Evergreen Falls

by Meep the Changeling

26 - The Battle of Evergreen Falls III

Princess Luna - 19th of Harvestide (Nightmare Night), 4 EoH
Blackstone Quarry - Hackamore Valley

Luna soared across the battlefield the pit had become. The Venture’s unicorn and earth pony troops had elected to deploy via parachute, and landed a few hundred meters from the edge of the pit. It had taken them a while to reach a firing position, but the combined arms of nearly three hundred Equestrian soldiers was making a massive difference.

The horror was confined to the center of the pit, shielding its central mass with all of its tentacles, betraying its vulnerable spots.

“Airships, come around for another pass. The last attack nearly breached its core,” Luna ordered, turning her head to make sure the support aircraft turned to make another bombing run.

Luna turned her head again, this time to the pit’s edge where the medical airships had touched down. They’d nearly finished loading the wounded, having just sorted them from the corpses. Soon the casualties would be evacuated to Vanhoofer’s Lady of Peace hospital. With some luck, the dead could be retrieved shortly as well.

This is certainly more complex than war as I knew it, but I do like the tools within the modern Commander’s workshop, Luna mused to herself.

Luna’s radio crackled for a split second as thaumic interference surged outwards from the pit. What in the world was—

“Fall back from the pit now!” A battlemage Luna remembered was on monitor duty screamed into the radio.

Luna spread her wings and flapped hard, pushing herself away from the open blackstone hole. She just cleared the rim when a mass of red and purple light welled up within the entity’s huddled form and radiated outwards, melting the hexical stones within the pit into a single smooth layer of still lava, ionizing the air enough to send bolts of lightning crashing down into the pit. The layers of sludge and slime left over from the monster’s minions began to sizzle and bubble as they cooked, releasing noxious fumes.

Luna looked up in horror, eyes frantically searching for the Wonderbolts. Their cloud formation was gone. Three of their squad fell from the air, limp and blackened.

Dead already, and I’d cook trying to save them. Fie!

“Mages, counterspell,” Luna ordered through the radio, looking down to see what the evil oil slick was doing.

Surely this has to be making an opening for something—

The beast emerged from the pit like crude oil bubbling up from the sea floor. Its bulk simply slid upwards in a stream, ignoring air and gravity alike as it took on a more tangible form than the ooze and slime forested in tentacles. It rolled and churned, its core taking on a shape vaguely reminiscent of a pony’s chest, shoulders, and head. Vaguely being the key word, for the creature’s back was hunched, its shoulders and neck fused into a single piece, and the head-like lump was set into the upper sternum.

Its tentacles flowed upwards along its back, taking position upon the creature such that they resembled a cloak, with the remainders squelching into sheafs upon each shoulder like strands of muscle left over after ripping the skin and bone from a creature’s forelegs.

The creature’s black pearlescent skin shimmered and rippled with inner light as it hung in the air over the pit in this mockery of the pony form. Like somepony had dismembered the most deformed pony to ever draw breath. It screeched triumphantly, its bellow shaking rapidly withering leaves from trees.

Luna pulled out of her dive and landed on the quarry’s rim next to Sky to assess the situation.

“Come the buck on!” Luna demanded through clenched teeth.

“Who the fuck lost their Neighponese RPG boss?” Sky muttered as he poured fuel into his weapon’s generator from behind a boulder. “Can they come pick it up?”

Luna couldn’t help but smile at the grown stallion swearing like a foal in a life or death situation. The joke pulled the tension from her mind, letting her refocus on the situation at hoof.

“We’re on phase three. That’s usually the last one.” Luna replied, hoping to return the favor. She frowned at Sky’s seemingly conventional generator as the stallion refueled it. “Is that thing running on lamp oil?”

Sky laughed once, “Kinda! Prototypes, you know? Sometimes kerosene is just the best,” then focused his attention on finishing his energy cannon’s elaborate reload process. Luna raised a hoof to her radio and squeezed the transmit button.

“Medevac teams, retreat to the hospital immediately once loaded. Civilian support, retreat to the town now. Airships, if you can engage aerial targets, fire at will.” Luna instructed then began to scan the sky for Cadence.

No sign of her… She may have landed for some water, or another potion. Luna rationalized, taking a deep breath. We’re going to suffer for a few days as is. I hope to the gods I don’t need to use another mana potion.

The airships finished their turn and began to open fire on the floating horror. Their cannons thundered and crackled. Shells and spells burst on the abomination’s skin, burning and cratering it. It shook under the assault, slowly turning to face the wing of airships like a marble statue atop a slowly rotating dais.

The creature unleashed a wailing cry that sent chills deep into everypony’s bones. The sludge and slime boiling at the bottom of the newly-molten pit reached a rolling boil. The bubbles popped, the droplets cohering into a vast host of monsters. The newspawn landed atop the pit's rim along the entire perimeter.

Luna swore under her breath and took to the air, aiming downwards and blasting the horde around her. Sky yelped, dropped his heavy weapon and opened fire with a pair of bracer pistols, covering himself long enough to get into the air next to Luna.

“We fall back now, right?” Sky asked, eyes wide with panic.

“After saving the medevac,” Luna corrected. She turned her head towards the landed airships. The horde had taken the medical staff completely by surprise and were tearing into patients and medics alike.

Sky turned to look as well, he didn’t think or speak. He simply opened fire with the pistols. Luna joined him, sending a hail of spellbolts to tear through every monster she could see. The medevac pilots began to take off. Several of the airships were pulled down by the horde. Luna surged towards them, switching to a sweeping blue ray to cut down as many of the ooze spawn from the ships as she could.

A blinding burst of red light drew Luna’s gaze only for harsh blue to white out her vision. An airship exploded in the distance, the electric thunderclap of its detonating mana crystals drowning out the sound of the monster’s energy blast. Luna blinked her vision clear just as Cadence arrived, her left side singed black and trailing dead feathers.

Cadence grit her teeth and with a surge of pegasus magic created a blisteringly hot updraft under the airships, forcing them upwards with a thermal that would do nothing to help the brewing thermal storm.

“I’ll cover the retreat,” Cadence shouted at Luna. “Regroup the infantry to protect the town. Raven can order a fleet bombardment of the pit.”

Luna nodded, grateful that Cadence understood the tools of war. “Understood!”

Luna’s vision blanked out again as the world turned red. A second airship exploded.

At least its attacks are still somewhat slow. Luna hit her radio. “All units retreat to the edge of town. Cadence is covering you.”

“Another surge is building in the pit!” The battlemage monitor cried out.

Luna spun mid air, looking in horror at the thought of further transformations. A circle of orange light shimmered into existence around the rim, resolving into a complex rune pattern that swelled outwards into a spherical layer of floating characters.

Luna frowned, uncertain of what was occurring until the eldritch monster screeched and swung its many limbs at the barrier. It crackled, rippled, and sparked, but held.

The city-mind! Luna noted in relief.

Almost as if the ancient construct heard her, Limited Perfection spoke, its mechanical voice audible across the battlefield.

“Warning: Threatening is detected. Isolation wrap fortitude: grande. Altitude rapidly goes down. Shards should de-occupy immediate the entire vicinity.”

It sounds like a speaking doll with little power left, Luna noted with a deep pang of sympathy. If we survive this day, you will be repaired, this I vow.

“Don’t waste the opportunity. Go!” Cadence ordered over the radio.

The army began to fall back, mopping up the horde not contained within the sphere where necessary.

⁜ ⁜ ⁜

Luna landed atop the Evergreen Falls General Store. The two story building provided a nice line of sight to the edge of town and the hilltop between them and the quarry. The vantage point allowed her to watch her troops take defensive positions where possible and dig foxholes where it wasn’t.

Luna felt a pang of regret that her burning wing muscles prevented her from directing the fortification effort from the air, but such was life. She gestured to be thrown a ration pack from a stack by the wall, and tore it open. Even an alicorn’s stamina had its limits. The break and the food were necessary.

I’ll deal with getting looks, I’m eating this raw.

Limited’s shield could be seen over the hilltop, crackling, sparking, and spalling as the monster and its spawn battered from within.

It holds for now… Likely not for more than a few minutes. Luna noted. She raised a hoof to her radio and squeezed it tightly. “Cadence, are our ponies clear?”

“The survivors are out. I’m moving to rendezvous with you on that roof once I’ve gotten food. Get Raven to send our bombardment order.”

Luna nodded and clicked her radio back to the old channel they had been using before Raven had distracted Enox. “Raven, it’s Luna. I’m told the navy has heavy bombardment capability. Do it now. Everything they have that will not endanger the town through our shields. There’s a shield over the monster right now. Shoot anyways, it will fail soon.”

“Yes, Princess,” Raven replied.

Luna switched the channel back and returned to overseeing the fortifications and eating cold veggie lasagna. Her left ear twitched as she detected the faintest sound of hoof on concrete behind her. Luna spun on her rear legs, horn lit and ready to fire. A charcoal colored thestral mare with a deep purple mane looked back at her.

Luna extinguished her horn, clearing her throat and brushing away some marinara sauce. “Apologies, citizen. Please, find shelter immediately. The barrier will not hold for long, and it will be dangerous to be near me when I’m putting the town shield up.”

The mare smiled, revealing fangs more pointed than a batpony’s should be. Luna’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“I mean no disrespect, Princess,” Silkwing said with a kind smile. “But, no thank you. I am a vampire, eldest and last of my brood. I, and several others within the community, would like to help. Where should our militia go?”

Luna considered for a moment, then nodded. “You have the right to defend your homes. Do you see the shallow fold at the hill’s rim, where there must be a creek in spring? The creatures will funnel through there, if they follow the lay of the land. My soldiers are there. I would advise your militia to protect the southern flank of their position.”

Silkwing nodded once, opened her wings, and silently flew off into the night, leaving Luna with but a few seconds to wonder if she’d made the right decision. Her contemplations were interrupted by a pale blue light and crystalline chime from her left saddlebag. Luna lit her horn and fished her message stone from the bag, activating the magical radio with a spark of her magic.

The stone shimmered, levitated on its own power, then projected a full size illusion of Celestia onto the roof. The image was true to life, though translucent giving the projection a ghostly appearance.

“Sister, I was just told you have requested our navy shell one of our towns. What is going on with this hunt of yours?” Celetia demanded, her face calm, but her voice betraying a deep worry.

Luna let out a long breath. “The creature is beyond durable, Celestia.” Luna began. “It can be damaged by corporeal attacks, but Cadence and I have gone through six mana potions each and yet it lives. I am beginning to feel the effects of the potions building up within my flesh, sister. You are not here. I do not think I can convey to you how much harm this monster has endured, and how much it has healed. It simply refuses to die.”

Celestia closed her eyes for a long moment. “This is why I prefer to talk out problems, Luna!”

Luna glared at her sister. “By all means. Come and attempt to speak to an abomination of oil and ooze.”

“I know… I know,” Celestia groaned. “I am taking a recess from critical negotiations with the Pharaoh of Zebrica to understand this situation. I cannot help in person. It is clear you need help. I can call for the Elements if you can transport them.”

Luna shook her head immediately. “I cannot spare the mana to take so many so far. Evergreen Falls is most remote—”

Celestia gasped. “You’re going to shell our home!?”

“The quarry next to it,” Luna corrected. “Its trapped within—”

Luna’s words were cut off by a cacophony of shrieking whistles and the swift thunder of a fleet’s worth of artillery slamming into the creature as Limited’s barrier shattered with a sound like somepony dropping a crystal anvil on a stone watermelon. Several late shells struck the quarry, and the horde shrieked in pain and rage as many were torn asunder by the merciless wrath of 46cm HE shells.

“That would be the shelling,” Celestia groaned, facehoofing. “Is the town fine?”

“What?!” Luna shouted, her ears ringing like nopony’s business. By the gods, how big is that cannon? I felt the earth jump beneath my hooves!

Celestia turned in place, extending her own messenger gem’s illusion to get a view of the immediate area. “Good. The fleet’s shots are accurate for a change… Luna, listen. I know you’re banking on stopping this thing yourself, but—”

“I’m not,” Luna said, her ears having healed halfway through Celestia’s sentence.

Luna took a moment to get her earplugs from her saddlebag and put them in.

“What is your plan?” Celestia asked simply.

Luna pointed downwards with one hoof. “A strike team below is putting the seal back on this monster’s prison. We need only to keep the creature from overrunning the town and hold its attention for as much time as we can. I can check their progress for—”

The second volley of shells evaporated Luna’s words much like a good portion of the charging monstrous hoard, and several of the abominations' tentacles. Luna’s vision went red again as the horror rotated mid air once more and fired one of its red rays of death towards the sea.

Luna reached for her radio and switched it to June’s channel. “June, quick status report. Before the next shells hit.”

“We’re at the place. We have some unexpected help, but the astrolabe’s kinda broke. But we’re fixing it!” June called through the radio. “Um, it shouldn’t take long? We’ve got its creator right here, so—”

“Good.” Luna said, letting go of the transmission button and not quite grasping June’s statement due to her aching head.

Modern cannons sure do hit hard… Luna thought, shaking her wings and head to try and get the pounding to stop. And fire impressively fast.

Celestia looked out at the hillside, her limited range illusion showing her the mass of oily shadow creatures thundering down the hillside towards the mass of Equestrian infantry. They flooded down the hill, following the path Luna predicted, filling the kill box within seconds. The soldiers opened fire, cutting down dozens of the charging creatures, slowing their progress, but not halting it.

Luna sighed. “Great… I’m not yet rested,” she raised a hoof to her radio. “Cadence, can you take up the slack?”

“In a minute,” Cadence said, audibly choking down a ration bar. “Calories low. Need water.”

Luna sighed a second time. “Be quick.”

She’s gone through a lot of potions today. Her body needs the resources. I should be getting something more than that snack myself. Shame I don’t have time.

Celestia turned her head to the south, and frowned prompting Luna to look as well. A streak of gray bolted across the grass, racing into the fray and immediately starting to physically pull monsters apart limb by limb.

“What in Tartarus is—” Celestia began, only to nod to herself halfway through her sentence. “Oh. Right. That vampire.”

“I don’t think that’s a vampire,” Luna said, tracking the pony-like blur along the ranks. “She’s… Holding the line as well as I could.”

“She’s not a normal vampire,” Celestia commented idly. “Don’t tell her I control the sun, by the way.”

Luna thought for a moment, then snorted. “I understand… Do you know how long she can keep this up for?”

Celestia shrugged her wings. “A few minutes? She’s powerful, but there is… a literal horde of shadow spawn. I thought it was just one monster?” Celestia said with a worried frown. “What happened?”

“It started as one… It… Births more,” Luna admitted. “I cannot overstate the severity of this situation, sister. If I could transport the Elements and ensure they remained safe, I would ask for their aid. Can you spare the time to transport them?”

“No.” Celstia said adamantly as the infantry began to open fire on the hoard. “There is a major piracy problem in the Zebrican gulf. One we’ve caused. I’m trying to prevent an armed conflict. However, Twilight has learned to telepo—”

Celestia’s words vanished in a storm’s worth of near-simultaneous thunderclaps and monstrous shrieks of not pain, but anger, as some of the Navy’s specialist rounds hit home.

Luna flinched as the blast wave of warping mana flows slammed into her.

Celestia shared Luna’s flinch as the illusion flickered. “I’m sending Twilight to aid you. Perhaps she can determine the monster's weakness.”

Luna nodded once. “Thank you. Good luck. I have to get the town’s shield up.”

“You need luck, I’ve got the politics,” Celestia corrected.

Celestia reached up, clearly intent on plucking her gem from the air to end the call. Luna’s ears stood pert as an idea occurred to her.

“Wait! Sister, a moment.”

Celestia looked up silently, waiting for Luna to continue.

“Cadence and I believe the creature to be empowered by the blood moon… Hence, I’ve been hesitant to use my connection with the night for power. Could you move the sun up by, say, six degrees? Enough to end the eclipse and thus—”

“Oh! Certainly,” Celestia said with a smile as she terminated the correction.

Luna glanced out across the battlefield. The infantry was holding the monster’s brood back.

For now… Luna closed her eyes tightly, focused on the defensive wards she knew still lay within the earth after all these centuries, and activated them one by one. Pale shimmering barriers the color of moonlight sprang into existence across the town, segmenting and shielding it from attack as well as any ancient world’s walls had sheltered their fortresses.

There… Cadence can handle closing the sky completely once she’s able. I need to refocus on picking off stray monsters.

Luna looked to the moon. The pale red light covering it began to shift, yellowing out as the sun began to move. Luna looked over the hill towards the floating monster, waiting for the next volley to land.

She didn’t have to wait long. Quills of flame erupted across the monster's back. It bellowed again, still mostly anger, but this time some pain.

Luna frowned. The blood moon was empowering it little if at all… Buck. June, please hurry up and— Luna’s thoughts trailed off as she noticed Silkwing having noticeably slowed down. Oh. Great. She is empowered by blood moons. Splendid… I’ll help her as soon as— AH! Her militia is opening fire now. She’s fine.

A small flailing lavender alicorn appeared in a flash of lavender light several meters above Luna.

“Aaaa!” Twilight yelped on the way to slamming nose first into the roof. “Ow…”

Luna hissed in sympathetic pain and picked the newly ascended alicorn up by the tail with her magic, placing her on her hooves.

“I take it from your entrance there is no chance of you teleporting the other elements to the battlefield?” Luna asked rhetorically.

“Haaa, yea… No.” Twilight admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head. “So, Celestia said there was a monster problem? What’s—”

Luna pointed up the hill to the ominous levitating mass of vaguely mutilated pony shaped darkness wreathed in burning flesh and electrochemical bombardment residue. Twilight’s ears flattened, her eyes widened with terror.

“O— Oh…” Twilight squeaked. “Celestia needs to get better at communicating.”

“Yes,” Luna agreed with every fiber of her being. “Can you figure out a way to kill—”

Twilight yelped and clapped her hooves over her ears as Luna’s words vanished into the next artillery strike. Luna turned to fish a spare pair of earplugs from her saddle bags, only to turn back to find Twilight putting in her own.

“I can at least help the soldiers down there,” Twilight said as she finished adjusting the earplugs. “But… Lyra might know what to do. Hold on.”

The lavender mare dug in her saddlebag, producing a large brick-like portable phone and quickly but expertly dialed a number with the tip of her hoof.

“We were having a super spooky sleepover at her place, so I know she’s awake…” Twilight commented while the phone rang.

Luna cleared her throat. “Well, you consult your ally. I need to hydrate.”

Twilight nodded. Luna began to guzzle down her canteen. Twilight’s face lit up as Lyra picked up.

“Hey! Lyra? That show we were watching… How do they kill the monster?” Twilight asked.

Luna closed her eyes. Do I berate the thirty two year old for thinking that a solution from fiction would work? She’s practically a foal.

“Well, I’m looking right at it now, and it turns out that the monster Celestia mentioned is absolutely the same kind of thing,” Twilight continued, paused a moment, then facehooved. “It’s a giant kinda-pony-shaped shadow mass with tentacles that looks like a half-rotted away corpse somepony crucified. It is absolutely the same kind of thing!”

Luna blinked once. “Is this some Neighponese cartoon?” They often animate their nations’ battles with giant monsters. Perhaps this is a good idea.

Twilight nodded to Luna. “Yes,” she said before listening closely to Lyra over the phone. “No… Um, we don’t have a positron gun of any size… Or a traumatized filly with the world's worst mother to throw into a robot.”

Luna took a deep breath. “We only need to buy time for June to finish sealing it away.”

Twilight blinked twice. “Oh! Well, good! Hey? Lyra? It’s fine. I just need to delay it a little. Yeah. Okay you girls have fun. I’ll be safe. I promise I’ll hurry back. Bye!”

Twilight hung up and put her phone away. “Sorry,” she said to Luna with a sheepish smile.

“It’s fine,” Luna said, finishing her canteen and putting it away. “Just think about how you can best help the infantry. The ships are occupying it for the moment. Once I’m recovered, Cadence and I will go back to chipping away at this living fortress of a creature. Thanks to our withdrawal, some more potent but less discriminate spells are now options. We may see some progress. But, do tell me if you think of anything that might be more effective than direct attacks. It seems to have boundless stamina.”

“Well um…” Twilight put a hoof to her chin in thought, then hopped slightly as an idea came to mind. She took her brick of a phone back out and quickly dialed a number. “Captain? It’s Twilight. I saw your phone number once so I remembered it. Tell the gunners to switch to bombardment pattern kikoho… Thanks!”

Twilight quickly hung up. “Okay, that should help a little. Been reading up on fighting giants since the Tirek fiasco.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Luna said, ears laying flat with annoyance.

“Oh! It’s a Neighponese bombardment pattern designed for—”

The next wave of shells arrived, slamming into the shadow monster in a line, one after another, like pebbles dropped sequentially into a pond, if each pebble hit with the force of a small meteorite and the peal of thunder. The rapidly repeating bombardment visibly knocked the eldritch creature down into the side of the pit.

<N̸͕͝e̷̙̋t̵͉̾t̸͙̐l̶̠̓e̴̟̐d̵͕͑!̶̏͜> The monster psionically shrieked in nothing less than pure rage.

Luna flinched. Oh colt… I liked it better when it didn’t talk. At least it doesn’t make any sense.