
Archive couldn’t look human for this meeting with the monster—and if she still could have, she probably would’ve stayed a pony anyway. You might pretend to be one of us, but we are nothing alike.
“Surviving leaders of Earth,” Charybdis said, opening his arms wide. Shadows coiled and twisted around them, as though each arm were actually made of dozens of grasping tentacles. “Or leader, more correctly. You two haven’t survived to this moment, have you?”
His eyes widened a little as he took in Cloudy Skies. “I have absolutely no idea who you are. Impressive that you remain beside your comrade.”
Sky glared up at him. “I’m dead. You only frighten the living.”
Charybdis smiled. “Fear is not such an irrational thing, bird. Those who did not approach had good reason for their caution. They knew what I would do to them. If you think your nature protects you from me, you are mistaken. You two will be the next I come for.”
“Not yet.” Archive stepped forward, her mane billowing about behind her in ethereal wind. “I am far mightier than when we last met, demon. Death itself fights beside me. The time has come to cast you out.”
“I will have to remember not to shatter your craftsman,” Charybdis said, approaching her slowly. As he did, any of her own troops that did not actively retreat were decimated by his magic. Only the mighty could resist him. “You have brought me a powerful tool. If my army had come alone, it might even be enough to stop them. But they didn’t come alone.” He stood a little taller, towering over her despite her newfound height. “Do not fear, Archive. When this is over, I won’t kill you. I will make you watch as your own army takes your city for me. I can’t imagine what defenders remain will hold their posts for long when they see their own dead besieging them.”
Archive would not stand still and listen any longer. Charybdis stood to benefit from the delay, since time would only bring more of his troops while her own were slain. She charged.
When they had met on the battlefield a week ago, she had fought like a dancer in the air, dodging his blows with relative ease as they zoomed about in an intricate ballet. That was how masters of magic fought, dodging around each other as they prepared devastating spells, until one of them slipped and the magic wiped them away.
As it turned out, the power to absorb damage did not scale with the ability to inflict it. Both of her fellow Alicorns had died this way, struck down by a single attack from Charybdis. She had not been hit, though it had been a near thing.
She didn’t fight that way anymore. The key did not care for such subtlety, not with such power surrounding her all the time. She didn’t bother with Kerberos—it would do no good against Charybdis when his magical defenses were intact. Instead she focused on the Key, willing Decay itself into a massive blade for her to swing. No sweeping strikes, no dicing, she just charged forward and started hacking at Charybdis with raw strength.
The illusion of humanity lasted until anything tested it. The monster seemed to explode around her, black writhing tentacles and a gigantic maw facing upwards.
Her blade severed huge chunks of flesh with each swing, gushing greenish goop from within. Yet there were always more, and by the time she flew back around she couldn’t find the damage she had done.
Charybdis no longer attempted any illusion. It ripped whole sections of the stone up to throw at her, lashed out with its many limbs, tried to pull her in close to swallow.
You promised me victory! she thought, growing increasingly desperate as the monster’s blows came more frequently. We are running out of magic! Where is the endless power you promised me? There was no response.
None of the enemy’s soldiers got close, apparently ordered to keep their distance. Charybdis had so little fear of defeat that he wasn’t even bothering to protect himself.
She ordered a few of her own troops forward, Romans and pony both. Charybdis devoured them, and it became immediately clear to her that no number of conventional soldiers would make a difference.
Maybe a dozen of her could’ve won, each one empowered by an incredible artifact. But there was only one of her, and the promises the artifact had made went up in smoke.
The ultimate cruelty was that Charybdis didn’t kill her. He had promised to keep her alive to the end, so she could see the consequences of her failure. He kept that promise—eventually her strength failed, and he could’ve crushed her. But instead of swallowing her as he had done to so many of her soldiers, he smashed her into the ground, breaking her body and sending bits of armor flying.
Her body no longer cared about injuries and pain, yet Archive couldn’t completely suspend her old instincts. She was burned, seeping blood from several wounds, and missing part of her wing. Magic could repair all of that, except that she no longer had any magic to spare. The Key surged with brief flashes of magic every time another one of her undead was slain, but none of them held enough on their own to repair her.
“After all this time…” Charybdis muttered, stalking slowly towards her. His unearthly form had returned to normal, without so much as a scuff on his suit. All the damage she had done with the power of the Key was all healed, no doubt drawn from the lives of his servants. Unlike Archive, he could spend their magic at will. “I expected you to pose more of a threat to me, Archive.” He stalked towards her across the barren ground. He couldn’t soil it with his touch, though—her army had already defiled this place as badly as any location could be corrupted.
She couldn’t manage anything more than spitting at his feet, coughing up a bit of greenish slime. For all its promises of power, the Key was silent now. Maybe its loyalty had been as false as its promises.
“We’ve come to the end,” Charybdis continued. “All these years of resisting, what have you accomplished? A few more years of peace. Mortals will never understand.” He stood right above her, casting the weak sun into shade on her face. “We will have all of creation. You inherited a world you never deserved. You won’t hoard existence for yourself. Your lives will give my unmade siblings form. I will let you watch—you may not understand what we do with your universe, but perhaps you will take some solace in that. Perhaps, when all is done, you will join us. The life that waits for you in Timeheart is the shadow of a dream. Only I can offer you true immortality, sundered from creation forever.”
“Damn… you…” Sunset was missing all of her limbs but one, broken into so many bloody pieces Archive was amazed she could talk at all. She wasn’t swearing at Charybdis. One did not curse into the storm. All her hatred was for her. “You gave him this. You let him… plunder… Timeheart…”
“Indeed.” Charybdis smiled, reaching down for the chain of rusting metal around Archive’s neck. The iron links had left brownish stains on her dark coat, as the energy of her magic decayed them. “But this is good—what you couldn’t give to your dead, I can. In time, they will all have life. I will teach them ecstasy in nonexistence.”
As he lifted the chain away, layers of shadow seemed to slough away from Archive’s body. As though her true self had climbed into a costume, and he was peeling it away. Bright energy gathered around the Key, wrapping itself around Charybdis in a terrible mantle. Her mane turned back to hair, stark white and ragged.
Archive felt cold as she had not known it while she wore the Key. She looked out at a world made only of gray, and smelled the terrible stench of necromancy on the air. All the pent-up disgust at everything she had done came rushing back to her, along with the guilt. There was no mistaking her actions for belonging to anyone else. She slumped to the ground, not even looking up at him. Defeated.
“STOP!” Charybdis’s will echoed through the battle. He held the chain triumphantly in one fist, high above his head.
Every soldier stopped fighting. The Romans lowered their swords, the pegasi tumbled right out of the air to break on the ground. Archive felt the weight of the command press down on her too. Of course Charybdis didn’t need any artifacts to command his own troops. They obeyed him through that connection alone.
“There.” He smiled slightly, spreading the chain in both hands. “There is no more reason to fight. We have a new purpose, together. We aren’t enemies—those wait for us in that city. By nightfall, we will conquer this planet for ourselves.”
Magic wrapped itself around him, filling the air with the sickly green glow of necromancy. His own dead troops began to rise, not even repaired, but alive nonetheless. Thousands of them picked themselves back up from where her soldiers had cut them down, lifting what weapons they could. The more he created, the darker the mantle around him became.
He settled the necklace on his shoulders, releasing it with his hands. The Key touched against his chest, and finally something changed.
Archive felt it at the same moment her own army did. It was most obvious for the wraiths—broken lines appeared on their bodies, possessions dissolving. Parts of them began to fade, while others simply sloughed off. The revenants, with true corpses of their own, screamed and gurgled as the magic animating them began to unravel, struggling forward.
She could see the demon’s face, eyes widening with horror as he saw what was happening.
Where the Stygian Key touched his chest, the metal that made it had melted away into a liquid sea, flowing into his body and losing any cohesion Joseph’s magic had given it. His chest and body had already gone gray, even the organic fibers of his fancy suit were going chalky white. “H-how…”
The spell keeping her “alive” was failing. But Archive was much stronger than other revenants—she was an undead Alicorn. Besides, she’d been waiting for this moment for a long time. With a jerk, she pulled the armored breastplate away from her chest, showing Charybdis the spray of six wounds now gushing black ichor. The real reason she’d gone alone away from her soldiers. None of them could know she had killed herself. And brought herself back, in the instant before final death.
“Mordite,” she whispered, her voice a rasping gasp. “Joseph wrapped it in a protective chain… but I didn’t need protection if I was dead. Too bad… you’re alive…”
Once exposed to living flesh, Mordite couldn’t be stopped. It was antimatter, drawn by an almost magnetic force to anything alive. Her undead army were not useful targets—but Charybdis’s own troops were.
Archive couldn’t watch that happen, because by then whatever residual magic remained to keep her moving had faded. Her ghosts were gone, and her revenants were falling lifelessly to the ground. Her own body soon joined them.
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Not true, it seems. Alex's plan was a huge deception, and he fell for it.
8530863
Well I don't think by magical or lies. The problem for him is that he didn't realize what exactly Archive had become and he had greatly underestimated her, along with a fundamental lack of understand for how the Key worked.
This was a MAGNIFICENT end and one I truly did not see coming, though perhaps I should have.
the gambit is played.. high stakes, for high gains... lets hope that archive/lonely-day/alex knows what the cost is to play this game ....is..
Clever girl... I really hope an alicorn brought back by that damnable key doesn't stay dead when the effect wears off.... But I have a bad feeling it does
8531072
Well, last chapter WAS titled Damned...
Well, that was a satisfying ending to the whole Charybdis war!
I was kind of expecting Cloudy to get to do something more though, especially when she showed up right at the end. I wonder if she'll somehow manage to stick around even without the Key if she's that strong? That was Joe's initial goal anyway, wasn't it?
She has an awful habit of dying...
Lonely Day: Omae wa mou, shindeiru!
Operation Petunia is a total success.
Although Churchill might know it by Operation Mincemeat.
I wonder if Archive planned for this beforehand by accounting that she'd go power-mad after opening herself to the Key. After all, if Charybdis hadn't had to fight for this it wouldn't have been much of a gambit....
This whole battle of dead vs monsters make me think about this song... Or is it the song that makes me think abount this battle ?
Either way, have some Aviators: