April 1st, 71 BNM
Dusk
North midlands of Equestria
Citadel, basement catacombs
‘Leech lake’

Nearby, the newly repaired bridge across the lake was marked with some lighter coloured stone concrete, still being darkened by the moisture in the air.
But in her position, she could only stare in silence, rigid, unable to look anywhere else but at the pair of figures stood before her on the bridge, while she was fastened, upside down, inside the cage. The magical torture device around her neck kept her quiet.
Lady Ave-Dol had all but surrendered to Siral’s means of teaching her the price of betrayal.
The sharp barbed spike, called a heretic’s fork, attached to a neck brace, always poking into her chin, so if she spoke, it threatened to pierce her flesh. And around her neck, like a larger ring stretching out, a neck torture device that pointed similar spikes at her neck, meaning if she moved her head very much, they jabbed into her. And worse yet, every spike tip was laced with a toxic looking black substance that burned on contact, and hurt even more if it touched an open wound. She’d found that out the hard way when she resisted at first after being put here a few hours ago.
As her head rushed after hours of being held upside down, the pair who had come regarded her coldly, though it was Siral who probed her mind, his eyes glinting a silver and black as he did so. Gaudium, whatever he was now, stood by like a statue, following his master as if he were one with him. She feared that was the case in more ways than one.
His eyes stopping their glow, Siral scowled as he leant forwards, his black magic pulling Ave-Dol’s blue, Windigo hybrid head forwards enough to bring the heretic fork harder into her chin, her muffled gasp of pain interrupted as he released her, voice cold but satisfied.
“I don’t need to probe your pain wracked mind any further, you clearly revealed all you knew to Starswirl. But in actual fact, I should be thankful for your betrayal in going to him, you saw into his mind, and in turn, so do I with what you saw, even only glimpsed.”
“You, … I regret, not going, sooner.”
As she strained, the fork digging into her chin with each syllable, the toxin burning her skin more each time, Siral tipped his head in mild curiosity.
“You haven’t given up resisting me, even in this state. Whether or not this is you or my improvements to you, it is impressive.”
“Improvements, you cursed me. As an Alicorn disguise I spread laziness, animals even go so far as to become so sedate they starve to death! AAHHH!”
As she spat her outrage at him, the fork penetrated a little too deep for her pain threshold, and she fell quiet, a few tears falling as she kept her mouth shut.
“As I intended. But very soon, you will understand the role I have planned for you, as well as I do in fact.”
With a gesture to ‘Gaudium’ who stepped forwards once in his lanky, black vine laced form, Siral finished:
“Like him, there will no longer be resistance, only my will. The will needed to get Equestria back on track, out of the hooves of self-serving Alicorns who are unfit to rule, and are unfit to have the power they wield. Which reminds me…”
Turning to ‘Gaudium’, Siral murmured quietly:
“There are Alicorns at Tartarus. I want it done subtly, but make sure that as many die in the battle as possible. Help the others if you must.”
“Understood.”
‘Gaudium’ spoke calmly to Siral, taking a few steps along the bridge as he gathered a black and silver energy in his hands, mixed of eagle and lion paw in both.
“GAUDIUM! FIGHT HIM!”
In a desperate bit, Ave-Dol screeched from her suspended state, the Windigo/Alicorn hybrid wincing as the spike dug into her chin and neck once more. Nearby, Siral shook his head with a mockingly sad smile, before he turned to leave:
“Don’t stress yourself Lady Ave-Dol, he certainly isn’t. This discomfort is only to keep you in place until your final adjustment to my will is done, as with the others. In the meantime, try and make yourself as comfortable as an Alicorn you once were could.”
Ave-Dol utterly ignored the Wizard’s contempt filled words, as she saw Gaudium had paused, turning towards her in confusion, a single eyebrow raised.
“Gaudium?”
“I have no words for traitors, but when you see and think as I do with the others, only then shall we be on speaking terms. I serve the Savant, that is what I identify myself as. Bear that in mind until I return.”
Without another instant spared, ‘Gaudium’, whoever he now was, vanished from the bridge in a silver and black flash, leaving Ave-Dol suspended helplessly in her cage, above the lake, restrained in head and neck.
Along the bridge, the Citadel guards, silver glints in their eyes, began their usual patrols. Inside the cage, she submitted to her fate, she had tried what she could and had failed.
Siral was right, she had not done enough when she heard even an inkling of these goings-on. Her own lethargy helped him, and now she would pay for waiting too long.
And seeing what Gaudium had become in mind, she pitied all the others who served Siral and still had any inkling of free will, even as they reined destruction or deceit upon others in the nobility or on the battlefield.

Mid-Western Equestria, Mountain Range
Tartarus prison fortress
Upper passage chamber

Heart racing, Slickhooves heard the crashing of the stone and even metal of the tunnel behind him, as that creature was forcing his way up by leaving a larger tunnel in his wake.
Dashing up the next passage, he saw the last straight flight upwards, 50 metres that led to the top of the mountain, and the weapon platform.
Hooves clacking, he breathed hard before he realised the crashing had stopped. The creature had stopped chasing him. Stopping halfway up the stairs, the black Pegasus turned, quizzically staring at the doorway he’d already put 25 metres behind and below him in the narrow, darkly lit passage.
A few hoofsteps came, before he saw a new pony round the corner. Devoid of fur, grey in skin, and staring at him with a red glint in his eyes that Slickhooves knew belonged only to that monster.
Turning tail, he charged up the stairs, wings extending as he bellowed up through the passage, Odi-Viscer’s eyes and mouth lighting up as he began to charge up the passage, his smaller body less hassle here.
“AIM FOR THE TUNNEL AND WAIT!”
Scrambling, he saw the very faint light of dusk and evening ahead, while behind him a red blaze suddenly lit up the tunnel behind him. Desperate, Slickhooves hurled the shield he carried on his back down the shaft, noting out of horror that the red beam attack melted it before it hit the Earth Pony chasing him. But it stopped the beam from hitting his own body.
He reached the doorway, leaping forwards as Odi-Viscer tore up the passage after him, stone beginning to sprout fast from his body as it also began to change size to a larger shape.

Tartarus, peak
‘Weapon’ platform

Stood in a circle, the team of Unicorns had recited the rituals, and focused their energy, with Princess Luna volunteering as the catalyst. But ahead, the passage had opened up, as Slickhooves tore up in a frenzy, his bellows well heard by them.
Far away, the battle raged, but the fight had come to them.
The air around them shimmered and felt hot with energy, static as one would feel right before being struck by lightning.
Rumbles shook the ground as the Stone Giant rammed on the gate once more, wrenching it free slowly but surely. Further beyond both north and south the battles against giants and their allied armies, and that of the royalist armies, raged on.
Then, the passage cracked, and exploded outwards, a grey stone bodied and fleshed creature bursting from the ground with eyes blazing red like embers in a fire through the dust.
“FIRE!”
Hearing Slickhooves’s roared command, the ritual circled Unicorns charged their horns, as Luna felt magic she’d not thought possible begin to flow around in an instant, her own horn as a focal point, her aim at the creature that waved an arm around to clear the dust.
Then, the first of a new kind of magic was let loose in anger.

High above, the moon itself seemed to glow faintly for a moment, brighter than normal as it had been creeping over the sunset horizon. And the sunset grew slightly darker too, as every sound ceased for a moment atop the mountain.
Then, white light exploded from the mountain, and the moon’s light and the sunset returned to their normal state after the very minor change in brightness to those who watched it.
And as the light exploded, the air roared, a column of light colliding with something that let loose an agonised bellow into the evening skies, the beam carrying it outwards, the beam and whatever it was smashing and carving into the mountain side 2 miles away, incinerating it and turning it to molten rock on the surface.
All battle ceased for the moment the weapon fired.

Meanwhile
Tartarus mountainside

As Celestia crashed into a heap on the mountainside, the yellow beam that hit her arcing off to slice a few boulders off the slopes nearby, she rolled to a stop in a dusty and battered heap.
Golmov crashed down nearby, his centipede legs stabbing the ground as he advanced, 2 of his wings forming yellow glows to match the 3rd in his mouth, as his eyes also lit up in yellow.
Her breath caught in her throat as the yellow light that killed her father was about to be unleashed.
But then a white light from the east, atop the mountain, shook the air with a tremendous roar, snapping the massive dragon/centipede hybrid from his attack to form a wing to shield himself from the blinding light.
Her own vision blinded, she came to as she saw the battle on the plains south of Tartarus had ceased for a moment. Her attacker, Golmov, turned his gaze to the East, but not to where the beam came from, rather to where it hit. A roar that had accompanied the beam’s own immense noise seemed to be his focus.
“Odi…”
A single word, before he turned to give a venomous look at the down Celestia, weighing his options. Snarling to himself, Golmov swiftly took flight, yellow magic accelerating him faster across the forefront of Tartarus’s mountain ridge, past the Stone Giant that had been breaking down the gate and bridge.
Slumping on the mountainside, far from much of the battle, Celestia saw that Golmov swiftly flew past the gate, the Stone Giant there suddenly turning its gaze directly upwards.
Knowing Luna and the mountaintop were the target now, Celestia struggled, but it was a trial for her after she just couldn’t beat that vengeful dragon, whatever he had become. After some strain, she gave up on teleporting, and took flight, wings burning from her exhaustion as she took flight up the mountain slopes.
But to the south and north, she could make out some faint cheers as the Royalist forces began to rally. They had heard faint news of some new weapon that would aid them, and seeing it in action boosted their morale.
It wasn’t long before the Nationalists resumed their fighting, though she noticed more than one of the Stone Giants from the north had turned to begin climbing the mountain slopes.
But inside Tartarus, as she came to the mountaintop, the gates burst outwards, not by the work of the Giant though.

Tartarus insides
Main Atrium

Embroiled in a cat and mouse type duel that was too close to call, Teal Quirt and Chack had both been thrown off balance where they stood as the entire mountain shook with the weapon up top going off.
Parts of the ceiling cracked loose, as Chack dove back into an alcove to avoid falling ceiling tiles. Heading for the front gate, Teal Quirt saw the outer doors wrenched halfway open, the Giant having nearly got them open.
As the rumbles subsided, she got to work, her green magic working.
And yet behind her, she heard the footsteps as Chack came lunging out after her, but the green shockwave that slammed her into the doors like a hurricane force wind dazed her head.
Charging her, Chack lunged towards her, swinging his normal sword in sync with the green enchanted blade made by Everfree himself, but Teal caught both swords in her scorpion claws, as her ape fists came flying at Chack. Ducking one, while the other grazed his face, the Salamander headbutted Teal in her chin, despite her double height over him it hit with enough force to shake her. Enraged, she wrenched the green sword from his hand, and with him holding onto his normal blade she threw him across the atrium, the Salamander skidding to a halt with audible groans of agony.
As she prepared to hurl the green blade away, she felt a terrible pain coarse through her, as green electric arcs surrounded her body, forcing her to drop the sword.
At that moment, the sword flew from her scorpion claw, towards the slowly staggering Chack, using his other sword to pull himself up.
Seething at him, she readied a magic attack, but paused as a silver and black light filled the atrium between them.
A lanky being, limbs from many creatures, and a long crown of animal antlers, flanked by 2 dragon wings and 2 blue Alicorn wings, materialised before her, a single ball of silver and black magic forming in its hand as its long fanged mouth spoke in a strange voice, like Gaudium’s, but laced with something else:
“Time is short, move!”
Swiftly jumping aside, as she also glimpsed Chack scrambling away from the creature in fright, the atrium lit up as the light crashed into the door.
The massive doors at the front of Tartarus were launched off their hinges, shattering and teetering slowly outwards, before they began to groan and fall with an almighty crash onto the slopes beyond, spanning the moat-like crevice that defended the massive walls.
The Stone Giant reeled back from the impact of the door grazing its leg, while a bronze armoured Alicorn leapt backwards with an audible yell, the massive gates barely missing him.
As the doors fell, Chack saw this creature turn its gaze to him. Keeping a grip on his twin swords, Chack fired a blast from the green blade, but the energy beam was coiled around with a black tendril of magic, seizing him like a rope around his wrist before snapping taught.
Yelling out, Chack was fired out through the gates of Tartarus into the battlefield slopes beyond.

Tartarus front gate, slopes

As the gates had crashed down, Aubelles saw the giant reel back, while he himself was nearly flattened by the gates themselves.
But amidst it all, the white flash, the battle only now resuming with a sense of overhanging tension from that light, there was one last surprise for him.
Hurled screaming out of the gates, a green glow surrounding him that protected him on the impact of landing, a Salamander in all too familiar scarlet armour landed in a rolling heap on the slopes, the oil used in the siege to repel the invaders now hardened.
Stunned, Aubelles saw Chack grimace, staggering to his feet, the Salamander he had not seen in months standing in challenge to something coming out of the gates.
Turning around, Aubelles glimpsed a scorpion/ape figure emerge, but the light that had thrown Chack out the gates, over the bridge the fallen doors now formed, had come from an even stranger creature floating out.
At that instant, the skies lit up and roared white again, this time the light streaking south, the piercing light slicing one of the Stone Giants at the forefront of the Nationalist ranks attacking Royalist lines in half at the top, crumbling apart and falling over to the side.
As the strange weapon’s roar and blinding light from above subsided, Aubelles unshielded his eyes, a familiar voice of Teal Quirt of all ponies coming from the Scorpion/ape creature:
“Deal with that Salamander, that weapon must not endure!”
In a flash of green, she was away, while the stranger creature turned to gaze at the Stone Giant looming far above, slowly creaking about. In a silver and black mist, he vanished, but a voice carried:
“You heard your superior Alicorn, kill this interference.”
But the silver and black mist didn’t entirely vanish, it actually shifted in the air, shooting into the silver glinting eyes of the stone Giant, and with a groan, the giant’s joints flared a slight silver all over, becoming possessed by an outside power that wasn’t its own.
Turning towards Chack, who had glanced up at the slowly powering up giant standing by, waiting, Aubelles demanded loudly, his bronze magic glowing as he advanced on Chack, the Salamander turning to face the Alicorn head on, face faltering very slightly:
“You go off for half a year, and now you turn traitor!? Explain yourself Chack, before I fulfil my orders!”
“I am no traitor, but you and everyone in the Nationalists are fools for serving those creatures!”
“They serve the cause, more than can be said of you.”
At this, Chack lowered his blade, gesturing around as the Giant creaked ever so slowly overhead, while sounds of magic firing overhead on the mountain top sounded.
To the battlefields beyond, now made even by this new weapon, Chack gestured angrily:
“All this, even in victory, will be meaningless. Open your eyes to the truth Aubelles, those creatures outmatch Alicorns and harbour ill content to you all. They serve one who is seeking to overthrow the Nationalists from within once the Royalists are beaten, and the Nationalists are still recovering their own losses!”
“Liar!” Aubelles bellowed, his bronze magic firing at Chack in that instant. At this instant, as Chack deflected the bronze blast with his green sword, the Stone Giant reeled down as the skies lit up once more, a white blast filling the skies with light and immense noise once more.
Light consumed them, as the Giant was blasted through the back, its own shrieks filling the air as the beam of light had shot skywards and then arced down to strike down on the Giant right beside them like a bolt from the darkening skies above.

Thrown back by the blast, Aubelles’s bronze shield kept him intact, whilst he saw a faint green shield keep Chack relatively unharmed from all but the bone rattling shockwave.
As the Giant keeled over beside them, silver joints flickering as it was not fully dead, Chack roared out to Aubelles:
“Would I do this if I were not absolutely certain Aubelles!? Would I!?”
“Why should I believe you!? Your newfound allies nearly destroyed us both with that blast near us!”
“TOO BAD IT DID NOT, ALICORN!”
A voice rumbled from the collapsed body of the Stone Giant nearby, which began to glow and actively shift in its silver light, as something rose from within. It was half the size, but glowed more actively a dark black and silver at the joints, body like stone but much more flexible than the form before, and instead of Rhino shape, now there stood a 50-metre-tall shape like the serpentine creature that had possessed it. A long tail, 2 legs holding it up, but the 4 ‘wings’ extended wider out from the body with a black and silver projected energy making the membrane. 2 short arms stuck out form the torso, both clawed and flexing in challenge.
The long arrow shaped head glinted in the eyes, now a red and yellow colour, as it rose up, roaring as its clawed fingers seemed to snap together, and two beams of pulsing purple light shot from them.
Flying sideways, Aubelles barely avoided the beams, as they sliced up and burned twin streaks of black stone into the walls of Tartarus. The hulking stone and magic hybrid turned to face Aubelles, as a purple light built along 2 of the wings as they raised up, and began to streak towards the ground.
Bronze magic shot out, just about deflecting both wings to land on each side of Aubelles, slicing and smashing into the ground like a pair of gigantic swords. Wings spreading, Aubelles flew backwards, firing magic recklessly into the creature’s immense head, yelling to Chack as he came to land beside him:
“What did your new friends do with that weapon! Its turned the giant against me!”
Chack stared at Aubelles, all the while the possessed semi-giant began to gear up for another attack. Jabbing his sword outwards to the south battlefields, Chack exclaimed in outrage:
“That weapon blew apart another giant there! Do you see that one standing up again!?”
Sparing a glance southward, he saw that amidst the clashing armies, the one obliterated stone giant was in pieces still, not moving, unlike the one before them now. Aubelles’s saw Chack’s point, as he turned to face the more versatile creature beginning to charge them, much faster than any of the other creatures, and even leaping upwards like a full size dragon to crash down before them.
“You and every Alicorn here are in danger, and they’ll make it look like it wasn’t betrayal if they can!” Chack warned, raising both his swords as dust rose before them, the arrow headed semi-giant roaring in challenge as Aubelles.
Sparing a momentary growl of aggravation, Aubelles exclaimed: “We’ll have words about this whole mess later!”
“Allow me to deal with something first! Opportunity knocks!”
As the possessed Giant flew upwards all of a sudden, fully leaping over them like a frog, it fired a very large purple beam mid-flight towards the distant armies, its arc going upwards towards the front lines.”

Caught in battle, the Alicorn battled her way forwards, while the male fighting alongside her ensured they maintained a strong position against the newly morale boosted Royalists making a push against them. Dozens of Earth Pony and Unicorn soldiers fired at them, but their shields held firm, even as Pegasi rained arrows and potion bombs at them and against the line of Unicorns and armored ponies behind them they were covering.
But off to the side, a light from the mountain’s direction glinted. But this light was purple, and not as bright. Even so, it was just as deadly.
A purple haze engulfed the pair of Alicorns and dozens of soldiers on both sides, as the beam cut through the front lines of the Royalists, consuming the Alicorns at the forefront covering those falling back from the braver Royalists.

3 miles from Tartarus mountain top

Inside a scorched crater, Golmov excavated through the charred black dirt and rock where he’d seen the first beam hit.
He sensed energy that came from magic exclusive to their essences, unique to each, as he continued to dig with hand, leg, wing or yellow magic.
“Pull yourself out Odi, we have got to get that thing offline before they fire off another, they’ve let off 3 shots already!”
At that moment though, a faint rumble sounded, as Golmov stared back to see a slightly different giant fire a purple beam through the army ranks. And in his mind, he felt a message spread:
2 Nationalist Alicorns dead by opportunity, focus on the mountain weapon
Blinking, Golmov didn’t realise they would be killing Nationalist Alicorns this early, but something else was off. A new essence there on the battlefield, like their own but unique to itself, a seventh.
But at that same moment, cracks began to spread as a grey skinned, stone armoured arm burst from the charred ground, visibly healing from the beam attack that sent him here from 3 miles away. Skin slowly healed, as he was more stone and bone skinned than flesh at this point.
As he pulled himself out, Odi-Viscer’s eyes glinted more red than ever before, as he turned his gaze towards the mountain.
Golmov saw the being of Wrath was determined enough, and took flight towards the mountain himself. He had a feeling the two princesses, if not having fled, were responsible for this new royalist weapon.
At that instant, the white mountain weapon fired again, this time aiming for the Stone Giant ranks to the north advancing on the mountain, a long sweeping arc not outright destroying them but severing the forelegs of two of them enough to render them immobilised.
Charging towards the mountain, Golmov flew on through the darkened evening skies, as the fired of the battlefield raged on. On the mountainside behind him, the ground cracked as Odi-Viscer leapt from it towards the sky, determined to destroy whatever it was that dared try and destroy him.

Tartarus mountain top

The white energy dissipated once more, as the two giants fell down with their forelimbs sliced off halfway up the northern mountain face. With Celestia here with Luna, recharging the weapon was taking less time.
But on high, Slickhooves noticed that the battle was taking a turn, for better or worse depending on one’s view of things:
“The ranks are breaking, the Nationalists are falling back!”
A few cheers went up from the Unicorns helping with the weapon spells, while Celestia and Luna couldn’t help but share a smile that the battle was ended before midnight. Yet the celebrations were premature:
“Sir, we’ve got two from the east, one flying and the other, uh, jumping!”
One of his sentry guards on the upper level called the alert, to which Slickhooves made a snap decision, one which he snorted to himself about considering.
“Signal the armies to begin pulling back to Tartarus, reinforce it.”
At that moment, a scorpion like creature teleported to the cliff edge a few dozen metres away, firing a few waves of green magic at the Unicorn teams, killing one of them and wounding another.
Stunned, they saw the team responsible for the weapon was disrupted. Like a chain, one link had broken, and needed to be relinked.
“Take that thing down!” Slickhooves bellowed, as he pulled a crossbow from his back to begin firing at Teal Quirt, while his guards rushed the creature, magic or not.
Turning frantically to the Unicorns around the alter like setup, Celestia warned: “We must get the weapon ready again, hurry!”
In a bid to get them away, Luna and Celestia formed a joint magic sphere, and unleashing it towards Teal Quirt, they formed a midair tornado that sucked her to land on the mountainside a quarter of a mile away, though not before a green magic tendril shot out like a harpoon to pierce a guard pony and fling him screaming over the cliff edge.
Charging down the slopes, Slickhooves and the other on duty guards rushed to counter the creature, though they knew full well that two others were coming closer the whole time. The main armies and giants may have slowed, but these elites were just getting started.
As the pair of Alicorns focused on re-establishing the delicate spellwork for this immense magical weapon, they were drawn to the personal battle unfolding below, as the strange, smaller stone giant landed as if flying in front of a bronze armoured Alicorn and a Salamander they swore looked familiar.

Tartarus, front slopes

“How easily Alicorns fall, even as they find newfound power in their final era. Those two, and now you and your little traitor you fight with as one in turn.”
“You know not who you are threatening! I am Aubelles the Mighty, and with or without Chack I can beat you!”
“Names are meaningless when all I see is a dead Alicorn and a crushed fish!”
The draconian looking stone half giant glinted its red and yellow eyes at them, as the four wings spread outwards in a challenging gesture towards Aubelles and Chack. Raising his twin swords, Chack glanced at Aubelles briefly, to which the Bronze Alicorn merely cracked his neck, charging his horn.
The wings came crashing down like hammers yet again, as they broke to engage in their own ways. Chack’s enchanted sword cut well enough, and Aubelles provided raw power, but the half giant moved very fast and high, the seventh being empowering it as it possessed what was effectively half a stone giant’s corpse transformed to resemble a form he could use.
All the while, as the Nationalist armies held fast or pulled back, and the Royalists rallied, the tide of battle had turned to focus on the superweapons that now did battle. While the Royalist’s Tartarus weapon was re-established, the beings of Wrath and Greed closed in, as the Being of Pride engaged the only surviving Nationalist army Alicorn and a Salamander who came to kill the 3 others.
All the while, the being of Envy strived to keep that weapon offline, while the two princesses tried to get back the one thing that had turned the tide of battle.
But amidst it all, as that weapon had fired, those who had been watching from afar would recall this as the beginning of events that would lead to an event that would change the world forever that neither side today could truly comprehend.
The moon and sun brightness fluctuation each time the celestial magic such an immense spell pulled was not mere coincidence.
Telum Calestis came with a price.

Author's Notes:

Ave-Dol learns the hard way how she’ll be spending her time until the time comes to bring all 6 besides Gaudium under more direct control. Not long for her thankfully.
The battle continues on, but now ‘proto-Discord’ has joined the fray, and quickly opportunistic Alicorn killing as ‘collateral’ damage is taken advantage of. His retrofitting of a weapon destroyed stone giant creates something much more nimble but still very big.
[For visual reference, the ‘semi-giant’ proto-Discord/Gaudium creates resembles a 4 ‘winged’ Metal Gear Ray from the Metal gear series, with two small arms on the front like a T-rex’s]
The Telum Caelestis weapon comes online, to Odi-Viscer’s misfortune and enragement, and enough of a concern for Golmov to let Celestia live while he deals with a wounded partner.
Starswirl will reappear in the next chapter, as he does make it to the end of the battle enough to make sense of things. This is his story after all, but just because he had a hoof in events doesn’t mean he witnesses them all first person.