Castlevania: Portrait of Chaos

Chapter Sixteen, Part One: Misery Loves Company

Stella put a hoof over her narrowing eyes and looked into the moonlit distance. Around thirty or so shambling silhouettes approached the chariot at a laughable speed.

She scoffed. “Zombies. I think.”

Loretta glanced around, seeing more silhouettes emerge from the alleyways and interiors of houses.

“I thought I saw a rainbow flash again…” The bonnet-wearing unicorn cringed. Her horn charged with magic.

“You don’t think…?” Jonathan said while sweating slightly as he rose onto his hind hooves and readied the cross like it was a small baseball bat.

“Must be seeing things again.” Loretta shrugged, her horn letting off a glow bright enough to show the fronts of the houses lined up alongside the cobblestone walkway. Indeed, the snail-paced silhouettes were really rotten ponies who had suffered a vast multitude of injuries varying from one to the next.

“Eeyup. Zombies alright.” Charlotte sighed rather despodently as she flipped through the pages of her book. “I wanna end this quick so we won’t get waylaid any further.”

A rainbow trail whizzed by in around nine or so circles around the group, and each time a circle was completed a few zombies had been toppled over with their grotesque faces caved in.

Jonathan fell over backwards and quickly righted himself up.

“Oh, great, now I understand that SHE followed us here…as if we didn’t have enough problems already!” He cried, trying very hard not to let his anger go haywire.

“You know Jonathan, she did just destroy what, about thirty-seven zombies in about ten seconds…?” Charlotte stated, swiveling her head to look at the most recent mess around the chariot, “And, from what I can see, two of them dropped something…”

The rainbow trail whizzed by again, claiming whatever it was that caught the unicorn’s eye.

“Great. Less luggage for us.” Stella commented, getting off of the chariot and motioning for the others to follow. “Earth to the three stooges? We musn’t dillydally any longer!”

The trio obliged as Stella began to run off along the cobblestone trail. She soon stopped and drew her sword, loading its hilt into her mouth for some reason.

The other three skid to a halt as a massive amount of monsters came out of the doors of the many overturned caskets that littered the walkway. They were horrendously thin and what was left of them was a sickly white. Some, however, were a fossilized brown in hue and they had horns on their heads.

Above them wheeled strange round shapes with decrepit wings. They had glowing eyes of ice and horns sizzling with magic on their faces.

“I think…. we may be in trouble. I know you’re there Rainbow Dash, and we may need help.” Jonathan murmured, readying the cross in his hooves again.

“Death masks….now alicorns?” Charlotte commented, looking back between the wheeling shapes overhead and the ponies from the caskets--all of whom skeletons no less--a bit frantically.

“I have no comments.” Loretta said, shaking her head as her horn continued to build up magic.

Stella looked behind her and the rest of the group and saw more brown skeleton unicorns approaching them. They emerged from the corpses of the zombies for some strange reason, and they were quickly gaining ground.

Jonathan rose on his hind hooves again and flung the cross before hastily pulling out another from his good wing and flinging that opposite of the first. Both did mid-air cartwheels and sliced the white skeleton ponies in two. The brown ones were far sturdier and they seemed to laugh as the crosses bounced off of them harmlessly.

“Greeeeat. Skeletons with magical energy fields. What next, lesbian succubi?” Charlotte hissed in disbelief, reading her book in her hooves.

“Okay, enough is enough…. I will take you out in ten seconds flat!!!” Called a disturbingly familiar tomboyish voice as another rainbow trail whizzed by, taking out a good deal of the brown skeletons, though not enough to be of any help. It then took out the death masks hovering above one by one, and each let off a scream before disappearing in a fray of feathers.

The trail then returned and took out some more brown skeletons. One skeleton who apparently had more sense than the others fired a magical homing sphere that trailed the rainbow and hit its source: a cyan pegasus mare who fell flat on her face.

“Owww… That hurt, you CHUMP!!!” Rainbow cried, trying to get up onto her now-wobbly hooves.

“We did underestimate you, Rainbow. But this isn’t quite the place for you.” Charlotte commented, narrowing her eyes low as she cast a spell that enveloped her own body.

The horned skeletons glanced at her and dropped their energy fields before charging at the group like a mafia, unaware that the blue mare’s hooves became paw-like.

The first skeleton that got close enough to the group found a set of paws ripping its skull clean off of its spine as if a soccer session were about to occur. Its horn was soon snapped clean off by a set of dagger-like teeth belonging to a canid muzzle. That skeleton’s whole body turned into dust.

Another skeleton’s horn was quickly ripped off in the exact same manner.

Stella swiftly caught on, channeling green magic in her sword as she began flying past the skeletons and slicing horns clean off of their frames. She took out about one hundred of them in about a minute, and they still kept coming towards the small group that found itself with one extra (and not to mention uninvited) member.

“Augh! It seems like Brauner was prepared this time around!” Loretta ranted, channeling her magic into a single point above her and causing small bits of ice to coalesce into that point.

“That about explains everything!” Jonathan agreed wholeheartedly as he reached into his good wing and pulled out a simple combat knife.

“Ugh..that was so NOT COOL!” Rainbow Dash said as she began to regain balance at last. She glanced around and saw a purple blur slicing off the horns of the skeleton ponies and Charlotte tearing skulls off manually. One dropped another scroll.

Loretta commented, ice bits forming into a sphere above her, “Hey I just noticed...isn’t that… the skeleton summon spell that the third skeleton just dropped?”

“Might be something else.” Charlotte shrugged, picking it up before returning to prying skulls off of their bodies with her paw-hooves. Another horn turned to ancient dust in her mouth as she tore it off.

Jonathan brandished the knife in his front hooves and began walking up to some more skeletons on his hind ones. “Hey, nice horns ya have there.” He said before slicing some off. “Would be a shame if they were cut off!”

“You ponies are insane!” Rainbow called out, spreading her wings and seeing one of them fall limply to her side. Her eyes widened at the sight of a bone sticking out of the blue feathers.

“Sanity’s underrated!” Charlotte retorted, glancing around after smashing a skull with her book. All that was left now were the overturned carriages, her friends, Rainbow Dash, and ten years’ worth of dust and feathers on the cobblestone walkway. Jonathan returned to all fours, carefully putting the combat knife in his mouth beforehand.

The carriages suddenly lit aflame with the most beautiful blue fires the group ever saw. And yet, these fires heralded something sinister in their hypnotizing awe…