Shattered Dimensions: Forgotten Shards

I fell to my knees, breathing heavily as I stared at the glittering floor. The area around was littered with crystal debris from the blast I struck Luna with.

Luna… I thought hazily as I punched the ground with my hoof-hand. I failed her. I was supposed to protect her, and I failed. Now she was dead, and it was my fault.

I heard footsteps behind me, and I turned to see Drayke approaching cautiously. “What the hell happened here?” he asked, looking around at the destruction I had caused. “Damn, kid, you did a better job destroying shit than I could ever hope to do!” Just then, he saw Luna’s body lying beside me, and his face fell. “Oh,” he said simply.

I rose to my feet slowly and walked away from the destroyed castle. Drayke rushed to catch up to me. “Hey, where are you going?” he asked.

“Why do you care?” I snapped. “All you care about is yourself; you’ve betrayed me, captured and tried to enslave my friends, and even tried to kill us all! Why would you possibly give a shit about what I am going to do?”

Drayke sighed. “I don’t know,” he said hopelessly. “All I know is you are the only one who can stop that asshole from taking over the world.”

I continued to walk away from the ruined palace. “Let him take it,” I said dismissively. “My world is already gone.”

I heard a crackling sound, and I spun around to block a strike from Drayke’s scythe with a crystal-covered arm. “Look, Allen, I may not give a flying fuck about Earth, but I know you aren’t someone who is willing to let another war start,” he said through his crystal visor. “If you don’t stop Sanguis, a lot more lives are going to be lost than that of your girlfriend.”

I stared at him with narrowed eyes. “I couldn’t save her; what makes you think I can save the world?” I asked seriously.

Drayke laughed. “I don’t think you can save the world,” he said slowly. “I think you can save two of them.”

-_-_-_-_-

Sanguis Cruciatus marched towards the human outpost, dragging his sword behind him as he advanced. The humans had caught sight of him, and were now assembling a wall of men facing the warlord, their firearms aimed right at him.

“Listen, you… thing,” one of them called nervously, “I’m gonna give you one chance to just turn around and leave, or things are gonna get ugly!”

Sanguis smirked at the soldier’s pathetic attempt to be brave. “I think you should put those guns down and stand aside,” he said, not slowing his pace.

The man stared at the warlord as he continued his approach. “Open fire!” he shouted, and the other men began to unload their weapons at Sanguis. The warlord flinched slightly as the bullets struck his armor, only some of them actually penetrating his black shell as he continued to advance undeterred on the squad. The metal pellets were only an annoyance, like small bee stings, and by the time Sanguis stood a mere few yards from them, they had all run out of ammo.

“I don’t suppose you would like me to give you time to reload?” he asked wickedly as the men stared at him fearfully, and he suddenly roared as he swung his blade over his head, crushing two men into the ground with a mighty blow. This was enough to deter the others, as they scattered into the camp in search of a place to hide or better armaments. Sanguis simply marched through the camp toward the source of a bright, blue beam that lanced into the sky every so often, releasing a pulse of magical energy that the humans may not have felt themselves, but Sanguis was fully aware of; almost like an arctic wind. A weaker magical being may have been bothered by it, but Sanguis was no weakling, and he marched right up to the portal, staring at it with awe.

“And now, I return home,” he breathed, just as a loud bang rang out behind him, and he felt something strike the back of his head with incredible force. Sanguis turned to see the boy standing at the edge of the portal’s clearing, holding the handgun his father had used in his human hand.

“You’ll have to get by me first,” he called out, dropping the gun as a crystal sword appeared in his hand.

-_-_-_-_-

I blocked Sanguis’s swing with my blade, pushing his massive claymore aside as I struck with my own. It was a quiet, tense fight, and the only sound one could hear was that of our blades clashing together. Although my sword didn’t break, every time I struck Sanguis, I could hear the sound of shattering glass as the crystal’s blade weakened and reformed. We continued this strike-parry battle for some time, until I quickly jumped back and dropped my sword as it vanished, and focused on my left shoulder blade; the one that didn’t have a large pegasus’s wing growing out of it. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a beautiful crystal wing stretching out from my back, looking almost exactly like the ones I had on my Crystal Paladin armor one year earlier. As Sanguis charged, attempting to skewer me with his blade, I leaped into the air, taking flight for the first time since my battle with Drayke. As I flew overhead, I flicked my wrist at the warlord, sending a trio of crystal knives sailing at him. He quickly swung his blade to block my attack, each knife colliding with and shattering on his sword.

“Is that really the best you can do?” Sanguis boasted, dropping his sword and raising his fists, which had become cloaked in the same dark energy that had caused Shining Armor’s mech to fail. I landed before him as my forearms became encased in crystal, and I began to box with the warlord. Every time he struck or blocked, black sparks of energy showered from his fists, and every time I struck or blocked, my own makeshift gauntlets cracked and scattered tiny fragments, only for them to reform moments later.

Just then, Sanguis swiped out with an open palm, grabbing the collar of my shirt and raising me into the air as his body became cloaked in a black aura.

“You will not defy me what I was supposed to have gained long ago!” he growled, and I was knocked away by an explosion of energy centered from the warlord’s body. I landed in the dirt several yards away, struggling to rise to my feet.

“I’ve never understood how humans could ever care for these disgusting equines,” he snapped, kicking me in the chest and pushing me back another few feet. I coughed violently, and saw through blurred eyes that I had spat out a significant amount of my own blood. “They talk as if friendship and harmony are the most important things that exist, when all that really matters in the world is power and dominance,” he mused, stomping on my remaining human arm, shattering most of my humerous. I didn’t cry out like I did during my initial fight with Sanguis, when he broke my arm and stabbed me in the back; I just waited.

I waited for death to take me.

-_-_-_-_-

Drayke Blackwood watched from afar as Sanguis proceeded to beat the living shit out of Allen.

This asshole has already killed me once,he said, for once not referring to Allen when he spoke of being killed, So there’s no way I can help right now. I’ve got to do something, though!

Just then, Drayke got an idea. It was a stupid one, since he would be willingly giving up his only way to protect himself if Allen or any of his friends decided to turn on him, but he didn’t have much choice.

“Allen, CATCH!”

-_-_-_-_-

As Sanguis paced behind me, deciding how he should finally kill me, I heard a voice call out a short ways away. I couldn’t hear exactly what was being said, but several moments later, I heard an object land in the dirt next to me with a thud. I looked up, and through my wavering eyes I saw a jet-black crystal; the same one Drayke had been using to meddle in my life for so long.

For the first time ever, despite the intense agony I was being put through, Drayke Blackwood made me smile.

I reached out with my hoof and touched the crystal, causing an explosion of light to knock Sanguis backward. I felt the crystal’s energy flowing into me, mixing with my own magic as my bones knitted and my strength was replenished. I rose to my feet as waves of black and white magic lashed out from my body, returning moments later as solid crystals that clung to my limbs like armor. A massive polearm formed in my hand; a beautiful, black-and-white crystal swordstaff, a fusion of my and Drayke’s signature weapons. A mass of crystal formed around my hoof-hand, morphing into a makeshift, five-fingered hand.

My armor finished forming around me, a perfectly synergised fusion of the Obsidian King and Crystal Paladin armors, with both jagged, black spikes and smooth, white plating. I stared as Sanguis stood, actually looking uncertain as a faceless crystal helm formed around my head. My single wing stretched out from my body, becoming encased in crystal as a solid wing stretched from my armor by my other shoulder.

I held my swordstaff at my side, the end of the handle touching the ground as I spoke clearly, my voice slightly distorted by the magic in my helmet. “Sanguis Cruciatus, today is the day you die.”

Sanguis bared his teeth and held his sword at the ready. “And who are you to make such a ludicrous claim?!” he demanded angrily.

I whirled my weapon in one hand before taking on a battle-ready stance. “The Crystal Avenger,” I growled, and charged.

-_-_-_-_-

Drayke’s crystal, like Allen’s had been a year prior, was aware that even though it held such great power, there was still a chance of its current wielder losing this fight. Although it was loyal to Drayke, it knew that he had willingly given it to the boy he once called enemy, and it now had to serve its new master.

So, it called out, just as Allen’s crystal had done, for assistance. However, it did not call to the gemstones known as the “Elements of Harmony”; it knew that more crystals and magic were not what would finally defeat the ancient warlord.

In the end of it all, the only thing that could defeat Sanguis Cruciatus was friendship.