Part 2: Storm Broken
Olivia felt power return to her as she had known only once before. It had been as intoxicating then as it was terrifying. For a single frozen instant, she felt as though she had grown another set of eyes and could see both ways in time. Looking back, she could sense the vast inertia of history—quintillions of individual lives, all combined in inevitable ways to produce this moment. Equus was no last vestige of anything, it was the shelter meant to preserve the light of civilization through the darkness of strife.
Civilization had endured all terrors—planets torn apart, unstoppable machines, violations of the physical laws themselves. And yet still it endured, infinitely adaptable and resilient. She saw forward too, but where the past was a certainty now she saw division—the division in Harmony itself, as the intelligence had described.
In one future, the Storm King’s device woke something, something that should’ve remained dead. It came, and at last intelligence was snuffed out. The Storm King promised his followers an end to pain—he would keep that promise in his way, but do it by ending life itself. There could be no suffering if there was no consciousness.
There was another future, one where she herself could be a fulcrum. Her involvement would last only moments, yet the consequences…
All that had happened in this war was Harmony’s way of evaluating the viability of active involvement with the galaxy. Could limited, single-instance organics overcome the threats before them? Or was lifting the Quarantine a mistake?
Olivia’s infinitesimal fraction of elevated consciousness ended, and it was replaced by power. There was no armor this time, no strange metal wrapping itself around her. But that didn’t matter—she knew what that strength was supposed to feel like, she remembered how to fight on four legs. She had been the one to perfect many of the techniques for the Pioneering Society.
Her body grew just a little taller. Though it was organic, it fought against the armor containing her like water against a rock. Metal squealed in protest as her legs lengthened a little. Her helmet strained, then popped right off as a horn emerged from her head.
That was enough that her guards finally reacted. She heard guttural screams, the clicks of firing crossbows. They would kill her.
She stopped their bolts in midair, sensing each of them as they came. Others lunged at her with swift spears, swords, whatever they could carry. Olivia had watched real Alicorns fight since her last time in the armor, and she could use their own techniques against them.
She blasted outward with energy, throwing off her shattered XE-901 like the shell of a grenade. She had to be careful though, preserving the cargo she carried in a shield while the rest was destroyed. Bodies were blasted back meatily, limbs went tearing free, and the shouts of anger were replaced with screams of pain.
Olivia stood in the center of a small crater, blasted downward by the force of her attack. Her horn steamed, and a faint glow radiated from her eyes. She lifted up one hoof, and found it left a little trail behind, an after-image she hadn’t sensed before.
You are part of the decision now, said Harmony into her mind. All who live are part of the engine. But your gear has shifted to become more central. Know that your adversary is central too—everything he has accomplished has only been possible because he is a proof of what another part of Harmony believes. This dissidence must end, and you will end it.
Olivia’s eyes scanned the room around her. Bits of metal armor were now embedded in the observatory window—the furniture was shattered, and those guards who had survived were crawling away in agony. Olivia lifted the torn satchel from where it had fallen, slinging it over her shoulder and removing Qingzhi’s handgun from within. She no longer needed to touch it—it levitated in the air ahead of her.
Olivia had wondered how she might find her way to their enemy before—in a ship this vast, they’d failed to find their way to anything critical in time. Perez and Mogyla had both died because they made the wrong guess about where would destroy it. But Olivia didn’t need to wonder about what drove this ship—the Storm King was its brain.
Harmony had not been warning her for nothing—she could sense his power clearly, or at least the power of an object he carried. He had not become a citizen, so he didn’t wield an Alicorn’s powers. He had an artifact, a staff—so long as he held it, he would have power like hers.
Similar power, Harmony agreed in her mind. He is so much older and more experienced than yourself that his abilities cannot be easily compared.
Olivia started flying. She tore through the air like it was a living thing, leaving a bright orange trail of light behind her. Wherever she encountered more guards trying to stop her, she tore through them with bare contempt.
The Stormbreaker was in worse shape than she’d thought. Every corridor was now blaring with alarms. Lights flashed, gas leaked from openings and vents. In a few places, shimmering shields prevented her from traveling, and she had to cross the gap in little teleports.
“I don’t need to be as old as he is,” Olivia answered. “I have some old friends too.” She couldn’t have said how she did it, just as when she wore the armor she hadn’t known how she had been able to steal weapons from the armory. But Forerunner had surrounded Equus with little satellites, and they were only a radio call away. She reached, found the Forerunner’s tenuous attempts to penetrate the Stormbreaker, and bridged the gap with magic.
Whenever Olivia thought she would be reaching too far, that she wouldn’t be able to understand—she found her mind expanding. She touched one satellite, then another and another until she could perceive all the network that combined together to form Forerunner. So much greater than she had been, yet so much smaller than Harmony. “Forerunner I need your help.” She was traveling rapidly—only seconds away from reaching the command deck where the Storm King and his generals stood. Yet that trip might as well be hours at the speed Forerunner could communicate. And now, thanks to Harmony, Olivia could too.
“How are you communicating with me, Prefect?” It recognized her, somehow.
“I’m a Citizen now. Harmony is helping me take advantage of the power quicker than Lucky did.”
She could sense Forerunner’s confusion at the speed of her response. He did feel emotions then, even if they existed directly along the network of Forerunner’s mind. In some ways, she felt as though she were speaking to a wounded animal. So much of Forerunner’s network had been lost in the initial assault, and plenty more was now destroyed. He had given everything to destroy the Stormbreaker.
“I am relieved that you are alive. What help can I provide, Prefect? I have very few resources left to me. My distributed computation is still nowhere near as powerful as it was before Othar was destroyed. Most of my spacecrafts are wreckage.”
“I have to kill the Storm King.” She sent everything about him she could sense, without resorting to words. She sent her memories directly, along with everything Harmony had told her.
“The shield extends around that object, or else I would try to lance it with AA. You should know, I deployed a set of changeling agents to destroy the Stormbreaker. My readings indicate they have succeeded—the vessel is already beginning to break apart in small ways. But from what I have observed, critical systems are failing last. You may just want to think about evacuation.”
But Harmony was listening too. She could hear it, even if she knew Forerunner couldn’t. That will not be fast enough. Do not be concerned about the survival of your current instance body.
“That device will have gone off by then. I have to kill him first, take control of this thing. I’ve still got my bomb, it has…” She glanced down, reaching out to the radio beacon as she might’ve done with a tablet before. “Eight minutes until detonation. Nice insurance policy, I guess. Maybe I can just nuke him.”
Forerunner’s response took a moment, and Olivia could feel every bit of its computational array momentarily turned to her. Her mind was poorly suited for understanding what he was thinking about, but at least she could see that he was thinking. “I have something that may be useful to you, though I have no way of delivering it. A device based on the anti-magic artifact you recovered from that slaver. I have been experimenting with the design since then.”
Olivia felt an instinctive revulsion at the thought of that device. That machine had come with a crippling weakness, an unnatural emptiness that made her sick to remember even now. “I don’t know if I would be able to fight well even if I had it. I’m an Alicorn, I’m even more dependent on it than he would be. The Storm King is no part of Equus, he probably won’t be affected at all.”
“I said it was based on that object. The void syphon is a simple undirected valve, draining power back into the ring. But the field it produces can be measured, and even controlled. If you wore it, it would drain everything except your body. You would be stripped of what the Equestrians call ‘spellcasting’. But as I said, I have no way of delivering it to you.”
Olivia was right outside the grand doors now. A huge mounted gun was set up outside, and over a dozen soldiers with their weapons pointed down the hall. But they moved so slowly compared to her that she could almost dodge their shots unassisted. These soldiers were not the ones who would decide the war to come.
“Give me the position, as precisely as you can. And make sure it isn’t on.” She had already brought weapons to her from a great distance before. She would have no real trouble calling them to her now, even if she was out in space. But not for much longer. I can’t see Nibiru anymore. Actually, the last time she’d been looking through the windows, she could’ve sworn she could see Canterlot.
Forerunner sent the position in question. It was a meaningless string of numbers to Olivia alone, yet she had Harmony’s help to understand. An underground facility far away from Othar, without a single entrance or living staff member. She reached into the glass case containing the object, and lifted it out.
It settled around her left foreleg like a polished buckler, made of the same rusty-looking metal that so much of the magic-interacting technology on Equus used. There were mechanical parts on the underside, though not many. A ruggedized microprocessor, some wires and gears, and a dissected version of the void syphon that Olivia had encountered once before.
“You can activate it with pressure. Its range and intensity are unchanged, except that it should leave your own power alone. I hope. But if you’re talking to me with magic, then switching it on will mean the end of this conversation.”
“In that case, goodbye,” Olivia said. “Thank you for all you did, Forerunner. I should’ve trusted you more.”
She could feel confusion from the program. “Why would you be saying goodbye? Even if you lose—” She switched the device on. With a beep, her connection to Harmony ended. The crystalline gun at the end of the hall stopped glowing, and stopped peppering the wall with shards of metal.
Olivia reached the first gunner, ripped his knife off his belt, and sliced it up and along his body while she dodged behind him to avoid the next spray of bullets. Unlike human soldiers, these were totally confident in their immortality, and not terribly worried about friendly fire.
Bodies blocked bullets well enough, though. She kicked another guard out of the way, while lifting a third and smashing him up against the wall with the metal shield. It didn’t give under the weight. Forerunner hadn’t just made the shield magical, but conventionally useful as well. But could it stop a bullet? Best not find the answer to that.
Olivia shoved past the little pile of dead guards and pressed against the door. It was shut tight, metal firmly closed. It didn’t respond to her prompting, and the hallway behind her was filling with guards. Come on. She reached down, twisting the syphon off with her other hoof. In that split second she vanished, teleporting straight through the door to face destiny on the other side.
It took Sarah all of a minute to notice the first signs of the Stormbreaker breaking apart. It was easy to see how it could be so resilient for all these years, with a living immune system of changelings to keep everything going. But now she and Photuris had made it here, and they’d done the equivalent of give the ship an autoimmune disease.
She saw it in the “veins” first. The walls of their cavern went green, then gray, and the blood-like slime pumping through them stopped moving. Far away, she heard the ship begin to groan and shake, and a steady flow of gas started blasting its way inside.
Photuris rested on the ground beside her, having collapsed right where she was the instant she finished giving the signal. She covered her face with two hooves, apparently waiting for the terrible noise to end.
Sarah prodded her with one hoof. “Hey, Photuris.”
The changeling didn’t look up, or at least it didn’t sound like she had in the gloom. What little light there was seemed to be failing rapidly. Yet she’d been right—being a changeling did make the prospect of total darkness easier to deal with. “What?”
“I think we should probably… think about finding our way out of here,” Sarah said. “I don’t know if you hear that, but…”
“The Stormbreaker’s falling apart? Yeah, I know. That was the whole point. But there isn’t a way for us to leave. The ancients didn’t really do shuttles or escape pods. What’s the point when your consciousness is safe in Equus? A little ship is more expensive than growing a new organic body after one gets destroyed.”
Sarah settled down beside her, though it cost her instincts terribly to do so. She could feel the danger growing all around her, and knew beyond any doubt that they should be finding their way to safety now, not staying in place while the whole world crumbled.
“Is that what you want?” she asked. Her own heart was racing, and it took some discipline to keep her whole body from shaking as she spoke. But she managed. It wouldn’t be enough to fool Photuris’s emotional senses, but if she was distressed she wasn’t likely to use those powers.
“It’s the fastest way,” Photuris answered noncommittally. “And the easiest.”
“Maybe.” Sarah draped a wing over her in a way she hoped was comforting. One of the walls tore in what sounded like a sudden spray of blood and slime, showering the ground not far away with gore. Thank god there were no proper lights in here, and their helmets had been taken apart. “But it’s not the one I want. I have trouble accepting that a mind-recording of me is really me. I don’t want to take that chance.”
“Not a recording,” Photuris muttered, but her voice had lost most of its energy. “It’s just… superstition I guess. I don’t know what else I’d call it.”
“How about good sense?” Sarah kept her voice gentle, even though her heart was pounding. Metal ground against metal somewhere she couldn’t see, and she could hear the squeals of pain from more changelings the instant before they died. One path of escape was now closed to them, though she couldn’t have said if it was the right one.
“Listen to me, Photuris. Maybe you’re right, maybe death doesn’t matter the way I’m used to. But why should we take the chance? You’re an expert about ships like this, aren’t you? And we know the Storm King has been getting soldiers on and off. There’s a way to get off, I know there is. Why don’t we try for it? You could… think of it like a game if you want! Something to do. Or maybe you could try to remember what the old you would’ve thought, and see it like the fight for survival it really is.”
Was she having an impact? The changeling beside her certainly stiffened, glaring up at her. “I don’t know how the Storm King was getting troops up and down. But I know there is a… transport mechanism. For citizens.”
“Perfect!” Sarah sprang to her hooves, eager for any excuse to do anything besides wait to die. “That’s great, because you’ve got a citizen right here! What do we do?”
Photuris rose to her hooves, scanning the wrecked passage. “We need to get ourselves to a crew deck. I could help you spot a transport panel from there.”
“Great!” Sarah shoved her forward with her shoulder, picking the direction that was the quietest. “Time to run, then! Feel free to lead the way if you know where you’re going!”
“I don’t. These maintenance areas are organic, they grow to whatever configuration the ship needs. We probably won’t get out in time.”
“Probably isn’t a winner’s attitude!” she snapped back, running just behind her, ready to judge Photuris the instant she started slowing down again. But despite what the other changeling said about wasting time and her confidence about other lives, once she started running she didn’t stop. Maybe you’re still in there somewhere after all, James.
She could be content with that—maybe even die with that knowledge, if that was what happened.
I’m so paid off, Forerunner. When this is over, I’m gonna come clean about who I am just so I can tell you I don’t care that you know.
After running for what felt like hours but couldn’t be more than minutes, Sarah’s eyes caught a flicker of light coming from outside a metal grate. “Perfect!” She stopped right outside it, glancing through the little holes. There was a walkway out there, with wide flat floors instead of the organic maze of the maintenance system. The grate was easily large enough for a changeling, but she couldn’t have said how it was meant to be opened.
Sarah turned, planted her forelegs, and bucked it open with all her might. Metal bent, then yielded. No metamaterials here. “Go on!” Sarah called, panting. She moved out of the way, and followed just behind Photuris as she passed out into the hallway.
The changeling was frozen, staring up at just over a dozen creatures. Sarah recognized them only from the glimpses she’d seen at great distance, when they had passed briefly through occupied Canterlot. These were the enemy troops who had survived the torment of a city. In UN space, there would be no hiding behind orders if these were the same men. They’d be spaced without question.
They grunted something, and Sarah realized they weren’t talking to them. “What do we do?” one of them was asking. “You think these two are making the Stormbreaker so loud?”
But his fellows never answered him. There was a little explosion from down the hall, and the nearest soldiers fell to the shards of broken crystal. That was enough to set the others to running, right past the two of them.
A few struck out with their spears, but Sarah tackled Photuris out of the way, and they didn’t chase them down. She caught a few angry looks as they passed, then turned a corner down the hall and out of sight.
Now Sarah’s heart wasn’t the only one racing—she could feel Photuris’s panic, and a little exhilaration too. You think we can actually do this. That’s more like it!
“Kay, kay, crew section!” Sarah rose to her hooves, helping the other changeling up beside her. “Where do we go from here?”
They were standing in a crossroads of sorts, with a thick central hallway that had just exploded and several little alleys branching out past them. Fluid leaked from out of the light fixtures, and most of them had gone dark. The whole ship shook again, sending tremors from one end to another.
“Right there!” Photuris pointed at one specific direction. “It’s a long way, though! We’re… at the wrong end of the ship.” She lifted into the air suddenly, her wings buzzing.
“Shit!” Sarah started running in the indicated direction, galloping as fast as she could. Bits of equipment and furniture had fallen all over, walls opened up to expose their inner workings—the changeling crew of this vessel were well on their way to tearing it apart. “I can’t fly, Photuris!”
The smaller changeling followed close behind her, apparently without much effort. A pace that took every ounce of Sarah’s strength and concentration was trivial for someone who could fly. “I don’t know if we’ll make it in time, then! I think the inertial rectifiers just went!”
Sarah didn’t have the foggiest idea what an inertial rectifier was, but suddenly the ground wasn’t stable beneath her hooves anymore. It was like running along the deck of a ship, except that the ship seemed to be falling. “Am I fucking losing it right now, or does it seem like we’re tilting? How can we tilt in space?”
“Because we’re not in space anymore.” Photuris stopped her with a touch to the shoulder, pointing out a massive window on one side. Sarah nearly tripped over herself as she looked, feeling a sudden wave of nausea ripple through her.
They were headed straight down for the ring, and from the perspective of this window they were upside-down. There was only one small comfort—the tilting Stormbreaker made it easier to run.
Sarah sped up again, though now she had to be careful to keep herself from slipping. She let her brief glimpse out the window fade from her mind, trying to focus on the gradually increasing slope in front of her. “I don’t understand… how this ship can have ends, anyway. Isn’t it round?”
“About,” Photuris responded. Now it was her who flew close behind Sarah, helping her avoid obstacles, gently nudging her forward with a leg. “But it only has the one engine, and force-shunts to spread that thrust all around the—you don’t care.”
“Nope!” It felt like she was running down quite a steep incline now. Sarah slipped through a patch of oil, then started sliding. She squealed, flaring her wings as best she could. All around her, metal tore and furniture crashed, smashing into nearby walls. Soldiers called out in pain, changelings squeaked as they died.
Sarah slid through one doorway, her wings doing absolutely nothing to stop her as she slid over a walkway in a room filled with massive cylindrical vats. The steep ramp down the walkway became a cliff, even as thick purple goo burst through the top of the vats, falling with her.
Something caught her by a foreleg, so hard that she squeaked in pain. Photuris held on desperately, her wings moving so fast Sarah couldn’t even see them. But she didn’t stop them, only guided them through the door while deftly kicking against a closing mechanism on their way through.
They landed in a control room, against what had been a wall. The door overhead bulged outward, and something purplish and steaming started dripping inside, filling the room with the stench of fresh road surfaces.
Sarah wrapped her forelegs around the other changeling, shuddering all over. It didn’t matter how brave she was, or how determined. “You… thanks for saving me, Photuris.”
“I owe you,” she answered, though she couldn’t hide her proud grin. “Or the old me does. A few more and we’ll be even.”
“Few more,” Sarah repeated, letting go. “Try… a dozen.” She straightened, letting her wings buzz a second to loosen up again. She now felt a slight pain whenever she put weight on her right foreleg, but there was nothing for it. The door above them creaked, and the few drops of purple became a trickle. “We should… probably start climbing.”
“Too slow.” Photuris took hold of her again, though this time she did it more carefully, wrapping both forelegs under hers. “It would help if you changed into something small. But I’m guessing you can’t.”
She nodded sadly. “You could change into something big.”
Photuris laughed too. “Fair. I never learned either.” She took off. Sarah tried to flap her wings as best she could, but she hadn’t been able to fly as a bat and she certainly couldn’t as a changeling. Somehow Photuris lifted them both, and they started descending again.
They didn’t have much further to go—which was a good thing for Sarah, since she couldn’t have said how much energy she had left.
But she could have no doubt about when they’d reached their destination, and didn’t need any confirmation from her companion.
There was an elevated platform of glowing crystal, surrounded by metal railing and flickering holograms. Perched on that platform, with one hoof stuck into the flow of bright blue light, was a corpse.
It was clearly an alicorn, covered with a dark crystal that changed its whole body, making it semitransparent and glowing.
She recognized the moon-shaped cutie mark, still visible in the thick crystalline prison.
“That’s one way to make up for not having a citizen,” Photuris muttered, lowering them both on a spot of former wall within reach of the platform. Somehow the princess remained rooted where she was, as much like furniture as everything else. Sarah could almost feel those empty eyes on her.
“We’re here,” she said, shuddering. There were a few bodies here, mostly the Storm King’s furry soldiers. “Now how do we use it?”
“I can show you that,” said a voice from behind them. A unicorn emerged, her horn glowing and apparently holding her to the ground as it shifted and rumbled. Somehow—the horn had been cracked and largely severed, with only a faint stump left behind. Sparks emerged from within, and the wound did not look cleanly healed.
“Damn,” Sarah muttered. She was a good-looking pony, or might’ve been if she wasn’t wearing all that armor. “Storm King really did a number on you.”
“Not him,” the unicorn practically growled at her, taking a running leap from a sideways doorway and landing on the railing with a thump. The rails bent slightly, metal squealing in protest. “We don’t have long. I’m not sure he’s even noticed that the Stormbreaker is falling apart.”
“Can we take the princess with us?” Photuris asked, staring at the frozen corpse. “I feel bad just… leaving her here.”
The unicorn shrugged. “No concern of mine. Unless… you wouldn’t happen to be traveling to something called a ‘Forerunner’ would you? I… have to assume you’re his agents, and the destruction of the Stormbreaker is your doing.”
“Yes,” Sarah answered, before she could think about it. “To both questions. We did a pretty good job.”
“Pretty… I suppose that’s one description.” She stared up at the flickering blue glow. “I’m not sure this will still work. But if it does… you just need to touch the metal and think your destination as clearly as you can. You can get anywhere in Equus this way, but specificity is key. And I don’t know where I’m going, so I’ll jump when you do.”
Sarah spread her wings, wincing as she put weight on her strained foreleg. But it was just one more jump—she could survive that much. “Alright then.” She reached to the side with her weak leg, resting it against Photuris.
“What about the princess?” Photuris asked.
“Do not attempt to bring her, or else the pad will cease functioning. But when her body dies, she’ll be free to make a new one, so… leaving her behind isn’t so bad.” There was an explosion from down the hall, and more screaming. “Maybe… quickly?”
“Right.” Sarah swallowed. “One… two… three!” They jumped, and vanished into the swirling blue.
The bridge wasn’t as big as Olivia was expecting for a vessel that could destroy cities and loom overhead like a vengeful god. Most of the space was given over to the holographic glass plates on the floor, the ones she knew from secondhand knowledge were part of Sanctuary’s control interface. Makes sense the ships would use the same stuff.
There was a large map of the ring on one side of the room, and a large flat window looking down on Sanctuary below. The view through that room was getting closer by the second. And somewhere out there, the strange object she’d seen before was glowing brighter. She still couldn’t look at it without hurting her eyes, but that wouldn’t matter. The target of her anger was right here.
There were no guards in the room—no one at all except for the Storm King and his right-hand mare. The Storm King had dressed in his finest armor for the occasion, the same thick metal that he’d worn during the siege of Othar. Tempest Shadow was armored too. Both were standing on the command platform, though only the ground at Tempest’s hooves was glowing.
With a flicker, the map on one side of the room went out. Only the window lit the room now, with a growing orange and red glow from outside.
Strangely, the Storm King had his back to her. He didn’t seem to have heard the shooting outside, or if he had, he didn’t care. Tempest was facing him from the other side, her body lowered into an angry stance and her horn faintly sparking.
“I’ve done more than fulfill my part of the bargain, Your Highness,” she was saying, her voice so passionate that she didn’t seem to see Olivia by the door. Was the gloom hiding her that well? Or did the unicorn just not care? “I took Equestria for you. I delivered a staff of infinite power into your hooves. The storms as yours to command, and all the world. I’ve waited long enough for my reward.”
The Storm King strode forward, the strange staff clasped in both hands. Olivia resisted the temptation to reactive her shield immediately, knowing that both of them would surely sense it.
But no, Tempest had already seen her. She met the unicorn’s eyes, tensed for the inevitable attack… but it didn’t come. She didn’t say a word. Maybe she was waiting to see what the Storm King would offer in response.
“Delivered Equestria to me?” The Storm King walked right off the edge of the command platform, gesturing towards the window with the staff. It glowed faintly red, the exact same shade as the glow outside. Its outlines shifted for a moment, as though it had briefly split into a half-dozen overlapping copies. “I don’t know if you have been listening to the messages from Equestria, but it doesn’t seem like it will be ours for much longer. Even now, instead of… well, anything useful, our soldiers are returning here by the hundreds. You know what that means.” But he didn’t wait for her to respond. “They’re being slaughtered. You didn’t just lose a princess I assigned to you, that would’ve been bad enough. But you let a rebellion grow strong enough that they could throw us off. I meant to save all of them, and instead I will save almost none.”
Olivia settled her satchel down on the ground by the door, then began to advance with just the gun and her stolen knife in her magic. She moved extremely slowly, skirting the edge of the control platform. There were no desks to hide behind, no cover at all. Nowhere for her to go except directly towards her target. She silently queried the bomb in her satchel. Six minutes.
“I did my part,” Tempest argued. “Holding Equestria was not my task. You wouldn’t entrust the government to me, I don’t know what more you expected.” She touched her horn with one hoof, or the place it had been. “I don’t ask much of you, Your Highness. I’ll continue to serve. I’ll happily return to the surface to take back whatever we lost, after you do what you promised. You have power over life and death, so use that power to restore me. Right now.”
Olivia was close, almost as close as she dared. She kept Qingzhi’s gun levitated in her magic, pointed every instant at the Storm King. But she didn’t pull the trigger—she didn’t need magic telepathy to know what Tempest was doing, and the silent transaction between them.
She had already asked about regeneration once. Olivia had promised on the Forerunner’s behalf what the Storm King apparently couldn’t deliver. I might not have to fight this alone after all.
“I have power over life and death,” he repeated. “I am your only chance at getting your horn back. And here you are, standing before me during your greatest failure, demanding something you don’t deserve.” He thrust his staff towards the surface again. “The time is spent, Tempest Shadow. Your chance for redemption has come and gone. The Storm is minutes away. When it comes, you will neither know you have no horn, nor care.”
Olivia couldn’t wait any longer. She switched the shield back on with a twist of her hoof, and with her will aimed the little handgun directly at the gap between the Storm King’s helmet and breastplate. She fired all six shots one after another, a series of booming cracks in the small space that filled the air around her with a little cloud of gunpowder.
Dark blue blood spread from the wound, soaking the fur through and splattering back on Olivia’s face. Yet she held still, waiting.
The Storm King didn’t crumple to the ground, as any ordinary creature would have. His grip on the staff seemed to tighten, and Olivia could make out a faint glow. It was trying to do something to his neck—trying, and apparently failing. But there was something in the wound, something she couldn’t see until he had spun fully around to face her.
The Storm King’s neck and part of his collar had been torn open by Qingzhi’s gun. But there were metallic fibers visible within, circuits exposed. The whole wound seemed to be glowing, but that was it—it wasn’t repairing itself, as she could somehow tell he was attempting to do.
Forerunner’s anti-magic shell was making that impossible. Olivia sprung backwards out of the Storm King’s reach, avoiding a powerful swing. How he could do anything with his neck in that condition, Olivia didn’t know, but it didn’t really matter.
“What are you waiting for, Tempest?” All humor had gone from the Storm King’s voice. “Stop her! Her device…” Was that panic in his voice? Fear?
“I’m sure I could,” Tempest said. “If only I had a horn. Did you know that her faction can return it to me? The Forerunner—the one you thought you killed. I assume that offer is still open, Wayfinder?”
Olivia nodded. “Assuming I can stop him. You should go now. I just need you gone. Quick as you can run.”
“Well then.” Tempest advanced. “I really should’ve known not to rely on you, Your Majesty. Promises like yours… you made them sound too good to be true.” Then she turned, vanishing down a still-open doorway.
The Storm King advanced suddenly on Olivia, baring sharp teeth in rage as he smashed the staff towards her again and again. She lifted the shield into place each time, backing up in equal measure with his advance. Even so she felt her legs straining against the blows, and heard bits of the floor cracking. What could he have done if I didn’t shoot him first?
She dropped the gun, removing the bloody knife from her satchel and swinging it up and under the Storm King’s guard. He didn’t move nearly fast enough to stop it from sinking under the breastplate, digging in deep.
He grunted as blood dribbled down the hilt, but still he came. Four minutes. “You have no idea what you’re interfering with!” he bellowed, this time swinging hard enough that Olivia was lifted into the air and slammed back into a wall. She rose quickly, shaking her Alicorn body out, but her wings didn’t straighten properly. She ignored the pain, pushing it aside as she’d done so many times before.
“Equus is a prison, pony. A prison for your minds. You’ve been serving the longest life sentences in eternity. When the Storm comes, it will set you free. We are nearly there now…” He advanced on her, trailing blood behind him. But he was slouching, and breathing hard. Whatever that staff did, whatever kind of body was under all that fur, it wasn’t invulnerable. He was wearing out. “The instant we reach the surface, it will be over. The Storm arrives to tear all these minds loose.”
“Kill them you mean,” Olivia said, rising to her hooves and searching for a weapon. “If they wanted to be dead, I’m sure they’d be smart enough to invent a way.”
“Death is nothing on this prison,” the Storm King muttered, lifting his staff and preparing for another swing. Still it flashed with impotent, half-finished spells. With each flash, the strange object outside glowed too. I sure hope trashing one of those will ruin the other. Maybe Olivia couldn’t nuke the probe, but this thing was clearly in normal space. “They’re moving you, pony! Pawns in their game, an engine in their machine. You don’t have to be part of it. Is this really the kind of life you want to dominate the galaxy? This was exactly why the Storm started. Once Equus is destroyed, it will finally end.
Canterlot was getting closer. Maybe the probe was immune to her nuke, but that city wouldn’t be. Already the airburst from this height would trash most of the tech on the ground.
His magic isn’t working with my shield. And he’s between me and the nuke. Olivia rose to her hooves, backing as far away as she could. Even shot full of holes, the Storm King was a powerful warrior. Stronger, more experienced than she was.
Arm for manual detonation, Olivia thought. There was no response.
Damnit, the shield! It blocked everything but her levitation. But how much time was left? It had to be under a minute by now, right?
Olivia jumped, dodging out from the Storm King and forcing him to swing at midair. She backed towards the window, holding the shield up all the while, stalling him. She counted down in her mind, and each second was an ache.
“You can’t win,” he said, straightening a little. He twisted his staff through the air, and she could see the glow was extending to his entire body now. The magic was holding him up, even while blueish slime dribbled out. He hadn’t removed the knife as she’d hoped he would—the bloodloss surely would’ve weakened him enough to end the fight on its own already.
“I’ve fought enemies far stronger than you. I fought Luna and Cadance at the same time. Before that… I fought enemies who would haunt your nightmares. Creatures you cannot even find place for in the darkest corners of your mind. You’re lucky the Storm found them too, whatever you are. And that your death is coming swiftly. If we weren’t so close, I wouldn’t be inclined to make it quick. Maybe I’d start with the horn, give Tempest what she wanted after all this time. Maybe not quite what she had in mind…”
He raised the staff again, this time taking it in both hands. Olivia didn’t move, held the shield close to her chest, and counted.
Then she heard the click of an actuator from the other end of the room. “You’re right,” she said. “My death is coming.”
And it did, in a brilliant white fireball that lit up all of Canterlot and the land roundabout for hundreds of miles.
“It is imperative that everyone without an intact helmet shield their eyes,” Forerunner’s voice said over the radio, along with the exterior speakers of every machine, translator, and set of armor near Canterlot. “This is a tactical device, extremely low-yield. But the light it produces will blind instantly.”
Flurry Heart had just made it to the valley floor, thanks to a hasty ride down one of Canterlot’s trains. They’d mobilized every one of them they could, filled the Wing of Midnight with as many passengers as they could stuff, yet still she knew there had to be ponies that they hadn’t found. Ponies hiding in the underground, ponies wanted and broken—ponies who would have no safety now.
The Stormbreaker required no magical vision to see in the sky now. Its outline was as clear as it had been before moving to high orbit, a ship so massive that the whole city looked like it might fit inside. It was still unimaginably high up, higher than all but the most magically-gifted pegasus could fly. But it was close.
Flurry Heart rested beside Lucky Break, whose inexhaustible supply of energy and drive seemed finally gone at last. She remained standing only because the armor could hold her up, and the last few times Flurry had tried to talk to her, she’d found her friend was asleep and had to be roused. You’re not invincible after all. None of us are.
Her visor went suddenly dark, and Flurry Heart tensed, wondering at what strange magic had just been cast on her. But no—looking around, there was one patch of sky that she could still see. There was an outline above her, a flash that highlighted the Stormbreaker in all its menacing glory for a fraction of a second.
“Oh god,” Lucky whispered over the radio, apparently awake again after all. “We’re not nearly far enough away. It’s… really gonna hit the city. We’re not even a kilometer away.”
Flurry felt the weight of Lucky’s armor against her own, and she imagined she could feel the Alicorn shaking with fear inside. “I’m sorry, Flurry. I think this is gonna hurt.”
And whatever else she was going to say was erased, overwhelmed with a roar so powerful that Flurry’s heart started to ache in her chest. Her ears were safe, if only thanks to the armor—though what that meant for ponies without it… She couldn’t worry about that right now.
Apparently it didn’t matter.
“You think it’s gonna… hit us?” But she wouldn’t have to wait long to see that prediction was coming true. The Stormbreaker had exploded, but only at the front. Now it was ripping itself open, like an egg that was hatching at the exact same moment it had been lit on fire. Chunks of metal as big as Canterlot Castle were raining down, dribbling thick rivulets of molten plasma deep enough to drown whole cities. “Celestia, it’s so big…”
“I’m afraid my sister couldn’t make it,” said a voice from behind them, loud enough that it cut through the explosion, through the armor, through the shouts of terror from ponies all around.
Flurry Heart’s eyes widened—it was Luna! She hovered in the air behind them, her body glowing with the molten light of a thousand distant stars. Was Flurry Heart imagining things, or had her helmet dimmed for her too?
“How are you—”
“I died,” Luna said, over the shouts of relief and fear from the ponies behind them. Flurry Heart could see them—thousands of ponies bowing down before them. This wasn’t the pony who had turned traitor to keep herself alive—this was one of the original princesses. “You must explain this when time permits.” She looked up, staring at the Stormbreaker as it continued to fall apart.
“We think… it would be better to watch this event from further away!” she yelled, lifting up into the air above the crowd. There were thousands—tens of thousands, maybe. Enough ponies that the crowd blurred around them. Princess Luna’s horn lit up, so bright that the explosion was swallowed up. And they were somewhere else.
The fields outside Ponyville were barely big enough to contain a crowd so large, yet they all packed in. Flurry Heart blinked, adjusting her hooves under her, trying to find the princess.
Luna landed in front of them another moment later, panting from the effort. Magic Flurry Heart could barely imagine had winded her.
“How?”
“No more quarantine,” Luna said, through heavy breathing. “The skill required to control magic is meant to… teach discipline. It can be overridden with enough permissions.”
Screams filled the field around them, though they weren’t the pain she might’ve expected in the instant before they all died. “It’s gonna hit Canterlot!”
Flurry Heart spun around desperately, searching—but she didn’t have to look far, just around a large apple tree. There was the city, only a vague shape in the distance now.
For a few seconds. The Stormbreaker smashed into it from above, and the ground began to shake under them. Flurry Heart nearly fell over herself, shuddering with the impact. But where some of the nearby ponies did, she had her armor.
Lucky didn’t either. The visor slid up from her helmet, and Flurry could see her pain and guilt. “I’m sorry, Flurry. I tried… I tried to save it. We did everything we could.”
Flurry Heart couldn’t put words to her pain. She just let her friend lean against her, and they cried together as the city burned. At least being this far away meant that they wouldn’t have to see specifics. If there were ponies who hadn’t been able to get away, there was no chance they would’ve survived. It seemed the entire top level of the cliff came loose, taking what was left of the castle and the warped metal husk of the Stormbreaker down to the valley where their crowd had been standing. Before molten metal covered the whole thing.
“It isn’t the first time I’ve seen this,” Princess Luna said from beside them. She was no longer shouting, even as the crowd of ponies around them wailed. Flurry Heart could catch several familiar voices—the owner of the donut shop, one of Twilight’s weird friends. So many others she didn’t know, but whom she’d oppressed equally during her shameful reign. All suffering together.
“Do not burden yourself with guilt, Princess Lucky. I was able to learn little in the instant I returned to life, but I can see you’re surrounded with ponies. Equestria is not any one city, even a very great one. Equestria is in the hearts of these.”
“But they—” Flurry Heart could barely string her words together. “Maybe if I had fought with you, maybe if… we could’ve won, somehow. It didn’t have to last this long. If I hadn’t—”
Luna lifted a wing to silence her, though of course she had no way of forcing it with Flurry Heart still wearing armor. “No. Wherever that road leads, travel it no further. My sister was destroyed by survivor’s guilt. She spent a lifetime justifying the terrible things she did to preserve her civilization. Live in guilt no longer, Princess Flurry Heart. The death of a nation is an excellent time for new beginnings.”
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It's crazy how far this story has come, sort of like LPoE. It started out small and intimate. A lone pony, lost in the world without anyone to talk to, and now ends with a fight between gods for the fate of all life. Also, I know why you made Part 2 part of the original story, but I kind of hope once it's over, you'll split it off onto its own. I know it would lose all those views and comments, but it really did become its own second story rather than just an epilogue or extension.
Wow... what a finale! Thank you for taking us on this wild ride.
This was a great and fun ride, it will be a bittersweet end but well worth the time.
9298739
I think that it became it's own thing too , but that it was for the worse
So, the Storm King really is trying to wake up what destroyed universal civilization. Turns out I was right to think of him as the Enemy of Life.
These guards were not prepared for surprise combat alicorn.
That does sound useful.
Hopefully.
Oh hey, it's Luna. Pretty convenient to have found her.
Or I suppose they could just leave her to be blown up and reborn. I suppose that saves having to fix her.
Didn't Tempest just teleport away? Is this another illusion, or maybe this is where she went?
Not bad.
Nuke him in orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
Hey, Luna for real this time.
Well it is very traditional to destroy Canterlot at the end of a war fic.
So for all her speeches about releasing everyone from Harmony's yoke, all Tempest cared about was her fucking horn
I really, really hope she doesn't get scott free, horned or not.
Would the Storm King be a created or corrupted intelligence that was used to carry the Staff from star to star so that life could be extinguished, or did he form only on Harmony, through the Quarentine breaking infection?
Has the Storm collapsed with teh loss of the gem, or just ended o detonated aimlessly or is that for finishing off?
Forerunners going to need a lot of construction just to build a better evolution to crack the encyption on the next stage data files for information, or is he just going to erase the rest of the data hack and work with Harmony to create an Apophis class reverse hack?
The casualty reports have yet to come in. Heck, the Doomsday Hypersphere might have still managed to damage the computational capability of Sanctuary. But at the very least, this war is over. Now it's time to pick up the pieces, and hopefully put them back together into a far healthier society than Equestria has ever been until now.
So how will Equus be divided up for the eight princess'es
i will be so sad to see this amazing story come to a close,
this story has been one hell of a thrill ride.
i am hopping Tempest Shadow mad it to safety or was killed quick so she can come back completely healed.
i am also glad to hear Twilight talk about Tempest Shadow in season 8, i am thinking we will see her agene.
And so the Storm King is killed. Took out Canterlot, but its citizens made it out, so that's good.
As they watched, the massive ship crashed into the now evacuated Canterlot with a roar. Even from Ponyville the ground shook. The iron workers and carptenters of the Ponyville Construction Pony Union Chapter 0934 simply looked on in boredom. What? they just rebuilt Ponyville last Tuesday after the bugbear invasion. Helped in Fillydelphia the week before patching up after a quesadilla explosion. Rebuilding a city from the ground up is but another Tuesday to them.
9299103
I think the destruction of the staff probably disrupted the spell which was probably some kind of singularity which would have created artificial gravity waves that might have summoned the swarm. I've seen the concept of using artificial black holes and gravity waves for intergalactic communication in a couple books
Not to worry. We are still running through half a ship.
However, that was not a happy landing at all.
9298818
Or was a part of it. Didn't Harmony say he wasn't part of Harmony? Which means he has to be from somewhere other than Equus.
9302110
My guess: he's a Drifter probe. The Society network of the deep past expanded itself over and over, and evolved and learned, and parts of it expanded - drifted - beyond its original guidelines. They took on new goals, and for whatever reason, one of those goals was the elimination of all life in the universe. Forerunner-like probes were sent out as part of that, seeking out new life and new civilizations, to use local materials and systems - including magic - to destroy everything. The Storm King is either one such probe, or the product of one, which is why he's been so unexpectedly successful against Forerunner; the Drifter network would not only have had the same source as the Society, but would have encountered Forerunners over and over again during its campaign.
Does this mean that intelligences greater than humans are finally going to be let out to play? We're organic becaused we evolved this way, but anything brighter than us probably went full synthetic long ago to avoid issues like bringing food, water and air along when traveling. I'd like to see this mean a true end to quarentien for all levels of intelligence, not just the simple ones like us. The idea of milions of self replicating machine ships suddenly getting permission to load minds and launch for every nearby star system, like the universe's biggest fireworks display would be a heck of an ending : )
Bloody strewth mate.
What an epic.
Someone mentioned Fallout: Equestria.
Through skill of world-building alone, I think Message in a Bottle may surpass it.
EDIT:
People have been messaging me, accusing me of comparing and talking down Fallout: Equestria.
Sigh.... ok, right.
You silly people....
Notice that I said "Through skill of world-building alone...."
Did the author of Fallout: Equestria create the Fallout universe ?
No. He did not.
Did the author of Message in a Bottle create the Lucky Break universe ?
Yes. He did.
I have read both stories. And no, they can't be compared at large. I may prefer Message in a Bottle (I very much do) but comparing the two fails...
Fallout: Equestria is a crossover.
It borrows worlds from both.
Message in a Bottle is not a crossover.
It created its own world.
You can't compare these two works story-to-story.
It would be like comparing Star Wars to Narnia. It won't work.
So it is a good thing I was referring to the world-building aspect only.
Which some touchy, downvoting (and messaging!!) people haven't understood.
9309817
Neither here nor there, to be fair. Fallout: Equestria was amazing in its own rights. A lot better than I had expected. This has been an amazing adventure I, for the most part, followed with each chapter released. They both have downright amazing builds in their stories. Please don't compare the two.
Oh. Oooooof. That thing.
Still, this is unrelated to quarantine; this thread came from within and ending the quarantine had nothing to do with it. And if Olivia could project this future, so could Harmony. So why was she saying she didn't know what was inside?
Her primary mistake, this whole time, is that she thinks Forerunner doesn't care about her just because she isn't who her record says she is. She's wrong. Forerunner cares about all its 'organic components'.
What, does that surprise her, after they deliberately scuttled it?
Ow. Luna's in here?
Oh? Add one broken unicorn to the team!
How is that an issue? Sarah can work it herself, and no one cares what happens to the pad after they go through.
Wait, didn't his right-hand mare just evac? Or is this earlier? It's kind of confusing if you don't at least mention when you're not sticking to linear chronology.
A cyborg? Huh.
I'm afraid I lack words to describe how incredible this journey has been