An impact struck the outer hull, causing the entire bomber to shudder. From Above was jerked to the side and nearly thrown out of his chair, but he managed to keep a firm hold of the wheel. He righted himself and peered out the reinforced glass shell of the bomber’s front end, marveling at the explosions of flack and magic and lasers that filled the sky over Megatropolis 412.

“Sap has been hit!” cried his copilot, his indicator lights flashing and an alarm sounding to indicate that Poor Sap had lost his cerebral function. “The aft ball-turret is down!”

“Celestia’s beard,” swore From Above under his breath. He slid the holographic control to the consul below him, and did his duty to ensure that the mission would be complete. He slammed his hoof into the controls, and from below heard the screaming as the bomber’s AI integrated into Poor Sap’s spinal implants, forcing him into a state of agonizing half-life. The ball turret immediately began firing once again that the swarm of Pegasi that surrounded them.

“Sheild spell on plating section six is at thirty two percent!” declared the copilot. “One more hit and our wing will be gone!”

“Where is our air support?!” cried From Above. He already knew, though. Most of them had been lost. The Pegasi of 412 had been far more numerous than had been anticipated. They had already taken down three of the other bombers. Not that it mattered, though. Only one needed to make it through to ensure Valley Glory’s victory over their eternal enemies.

The vessel shook again with another hit, and From Above struggled to hold the aircraft straight and level. As he stared out at the window and watched as bullets ricocheted across the enhanced glass, he saw one of the ball-turrets tear through a Pegasus, ripping her body in half with potassium tracers. She liquefied, falling against his windscreen and forcing him to activate the wipers to remove her blood.

“Come on,” said From Above, more to his plane than to anypony else. “Just a little farther…”

An icon on his controls illuminated, and a tiny blue hologram of an extremely sexy female pony appeared near his hoof.

“Navigator,” he said over the sound of the explosions and the straining of the engines. “How much farther?”

“We will be over our target in forty seven point two seconds,” she said, cheerfully- -and almost cruelly. She, like the rest of them, knew that even if they survived this one, they would surely be killed later- -and relished that fact, simply because she was programmed to.

That was the nature of war, though. Sacrifices had to me made. Ponies had to die if it meant that the enemy would be crushed. From above was prepared to die. In fact, on some level, he wanted to. He was so tired. The war had been so long, and there had been so much death. So many ponies had died by his hoof, and he could not stop seeing them when he closed his eyes- -but he knew that Megatropolis 412 was the enemy, and he was not idealistic enough to believe that peace could ever be achieved. Once, when he was younger, maybe he had, but now he had lost faith in the gods. There was no Luna, no Celestia, no Savior Machine- -he had come to realize that even Thebe was just another myth.

Another blow rocked the vessel, and he felt one of the engines take in flack and explode.

“Engine twelve is down! Left wing breached!” the copilot, twisting in his swivel chair and running his hooves over the holograms as he had been trained since birth to do. “Containing plasma leak…”

The copilot did not have a name. He was just another white, red-eyed breeder Pegasus. He hardly had the capacity for independent thought, to know that he was attacking his own species below in the name of an earth pony civilization. From Above did not care so much if his copilot died, but was in his own way evious of a soldier that could lose absolutely nothing in battle. The others, though- -every time one died, even to this day, he felt it. Poor Sap and his organic navigator Mapmarker had already been slain in this battle. The goat Cocky Kid and his bombardier Pickle Barrel, however, were still alive. Unlike From Above and the farm-grown Pegasus, if given the chance, they still had the potential to live real lives. They would, of course, not be given that chance.

“Within range in five seconds,” said Navigator, cheerfully.

“Pickle Barrel!” called From Above through the intercom. “You ready?”

“Ready as a rooster in a roaster!” said the high-pitched voice back through the radio.

“Don’t miss!”

“Silly filly, I never miss!”

From Above almost argued, especially considering how he was a stallion- -but he had to force the plane to the side at the last moment to avoid one of their escort fighters plunging through the sky above nearly breaking off their still functional wing.

Through the vessel, From Above felt the characteristic clank of the rail-cannon moving into alignment. The bombs were being shifted into place. From Above knew what they looked like, what they felt like. Six times larger than a pony, and twice as wide, fifty tons each. The payload of each was a full seventy two megatons, and each was tipped with a tungsten spike to carry it into the ground at twenty times the speed of sound, intended to be fired in a sequence through the center of a Megatropolis creating a line of death that would end this campaign of the war. The city below had over three hundred million ponies. There would be no survivors.

From Above began the firing sequence, engaging the systems that would keep the stratobomber level during firing. Without his changes in motion, they were not taking far heavier damage- -but he did not care. It no longer mattered. Even if the bombers was destroyed at this point, it would last long enough to fire at least once.

He looked down at the projection on his controls, a view from Pickle Barrel’s bomb sight filling it. He saw the city below him, its surface covered delicately with the curving lines of the scope, its center sitting in the small black circle in the middle of the scope.

From Above smiled, realizing, of all things, an irony of his belief. He knew that there were no gods of kindness, but he did know that there was a Satin. For this, his soul would surely fall to her.

“Over target,” said the smiling Navigator. “Bring death to the filthy bat-loving Pegasus heretics and make Valley’s Pride proud!”

“Fire at will,” ordered From Above.

Through the scope, he watched the city start to tear apart, its material imploding toward the center- -and panic filled his mind before he even fully comprehended that the jet had not shifted, that the rail gun had not yet fired.

Something was destroying the city below from within. From Above watched in dumstruck horror as the buildings were torn to pieces, swirling together in a vortex around a central point as the city filled with white light. Not that of an explosion, though. This was no bomb, no nuclear explosion; it was as if a tornado had simply picked up the city and moved it in a way that was astonishingly- -and terrifyingly- -orderly.

The ground suddenly seemed to ignite as the city imploded. Sparks poured upward like reverse lightning, filling the sky. The Pegasi around them were vaporized instantly, their bodies pulled apart into red mist to fine to even be called proper gore.

The plane was struck as well, and from the way the engines and metal shifted, it was clear that it had been hit. More than that, it was clear that his precious plane had finally died. The engine was failing, and he felt the plane falling- -or being pulled downward.

Fear filled him, and he realized something. He did not want to die.

He slammed his hoof into the ejection switch, and felt his chair turn as it reversed him. For a moment, he saw his copilot’s confused face as all his screens lit up at once and then went blank- -and then From Above was launched downward.

The air roared around him as he hit the cold high-atmospheric air outside, and he felt himself being crushed into his seat as the rockets in his chair pulled him away from his dead bomber. Even as his vision darkened from the momentary blood loss, though, he saw his plane being torn apart. Not ripped or broken, but being physically disassembled. He saw the magic that plated the hull broken as if it were paper, and the plating beneath unbolted and separated, cut into pieces as the remainder of the plane was broken down.
Even the bombs inside were not safe. Fortunately, before they could be removed and taken completely, Pickle Barrel managed to fire one. There was a surge of green fire as it launched, the uncontrolled recoil breaking what remained of the plane into pieces- -and then it stopped.

From Above’s chair slowed, and he lit his horn, engaging his magic to produce a parachute. He gaped at what he was seeing, at a spell that had caught an armed straitening earthquake bomb, freezing it in place as though it were a falling feather. Then the bomb simply broke apart, joining the spiraling stream of components that descended slowly, joining the city center as it was consumed.

None of it made sense, and none of it was possible. From Above removed an enhancement chip from his belt and installed it in one of his cybernetic eyes and looked to the ground below.

His vision was shaky, so he was not able to see well at first- -but then it steadied. In the center of the wreckage, he could see something shrouded in light, a figure barely as taller than a pony. From Below engaged the enhancement software, and saw that it was some kind of biped standing amongst the debris, in the center of it. The bits of the plane, of the city, of his comrades- -it was all being pulled into that central figure and consumed somehow, vanishing from existence.

Then it turned. He knew that it was impossible, but somehow it looked up at him with a pair of luminescent white eyes. From Above’s blood froze at the sight of those eyes, at the force of the magic that he was perceiving.

Nuclear weapons were one thing, but this creature had accomplished nearly the same end with a spell- -and seemed nearly bored. It was not straining, or in pain; it was simply walking through the center of the city, as if it were on a leisurely stroll.

Then From Above shivered again, and not from the cold wind. Something was wrong. He turned slowly, and felt his breath catch as he saw something even more horrible, and even more impossible. In the distance, a group of enormous bipedal creatures were approaching the city. For a moment, From Above could not believe what he was seeing- -but there was no mistaking them. They were clearly golems, their bodies hundreds of feet high and wrapped in red magic for armor, their horns glowing and their red eyes like the fire of Tartarus itself.

There was not just one. There were not even a few- -there was an entire force of them marching in unison, with at least twenty members- -and in the center of them a golem that stood nearly three times taller than the others. From Above had not even believed that golems were real- -he had always assumed that they were just statues, just part of a story- -but now he saw them walk, and felt the magic emanating from them. All the same magic as well, a form radically different from that of any living unicorn. Thebe had joined the battle.

Many others were falling from the sky. The other bombers had been lost as well, as well as many fighters, and the crews had ejected. Many Pegasi had likewise been injured but not killed, and some missed completely by the spell from below. In that mess of falling bodies, From Above saw a third impossible thing. The sides were helping each other. The Pegasi were lowering their weapons and catching the falling ponies who had been injured or whose ejection systems had been damaged; likewise, the unicorns among the ejected were pulling in the failing Pegasi, supporting them in their spells.

It was touching- -until the red bolts poured out of golems into the air. The ponies around From Above were slaughtered with absolute precision. Not one of the magic bolts missed, and not one missed a head or heart.

From Above reacted quickly, sacrificing his parachute for a field bubble. The spell that hit it went off like a bomb inside his head, shattering both the shield and his horn. The pain was incredible, more than he had ever thought possible. It was more than pain, though- -it felt like his soul itself was being pulled from him as his magic leached from his body and he began to fall.

As he did, he hazily opened his eyes- -and saw a beam of light projected from each of the golem’s horns. What was left of the city- -the regions filled with so many ponies who now did not have to die- -were atomized by the cornoa effects. The beams landed upon their target, the tiny figure in the center of the swirling mass of material- -but he did not fall. Without any effort, he projected a shield spell of blue magic that absorbed the impact.

Another beam was fired, and From Above’s last thought before the corna destroyed his body was of just how inconsequential the war he had spent his life fighting truly was- -that one thousand times the ponies who had died in it would fail to be even remotely noticed in a battle like the one he briefly saw below him, that what his people had spent so many decades doing could be accomplished on a whim- -or as collateral damage- -in a minor battle. This, he realized, was what war was- -absolute annihilation of all things. In seeing this, he understood the true nature of the one true alicorn goddess, of the monstrosity that she was.

Then he was gone. He never knew, and never could have known that Valley’s Pride had been lost just two hours earlier, torn asunder in the war that was raging below where he had finally met his end in the war for the fate of Equestria. He had died for nothing. They all had.