Fall of the Rightful King

Chapter Thirty

Nick

Paper Back and Alan finally blinked and started to move. I'd been ready to do CPR on them, but they'd managed to keep breathing. I'd propped them up on their side, but there wasn't a lot else I could do.

Their eyes slowly focused on me.

"Alan, listen to me," I said frantically. "Is Paper Back ok? Is she still in there?"

Tears poured out of her eyes. "Nick, he... Alan's dead!"

My mind didn't process that for a moment. "What? He... Alan?"

"He's dead!" she yelled, and fell into my arms. "He's dead! Alan! Why? Alan!"

"I... he..." I said before my throat hurt too much to talk. My face started pounding and hot, painful tears tears squeezed out. There was this stabbing, agonizing pain in my chest. It felt like my heart was being cut out.

"I... I never told him..." she sobbed. "I never told him I was sorry! I was so mean to him when I met him and I never... I..."

I couldn't say anything. We hugged and just sat there and cried.

I don't know how long it was later. But it was a while. We were both a mess. I don't think either of us said much to each other, but to be honest that whole time was too hard to remember. We cleaned ourselves up a bit and finally we looked at each other. Paper Back's muzzle twisted and I swear she had fire in her eyes.

"He is going to FUCKING PAY!" she yelled. "We're going to kill him!"

Fire exploded in my chest. "He's going to answer for this," I growled. I slammed the car into gear and we sped off.

The tower was in a valley, and there was a dirt road that led to it. The road crossed back and forth along the steep side of the valley, which was where we were coming from. I turned off the headlights for two reasons. One, the tower was shining bright enough to not need them. Two, I could see people fighting down by the tower. Lots of flashes of light. Alexander was there, shining a lot dimmer than his tower. The sun had set, and the clouds were too thick to see the moon.

There were a bunch of fires scattered around the tower, and coals left from recently burning fires. The ground was scarred by long trenches, most of which had fires in or near them. The ground by them was burnt blue-white in electrical patterns.

We parked some distance away from the fighters and climbed down the side of the valley. I almost wished I'd brought a weapon, but truth was I'd probably hurt myself more than anyone else, since I had no practice. Paper Back was quiet, and her ears stood up, swiveling back and forth.

"Ok, ok, stop," she said, crouching down. I crouched next to her. From here, I could hear the sounds of the battle. They were a few hundred feet away.

Derek was standing on one side. His ears were pointed, and his legs looked more like pony hind legs than they did human legs. He had a lot of his monsters, made of fire, ice, metal, whatever. They were fighting Alexander, but being very careful about not getting hit. They'd dive in, try to land a blow, and get back out just in time for someone on the other side to hit him. Derek himself was doing something to the ground. Probably some kind of circle.

Alexander, glowing gold, was fighting the golems. He moved slowly, but every move and word shot out another spear of golden light. The golems did their best to avoid it and tried to hit him, but their hits just bounced off of a shield around him.

I looked over at Paper Back. She wasn't looking at either Derek or Alexander. I followed her gaze and, off to the side, I saw two ponies standing there. Scratch that, one pony and a human who showed no transformation. The hell? Even Derek was changing! Who could still be human?

"Can you feel that?" Paper Back whispered. "He has something."

"Nope," I whispered back. "Something magical?"

She shook her head. "No, it's not magic. I don't even know how to describe it. It's... wrong. It's evil. I... it's not just empty. It's less than empty. It's... hungry."

"The human?" I asked.

"No, but he has it with him. Nick, we have to be careful. I don't know what he has."

"That has to be whatever Derek went after," I said. "But why isn't he using it?"

"I don't know. So what do we do? Do we fight the pony?"

"I think we need to-"

Paper Back suddenly exploded forward, her legs moving so fast they were a blur. The earth pony and the human were running right at us.

“Paul!” the earth pony yelled. “Get some elementals!”

“I keep trying!” he yelled. “The knife is stopping me!” He had a knife drawn. It wasn’t a metal knife. It was completely black, and the blade looked like it was some kind of rock.

I looked forward. The earth pony looked at me and sort of danced left and right. She had a ninja star cutie mark. She ran forward, but I raised a shield and absorbed the energy, shoving her back. She tried it again, and I blocked her again. This was going to be easy.

I glanced to the side. Paper Back was staying back as Paul struck out with that knife. Her horn kept flickering out as she got close to him.

“Careful, sweetie,” Paul said. The earth pony tried to jump at me again and I just forced her back. This was getting annoying.

“You’re rather pretty, for a horse,” Paul said. “Tell you what. I’ll let you go if you’ll… do me some favors.” Paper Back’s horn glowed and a huge amount of dust flew up from the ground into Paul’s face. She dived forward and the knife flew out of Paul’s hand.

Something heavy slammed into me and knocked me over. The earth pony kicked my stomach. I could shield most of the impact, but not enough.

Something inside me snapped. I shoved her back and stood up. She started to move forward and I threw shields around her, stopping her movement completely. Actually, that gave me an idea. I closed more shields around her chest, stopping it from expanding. Her eyes widened and she tried to scream, but of course no air came out. She couldn’t breathe in or out.

I dropped the other shields and casually walked towards her. From the sounds near us, Paul was getting his ass handed to him. I wasn’t all that concerned. The earth pony stood up and tried to run away, but her back legs collapsed. Her mouth was wide open and she pawed at her throat with her hooves. It’s not like that would matter.

She made another move for me and I stepped back. Actually, no, she wasn’t making a move. She got onto her haunches, looked up at me, and put both her front hooves together, like she was pleading. She was crying.

“Please,” she mouthed, but no air came out. “Please!”

All of a sudden it was like I came back to myself. What the hell had I been doing? There was this nasty, dark feeling that vanished as soon as I noticed it was there. What?

I dropped the shields. The earth pony gasped and started to cough and choke, curling into a ball. Paper Back came running over. I stared at the earth pony, horrified. What the hell had I been doing? I’d been killing her! And I’d wanted to! What the fuck?!

“I just want to go home!” the pony choked out. “I don’t want to hurt anypony! I just want to go home!” Paper Back looked concerned, looked at me, and walked over to the pony. She touched her shoulder with a hoof. The earth pony screamed and scooted away.

“Derek said he could get me home! I won’t let anypony get in the way of that!” she said, standing up. Her face was wet and her eyes were red.

“He lied!” Paper Back yelled back. “He’s a monster! How can’t you see that?”

“He said… he said I had to pay him back for…”

“Did you hurt ponies?” Paper Back yelled at her. “Did you hurt anypony?”

“I had to! If I didn’t, he wouldn’t get me home!”

“How many?” Paper Back asked, her voice getting cold.

“Just… just let me go. Please, just let me go.”

“Let her go,” I said. Paper Back looked up at me.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

She ran off, glancing at us, and picked up the knife in her mouth. The knife, now that I could see it a bit easier, was basically just a sharpened, curved, black stone. It had leather straps wrapped around one side as a grip, also black. As soon as the pony picked up the knife, her cutie mark faded away.

“What the hell?” I said. Paper Back stood closer to me, but the earth pony ran off.

We heard an enormous rushing sound and looked up to see Derek, red lightning blasting from his hands at Alexander and the tower. Alexander's shields grew brighter and brighter until there was a massive flash. The ground shook, and a small explosion knocked both of us off balance. When the light faded, another gold blast of light shot out, hitting Derek and sending him flying right at us.

Derek’s body left another trench in its wake as it skidded towards us. He sprung to his feet. He looked at the tower, but Alexander was no longer visible. He turned and looked at us. Red lines of light started to flow around his body.

"You're done," he said. "You're going down." He shouted something and a red bolt of light shot towards me. My shield came up, but I wasn't too concerned, since I was immune to magic.

My shield crumpled and the light knocked me backwards. It burned. I was able to throw it off. I heard Paper Back's magic flare up and she started to fight. I stood up. She was fighting him, landing blow after blow. Derek had his arms up in front of him, and each blow landed on his red shield. After half a minute of her attack, she stepped backwards, breathing hard. Derek lowered his arms and charged.

I threw a shield in front of him, trying to absorb the energy and redirect it. Instead, he broke right through it, though it slowed him down just enough for Paper Back to get away. She tried to trip him and he kicked her side. Their shields collided with a noise like electricity. Paper Back flew back, but Derek braced himself and didn't go anywhere. He turned towards me and started to draw symbols in the dirt. I tried to bring up a shield, to try and do something, but Derek finished the symbols. He stomped on the ground and shards of rock flew up and towards me. I threw my arms up in front of me. The shield helped, but the rock still cut my arms. I heard the ground crunch and reflexively ducked down and jumped forward. I hoped I would run into him and knock him over. Instead, he stepped to the side and I fell onto the ground. He kicked me in the stomach. The pain exploded outward and I curled up.

Paper Back jumped over me and slammed into Derek. He fell over. I looked at Paper Back and saw blood covering her horn. Looking at Derek, I saw she’d punched a hole in his chest.

I took a few breaths. He just lay there.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

Derek’s eyes opened.