Machina Cor Armageddon
Chapter 10: Absolute Borderline
Previous Chapter Next Chapter
Equestria hadn’t fought a real war in so long that only immortal ponies could remember the last one, and before the Empire had attacked the most action they saw involved the Everfree forest and ponies that weren’t smart enough to keep out.
That said, they weren’t entirely unprepared. While the military had become more of a defensive and peacekeeping force, they still knew which end of a sword went into the enemy, and Equestria’s long history gave them a lot of study material, even if it was in the abstract. Here, on the fields to the north of Canterlot, in a sparsely populated area that had the misfortune of being on the wrong side of a mountain range for easy train travel and was too far for the coasts for shipping, the enemy was playing right into their hooves.
Every military commander in history has fantasized about the perfect battlefield. The abstract battlefield. Something as flat as a table and with just as few features, where they could push their troops into the enemy and not have to worry about unpredictable events. This was almost that ideal field, save for a range of high, steep hills.
The Imperial forces had arrayed around them, sitting in their shadow in preparation for a push further into Equestria, moving the front lines south. It wasn’t strategically important, not really, but there was an opportunity here - Sombra only had a limited population, and even if it was entirely focused on war, it was barely a tenth of Equestria’s.
“They’ve got yaks among their formations,” Lieutenant Pile noted. “I guess that confirms the rumors about Yakyakistan.”
“If they’d accepted our offer for help we could have done something to prevent that,” General Nickel said. “I told the Princess we needed to step in.”
“It shouldn’t make a difference, sir,” Shield said, shrugging. “We outnumber them almost three to one, and we could win even with only equal numbers.”
“That’s the difference between slaves fighting because they’re ordered to and brave ponies fighting to defend their homeland,” Nickel agreed. “Let’s take care of this before nightfall.”
Orders were given, and ponies closed on the formation, keeping to the coordinated fighting blocs that had served well in open engagements for hundreds of years. Oddly, the Imperial forces didn’t come out to meet them, staying in the shadow of the mountain.
“Push forward,” Nickel ordered. “If they want us to just overrun their camp, that’s fine with me. Keep the pegasi back in case they have archers.”
“Sir, what’s that?” Pile asked, pointing above them, to the mountain looming over the plains. Nickel looked up and frowned. There was something glittering near the top, as if somepony had set jewels into the rock.
“Could be ice, or scouts with telescopes,” Nickel said. “From that distance, there’s no way anypony could attack.”
“I’ll send a wing of pegasi to check it out,” Pile said, passing the order along. A team of winged ponies took off, but they didn’t even get halfway there. There was a flash of violet light, and the gleam at the top of the mountain hardened. A sweeping beam of light cut the pegasi out of the air, the ponies bursting into flames, some of them not even hit directly, the air around the beam flash-heating enough to set feathers aflame.
“Endless night!” Nickel yelled. “It’s some kind of warding! Get the artillery up and have the warmages shield our troops!”
Semaphore flags moved through the air, a scattering of magical shields forming in the air, artillery trying to recalibrate for an almost vertical shot.
“Can we even reach that?” Pile asked, quietly.
“We have to try,” Nickel said. He waved a hoof, and a brace of bastillas fired. Most fell short but a few reached up and-
-slammed into hardened planes of magical force.
“Oh no,” Nickel muttered.
The mountain flared with light, and a beam of heat tore through the shields around his forces, the force overwhelming the warmages almost instantly, the spells failing explosively as the wards collapsed under the assault. Heat washed over the army, hot enough that even at this distance, Nickel felt his skin flush like he was standing in front of an oven, the high-energy magic instantly tanning his skin from the radiation flux.
“Pull back!” Nickel yelled. “Get them out of there--”
The beam twitched to the side, slicing through the command formation on its way to pick off the artillery and mages.
“The entire sixth brigade has been lost,” Commander Leaf Raker noted, the stallion unable to meet Princess Celestia’s gaze. “Only a few survivors made it back. We’re not sure how to counter this new threat, your highness. General Nickel was badly hurt, many of his staff were killed.”
“Please have the names sent to my desk,” Celestia said, quietly. “I’ll take care of informing their families myself.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Commander Raker saluted.
“I have a pony in mind to handle this,” Celestia said, narrowing her eyes. “If Twilight Sparkle really wants to prove herself then this will be another opportunity for her and the… ponies under her command.”
“Twilight?” Cadance asked. Celestia closed her eyes and breathed out, trying not to show her frustration. She’d forgotten the younger princess was in the room. For some reason, she’d started inviting herself to military meetings in Shining Armor's place, and Celestia couldn’t forbid her. That was, she could, certainly, but she wasn’t going to try and play the seniority card. Not yet.
“Yes,” Celestia said. “Doctor Sparkle has been… running certain projects. She has recently demonstrated greater progress than I expected.”
“This is about Sunset, isn’t it?” Cadance asked, frowning. Celestia’s composure slipped, and her eye twitched.
“Please excuse us, Commander,” Celestia said. “I’m sure you have work to do. I’ll ensure things are taken care of regarding the situation. Don’t let me detain you.”
The Commander nodded and left as quickly as possible, not even pretending he was doing anything except running away.
Celestia watched her go and waited for a few long moments, the silence growing uncomfortable.
“I wasn’t aware you knew about Sunset Shimmer,” Celestia said.
“So she is working with Twilight,” Cadance said quickly, pouncing on that. “I knew it. They always were so similar…”
“Don’t,” Celestia warned. “I know you’re fond of Twilight, but she is dangerous. Sunset is worse. I won’t forbid you from seeing them but you should take my advice and stay far away. They are going to crash and burn. Both of them are arrogant and they are going to suffer for the folly.”
“They’re not dangerous,” Cadance retorted. “You just don’t get along with them because you’re all so alike. Sunset was practically your daughter!”
“And she left,” Celestia said, firmly. “Do you know what she’s been doing while she was gone? How many ponies are have been hurt because of her? I’d be within my rights to have her imprisoned or executed.”
“If that was true, you’d already have done it.”
“Fortunately for her, my hooves are full with other matters.”
“Do you see it yet?” Doctor Sparkle asked, the radio crackling in Lightning Dust’s ear. The distance and ambient magical interference was causing a lot of distortion and noise on the signal.
“I see the mountain, yeah,” Lightning Dust said. “It’s kinda hard to miss.”
“Don’t get too close. This is just a scouting mission. We have time to approach this more carefully and I’d like to use it.”
Dust let the wind whip around her. With the altitude and speed she had, it’d be bitterly cold even in the Badlands. This far north, with all the wild weather, ice would be a serious concern. She flexed her wings, the turbulence from the shrug almost sending her into a spin, her magic the only thing keeping her stable for a few moments.
“They have a lot of troops,” Dust reported, looking down. “I can see them from here. It looks like they’re fortifying the area.”
“It makes sense,” Sparkle noted. “With the reports from the survivors, it seems like they’ve deployed a linnorm for long-range area denial. It’s the same idea as a high tower with archers. Provide enough cover and your enemies can’t approach.”
“I can see the marks on the ground where it was attacking the Equestrian troops,” Dust said. “That’ll give me a good landmark for how close I can circle.”
“How far is it?”
“Pretty far. Looks like a couple miles.”
“Approaching it conventionally will be difficult, then. We’ll need to consider options.”
“Stealth spells,” Sunset said, butting in on the conversation.
“It was able to detect and track targets from miles away with enough accuracy for spell targeting,” Doctor Sparkle countered. “It’s probably using divination effects. Conventional stealth might be ineffective.”
“A long-range teleportation to avoid the entire distance, then,” Sunset suggested.
“That sounds good,” Dust noted. “I bet it’s got a blind spot if we’re close enough to the mountain.”
“The amount of interference makes me concerned about accuracy,” Doctor Sparkle said, obviously thinking. “I wonder if an attack from directly above would work…”
“What are you thinking, maybe use clouds as visual cover?” Dust asked.
“Not a terrible plan. It’s probably focused on watching for large troop movements. With the full helmets we can go up higher than just about any pegasus,” Sunset said. “Practically like a ballistic missile.”
“What’s a ballistic missile?” Dust asked.
“Never mind,” Sunset said, quickly. “It’s, uh. Complicated.”
“Whatever,” Lightning Dust rolled her eyes. “I’m gonna swing in closer, right at the edge of the attacks. I’ll be careful not to get any closer.”
“Mm,” Doctor Sparkle was deep in thought. “I just feel like there’s something we’re missing. We know it’s positioned at the top of that mountain, and they’re using it for area denial, a line in the sand the troops can’t cross.”
“Sparkle,” Sunset said, with some urgency. “How high is that winged idiot? If that thing is attacking everything in a spherical radius instead of a cylinder, and it’s at the top of a mountain--”
“The angular difference-- Lightning Dust, pull back!”
“Angular--?”
“The sphere isn’t centered at ground level! It’s wider at the altitude you’re at!” Just as Sparkle said that, there was a twinkle at the top of the mountain. Lightning Dust pulled her wings in tight, dropping like a rock. A beam of magical energy shot right above her, the heat blistering even from a near miss.
“A dive is the wrong move!” Sunset snapped “You were above it before, and you’re only going deeper into the targeted zone!”
“Shut up! I need the speed of the dive to get away!” Dust flared out one wing and went into a spin, the g-force from the sudden twist hard enough that it would have knocked out most pegasi. She could feel the heat above her, tracking closer.
A second move and she turned the dive into a split-s, trading altitude for airspeed and sweeping to the side, the roll changing her direction faster than a normal banking turn. The beam missed, going past her as the linnorm misjudged her movements.
“I think I got this!” Dust yelled. Maybe it was the overconfidence. Maybe it was just bad luck, but that was when the linnorm got a bead on her, a wide, sweeping beam clipping her, her feathers turning black in the wake of the attack.
She screamed as she fell, slamming into the dirt hard enough to knock her out instantly in a reprieve from the pain.
“That’s bad,” Sunset muttered, watching over Doctor Sparkle’s shoulder in the tent they’d sent up in what little cover they could find on the open plain, far away from the possible firing range of the linnorm. “Is she dead? If she’s dead we’ll be out of guinea pigs.”
“She’s alive. Barely.” Doctor Sparkle tapped a few crystal buttons on the console, the divination displays and enchanted windows changing. “Her heart stopped for several seconds. She needs medical attention as soon as possible.”
“It’s worse than that,” Sunset said. “If I’m reading this correctly, that tailspin she went down in means she’s still in range of that thing. It might think she’s dead, but if we send in somepony to get her back...”
“They’ll be attacked. There’s only one real option.” Doctor Sparkle turned to look into Sunset’s eyes. “You wanted to try teleporting in close enough to attack? Get her out of there and we’ll consider it a test run.”
“No problem,” Sunset said. She stepped back and stretched the bronze wings affixed to her armor. Lightning crackled around her.
“Not so close to the equipment!” Sparkle snapped.
“Don’t worry, I’m a professional,” Sunset retorted, vanishing in a burst of sparks and light.
There was a sensation of being crushed and torn apart at the same time as Sunset reappeared, the flash of her appearance on the heat-scarred battlefield more like a bomb going off, the air splitting as she was forced back out into the world.
Sunset was thrown through the air, bouncing along the ground, tumbling head over hooves. Sparks filled the air around her as high-energy mana condensed out of the atmosphere.
“Buck my life!” Sunset swore, finally coming to a rest in a shallow gully. The divot in the ground was lined with glass and blackened rock. “The interference is an order of magnitude worse than expected. The enemy’s beam attacks are causing mana saturation.”
“Understood,” Doctor Sparkle said, her voice distorted over the weak radio signal. “You’ll have to fly Lightning Dust out of the operation area.”
“Thanks for that brilliant observation,” Sunset muttered. “Where is the idiot?”
“She should be near your location. Standard divination spells should work even through the interference at that range.”
“Right, right,” Sunset said, casting a pathfinding spell. A mote of light flitted along the ground, and she followed it for a few steps until she felt the shift in the air. There wasn’t time for anything sophisticated. She threw everything she had into a hardened shield and braced herself for impact.
The air erupted into flame, as hot as an open oven even behind her shields. She couldn’t see anything beyond the burning light.
“I think it found me!” Sunset yelled, over the roar.
“It must have sensed the active spellwork,” Doctor Sparkle said.
Sunset squinted against the light, and saw something on the ground, still steaming and twitching.
“I think I see Lightning Dust!”
“Good. Get her out of there.”
“Easy for you to say!” Sunset was already at her limit. One of the layered shield spells she was holding failed, dissolving under the pressure. The shock as it hit the next spell almost knocked her over, the bronze wings on her back growing uncomfortably warm.
She extended her shield as far as it would go and ran for it, scooping Lightning Dust up and taking off at a dead run, metal wings starting to glow.
The second spell failed, the hardened weave shattering even more quickly than the first spell. Only one was still holding, and Sunset could feel it ablating, shrinking and growing smaller as it tried to hold itself together against the onslaught.
“Faster!” Sunset whispered, forcing herself to move. Every thaum that she put into flying was one she couldn’t divert to try and keep the last shield propped up. It was an equation that spelled out the difference between life and death.
The pressure suddenly cut off, and she was free, the beam of heat trailing them before winking out entirely.
“Stay near the ground,” Sparkle advised. “Otherwise you’ll enter the engagement range again.”
“Remind me never to take these things lightly again,” Sunset said, trailing steam like a comet.
“The suit was partially fused to her skin from the heat. There are burns over most of her body.” Sparkle stripped the gloves from her hooves, tossing them aside. “Even with the healing she’s demonstrated, I’m not sure if she’ll wake up from her coma.”
“Should we start looking for a replacement?” Sunburst asked, helping her take off her surgical scrubs.
“One thing at a time,” Doctor Sparkle said. “Put her in the same observation room as Miss Pie.”
“But that’s not set up for an ICU,” Sunburst protested.
“Mm. And we're not a hospital,” Sparkle said. “Do it. I think it will be helpful.”
“Is she…” Marble whispered. She looked across the room at Lightning Dust. The pegasus was covered in bandages, connected to enough tubes and wires to make it difficult to tell where the machines ended and the pony began.
“She’s stable,” Sunburst said. He sighed and looked at Marble, worried. “Sorry about this.”
“N-no, you shouldn’t--” Marble swallowed. “What happened?”
“There’s a monster that she couldn’t handle on her own,” Sunburst said. “We really underestimated it. I don’t know what Doctor Sparkle is thinking! She’s not usually so reckless, but she’s acting like this isn’t even a setback.”
“Was she able to stop it?” Marble asked.
“No. It’s still sitting there. And we almost lost somepony else rescuing her, because she went at it with no plan at all.”
“Mmm,” Marble muttered, looking down.
“Look, the nurses need to set up some things in here and change her bandages,” Sunburst said. “How about we get out of here for a few minutes and get some drinks at the vending machine?”
Marble nodded silently, hiding behind her curtain of long hair. She followed him out of the room, pausing on the doorstep to look back at Lightning Dust.
“You know, you don’t really seem like the type to fight,” Sunburst said, opening a bottle of cheap tea from the vending machine and passing it over to Marble. “Why did you even agree to the tests?”
“My sisters…” Marble whispered. She looked down at the tea in silence for a minute, trying to gather herself, Sunburst sipping on his own drink and waiting for her to get the courage to continue. “I have three sisters. Marble and Pinkie are out there fighting and... I-I get these nightmares about being on the farm, and somepony comes to tell us that they got hurt somewhere far away, and I didn’t do anything to help because I was too afraid.”
“That’s a pretty big thing to have hanging over you.”
“I’m more afraid of them getting hurt than I am of being hurt,” Marble said. “Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself. I’m still really scared.” She tried to give Sunburst a smile, but it wavered like jello in an earthquake.
“...You know, when the war started, I was still a student,” Sunburst said. “A lot of my friends decided to join the military. It was before things got really bad, when it was just being patriotic and ponies thought it’d be over in a few weeks.”
He sat down next to Marble, more heavily than he intended, his drink splashing on his coat. Sunburst wiped it away as he continued.
“I tried joining, but I couldn’t pass the physical or the thaumatic tests. I thought it was fine, you know? They just didn’t need me. I wasn’t good enough, and that was okay. I didn’t really want to get hurt, and this was like a free pass.” He sighed. “Everything changed when I found out Dreamweaver was dead. She was the first friend I made after leaving home and then one day, I’m sitting there in the lab, and I get the news she’s been dead for a week. I didn’t even know. I’d been so busy living in my own little world that I didn’t see the real world changing around me.”
He shook his head.
“I couldn’t even join the military at that point. The rejection was still in my file. And then Doctor Sparkle made me an offer, that I could do something to try and help ponies, even if it wasn’t on the front lines.”
“She’s…” Marble hesitated.
“I know. She’s intimidating. And she has no social skills. But she needed a lab assistant and nopony else was willing to work with her, so I took the job.”
“Was it worth it?” Marble asked.
“I still can’t fight but… if it wasn’t for me she’d never have gotten this far.” He smiled. “And we’ve beaten some monsters that would have taken an alicorn to fight.”
“W-what about…” Marble looked back, towards her room.
“Lightning Dust? She was the first recruit for the project. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pony as bold as she is. Or maybe reckless is the right word.” Sunburst shook his head. “She was in the military before and got kicked out. She’s seen some really awful fighting and jumped at the chance to do it again. I think she really wants to prove herself.”
“But she got hurt so badly…”
“It’s not the first time.” Sunburst said, quietly. “Probably not the last either. Sparkle says that Lightning and Sunset are half-immortal but it’s looking a lot more like half-immortal doesn’t do a whole lot.”
Marble shivered, losing her grip on the can of tea she was holding. It tumbled to the ground, the sharp sound startling her.
“Hold on, I’ll go get something to clean that up,” Sunburst said, standing and trotting away quickly.
Marble looked down into the dark puddle.
“You’re such a coward,” her reflection said. Marble’s breath caught in her throat. The expression on her reflection’s face was nothing like hers, the eyes hard and piercing, almost glowing, the pupils slitted like a cat’s.
“I’m… a coward…” Marble said, or tried to say, barely able to get the words out even in a whisper, like she was being choked.
“You did all that to get strong and now you won’t even use that power?” The reflection touched her chest, and Marble felt herself doing the same, feeling the scar under her grey coat.
The reflection dissolved into ripples.
“Sorry about that,” Sunburst said. “It took a minute to find something I could use.” He mopped up the rest of the tea with the towel he’d found, and looked up at Marble. “Are you okay?”
“Huh?” The question made her start, like she had been on the verge of falling asleep.
“You’re holding your chest,” Sunburst explained.
Marble shook her head. “I need to talk to Doctor Sparkle.”
“Get the U-type armor ready,” Sparkle said, tossing a sheaf of papers at Sunburst.
“But that’s--” Sunburst blinked. “You can’t be serious. We don’t have anypony to wear it! Are you going to volunteer and give yourself another heart attack?”
“Marble Pie will wear it,” Sparkle said.
“She already said she doesn’t want to fight. We can’t force her.” Sunburst put the papers down. “It’s immoral!”
Sparkle raised an eyebrow slowly. “I wasn’t aware morality was a concern. There are more important things on the line - like the lives of every mare, stallion, and foal in Equestria. And the Empire, I suppose. They’re our enemies but they’re not fighting because they want to.” She shrugged. “On the other hoof, Marble Pie is. She came to me and asked to be put on active duty.”
“She came to you? But…” Sunburst frowned. “The transfer to her room. You put Lightning Dust there on purpose.”
“I had to ensure she understood the gravity of the situation,” Doctor Sparkle said. “She couldn’t be bribed with power or glory. But she is a very kind pony. And a kind pony will fight to protect others.”
Sunset looked at Marble skeptically. The mare’s armor was heavier than hers, layered with safety measures to vent magic and thick plates that would have made Sunset unable to fly. The horn that Doctor Sparkle had created to use as a focus was irregular, twisted, almost more like a blade than a proper mana channel.
“Alright, look, Doctor Sparkle asked me to teach you some shield spells,” Sunset said, starting to pace back and forth. They were in the courtyard outside the lab, with the thought that it was close enough in case of an accident, but also far away enough that said accident wouldn’t cause irreparable damage.
It was sort of a silly measure. Sunset could have brought the building down in her sleep even before the Engine Heart in her chest had given her a second mana pool.
“Shield spells are pretty basic, and apparently I don’t have a long time to teach you enough to keep you alive.” Sunset’s horn lit up, and a sphere formed around her. “This is the most basic magical shield. It’s something unicorns can do on instinct. Assuming they can use magic, anyway.” She glanced at where Doctor Sparkle was watching the lesson.
Sparkle glared, her expression darkening.
“It’s sort of formless because it’s just pushing everything away,” Sunset continued. “It’s not a real spell as much as it is just telekinesis. The good thing is, it works against average threats - falling rocks, a pony running into you, arrows, whatever. The problem is that it’s worthless against spells. It’d be like trying to catch steam in your hooves, they’ll just slip through.”
Marble made a worried sound.
“What you’ll need for this operation is a hardened magical shield,” Sunset said. Her horn flashed, and the diffuse glow around her body shifted to a solid-looking bubble. “It’s the only way to keep yourself from being hurt. You have to keep it as solid as possible and totally seamless, at least on the face where the beam is hitting you. The trick with a magical shield is to avoid discontinuities. It’s like, uh, you worked on a rock farm, right?”
Marble nodded.
“Okay. So a smooth shield is like a perfect gem. One that’s uneven is more like a gem with flaws or inclusions. Those are weak points, and it’s where the shield will break apart.” Sunset’s shield cracked and shattered. “Just like that. You can’t make it perfect. I can’t even make it perfect. It’s like how no gem is really perfect - if you look at it under a microscope you’ll still find all sorts of tiny flaws that you can’t see.”
“B-but then--”
“Of course you’re probably strong enough that it won’t matter against normal attacks, but this thing’s a real monster. Your best option is multiple layers, like an onion. It won’t stop them from shattering, but it’s a multiplier effect, you know? You can either try to make the shield better, and get maybe a few more seconds before it breaks, or have three shields between you and it. You’ll last longer with the latter, even if they’re just ablative at that point--”
“Sunset,” Sparkle said, sharply. “Stop scaring the girl. She’s been good enough to volunteer for this operation. The last thing you need is to give her a panic attack.”
“She’s going to need to know how to cast the spells if she’s going to be part of it at all!” Sunset retorted.
“No, she doesn’t,” Doctor Sparkle said, calmly. “That’s what the armor is for. It was considerably more difficult to develop because it incorporates several spell circles into its structure. You need to teach her how to use them, not how to cast them.”
“Um…” Marble looked between Sparkle and Sunset.
“You can create a shield just by using command word functions,” Doctor Sparkle explained. “It’s the difference between writing a paper by hoof and using a printing press. As long as you provide energy to it, it’ll cast the spell for you.”
“With no way to vary it,” Sunset said. “And the matrix will only be as good as what you have in the armor.”
“It’s limited,” Sparkle admitted. “But it’s all we need for this plan to work.”
“Excuse me,” Marble said, hesitantly. “You never… you never actually explained the plan to me.”
“So the enemy has a maximum range,” Doctor Sparkle said, drawing a circle on the map. “This is roughly what it will detect and attack at ground level. I’ve confirmed this with some volunteers, and I’ve also confirmed it targets magic. It starts with active magic effects like spells, but it will target your wellspring if there aren’t any other sources in range.”
“Volunteers?” Sunset asked.
“You’d be surprised what a pony will do for a pay bonus and a new ribbon to pin to their chest,” Sparkle muttered. "Cadance always yelled at Shining Armor when... bah." She took a deep breath before continuing. "The important thing is the data is reliable."
“That’s right at the theoretical limit for direct-target spellcasting,” Sunset said, tracing the circle with her hoof. “You can scry targets for something like teleportation, but you need line of effect for something like attack spells.”
“Exactly. Once I determined that, it made the rest of the plan rather simple.” Doctor Sparkle looked at Marble. “You and Sunset will deploy at the very edge of this range. Sunset will attack from the theoretical limit and destroy the target.”
“To attack from that range, I’ll need time to cast the spell,” Sunset said. “Because of the extreme distance I’ll need to account for local leylines, weather patterns, the position of sun and moon, and the geothaumatic field. We’ll have to attack from a single, predetermined location.”
“I’ve had a few pegasi clear the skies around the operation area without entering it,” Doctor Sparkle said. “The leylines are already well-mapped. The sun and moon place a strict time limit on the operation. We’ll be starting just before dawn. Assuming the Princess can keep to her schedule.”
“You’re going to deflect the enemy’s beam attack,” Sunset said. “Because we’ll be inside the enemy’s range, we’ll become a target very quickly.”
“I’m planning on trying to divert its attention with flares and secondary targets,” Doctor Sparkle said. “But it won’t work for long.”
“We’re going to be cutting it close,” Sunset muttered. “Even getting one or two shots off is asking a lot.”
“I don’t understand,” Marble said. “You know much more about magic than I do. Why don’t you make the shield--”
“I can’t split my attention like that,” Sunset said, dismissively. “I mean, I could. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the best. The problem is I need to make sure to kill the stupid thing in one shot. Because this is hitting physical laws as part of the limits, I need every scrap of magic I can get.”
“We have to deploy quickly,” Doctor Sparkle said, sliding a few papers across the desk. “Intelligence reports say the Imperial forces are already on the move. With the linnorm providing area denial, they’ll be able to use this as a staging ground.”
“Can you do this?” Sunset asked, bluntly. “I don’t need you folding like a Chinese laundry.”
“A what?” Marble asked, confused (and scared, though the scared part was just sort of a state of being).
“Never mind,” Sunset sighed.
“Sorry about the repairs,” Sunburst said, as he adjusted straps along her side. “We didn’t have time to manufacture extra parts we’d need for a mana booster.”
Sunset shifted, uncomfortable, as he hooked up external wires and electrodes, the bronze wings stripped down to skeletons of bare metal.
“I helped with the designs myself,” Sunset said. “The conductors will give an extra two or three percent efficiency, even if it feels like I’ve got my wings in a vice.” She laughed. “Which is even worse than you’d think since I don’t have real wings. Phantom pain through leylines is extremely unpleasant.”
“It's not just phantom pain. The prosthetics have tactile feedback. With all these surfaces removed, it’s screwing up your senses. It’s less like you’re in a vice and more like you’ve been plucked.” He laughed, patting her on the back. "Sorry. We don't have the time to recalibrate everything. Try to bear with it."
“Are you ready yet?” Doctor Sparkle demanded, from the entrance to the tent. “You need to start moving towards point alpha. The EUP forces will be making a tactical strike on the target zone in five minutes.”
"How’d you convince Sunbutt to throw their lives away?” Sunset asked.
“She can be very practical when she thinks innocent lives are at stake. I let her have some input into the planning phase, and I'm confident that most of them will survive,” Sparkle said, shrugging. “The plan gives them better than even odds of being entirely unharmed.”
“And how much room for error is there in ‘exactly’?”
“...A realistic estimate, given how poorly they’re trained?” The purple unicorn sighed, shaking her head. “One in ten might make it back without a hospital stay. The disciplined soldiers are doing real fighting, not missions like this. Most of them are as bad as you and Lightning Dust. I hate doing it, but we don't have many other options.”
“Sounds like even Celestia is just using them to buy time,” Sunset muttered.
There was a crack like thunder. Sparkle looked outside. “That’s the signal. Get into position!”
Marble winced as a flare of green light lit up the dark sky, overpowering the pale light of the moon for a few moments. She followed the trace of light as it fell.
“Ready?” Sunset asked, startling her. Marble hadn’t heard her coming. The unicorn was unnaturally light on her hooves, barely touching the ground.
“Begin Operation Imbrium!” Sparkle yelled, making Marble jump. “EUP status?”
“Pegasi have entered the operation area,” Moondancer said, from where she was sitting in a tangle of radio equipment and scrying tools. “They’re deploying flares now.”
The sky filled with falling stars, and Marble felt a pressure on her horn.
“That’s the thaumopotential charge,” Sunset said, tapping her own horn with a hoof in sympathy. “They’re based on light spells--” Before she could explain, a beam of heat and fire struck out from the top of the mountain like a baleful eye, scything into the flares and turning to follow, cutting through them as they fell.
“It’s taken the bait. Move to the operation area!” Sparkle yelled.
“Come on,” Sunset said, urging Marble forwards. “We’re really cutting this close. We’re within walking distance of the estimated targeting range. If we screw up, we’ll be close enough for Sparkle to come over and yell at us before we get killed!”
Marble nodded, her mouth too dry to answer aloud, running forwards. They’d gone over it in detail. She didn’t have to be worried about the exact spot. She just had to stay in front of Sunset. All she was good for was being a living shield.
But the fate of Equestria depended on it.
“In position!” Sunset declared, sliding to a halt. “Shifting Unity Armor to thaumatic boost mode!” The wires along her sides started to glow, runes appearing in the air around her, spinning slowly in a wide halo.
“Marble, the shield.” Doctor Sparkle prompted, over the radio. Marble could feel the unicorn glaring at her from only a hundred paces away.
“R-right,” Marble said. “Ablative shield, full power!” She closed her eyes, forcing the magic she felt inside her through the armor, a wall of light appearing in front of her.
“Confirmed as seven ablative layers,” Moondancer said. “Continue providing power. We’ll try to maintain integrity with the remote controls.”
“Like we discussed, you don’t need to worry about the details of the spell,” Sparkle assured her. “Just stay there, and try to keep a mental focus.”
“I can do this,” Marble whispered.
“Engine Hearts are operating at full potential,” Sunburst said. “Control collar is keeping the instability in the U-type contained.”
The energy beam from the enemy sputtered and died out.
“Unicorn forces are starting mass shield deployment and attack spell run,” Moondancer said. Bolts of lightning, shards of ice, and fireballs launched at the mountain, most falling short, sputtering out. The monster must have noticed, though, because a moment later the beam of magical power swept down, scything across the dark land, illuminating formations of ponies for a brief instant before the air caught fire and exploded.
“They’re all dying,” Marble whispered.
“They’re expendable,” Sparkle said. “Don’t concern yourself with them. Focus on the mission.”
Casting spells required a talent that even most unicorns didn’t really possess in great measure. It wasn’t memorizing passages from a book, it was more like trying to sculpt while blindfolded. It was tactile and exacting, which was why finding a good tutor was so important - learning from books was like carving marble to instructions from a blueprint. A teacher, though, could hold your hoof and show you the right shape.
To do what she needed to destroy the linnorm, Sunset Shimmer had to sculpt her spell to precise specifications. It couldn’t be almost right. It couldn’t be ‘close enough’. She had to get it perfect, the first time.
She had to block out the voices coming over the crystal radio, focusing on the runes around her, the rotating rings speeding up to a blur.
Sunset almost missed the warning.
“We’re reading scrying spells focusing on your location,” Moondancer warned.
“Sunset?” Sparkle asked.
“Just need a few seconds,” Sunset muttered.
“Pick up the pace,” Sparkle scolded. “The EUP are already almost depleted entirely. They’re no longer providing a distraction.”
There was a flare from the top of the mountain. Sunset launched her spell, entirely on instinct. The air ripped open, the night banished as the spells clashed in midair, energy twisting into knots around lines of force.
“You idiot!” Sparkle yelled. “The beams are going to--” before she could finish, the knot was severed, the energy grounding itself, both spells going off-target and slamming into the ground, splitting the earth open.
Sunset fell as the rock and earth under her shifted in an earthquake, the bedrock splitting open, a rift into the depths of the earth tearing open in a huge eruption of rock dust and magical sparks. She was forced to scramble back as the soil crumbled under her, falling into that pit.
“The leyline,” she gasped. The radio was all static. The huge amount of interference jamming the crystal radio. “It grounded into the leyline!”
Her hooves slipped as a secondary tremor shook the world. She fell back, spreading her wings instinctively. The damaged prosthetics were slow to respond, generating no lift and just shaking in place, throwing off green sparks from where the feathers should have been.
“No no no--” Sunset gasped, looking down into the pit, feeling the surge of vertigo as she started to tumble into the dark.
A hoof grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, tossing her into firmer ground.
Marble looked at her and whispered something, her voice inaudible over the turmoil.
“What?” Sunset asked, heart pounding.
“I-” Marble swallowed, raising her voice. “I wanted to know if you were okay.”
“Yeah.” Sunset looked over at the still-growing crack. “Thanks. That was close.”
“Stop standing around and re-cast the spell!” Doctor Sparkle yelled, throwing her radio headset at Sunset’s hooves as she stomped over. “There’s no time! We didn’t plan for a second shot!”
“It’ll be fine,” Sunset said. “I can just reuse--”
“That blast cooked the leyline!” Doctor Sparkle snapped. “You need to recalibrate for the new local values!”
“Don’t tell me how to do my job!” Sunset retorted. “Unlike you, I was taught by the best!”
“I don’t remember tutoring you,” Sparkle replied, coldly.
“STOP ARGUING!” Marble screamed. Sunset turned to look at her, shocked. There was something about her eyes. Had they always been teal? And her pupils--
“She’s right,” Doctor Sparkle said, interrupting the thought. “Get into position. And finish the spell matrix before casting. Marble is going to be protecting you. Don’t reflex fire. You didn’t even let Marble block it last time, idiot.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sunset growled, planting her feet and starting the mental calculations for the spell.
“The control collar,” Sparkle said, as she returned to the command tent. “Get me readings on it now. We can’t risk losing control.”
“There was a dip, but the wards kicked in and increased power,” Moondancer reported. “Augury spells give a very low chance of a possession event.”
“Tell me if the readings change,” Sparkle muttered, rubbing her brow. “Everything always seems to come at the worst possible moment.”
“It’s coming.” Marble said, quietly. Her head felt like a vice was squeezing tight around it. She spread her stance, feeling the earth under her. Usually it was a source of strength and stability, but the rift in front of her, the broken pathways of magic under the bedrock still reeling from the surge of magical energy that had flooded them, made the earth feel more like a wounded animal, bleeding and frightened, ready to strike out at anything that scared it.
The yoke around her neck felt tight, tingling with static. Part of her wanted to tear the annoying bit of metal off and throw it away. One less distraction. She reached up to touch it.
“What am I doing?” Marble chastised herself. “I need to focus.” She closed her eyes and pictured the shield, power surging as the layers formed, one after another, green fire hanging in the sky, each layer a faintly different shade.
“It’s going to fire before I’m ready!” Sunset said, an edge of panic in her voice. “You better hold it back, newbie!”
Marble fixed her gaze on the mountain, black against the brightening sky. Dawn was coming. Something brighter than the sun bloomed, and the dust hanging in the air around her was washed out in a blast of pressure and heat.
Seven layers. Six. The first layer exploded outwards, simply shattering at a fault in the spell shape. The same kind of flaw Sunset had tried to teach her about.
A pocket of air heated to plasma, three more layers burning away one after another dissipating the heat. Marble tried to force more power into her shield, and warnings flashed in the corner of her eye, a message appearing in floating runes as safety systems in the armor tripped. It was heating up around her, the flawed components starting to glow hot from resistance to the magical flow.
“No, no, no-” Sunset was yelling behind her. “That sun-flanked bitch is raising the sun! It’s throwing off all my calculations!”
“We don’t have time to start from scratch!” Marble said, the pain in her head feeding anger and frustration.
“Tell that to Celestia! The sun is the single largest mana source! We started before dawn to minimize--”
“Stop complaining!” Marble yelled. Another layer of the shield failed. Only two left, and the heat from the enemy’s attack was like standing in front of a bonfire.
Of course the sun would be what got her killed.
Part of her knew what to do. The control yoke around her neck cracked, the central gem darkening as the wards failed. Her mane flared out around her, edges shimmering with stars.
The sun slammed down beneath the horizon, the sky darkening as the coming of dawn was refused.
“What--” Sunset said. “Hah! Some luck for once! Alright, here we go! Hold it steady, Marble!”
A flare of green and cyan lanced out, almost exactly parallel to the beam pressing against her shield. Marble could feel what Sunset was doing, using the enemy’s attack this time, following it like a river instead of fighting against it.
The top of the mountain erupted, the peak vanishing, the soil blasted away to reveal rocks already heated to glowing just for a moment before the superheated air exploded outwards in a fireball, the entire plain lighting up like dawn hadn’t been delayed at all.
The pressure against Marble’s shield vanished, and she collapsed, sweat boiling into steam on her superheated armor.
“Did we do it?” She asked.
“Marble!” Sunburst ran to her side, trying to pull her armor away. He gasped, wincing as his hoof touched the surface.
“Use magic, idiot,” Doctor Sparkle said. Marble watched Sunburst blush as he started working to free her from the damaged armor. “And yes, it worked. You did well.” She turned away. “I’ll try to avoid putting this kind of pressure on you in the future.”
“It’s fine,” Marble said, “We saved a lot of ponies, right?”
“...All of Equestria,” Sparkle reassured her. “You can rest for now.”
Marble sighed with relief as cooler air washed over her, the heavy armor tossed aside. When she felt Sunburst pull her into a hug, she finally let herself relax, passing out.
“No doubt about it,” Moondancer said. “We had a near-breach. We’ll need to check in the lab to make sure it won’t get worse. The control yoke wasn’t enough to completely cut out her influence.”
“It’s the best we can do without making her useless,” Doctor Sparkle said. “I wish we had more control, but any more warding and we’d have all been killed today.”
“Celestia can’t have missed what happened,” Moondancer said. “You saw it. Marble wrested control of the sun away from her.”
“Just for a few seconds, but yes.” Doctor Sparkle looked at the reports on her desk. “She’s going to step up her own investigations and efforts. I’ll talk to the Court and see if we can increase counterintelligence operations.”
“I don’t like working against the Princess,” Moondancer said, quietly.
“Neither do I,” Sparkle admitted. Moondancer looked at her, surprised. “It’s true. I looked up to her. And even if I didn’t, I’d be insane to want her as an enemy. I just don’t have a choice right now.”
Celestia looked up at the sky from her balcony, thinking. It hadn’t been hard to right things, but the sheer surprise of it had almost knocked the world off-balance.
“Is that her game?” Celestia asked the stars. “Return Equestria to its darkest hour? I won’t let it happen again. No matter the cost.”