The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

Shimmer bounded over the dirt-road battlefield in long leaps, her wings buoying her along the way. It was a grotesque sight, with Shimmer’s caved in chest and bone armor giving her a decidedly ghoulish appearance as she trailed blood across the road, though the amount of blood and amount of chest-indentation did decrease every second as the Lunar’s regeneration charms worked their best to patch her up on the go.

The assistance from Shimmer was well needed: Blueblood’s mastery of celestial water dragon style had granted him control of all fluids, to the point that he had gained control of Speaker’s limbs by bending Speaker’s blood to his will, through a potent magical martial imposition of will and essence. Sure, Speaker could still throw Gift at Blueblood by floating it up from the ground and flinging it at him, but without control of his limbs he couldn’t execute attacks powerful enough to really do any damage… trying to simply cut a master of water dragon style was like trying to cut into an ocean: Any damage was simply absorbed in a sea of water essence.

Shimmer’s last leap was assisted by a powerful beating of her wings, launching her at Blueblood with every one of her limbs poised to strike: Four powerful sets of claws, each with six inch silvery talons and along with her beak open to bite down hard – and the second she slammed into Blueblood Speaker saw his chance to strike, thrusting Gift at the unicorn while Shimmer held Blueblood tight – but like Sullen Hoof and the now late earth-aspected unicorn stallion, this opened her up to a flurry of attacks from Blueblood. However, unlike Sullen Hoof Shimmer was still covered in her bone-growth armor, though Blueblood was no fool: He aimed for the three places where there was no armor… her eyes.

To Speaker it was a relief to suddenly regain control of his own body as Shimmer tumbled away with Blueblood in her beastpony form. It was less nice when Blueblood, with three swift but well-aimed swipes of his hoof-mounted dragon claws quite effectively blinded her… still, she was holding on tight and Speaker saw his cue to strike at Blueblood, if not to kill then to incapacitate… by massive bloodloss... so he groaned as his lacerated limbs strained to rear him up for a brief gallop towards the two, Gift poised to strike, the gyroscopic chakram blazing with golden essence like a small comet about to strike.

…just as Speaker was about to strike Blueblood simply smirked and employed that simplest of truisms regarding all water: It flows. Thus, suffusing his own body with water essence the unicorn slipped from Shimmer’s tight grasp with unearthly grace, slipping out just as Speaker was but inches away from him.

It wasn’t possible for Speaker to stop this late in his swing, but he did manage to will Gift to retract it blades before he tumbled into Shimmer, resulting in him hitting Shimmer harmlessly.

Like a cat Shimmer almost instantly recovered from her tumble to face Blueblood again – Speaker taking precious more seconds to get up as the wounds on his legs made supporting his own weight a painful affair, even with his anesthetic charm working on himself.

“Stay down – I know just how to handle him” Shimmer said, her beak filthy with blood and dirt.

Speaker wanted to say something to remind Shimmer not to kill Blueblood – but at this point he wasn’t really sure he cared anymore…

Shimmer proceeded to leap at Blueblood, clawing wildly in literally blind fury. Like swinging a blade against rain even her strongest cuts did nothing: Between Blueblood’s black jade armor and the powers of damage absorption conferred by his magical martial arts, her strikes did nothing.

Blueblood laughed: “Foolish anathema, you are nothing against the might of the chosen of Danaa’d. It will be my pleasure to kill you and creation will be all the better for it”

As he made a short leap backwards, Shimmer ‘looked’ frantically for Blueblood – her large horned-owl like ears swiveling around frantically to locate her foe. With the quiet of a still pond Blueblood circled around her, positioning himself for a deathblow.

Speaker tried to call out to warn Shimmer, but Blueblood seized control of Speaker’s blood once more and forced his lips shut as he moved into position.

With a single graceful leap, right forehoof poised to plunge its jade claws into Shimmer’s neck, it being wreathed in a typhoon of swirling razor-ice. Part of Speaker didn’t want to worry: Shimmer had told of how she had defeated many wyld hunts, including ones with masters of celestial dragon styles, but this… this didn’t look good.

It turned out that Speaker needn’t worry: Suddenly shapeshifting a hole into her neck as Blueblood struck, Shimmer left the unicorn hitting only air as he landed on her back. Then her wings unfurled and trapped Blueblood, who simply laughed: “You foolish creature: Defile your form as much as you want. I will give you a pony’s death and see you buried accordingly”

Shimmer remained silent, though Speaker could see on her beak that she was smiling. It was then that Shimmer dropped down to the ground as her fore and hind legs all twisted upwards to stab at Blueblood again with their six inch moonsilver claws.

Blueblood barely even made any visible effort to avoid getting hit: “This again? You anathema never learn, do you”

“Oh sure we do – and this lesson was one I mastered almost a century ago” Shimmer stated with no small amount of barely suppressed malicious glee as she struck Blueblood on both sides of his flanks and both of his shoulders at the same time, her limbs twisted around in ways only made possible via shapeshifting charms.

…then all of Blueblood’s limbs turned into water and splashed onto Shimmer’s back, leaving Blueblood nothing but a body and a head that tumbled down on the ground: “Whoa!”

Flipping her legs down again, Shimmer got up and helped Speaker to stand. It was then that the loud and sickening series of cracks signaled that the earth aspected unicorn had been destroyed… and the two looked over to see Sullen Hoof half-burried in stone and rocks, more dead than alive.

With strength Speaker didn’t really know he had left, the Lookshyan stallion quickly galloped over to Sullen Hoof, Shimmer in hot pursuit. Fixing the internal trauma was difficult, but Shimmer quickly stabilized Sully as Speaker prepared crank out another medical miracle.

One barge-load of essence later, and Sullen Hoof was able to stand again – albeit weakly. Speaker noted that it would be at least a few hours before he was fully recovered, as Shimmer closed up Speaker’s own wounds – taking care to prevent scaring: “You know, most Lunars carry their scars with pride – I don’t see any shame in carrying the scars from the Butcher of the hunt, especially since we beat him”

Speaker looked into the ground, unsure at first of what to say. The sight of Blueblood in his quadriplegic state had finally caught up with , now that everything had settled down… and that sight had horrified Speaker beyond words. It reminded him of the horror he had committed upon that Waterwalker back in Chung Do… but he had done that out of desperation to save others… this had been done with malice aforethought… and right now Shimmer was using her shapeshifting powers to meld Speaker’s flesh back together after he had all but drained himself to heal Sullen Hoof. There were also the disgusting popping sounds as Shimmer’s chest reinflated, her own regeneration charm knitting her back together and putting rib-fragments back in place. At least she was back in her normal pony form.

“Nothing? Ok… your choice” Shimmer mused, continuing her work with a smile on her lips.

A short while later, with everyone patched up, the question became of what to do with Blueblood, the dead unicorns and all the mortal ponies in the pit. The dead air aspected unicorn that Shimmer and Cash had slain, and the earth aspected unicorn that Sully’s neverborn tears had destroyed would need to be returned to the realm so their families could burry them – and the mortal ponies needed money to be able to travel home.

An offer was given for all those who wished to remain with the circle and settle down in or around Chung Do –the city still having plenty of room for new citizens since the plague’s death-toll. None were interested… likely because most of the ponies had family back on the blessed isle that would stand to be punished if they defected, plus few of them even spoke rivertongue. Ultimately the cargo carts with the hunt’s supplies was pulled up from the pit – along with everyone else – and the supplies were given to the mortal ponies for the trip him. The circle even let the mortal monks keep their weapons, and to Speaker’s surprise none of them exploited that to try to attack the circle…

From the two unicorns there was little in the way of spoils. The air aspected mare had been utterly crushed upon impacting the three thick trees after Cash had struck the cocoon she was in. A blue jade infinite chakram was recovered from the air aspected mare’s crushed body, but everyone in the circle agreed that this artifact should be returned, along with the corpse, to the dead unicorn mare’s family.

While the mortal monks packed up their gear and prepared to return home, Shimmer had a poke at Blueblood – namely to answer a question that had been nagging her: “He should have run out of essence long before we stopped fighting – I want to know why that didn’t happen… I mean, his anima flux never even appeared”

Stripping the quadriplegic unicorn of his armor, Shimmer quickly found her answer: Twin bandoliers of essence-laden gemstones, most of which were depleted and crumbling because of it.

“I’ve heard of this… but I’ve never seen it used back in Lookshy, they consider it too wasteful” Speaker noted, explaining that the things are charged in ways not unlike how the Bodhisatva had said that the soulfire gems of the underworld are charged – but unlike the soulfire gems, then these were one-time use items.

Cash threw a respectful nod at Blueblood: “Well, he clearly understands his shortcomings compared to celestial exalted, and prepared accordingly. That’s smart”

“It also means that he’s not at all drained of essence – so don’t get too close” Shimmer warned.

The Eclipse Caste pony simply smiled: “Hey, I just need to talk to him – nothing drastic – the plan is still to fix him and release him”

“Before you do that I’d like some time to recover my essence: If something goes wrong while your mess with his head I want to be able to help” Speaker noted.

Shimmer nodded: “He still has his horn – he could blast you with an elemental bolt right now if he wanted…”

“And yet he does not – I’m sure he’s just bitter that he was defeated by us like this” Cash mused, stepping over to Blueblood and poking him with a hoof. The pony body and head simply remained still, Blueblood’s face locked in an intense and furious grimace, with his eyes closed.
Floating Blueblood up, so the unicorn’s head was level with Cash’s own while Blueblood’s body dangled helplessly, Cash gave the immaculate monk a thorough lookover: “You know, for a pony this driven, if I just tweaked his goals a little, he would be a great ally”

“Don’t you dare – for what he’s done he’ll pay dearly, just not today” Shimmer barked, still not happy that Blueblood wasn’t to be executed.
Sunrise stepped up to Cash: “Hold on – what are you planning on doing to him? Heath Rose explicitly asked us not to mess him!”

“No, she said that we should avoid doing anything that might prevent him from keeping his position was Pinnacle of the hunt. I just want to change how he conducts his hunts a little…” Cash said in a sly tone, explaining that from his observations of Blueblood so far, even in his limb-less state, and thanks to his charms, he had discerned what Blueblood ultimately wanted.

It turned out, according to Cash, that upon peering into Peleps Blueblood’s soul he had seen a burning wish to reform the immaculate faith to fit Blueblood’s own interpretation of immaculate dogma… this quickly became too much for the unicorn, hearing his inner most secrets divulged so freely: “Be silent! My personal ambitions are not for anathema to know or hear!”

“Aww look, I touched a nerve” Cash said with a chuckle.

This did not please Blueblood who in turn got steaming mad – snorting out of a small gush of smoke and breathing heavily in an agitated manner.

“I’m just going to make him change his priorities a little – focus a little more on not killing ponies, but do everything else as usual. When I’m done with him and he gets back to the hunt’s high command he’ll want to reform the hunt a bit, so it takes prisoners instead of simply killing everyone they deem anathema” Cash declared. He didn’t seem to care that Blueblood was hearing everything – he was supremely convinced that Blueblood wouldn’t be able to resist his powers of persuasion.

Blueblood wasn’t impressed, appearing quite insulted that Cash seemed to think so poorly of his powers to resist Anathema. This was the last straw.

As Blueblood drew in a deep breath, Cash laughed in bemusement. He could not see the roiling water essence filling Blueblood’s lungs, nor did Cash understand that ultimately the most powerful aspect of water was that of western storms and the tidal waves that often spawned because of them. As a master of water dragon style Peleps Blueblood knew this well – for to master the style one must learn to replicate this phenomena in a mighty essence-laden warcry – a tsunami force shout.

To Speaker, who was content to have a few hours of peace and quiet before Cash and Sunrise began their mind-fuckery of Blueblood, his medical mindset meant that what followed was observed in painful detail, despite it only taking a split second:

As Blueblood exhale with the same force that every year claimed over a thousand lives in the west, the skin on Cash’s head began to peel away. It started at the lips, nose and eyes. The constant stream of water essence kept everything immaculately clean, so no blood was visible. Just as the last shreds of skin detached from the back of Cash’s head his connective tissue and sub-derbal muscle tissue began to fray and tear away. Jaw muscle, muscles at the front of the throat and neck, muscles at the back of the neck and top of the spine. It was during this that Cash’s eyes finally popped like stomped grapes.

It was just as Cash’s lower jaw shattered and blew away in a shower of teeth and bone fragments, along with most of Cash’s upper jaw’s teeth, that the tentacle-leg that Shimmer had shot at Cash and Blueblood finally reached them, flicking Blueblood’s head upwards so the remaining few split seconds of the tsunami shout simply blew up into the sky.

Speaker hadn’t even noticed himself getting up or breaking into a gallop towards the two. His diagnostic charm screamed at him that Cash beyond saving – being little more than a jellied brain in a skull from the shoulders and up. This was not something he could fix.

It was then that Shimmer crashed into Cash, having used her tentacle-shapeshifted foreleg to pull her in – but she just impact Cash… she dissolved into him, and him into her… it was clearly some kind of shapeshifting method, but…

“Painkiller – now!” Shimmer’s voice suddenly sounded. It came from the amorphous pile of Shimmer and Cash. They appeared like a pil of moonsilver-infused clay with splotches of gold in it. Or maybe hairy peat was a better world for it...

Standing dumfounded as he threw his anesthetic charm at the pile – not even sure if it would work on such a mix of two ponies – Speaker simply shook his head slowly, blinking.

As the mix of Cash and Shimmer began to separate, reforming into a really creepy mix of Cash and Shimmer where the two appeared joined at the neck, but then separating into two heads, it became clear what Shimmer’s idea was: She was now breathing for both herself and Cash – and the silvery veins that had sprung up around Cash’s skull seemed to have stabilized his brain for the time being.

“Amazing…” Speaker mouthed, still in shock.

A sharp pain suddenly spread over the back of Speaker’s head, Sunrise having just slapped him: “Do something you idiot!”

Snapping back into reality, Speaker quickly went to work. He had precious little essence to work with, but ultimately enough to pop off a single healing charm, a medical excellency and another run of his diagnostic charm. It was by no means enough to fully heal Cash – but then again, without Shimmer’s quick thinking and very much unorthodox way of providing emergency life-support, Cash would already be dead.

By the time Speaker was done regenerating what he could with his current supply of essence, he had managed to remove all the teeth that had lodged themselves into Cash’s spine, and restored enough muscle tissue around Cash’s neck that his head wasn’t just dangling by his spinal cord.

Cash still couldn’t breathe on his own, plus his skull and upper spinal column was cracked and splintered in so many places that Speaker had simply stopped counting. At least, on a somewhat positive note, Cash appeared to have remained unconscious throughout all of this.
Blueblood was dealt with via a hole in the ground and him going in head first – leaving only his leg-less flanks exposed – while the rest of the circle settled down for the evening.

Without Cash, the circle had little use of Nah – but without Shimmer able to function fully, her having to dedicate most of her attention to manually maintaining Cash’s chakras to avoid his soul falling out of his body, then the circle had no means to swift travel.

To this end Speaker and Sully went about constructing a shelter for the night – a simple but very well made wooden cottage, only pausing whenever Speaker had enough essence to give Cash another round of regeneration.

None in the circle debated how this experience might affect Cash – or if there was even anything truly left of him. Such hard questions would first be answered once Cash’s body was healed.

By morning Cash’s body had been mended to the point that he had one working eye back, which whenever Speaker’s anethstetic charm lapsed began to look around frantically and tear up profusely – for Cash had no other means of communicating, though the message was clear: the pain he was still suffering was immense.

Still, with but one eye – lidless and constantly weeping – as his only way of sensing the world around him (his spine having been damaged to the point of rendering him paralyzed from the neck down) Cash was still able to use his charms. He mainly used the one that allowed him to communicate perfectly though body-language without speaking. His message was clear and simple:

“Kill me”