Blue Eyes, Silver Body: Wrath of Necronak

Chapter: 4 - The First Confrontation.

Softly roused from his sleep, Blueblood feels the shaking of the train coming from all around him, though it was a more comfortable feeling than a rough one. Shifting slightly to adjust his position in his seat, Blueblood watches as the Equestrian countryside rolls by through the window. The mountains in the distance peaking into the warm summer sky, the grass waving in the window, and the small white clouds moving across the pale blue above gave the Prince a feeling of joy at the sight. His thoughts are filled with images of the outside, longing to be amidst the landscape beyond the window.

"Beautiful, is it not?" Asks the prince to his mind's newest companion.

"Indeed. Quite the setting." Replies the strangely warmer, calculating voice hidden within the crown now worn atop Blueblood's head.

"Why the sudden change in tone?" Asks the young prince curiously.

"I looked upon this world in the same way you just did, long ago. It feels like a lifetime has passed since then, which it has been for many." The voice replies, the blue mist within the helmet's sapphire roiling and swirling.

Blueblood returns to watching the outside as it passes by, the mountains seeming ever distant as if they would always be on the horizon, watching silently like looming sentinels. As Blueblood squints his slightly glowing eyes, he can spot the city of Canterlot hanging off the mountain range like a hawk, ever still and watching across the land like a marble and gold guardian. His mind concentrates on the population of such a city, the snobbish ponies who he had to join to fit in and remain out of sight. Then, he thought of those he has grown to despise, his very family. The betrayers. Somehow, this new entity he has met has been more trustworthy than both of them. Yes, the only reason Blueblood even considered his proposal is because of how unicorns are expected to respect their ancestry, but what else had the voice done? Well, he had given him the push to leave his untrustworthy family behind, and perhaps that motivation to complete the task he had longed to do for months is what gave the voice such an alluring presence.

Thinking of the voice, Blueblood racks his brain on the ever growing conversations he has had with him. Can he be trusted, and what are his motives and objectives? Was he some pony warlord from Equestria's past, or something else entirely? Blueblood continues to question this very close entity, his list of questions lacking any answers becoming even longer. One question being very strange to Blueblood, making even more questions without answers. Like how the metal of the regular weapons he has used in the past feel so inferior to the strength he feels now when wearing the crown. How can a war hammer he wields on his back feel weaker than a piece of armour, which can't even be used as a weapon? Seeing no alternative, Blueblood turns to the only being who can even humour and understand his questions. The crown's voice itself.

"Say, you never explained why you were locked within that chamber."  Points out a questioning Blueblood as he continues to gaze out the window at the passing countryside. The voice sighs softly.

"I was sealed within at my own request. I knew for a fact that a descendant of my old friend, your ancestor, would release me." Answers the voice cryptically, unknowingly creating even more questions for the prince.

"Wait, you knew I would release you? How?" Presses the still content prince.

"Because I, now here me out, set events purposefully in motion to lead to this very point. I wasn't always some trinket to be worn, you know." The voice speaks. Blueblood just groans to himself as even more questions begin to build-up.

"By the sun, just give me straight answers!" He nearly shouts out, the blue within the sapphire glows even brighter. Seeping through the pristine crystalline structure, the mist floats besides Blueblood and grows in size before shaping into a figure. Sitting down, the figure rests its hands on its knees and looks the prince in the eye, its face unlike anything the prince had ever seen.

"You want straight answers?" The figure asks in a tone with no definite emotion, which unnerved the prince. After a moment to collect himself, Blueblood answers.

"Yes." Answers Blueblood stoically.

"Fine. My name is Necronak!" The spectre roars out with his fist clenched in the air in a pose. Blueblood merely tilts his head whilst rubbing the helmet atop it.

"Necronak?" He asks in reply.

"Yes. Necronak." Speaks the spectre. Suddenly, the ethereal being looks slightly downtrodden before turning around to face the seated prince more, his hands outstretched to his sides. "You know, Necronak? Wielder of Ice-Render?" Asks Necronak once more.

"Can't say I've heard your name before." Replies the prince. The form used by Necronak has its cyan eyes contort into more of a glare than before.

"Seriously?!" The spirit roars out.

"Seriously." Answers the prince slightly unnerved.

"By Aetherius, Discord is placed in the Royal Gardens as a statue and I'm not even remembered?!" The spirit yells out in outrage. The misty, blue form leans back into his seat and places a ghostly hand to its forehead.

Blueblood sits uncomfortably for a minute, shuffling around in his seat as he tries to concentrate on the calming sight through the window than the spectral being beside him. Thinking on the spectre's words, the Prince turns to face the misty being with more questions unanswered. Blueblood opens his mouth slightly, but is cut off as the mist seems to dissipate into a thin plume before returning to the sapphire embedded in the crown's forehead. Startled, Blueblood sits up and rubs the sapphire as the cool crystalline piece glows with a familiar blue. The tune played by the train signals that the ride had come to a stop, and that they had reached their desired location. Sighing, the prince stands onto all four of his hooves before leaving his carriage and landing onto the softly packed snow the ground had become.

Trotting along, the cold seemed to not even sap the warmth from Blueblood, much to his confusion. It seemed like, despite the raging blizzard bellowing around him, he was in a heated room rather than the heat-sapping environment he was truly in. Moving forwards, a sudden gasp behind him diverts his attention, causing him to slowly turn around to face the source. Running up to him, the culprit looks up at him with a stern glare, reading the face behind the crown. Twilight Sparkle, and her entourage of friends, confront the silent prince with varying looks of negative feelings. Despite the glares of differing intensity being shot towards him, Prince Blueblood remains stoic and emotionless, watching the mares whilst I watch through his eyes whilst laughing to myself at the absurdity of the situation.

Hearing another set of hoofsteps, Blueblood turns his eyes slightly to the side and watches as Shining Armour, a blue scarf coiled around his neck and set of goggles on his face, and Spike, a young green spiked and purple scaled dragon, join the group before him. Pulling the goggles from his face, greeting Twilight with a hug, he turns to Blueblood and scowls at the prince.

"Let's get to the Crystal Empire, we don't want to get caught out here after dark." Speaks the newly wed stallion, giving somewhat nervous and angry sideways glances at the prince beside him.

Walking away, the group start trotting towards the direction of the Empire, leaving my hidden self and the prince behind. Shrugging his snowflake dusted shoulders, Blueblood joins the group by walking behind them slightly. Every so often, Shining Armour turns to look over his shoulder at the prince, adjusting the scarf around his neck nervously. Continuing on through the raging blizzard storming around them, only Blueblood unfazed by the ferocious weather, a sudden monstrous roar echoes from behind them. The group in front of Blueblood freeze before turning around to face the sound with terrified expressions. With a bored expression beneath the metallic cage of spikes around his muzzle, Blueblood slowly turns to face an ever-growing cloud of inky black as the face of a deranged unicorn forms on it to grin at the group. The wickedly curved red horn glows an unearthly red as purple smoke flows from the green and orange eyes of the unicorn's grey face.

"Run!" Yells Shining Armour as he turns back around and charges through the blizzard with the rest of the group. Laughing menacingly, the smoky apparition begins moving rapidly forwards after the fleeing group.

Realising that Blueblood wasn't with them, the group come to a sudden halt before turning around to face the smoky creature. Scanning the area behind them, Blueblood and the rest stare with gaping mouths as Blueblood's horn glows a smoky blue which fires into the snowy ground around him. The strange assailant stops dead in its tracks before staring intensely at the helmet atop the prince's head. Suddenly, the group watch in horror as the false head rears back in a roar of outrage before launching towards the prince.

With a roar of his own, Blueblood activates his spell which snaps several large chunks of compressed ice from the snow dusted ground around him. Glowing with the cyan glow of his horn, the small icebergs begin to pulse with intense brightness before compressing even further into shard-like pieces of more solid ice. With a deep grunt, Blueblood rears his head slowly backwards in strain before flinging his head forwards and firing the magically charged ice at the smoky being. Yelping in pain, the smoky apparition slinks hastily around the prince and slams its whole body into Shining Armour as he attempts to cast a spell at the fiend, the rest of the group running into the barrier separating the Crystal Empire from the blizzard-torn land around it.

Shining Armour, revealed once the smoky haze snakes from his form, is slumped on the ground painfully rubbing his now dark crystal-encrusted horn as he slinks away from the smoke. Holding his head with a white hoof, he watches with rapt attention and curiosity as the smoky haze and Prince Blueblood begin to circle each other. Listening intently over the bellowing winds blasting across the area, Shining listens to the unmistakeable voice of Blueblood with a deeper more malicious voice accompanying it, most likely emanating from the large smoky apparition of the ancient tyrant.

"So, you're the one who Necronak is using?" Asks the wretched smoke. Blueblood merely scowls at the spirit, whereas Shining Armour gasps as he recognises the name described by the royal Alicorns during their debriefing on Blueblood. Apparently, when the guards stationed at Canterlot's main gate described Blueblood's new crown, Celestia had became shocked and began to explain the crown's past wearer. Some magical knight Celestia and Luna had confronted after trying to save the Crystal Empire from Sombra in the distant past.

"No, I am not being used!" Yells out Blueblood, his voice mixed with that of the fallen god, Necronak. Shining Armour shivers from both the cold sapping his body's heat and the unearthly distortion of the prince's voice.

Smirking, the smoky spirit lunges forth but is deflected by a strike by Blueblood's magic shot from his horn. Enraged, the smoke's face grinds its fanged teeth in anger before twisting a plume of deep black smoke into a deadly claw, smirking as it rakes it across the floor before striking out towards the prince. Slipping his war hammer swiftly from its sheath, Blueblood snarls before lunging through the air towards the claw, and slams the hammer into the claw using his strong telekinetic grip. The strength of the blow completely decimates the claw, passing through the smoke before Blueblood does a full turn as he brings the hammer around for another hit. The face of the smoke widens its eyes in surprise before a hammer is flung through it in a swift attack by the enraged prince, the spirit controlling the magical smoke groaning in pain as icy cold spikes of pain pulsate through its skull.

Phasing through the smoke, Blueblood lands on his four hooves behind the smoke and spins around with his own teeth clenched in violent rage. Raising his war hammer into the air, he wills the god-like energy supplied to him via his bond with Necronak to pour forth and to coil around his weapon, which it obeys. The echoing, ghostly laughing of Necronak reverberates within Blueblood's skull as the godly spirit supplies more and more energy to the commands of his new companion, the war hammer wielded by Blueblood glows brightly around the edges, vein-like glowing runes forming across the gold-detailing of the steel hammer. As more energy enters the weapon, the smoky spirit before Blueblood is pushed back as it turns to face the prince. As the power reaches its optimum, pony skulls constructed of the same blue smoke as that what now bellows in extreme amounts from the prince's eyes begin to coil around the weapon with gaping jaws.

A circle around Blueblood begins to glow a mesmerising blue as the power radiates within the area, the ring of energy burning into the snow around Blueblood begins to sift thick ashy blue smoke with small flakes of blue embers sifting from the smoke. Grunting from the effort, Blueblood bows his head as the energy boosts to unfathomable amounts so that the mortal pony prince could perform a god-level spell. Though a spell may be as simple as creating an apple out of thin air, it was still specifically a god-level spell. The only being able to use a watered down version of this spell type would be Discord, who uses chaos magic. But this does not create things out of thin air, it merely jolts through already existing planes of existence to teleport the desired item to the spell caster. The god-level spells literally allow the atoms and magic to form from nothing, which is why it take so much strength since the spell shouldn't even be possible. But, for the single gods of each realm, this is as simple as how Discord, or any other master of chaos magic, would bring things into existence.

With his head dripping with sweat from the effort, Blueblood's eyes literally begin to stream white light as the magical bond between him and Necronak turns from weak fibres to a metaphorical chain of diamond. Roaring, Blueblood rears back on his cloven hind legs before slamming his hammer down onto the snow, causing cracks in the snow-dusted ice to form before blue smoke begins to pour from the cracks. The cracks begin to spread across the ground, causing Shining to scurry back with his hoof against his horn and the smoky spirit to back away in shock. The ice a metre in front of the prince detonates in a flurry of ice shards and snow, a strange being constructed purely of Necronak's power launching from the wound in the ice.

Springing from the ice, a serpentine being of icy scales and blue smoke coils around in the air as it turns towards the now horrified smoky spirit. Turning to face the smoke's face, the ram-like skull ,constructed of blue smoke and ice, snarls before snapping its jaws into the intangible smoke. Laughing, the smoke launches lighting constructed of black magic at the serpent and causes a wound in the icy scales to form, blue smoke pouring from the hole in the ice. Growling, the serpent rebuilds its body by levitating the ice back towards the wound and re-compacting it down and sliding it into the wound to repair its form. Snapping its jaws open, the serpent unleashes a torrent of blue smoke onto the smoky form of Sombra and causes most of his smoke to vanish as his power is drained even further. Seeing no way to fight back against the construct, Sombra roars in frustration before swirling into a vortex of smoke before teleporting elsewhere, one final line reverberating off the ice around the conflict.

"Once I have the Crystal Heart, I will have enough power to steal away your blade, Necronak! i will strike you and your companion down with your own sword, I promise you that!" Roars the deep, menacing voice of Sombra as he uses some of his waning power to evade the battle.

Screeching in victory, the serpent's form crumbles away until only the plume of blue smoke at its core is left, its snowy body crumbling into a pile on the icy ground. Panting in exhaustion, Blueblood closes his eyes and sighs as the glowing core of the serpent flows into his body and reinvigorating him with its magical strength, a cyan sheen cast across his body as he grins wickedly. Opening his eyes, them glowing with a slightly increased intensity as the power within him boosts substantially, the glow increasing to reflect the magical growth. Turning to his fellow prince, Blueblood casually walks over to Shining who now cowers lightly as he shakes from Blueblood's cold, calculating visage. Seeing the crystals growing from Shining's horn, Blueblood grabs the downed prince by the back of his neck with a telepathic grip and drags him along. Flinching, Shining turns his wincing eyes to the prince carrying his body with a vice-like strength.

"What are you doing?!" Asks Shining worriedly as he watches the prince carrying him.

"What does it look like, you dim-whit? I'm taking you to your damn entourage who seemed in quite the hurry to leave us behind, it seems." Laughs Blueblood coldly.

Reaching the barrier separating them from the Empire beyond, Blueblood raises Shining before swinging him through the transparent wavy barrier carelessly. Stomping through the barrier, Blueblood watches curiously as Twilight launches herself into her brother's chest in a tight hug of affection as the rest of her friends begin asking Shining question after question.

"What happened?!" Asks Twilight urgently.

"Blueblood happened. Completely fended the thing off with some magic stronger than that I've seen an Alicorn use!" Replies Shining still in after-shock.

Slowly turning to the silvery prince, the group stares in disbelief at Blueblood. Staring back at them, he scratches his nose before turning towards the Empire. Gazing out at the surprisingly summer-like environment, he scans the crystal houses in the distance and the looming blue crystalline structure at its centre. Turning back to the group still staring at him, he gives a mock salute with a wicked grin as he advances casually towards the large centre tower of the Empire without a word.