Strange Alchemy

A storm cloud drifted high above the Citadelic City. Below, ponies trudged through the rain, but above, the sky was clear and bright. Pegasus looked down over this land. From where he stood atop a cloud, even the Citadel seemed so small.

He was dressed in new armor, forged by his blacksmiths to Doctor Dee’s design out of cerorian material. The Pegasi had worked without rest for the past months, hammering the immense suits of armor down into light, effective shells for ponies. They had sought out the remains of Ceroria, and they had rebuilt what they could. The weapons were ready. The time had come.

For a long moment, he pondered the city below, and what he was about to do. Then he looked down at the dagger in his hoof, at the golden ring that surrounded its base and the carved mauve hornbone that made the blade.

Carefully, he slid the blade back into its holster, and drew his rifle. Then he spread his wings, and descended from the cloud.

The ponies of the City looked up at the sound of an explosion. Above them, the saw the atmosphere ripple with an explosion of rainbow color beneath the storm clouds, blanketing their land with color. Some looked on in awe, and some cheered, believing that the unicorns had prepared a display to cheer them up in the dark stormy winter.

Then, with the rush of ten thousand wings and a cry of war, the Pegasi descended from the clouds. The unicorns were not prepared. Some did not even recognize that they were being attacked; the very idea that the seat of the Equestrian Empire could ever be attacked.

Pegasi poured through the streets, their wings carrying them forward, and they opened fire on any unicorn they saw. Bullets screeched through the air, and powerful lasers cut through those who tried to flee. The unicorn defenders reacted bravely, leaping forward into the fray, casting shield spells to protect themselves. They were the best magical soldiers that Equestria had to offer, warriors who had dedicated their lives to training in the art of combat.

Their training, however, had been under the assumption that the only force that would ever present any real threat would be magical in nature. Their shields were indeed powerful, but they were designed to block the spells of other unicorns. Bullets passed through easily, ripping apart their bodies with ease.

The forward force descended into the streets, led by Medea. As her hooves touched the ground, a powerful blast struck her armor. She was knocked backward, but a force that should have turned her to ash produced only a dent in her cerorian armor. She lifted one of her blade-covered wings and returned fire, pounding a phosphorous bullet into the unicorn’s chest. As he burst into flame, the Pegasi behind her opened fire with heavy machineguns, cutting down the traitorous earth ponies and noncombatant unicorns as they tried to escape the justice of Pegasus.

Then, from above, the machines arrived, descending from the clouds. On all sides, the Citadelic City was suddenly surrounded by floating warships. The cerorian battleships themselves had been too old to take flight, but the Pegasi had done their best to improvise. Instead of great ships of metal, they were made from clouds, their surfaces dotted with the still operational guns and armor of the cerorian skyfleet.

High in the air, the Pegasi operators turned the guns on the city below. Like thunder from the storm, the artillery burst forward in a rain of steel and tactical warheads. The ponies below had no concept of firearms, of guns, or of atomic death; they could only watch as their bodies were ripped apart by shrapnel and as their neighborhoods were shelled to dust.

Though the unicorn defense was powerless against the Pegasi, the Citadel itself was not. Ancient systems that had lain dormant for millennia suddenly charged and sprung to life. Those who had constructed the Citadel had died suddenly, and its automated defense response had never been deactivated. For centuries it had waited quietly, always active and always watching, prepared for a war that had ended in ancient times. Now it recognized the presence of unidentified aircraft, and its internal systems reached as though the last bastion of Panbios were under attack from the Choggoth horde.

The Citadel hummed to life, and its surface shifted. The protective shields deployed, surrounding its surface with unbreakable plates of steel. Far below the surface of the City, the defense systems engaged. The ground shook, and the city was torn apart as massive antiaircraft batteries pushed up through the streets and through buildings that had been carelessly built over the long-forgotten guns

The ponies caught near the guns were thrown into the air, or were pulled into the resulting sink holes that formed as the batteries destroyed the wealthiest districts of the city nearest to the Citadel. The guns automatically pointed to the sky, forming barrels out of burning light. The union of cerorian technology and Draconian magic opened fire with resounding force, pouring laserfire, flak, and bolts of magic into the sky above.

Hundreds of Pegasi were torn apart by the surge of metal from below. Many of their cloud fortresses erupted in flames as they were ripped apart by surface-to-air defense. Several lost lift, and the heavy guns fell through the clouds into the city below, exploding with tremendous force and flame.

The antiaircraft batteries were old, though. Many of them had decayed. One of them attempted to fire, but it had been too badly degraded. Instead, its power reactor detonated. Every building and pony within its blast radius was vaporized instantly in the plasma explosion.

On the ground, Pegasus fired his laser rifle into the chest of an oncoming unicorn, turning his upper body into dust. More converged, but he moved swiftly, slashing a mare’s throat with his wing-mounted blades and grabbing another by the neck. Her magic tore at his armor to no avail, and with one swift motion he snapped her neck and let her twitching corpse fall to the ground.

Above him, he saw the bolts of magic pouring up into the sky. He saw winged ponies dying and falling into the city below. He looked up to the Citadel and saw it armored and defended, coated in an impenetrable shell. The Pegasus advance had been stymied; the charge had lost its momentum.

He knew that there was only one option, one that he had hoped he would not need to use. Pegasus linked his helmet radio to the command network, transmitting on all frequencies.

“Derpus!” he cried over the sound of artillery and pony screams. “Fire the weapon!”

“Roger that,” said Derpus Maximus high above the battlefield. He turned to the consul of liquid stone that sat before him and entered the firing procedure, watching as the cerorian barcodes flew past his face. The entire satellite installation vibrated and shook as the ancient mechanisms engaged.

Beside him and his assistants, the machine engaged. Through the window, he a robotic lift lowering a pointed violet crystal the size of a pony into position. Maximus engaged the loading procedure, and the crystal was shoved forward into the barrel of the cannon along with eight others in remote locations.

“Orbital strike inbound,” he said through the radio. He put his eyes to the scope, even though neither one ended up looking into the eyepiece. “Firing!”

He clicked forward the mechanism to activate the device. As he did, the lights flickered and went out. The vibrations of the satellite stopped; not just the guns, but the reactor and the air handling system too. The entire station sat in darkness and silence.

Derpus looked around, and turned to one of his assistants who shrugged. He knew this was no time to panic, but the weapon had not fired. Derpus looked back to his consul, which had gone flat, its lights extinguished and its readings gone.

“I just don’t know what went- -”

Derpus Maximus was interrupted by an explosion so powerful that it threw him out of his seat and against a wall, rendering him deaf on one side. The entire installation shook as it channeled the full force of its might into the orbital guns. Every pony within grabbed ahold of the nearest thing they could, or each other, each fearing that they were about to be destroyed by a failed firing attempt.

Then the satellite stopped shaking. The launch had been successful.

As the unicorns watched, the winged ponies suddenly shot into the air. Even those who had been winning their local street-to-street battles turned and retreated to the clouds as quickly as they had come. The battered unicorn soldiers watched, surprised and confused. Then, as the last of the winged ones disappeared into the clouds, a cheer broke out through the Citadelic City. They had repelled the invaders; they had won.

Then a tremendous explosion shook the ground. Above, the storm clouds were split open, dissipated in wide circles by nine glowing streaks of light. The indestructible crystals hit the City at nearly the speed of light, burrowing into its surface and transmitting an unfathomable amount of kinetic energy into the soil. Each explosion produced no sound; instead, they only produced a shockwave that expanded through any material substance nearby. Every pony and every building within miles were shattered instantly and blown away; then, from below, the solid of the earth caught up with the wave through the fluid air. The resulting earthquake caused the land to rise up, and to engulf and crush anything in the tidal wave of solid and liquid rock that poured out of each impact crater.

Two of the stones struck the Citadel, piercing through its seemingly inviolable surface as though it were paper. The Citadel leaned, and started to tip, but it did not fall.

Pegasus looked down, and saw that the guns had been destroyed- -and that two holes had been cut into their primary target. The city lay in ruin, but for a moment, Pegasus thought that far below he saw a yellow earth mare standing atop the steeple of a ruined church, laughing and cheering for the destruction before her.
Pegasus spread his armored wings before the ponies who flew beside him.

“CHARGE!” he cried, leading the force toward their true enemy.

With Medea at his side, Pegasus swooped downward into the Citadel. The unicorns were stronger there, and some of his Pegasi fell. They still fought on, though, with him leading them into the ancient hallways. Many of the ponies within were not soldiers, but nobles instead. The Pegasi cut them down with their guns.

A number of nearly identical sandy colored mares attempted to flee, unable to use magic to defend themselves. The Pegasi leapt upon their backs and slit their throats.

“Kill them all!” cried Pegasus. “Leave no heir alive! Every princess must die!”

Beside him, Medea gutted one of Fyr’mond’s elder sisters. “You have no need to worry, Pegasus. On this day, the Horn dynasty ends!”

The Pegasi nearby responded by cheering in unison. They spread their wings and rushed the Citadel, taking great pleasure in murdering the unicorns who had oppressed and hurt their kind for so long.

Pegasus himself fell back, watching them pass into the complex structure of the Citadel. He had a different target. He turned away, and began to move upward, toward the royal chamber.

Third Horn cried out in pain, and started to collapse

“Father!” cried Amddiffynnwr, holding the older pony and preventing from falling entirely. Third Horn looked down at his hooves, and saw them changing. Where his skin had formerly been firm and tight, it was now graying and wrinkling. Where once had possessed strong muscles, he was beginning to atrophy. Inside him, he felt himself reverting, and he knew that he had been betrayed. The spell that kept him young was failing. He was beginning to age three thousand years in a single minute.

All around him, he was surrounded by the screams of his royal guards. Before his vision started to fade, Third Horn was treated to the sight of his closest and most loyal servants being torn apart by their own armor. The black material that covered them separated, pulling and tearing their flesh away and then moving independently, clicking across the tile of the floor as they moved to devour the still-living bodies. The red crystals became the eyes of crab-like creatures; with no power to control them, they turned against those who they had been bound to serve before slipping into the deepest of shadows, carrying both the corpses and the screaming into the beyond where they had come from.

Third Horn dropped to the ground, and looked up into his son’s eyes. He gasped as his lungs began to calcify, and grabbed Amddiffynnwr’s leg.

“Father,” said Amddiffynnwr, “we need to get you back to the chair, to the spell- -”

“No,” wheezed a now tremendously old Third Horn. His body was now centuries older than any normal pony, and he was continuing to age. “There is no time.” With his last bit of strength, he pulled his son’s face close to his. “Amddiffynnwr! Please…I shall die this day, but Third Horn must survive! The unicoirns need a leader, to defeat this foe, to rebuild from the ashes of Equestria!”

Amddiffynnwr held his father closely, watching his face grow thin and skeletal. He nodded in understanding, and he felt the love of the dying pony flowing into him. His surface shifted, and the form of Amddiffynnwr faded. Where he had once been a tall green unicorn, he became gray. His proportions changed, until all that remained of Amddiffynnwr was his gold-colored eyes.

Third Horn smiled. “My son…my beloved son…rule well.”

With one last rattling breath, Third Horn’s life ended. Amddiffynnwr was left holding the skeletal remains of a pony who he had loved, and who had loved him. He pulled the body of his father close to him. Third Horn was so light, and so cold, and his pearl armor fell away from him. Alone in the failing, lurching remnants of the Citadel, Amddiffynnwr wept, both for his father and for Equestria.

“There he is!” called a voice from behind him. “That’s Third Horn!”

Amddiffynnwr’s eyes narrowed, and he felt his illusion slip in those eyes as they became slits. Slowly and gently, he laid his deceased king to the floor, and he stood. He turned to see two armored Pegasi standing at the end of the hall.

They raised there under-wing guns, but they were too slow. Amddiffynnwr rushed forward, plunging a blade of green magic into the chest of one of them. Powerful magic drove into the center of his body, and he exploded from within, covering the room with the blood of a traitor.

The other looked on in fright. She tried to raise her gun, but Amddiffynnwr grasped her in his powerful magic. As she screamed, he tore her wings away, and then took her in his hoof.

With her eyes wide, Amddiffynnwr let his form slip away. The gray hoof that held her throat became black, its form hollowed by numerous holes. His coat was replaced by plates of chitin, and his long horn became angular and gnarled.

“What- -what are you?” she cried, struggling to escape.

Amddiffynnwr changed again. This time he grew smaller, his body becoming narrow and lighter. His horn vanished, and a pair of wings sprouted from his back.

“I am you,” he said, staring back at her with her own eyes. Then he poured magic into her, and allowed her to disintegrate into dust.

As Amddiffynnwr flew away from the Citadel, he saw the machines of the Pegasi converging on it. He turned to watch as the cloud-mounted guns opened fire on its structure, tearing into it at range with violent nuclear blasts. The air shook, and then so did the Citadel. As Amddiffynnwr watched, it started to drop. The ancient tower, the center of Equestria, collapsed and fell, breaking into pieces as it went.

The sight was horrible, but Amddiffynnwr forced himself to watch it. As he hovered in the air, he burned that image into his memory. That day, Equestria had fallen- -but he knew that he would restore it. Third Horn would live on through him. He would gather the survivors, the remnants of unicorn society that could still fight. He would stand amongst them, and lead them in their vengeance against the Pegasus race.

First, though, he would need to escape. The battle had taken them by surprise, and though the unicorns held superior numbers, they had not had the necessary counter spells to fight the strange and forbidden technology that the Pegasi chose to use. Soon, though, they would. Not only that, but they would take the technology for themselves. They would do what they had to in order to win the war.

For a moment, Amddiffynnwr found himself thinking of his sister. He looked to the ground, and wished that he might find her out there somewhere. Somehow, though, he knew that she was no longer with them. The distant light of her love had gone out. He was now alone, but he still held out hope that perhaps someday they might meet again.

He turned and began to fly away. He passed the Pegasi, but none of them seemed to notice or care that one of their own was travelling in the wrong direction, or that he did not join in their cheers as the remnants of the Citadel thudded against the burning city below.

He watched them, and on that day he made a promise. Unicorns and Pegasi could not coexist. Never would Equestria know peace, and never would his soul rest, until every one of those accursed winged abominations were exterminated and the power of unicorns returned.

This, the new Third Horn swore, would come to pass. The destruction of the Citadel had been just one battle. The war itself, though, had only just begun.