Fall of the Rightful King

Chapter Thirty-Two

He really must not have expected that, since I punched him a second and third time, and he just staggered back, shocked. Then he shouted and a blast of light carried me across the room and into the far wall. I shouted, shielded myself from the impact, and rolled when I hit the ground. I got up. Paper Back was charging at him, hitting him with her front hooves. She twisted and bucked. Her hind hooves connected with his head, which twisted violently. But then he faced forward again, and with a sweeping gesture, tossed Paper Back high against a wall. I reached out and shielded her from the impact, then helped her land softly.

I missed the fireball that was aimed at my face. Paper Back didn't, and deflected it, but I felt the heat as it passed by. I was definitely not immune enough to survive what Alexander was throwing around. Which meant this just got a lot more desperate.

"So the son of shadow and his consort will fight to dethrone the king of light," Alexander said. "You both will fall this day."

I had an idea. As soon as Paper Back started going for Alexander again, I wrapped him in my magical shield, but facing inwards. It was supposed to absorb all his movements and let her wail on him. What happened was that he gave me a look that wasn't even all that angry - more of a "Are you really trying that on me?" and then he stepped right through my shield. Paper Back hit him with her hind legs, but like before, it did nothing. I started to run around the walkway. Alexander tossed her into the wall again. This was not supposed to happen!

I ran up behind them. Alexander raised his hands and a sphere of ice wrapped itself around Paper Back. I started to draw the symbol.

Immediately, Alexander twisted around and slammed me against the ground.

"Do you dare to blaspheme my house with such disgusting forces?" he yelled. "You understand nothing of what you seek to command. Would you unleash the destructive forces I have kept at bay? Would you break my hold over this planet, which is bringing it peace?"

The ice behind him shattered. Paper Back grabbed a chunk with her magic and threw it at Alexander like a spear. At the same time I kicked at his legs. He blocked my kick easily. He stopped the ice spear, too. He didn't stop Paper Back's successful kick to his back, which actually made him shout in pain.

So he wasn't invulnerable! He was shielding himself, but it took concentration. That meant we had a chance.

Alexander said "Enough." A force shoved me towards the Seal, hard. I tried to stop myself and skidded to a stop with one arm hanging over the edge. A bolt of multicolored energy shot up and hit my hand. It was like icy fire. I screamed and pulled back, but not all of me came back. I'd lost a finger to the Seal. It wasn't bleeding. It had been cauterized.

I heard small explosions and looked at Alexander and Paper Back. He was throwing shockwaves at Paper Back, and she was dodging. I stood up and started to run at them. Alexander threw a shockwave at me without even having to look. Instead of dodging, I let it carry me, and I absorbed the impact with my shield.

I had no fucking idea what to do. None at all. We'd fought Derek's guys. We'd killed Derek. But now Alexander was unstoppable. How the fuck were we supposed to fight him?

Paper Back came rolling across the ground towards me. I tried to stop her from hitting the wall, but instead we both hit the wall again. I looked down and my heart stopped. Her back legs were twisted at a bad angle.

"Nick!" she said. Her face was twisted into a grimace. "Nick, he broke my legs! He broke my legs!" Her hind legs twitched, and her front legs clutched at me. "I don't want to die! What do we do? Ah! Ah! It hurts! It hurts so much!"

I knew Alexander was behind me, but I had to help her. I reached down into what Alexander had taught me. I placed a hand on her legs, which made her scream again. I focused and let the magic I had wrap around the break, bringing the pieces back together and healing her. When it was done, she lay there in a bit of a daze.

"Very noble," Alexander said. A force grabbed me from behind and threw me across the ground. I tried to shield myself, but he stopped it from forming, and I hit the wall hard enough that something snapped. He walked towards me, completely unconcerned.

"All you've done. Everything you've tried to do. You're willing to throw it all away for your friends?"

I tried to stand up. He threw me against the other wall. Each bounce hurt in a way that told me something was badly damaged.

"You think you are loyal? Loyal, perhaps, to a pathetic and pointless cause." I was flung across the ground again. Each time I tried to stand, he'd toss me again.

"And look at what you've achieved, in the end. You came to defeat me, and you have merely destroyed my greatest foe. Now I will be unopposed."

I looked over at Paper Back. She was starting to get back up, but still looked dazed. Why had we even come here? Did we really think we could have killed him?

"Or were you hoping for the other world to save you? Perhaps, in your last moments, the would-be princesses would come through in a blaze of glory? That I would fall before the powers of friendship? Your heroes will fall, Nicholas, as easily as Earth has fallen before my power."

He threw me again. This time, I could feel the Seal's power close by. I tried to look around. I was by the edge of the platform that hung over the edge. Alexander walked towards me, almost leisurely. I struggled to my knees, and then to my feet. Adrenaline was keeping me standing. Nothing else. I had one last idea. Nothing else had worked, but this...

Alexander's eyes blazed with terrible power.

"At least you stand and face death with honor. Close your eyes, and I will make your death swift," he said, stepping right up to me. "But answer me this. Why would you challenge your rightful king?"

I closed my eyes. Then I grabbed him and jumped backwards. We twisted and fell.

I didn't feel an impact. The energies of the Seal thrummed all around me. At any minute, I expected to feel my body ripped apart. When it didn't happen, I opened my eyes.

I wasn't on the Seal. I was hovering, just above Alexander, surrounded by a green glow. I looked over and saw Paper Back, straining, her horn glowing brightly. She pulled me back to the platform. She limped over to me as we looked at Alexander.

He lay there on the seal, apparently not fully comprehending what had just happened to him. He raised a hand, looking at it as the bolts of energy started to carve holes through it. Then he looked at me and his eyes filled with a fury I've never seen before. The golden light around him darkened until it turned black, and the light started to twist around his outreached hand. Then he arched his back and screamed. The light from the seal grew so bright I shielded my eyes, and when I turned to look again, he was gone. Not even a trace left.

I fell to my knees.

"Oh my God," I said. "We did it. We fucking did it!"

"He's gone," Paper Back said. "He's really gone." She hugged me. "You were amazing," she said.

"You did almost all of it," I said. Taking a second to concentrate, I let healing magic flow through me and her, fixing the rest of the damage we’d received. I didn’t feel anything, but I knew, somehow, that my personal angel of death had been destroyed.

There was a deep, ominous rumble from above. We both slowly looked up.

The energy above had started to bubble and shake. It started to make weird, echoing noises that were so deep you could feel them more than hear them.

"He was keeping that under control..." I said as the realization slowly dawned. "And now he can't."

"No!" Paper Back yelled, suddenly furious and full of energy. "Not now! Celestia damn it, we won! We killed him! This can't happen to us now!"

The rumbling started to increase.

"What can we do?" I said. "Could we get away in time?"

She shook her head. "There's so much there... I don't even know what you could do with that much power."

I hung my head. I should have guessed. We wouldn't just get to be done. There had to be something. Some final trap. Some revenge. I looked at the gold lines interlaced across the ground.

And suddenly jerked my head up and looked at the circle. The power magnifying one. Could it work?

"What?" Paper Back asked. "Did you think of something?"

"That circle," I said, pointing at it. I looked all over the tower. Every line, every symbol, every part of this tower... it all hooked into that circle. "This whole thing, this whole tower, it was built to make him stronger! It's a giant amplifier for whatever power is inside that circle."

"Wait... you mean?"

"I think we could use that circle," I said. "We could grab a hold of the energy and get rid of it! But where would it go..."

Both of us looked at the seal.

"Into Equestria..." I said.

"No, I don't think so," she said. "I think the seal would absorb it!"

"And what if it destroys the portal?" I said, looking at her. "Alexander said that was the only portal left. What if it strands you here?"

She looked down at her hooves, then back up at me. "We still have to try," she said. "We can't let it loose on Earth."

I stood up.

"Ready to save the world?"

We ran into the circle. The destructive magic above was getting louder and more violent. It had to be building to something.

"What's supposed to happen?" Paper Back yelled.

I looked around. "I don't know, maybe we have to trigger it somehow?"

Her horn started to glow, before sputtering out.

"Wait, what?" she said. "There's... oh oh oh!"

I felt it too. The massive building all around us was waking up to our presence. The power started as a trickle and then exploded into a flood. I arched my back and felt my jaw hang open. I could see Paper Back in the same pose. The power, already starting at a point stronger than anything I'd ever felt before, continued to rise and rise. It just kept building. I felt like I was about to die, like there was no way I could contain this kind of energy. Surely there was a limit, and we were about to reach it.

We hit the limit and broke past it. As soon as we did, I felt changes in my body. I could move again, and I saw my skin start to turn gold and shine. Paper Back's fur, starting from around her horn and spiraling outwards, turned gold and glowed just as much as I did. Her eyes turned gold, and golden light poured out of her mouth.

I could feel her and her thoughts, now. We could feel the enormously destructive power, screaming to be unleashed, hovering above our heads.

Can we really do this? She asked.

We have to, I said.

We both rose off the ground, the glow around us building until we shone like stars. I reached out with my hand, and she reached out with her horn. Ripples of golden light washed out from us and over the vortex. It hammered against our magic, but the tower was too strong. We pushed on the chaos, focused it, and sent it roaring down into the seal.

There we stood, human and pony, hanging in the air, filled with more power than we'd ever felt before. The seal reacted, screaming as it consumed the energy. The energy lashed out, trying to destroy its captors, but our power was too much. Instead, the chaos ripped the walls of the tower apart. Chunks of stone and metal were pulled into the vortex as it raged under the dark sky.

Come on, I said, feeling Paper Back’s strength going. Mine was leaving me too. Come on, focus, we can get through this!

Soon it was just the two of us, the diminishing vortex, and the seal, which was being ripped apart. The energy let out a final, last gasp, and then the last bits of it were sucked in.

We fell softly to the ground, the last bits of our power flowing out of us. We fell into an embrace and stopped glowing, our skin and fur returning to normal.

"We're alive!" I said.

"We did it!" she said. We pulled apart and looked down at the seal. It was still there, sitting in its hole. Most of its symbols and lines had been blasted away, and the remnants of it were fraying away.

"It's not going to last a lot longer," I said.

"And then... will it close?" she said.

I shook my head. "or open."

She swallowed. "Let's go home," she said.

"You're speaking my language!" I said, and we turned. I looked at her and noticed it.

“Paper Back,” I gasped. “Your cutie mark.”

“What? My cutie mark?” she twisted and looked. What had been two books was now a semicircle facing upwards, with a line coming out of it. All golden.

“I… what?” she said, rubbing it with her hoof. It didn’t come off.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know…” she said. “I don’t think that’s happened to anypony before.” She looked at me, then back at the mark.

“I think I’m still me,” she said. “Am I acting differently?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Ok, ok,” she said, turning around and looking at both of her cutie marks. “I can deal with this. Whatever it means.” She started to leave.

"Oh," I said, "before I go... what should I be?"

She turned her head and gave me a sideways grin. "What do you mean?"

"I don't think there's ever going to be a way to make everyone human again," I said, "so I'd rather..."

"Be a pony?" she asked, smiling. "Well, everypony has something special, whether they're earth ponies, pegasi, or unicorns. And I don't think you can be an alicorn... you kind of have to be a princess for that."

"Yeah, no," I said with a small laugh. "I'll stay a guy, thank you. So you don't think one's a better choice than the others?"

"Well," she said, drawing a hoof through the dirt, "you could be strong or fly, but I think magic's a lot better of a deal than those."

"Ok," I said, "It's settled." I closed my eyes and let the spell wash over me.

I looked over myself even before it finished. I had light green fur and cyan hair. My tail was the same color as my mane, but it had a gold stripe. No cutie mark. I looked up and saw Paper Back’s eyes about two inches from mine.

“Eyaaa!” I said, falling back. She giggled.

"I didn't think your eyes would turn blue." Paper Back said. “And why are you still a blank flank?”

That was hardly the part that surprised me. "No idea,” I said as I stood up. I realized something seemed off.

“Ah you taller than me?” I asked. She was! She was about an inch taller than me. I couldn’t help feeling kind of miffed.

Paper Back was laughing, and she ruffled my mane with her hoof. “Aww, you’re kind of cute.”

“I thought stallions were bigger than mares,” I said, looking myself over again.

“Not always,” she said.

I rolled my eyes. “Damn spell,” I said as we started trotting away. “Can I get a do-ovah? Looking up at you is wield.” I could feel the dirt and grass under my hooves, my tail kept... being there, but in a weird and distracting way, and my horn kept tingling. I frowned as I realized what I'd said. "We-ahd. God damn it."

Paper Back giggled. "You'll get there. I bet Erin would love to show you how to talk now."

We kept walking towards the car.

"I'll miss Alan," I said. She sniffed and when she talked, her voice was tight.

"Me too. He got us so far. We couldn't have done this without him."

"No way," I agreed.

Driving was an interesting learning experience, but no one got hurt. News about who had killed Alexander hadn't spread nearly as quickly as the fact that he was dead, so we didn't have to deal with weird questions yet. People were upset that they weren't changing back, but most people were starting to adjust. The guy on the radio wasn't sure what to make of how everyone had been going blank the last few days, but it seemed to be wearing off. That, at least, was going well.

We parked in front of my house.

"I'm nervous," I said, carefully pronouncing the "r."

"You can do it," Paper Back told me. "I know you can."

I opened the door.

"Erin, Brittney!" I called. They came running at us.

"Oh my God, you're alive! Are you ok?" Erin said as she came at me. Brittney’s eyes lit up and she made her “squee” noise when she saw me.

"Careful, honey," I said, "I'm a bit different now."

She gasped, putting a hoof over her mouth. "What happened? What did you turn into?"

I placed my horn on her forehead.

"Let me show you," I said, and let the carefully prepared spell loose. There was a blue flash, and I stepped back, my tail swishing back and forth in anticipation.

Erin blinked a few times, and then her eyes focused on me. Her face broke into a smile.

"Nick!"