Soul Fire

Freefall’s short black-cropped mane shifted in the wind as his baby blue colored face looked up to the Captain. He sighed as he opened the door to keep an eye on his charge. The Captain was a good stallion, but was scary as hell when he was like this. Walking into Ms. Derpy Hooves’ home, he shut the door behind him and locked it. He turned around to see a sad Derpy sitting on the floor. He smiled at how cute she looked. The Captain’s sister was the sweetest young mare that he and the rest of the guards had ever met. Everyone loved Derpy.

He smiled, “Mmmmm, something smells good, Derpy. Are those blueberry muffins I smell? Would you like some help?”

“Oh yes. My muffins,” said Derpy brightening up. She didn’t like it when her brother had to go off, but she understood that he was busy protecting her and Equestria. It was a good thing that she was such a happy pony. It always seemed that nothing bugged her for very long. She would always go back to being the same happy Derpy Hooves.

He smiled, following her into the kitchen in the back of the home. Until he heard shifting at the back window where the forest lay behind.

“Derpy, come back here right now please,” he asked, briskly moving towards her and the window.

“Why, what’s wrong?” she said with a smile as she put on her oven mitts.

“I would just like you to be away from the window, please,” he said, thinking that it could be just the wind, but decided to still place himself between the window and Derpy, keeping an ear and an eye on the glass opening.

Just when Derpy finished placing the muffins on the cool stovetop and turned off the oven, multiple screams cracked through the air in Ponyville. Suddenly a black smoky cloud crashed through the window and onto Freefall’s back. Derpy screamed in terror, as Freefall bucked off the smoky apparition that formed into a wolf as it landed on the kitchen floor. The wolf dashed towards Freefall but faked and headed to Derpy, licking his chops.

“Oh no, you don’t,” exclaimed Freefall, dodging in front of Derpy only to be bitten square on the shoulder.

“No more! Stop it!” screamed Derpy as she started to sink down to the ground and cry. “Please no more.”

Screams pierced the air behind the Captain. Ponyville was under attack. Before the Captain could think, he changed course and shot back towards the town.

“No, Derpy! Hell no, your not touching my little sis,” he growled. He swung between the first few buildings and then blasted right through the front door of Derpy’s home.

“Derpy!” he screamed and then heard her crying as Freefall fought while bleeding against an obake. Rage spilt through him, launching him into action. In one blinding move the Captain drew a sword and sent it flying straight through the obake’s heart and into the kitchen wall. Feeling his rage leak into his features and up his spine, the Captain retrieved his sword, took a deep breath and turned to Derpy and Freefall.

“Freefall, call reinforcements to evacuate Ponyville immediately, and take Derpy with you to safety,” he said with anger leaking into his voice. “Take care of her. I must hold them off.”

Amber lifted her face from her hooves in a gasp that felt as if someone sent a blade straight through her chest. No, something was wrong. No. She wobbled as she got out of bed, grabbing hold of the night table beside her. Taking her gem from its surface she placed it around her neck. There was no time to waste, she thought as she struggled to open the window. She took a step back and then launched herself out and into the cold winter night air.  She opened her wings to fly, but fell. Her wings wouldn’t grab air through her desperation.

No, no. Her strength was so drained still. She breathed in as she fell and then opened her wings and angled herself just right. Forcing her wings to hit as much air under her as possible, she forced her wings down as hard as she could. She shot up into the air and began to fly. She needed to get there fast, but each wing beat was a struggle. If she tried going any faster, she would fall to ground before she got there, or have no energy to fight when and if she had too. Focusing on the task at hand, she paced herself as she flew to the source, Ponyville.

The Captain felt his heart tear a little as he unsheathed his two swords and sped out through the door, seeing in the corner or his eye how Derpy had reached out to him and cried, “No! Big Brother don’t...”

Blasting back and forth through the streets, the Captain dispatched oni after oni, each in a single blow, and plowed through each single obake with blazing speed and skill. He knew it when each of the cuts of his enemies fell upon him, but felt nothing in his rage. He kept going, one on one… one on three… one on seven. It was blinding. Never ending. Good Luna save him, he reveled in the strength that his beast gave him. Each of his two swords flew in crescents and jabs that beheaded and killed anything that came in his way. They would all suffer for hurting Derpy, for making her cry, and for making Amber feel pain.

Spinning left and right, and dodging back and forth the Captain laid waste to them all. Soon they all came to him, circling him. He still fought sending his blades flying through air, flesh, and blood that fell to the ground and around him in a bloodbath. The one-shot kills from his blades were sent flying in every direction until the Captain could only see red… nothing but red… nothing but rage.

It consumed him and his blades, killing another two more before the first body could even hit the ground, before blood could even escape from his previous blade’s cut. As his blade struck, slicing up and down, left and right, in arches and crescents; it was almost as if he and the monster were becoming one as he danced the warrior’s dance of death around his enemies, spinning left and right, from one daemon to the next and back again. He started to growl and yell as each blade sunk into his enemy and anyone who opposed him.

Flames illuminated Ponyville in the distance. “Just a little more”, Amber thought as she gasped from the exertion. She focused on breathing and gathering her strength. She searched within herself, but for some reason couldn’t unlock her flame. She couldn’t change! And the flame she could use was small and fragile. Damn it. Why was this happening? She should at least be able to reach her flame, but it was locked away. Suddenly while passing a street, a large web shot after her and caught her back hoof.

“No!” she screamed, forming some fire to burn the web off. She struggled to regain flight and ended up falling down into an alleyway. An alleyway filled with three oni! She struggled to get up after getting the wind knocked out of her as she had fallen on her backside. She coughed and choked; rolling quickly over she faced the oni and stood strong in a fighter’s stance, a primary one that was taught to her by the Captain in her first few weeks of training with him. The oni laughed at her frantic but determined face as the first one advanced slowly on her.

Slowly she formed three fireballs behind her, letting them gain strength from the air around them. The oni charged at her as she jumped up and back, sending the fireballs straight at each oni.  Each caught fire and screamed in unison. But they still came at her even with a leg or arm each burning way. She dodged around them and jumped up high to send three more their way. The two smaller oni were consumed by flame, while the last one charged at her to grab her with his burning arms.

Dodging swiftly to the right, Amber tripped and fell. The oni screamed as he fell upon her. Sending her back legs up, she focused fire at the soles of her hooves, and pushed the burning body off of her with all her might. The body crumbled into ash along with the others. Amber sucked in the air around her, and with wild eyes scanned the area as she ran into the center of the town. She dodged attack after attack, using momentum to kick, hit, and throw any who truly focused on her.

She needed to save her energy, her fire for when she truly needed it. Then she saw it, a mass of bodies leading to the center of town.  Opening her wings, she launched herself up to the top of a nearby building. Looking over the top and down to the town square, she saw him. Oh good Luna of the night, he was covered in blood with the most enraged and malicious face she’d ever seen him with. The enemies were terrified of him as he killed another two who were retreating; they all were running away. No one could oppose him.

Clicking sounds accompanied a screech sounding behind her. Amber looked frantically to see a smoky spider behind her. She acted before she could think and jumped off the roof to fall into a pile of hay, for she knew that she had not the strength to fight this thing and win. She quickly got out of the hay and began to run toward the square, but the obake had jumped off the roof and had landed on top of her back.

The spider sank his large fangs into the back of her neck. Amber panicked, bucking and kicking as the spider held on. She looked to the Captain, whose eyes had focused on her and suddenly flashed red as he used one thrust of his powerful tri-wings to blast at her and the spider. His entire body glowed red for a moment as he punched the spider with the hilt of his sword. She breathed deep as she got up to look at the battle. He was toying with it, killing it slowly with cuts and hits rather than killing it outright. His energy was almost exactly like Sombre’s now. With a menacing sneer, the Captain looked at the beaten spider and sent a single blade down into its body and through its heart. The battle was over, won, but it was not a joyous victory.

“How could you be so stupid?!” he said with tight lips. She blinked and looked up at him and away from the dissipating creature.

“Excuse me?” she said with a single soft breath.

“How could you be so stupid to have left your bed!? You’re not even supposed to be up!” he was pretty much screaming at her as he walked over. She would have calmly told him off had she not felt so weak in that moment. She felt like hiding inside herself when he yelled at her, not out of fear, but of shame. If ever she seemed wary, nervous, or scared of him it was because she was scared of doing something wrong to make things worse. Even when he yelled at her, she wasn’t scared of him though, and for some odd reason she still felt safe. She could tell that his beast was invading the fringes of his voice.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I just felt… I wasn’t thinking. I just had to get here,” she replied shyly.

He growled, “You should have stayed out of it.”

“I didn’t even know that you would be here. I just... I just instinctually... Do... Do you see me as weak?” she asked as she wavered as tears formed at the corners of her eyes. She gasped as he grabbed her into a warm embrace. His entire body was tense as he sighed.

“No. You’re injured, and still recovering from a previous battle. That’s not weak. That’s just being stupid,” he said with an angry but calm tone.

She smiled weakly, “As if you wouldn’t have done the same.”

He closed his eyes and didn’t laugh. She gasped as he picked her up before she fell and launched into the sky. After a few minutes soaring through the cold air, the Captain said, “No pony can help me, Amber. So don’t try to.”

She felt like she was too tired to exclaim otherwise so she sleepily said, “Did I ever say that I was trying to?”