Nisha’s presence was a complication that Lex hadn’t anticipated.

While he hadn’t forgotten about the purple-eyed wolf – as a titan, he was incapable of forgetting about anything, having perfect recall of everything he’d ever learned, perceived, or experienced – he hadn’t expected to see her here, in a meeting that was ostensibly between the Night Mare’s avatar and her champions.

Then again, the same could be said for the stallion beside her.

“I had hoped to meet you under different circumstances,” rasped Grim Darklight. “Based on what Nisha told me, and the scant details my own spells revealed, I believe we could have formed a grand partnership, working to advance the Night Mare’s faith on two different worlds.”

Closing his eyes, he shook his head, and even that motion was enough to make the hooks in his outfit leave thin tears on either side of his neck, trickles of blood running from the cuts. “Alas, that cannot happen now.”

“You say you wanted a partnership,” replied Lex coldly, keep his eyes on the mutilated stallion instead of on the wolf next to him, “but I’m given to understand that you’re the one who sent Burly Brawl after me.”

Grim Darklight replied with a wheezing laugh, raising one cleft hoof to his mouth, a motion that opened up several more lacerations across his leg. “That stallion is quite the troublesome one, isn’t he? My apologies for pointing him in your direction, but I was certain you’d be able to handle him, and getting Burly out of Viljatown for a few days earned me some goodwill with quite a few city officials. Local politics, you understand?”

“Is that what it was?” shot back Lex. “Because I was under the impression that you and this bloodsucking corpse” – he waved a claw in Sanguine Disposition’s direction – “had formed a partnership of your own, considering how he showed up to inform me of this urgent meeting almost immediately after my fight with Burly had concluded.”

“You’re seeing conspiracies where there are none,” interjected Sanguine Disposition, his voice still smooth and mellifluous despite how he looked like a withered cadaver now. “I can understand why you’d think that I’d anticipated you rejecting the Night Terror’s offer, and so wanted you to be weakened before showing up here, but if that was the case why did I intercede to send Gwynharwyf away?”

“Because the eladrin wasn’t something you’d accounted for, and didn’t want to interfere with your plans,” retorted Lex without missing a beat. “Whether she killed me and destroyed my soul with her truedeath weapons, or I killed her and was subject to reprisals from the Llys Seren and the rest of the Seelie Court, or she kidnapped my followers and I dropped everything to pursue her and take them back, you couldn’t afford to have your scheme to get me here derailed. So you stepped in to take care of an unknown variable.”

“That isn’t-”

“Or did you think I’d forgotten that White Wraith told me who’d visited Eigengrau a few months before my own arrival there, claiming to have the Charismata?”

Although he hadn’t been speaking to her, Nisha shuddered at the name of the ghost pony captain of Eigengrau’s guards, her ears folding back as she cringed.

He’d known that she’d hated White Wraith, having mentioned it the first time they met; indeed, it was because she’d been watching when he’d overcome the ghost stallion that she’d thrown herself at him, expressing a desire to become his soul-bound companion. At the time, she’d only mentioned that White Wraith had “defeated/humiliated/broke” her, and he hadn’t bothered to ask what she meant.

Now, however, he should have been able to read her mind – something justified by how she was apparently here with Grim Darklight as part of what he was now sure was a trap – and find out what had been done to her.

Except that he couldn’t.

For the briefest instant, just after his foresight had shown him that she and Grim Darklight were about to emerge from the shadows, he’d presumed that he couldn’t read her thoughts because of the mind-shielding ring he’d given her in payment for picking up Sissel’s trail. She was still wearing it, the band of metal adorning the middle digit of her right foreleg. But even when he’d queried the future for what would happen if he overwhelmed the ring’s defenses – something that would be easily done, given the powers he commanded – he’d been surprised to find that he’d still be able to sense nothing.

It was only to be expected that he couldn’t listen to the Night Terror’s thoughts; even if she was an avatar, she was still a goddess in her own right. Likewise, Sanguine Disposition and Steel Soul were both champions of hers, and likely had been for some time, and so would have been unforgivably foolish not to keep their thoughts hidden behind powerful abjurative measures. Even Grim Darklight, being the head of the Night Mare’s church in the capital city of the Pony Empire, likely had more than a few protective spells on his person, something which Lex couldn’t sense now because of the limits imposed by the Night Terror’s divine aura.

But for Nisha’s mind to also be hidden from him, even if he bypassed her ring’s protection, could only mean one thing:

His ability to hear thoughts was also being smothered by the Night Terror’s presence, just like the rest of his mystical senses.

“Enough of this prattling!” broke in Steel Soul, his patience apparently having reached its limit. “You will do as the Night Terror has ordered and surrender the Charismata to Grim Darklight immediately, otherwise it will be taken from you by force!”

Lex gave the mechanical pony – his weapons systems still deployed and charged – a contemptuous look. “I was under the impression that he didn’t need the Charismata, since he’s been constructing his own.” He glanced back at Sanguine Disposition then. “Or at least, that’s what you told me; that he’s been trying to artificially recreate the Night Mare’s blessing.”

But the vampire didn’t have a chance to respond before Grim Darklight gave another wheezing laugh, giving a deep bow as he swung his foreleg out in a sweeping gesture, once again causing his blood to spill across the ground. Having worn a similar outfit while at the Shrine of the Starless Sky, Lex knew that it had to be causing the stallion severe pain – to say nothing of the barbed wire he’d wrapped around his foreleg – but if so, he didn’t seem bothered by it in the least.

“While I would never offer disrespect to the most sacred disciples of our goddess, I believe that you have heard a bastardized version of the great work that I’m undertaking,” offered Grim Darklight.

“Meaning what?”

“Perhaps a demonstration is in order,” mused Grim Darklight, before looking at the wolf beside him.

“M-Master, no...” murmured Nisha, and it didn’t escape Lex’s notice how she’d begun to shake.

Nor did his foresight miss what the other stallion was about to make her do.

Raising a hoof, Grim Darklight pointed it imperiously at Nisha, ignoring her plea. “Nisha, tear out one of your eyes.”

A terrified whine escaped her throat then, and she dropped to her belly, her trembling growing worse...but that didn’t stop one of her paws – the one with the ring Lex had given her – from slowly reaching up toward her face. Being quadrupedal, the motion was awkward, but the blunt ends of her paw slowly moved toward her eye, the lid of which inexorably drew up as she reached toward it-

Only for her foreleg to light up as Lex’s telekinetic aura surrounded her limb, forcing it back down. “That’s enough.”

“What’s this?” Grim Darklight’s expression tightened then, and while Lex couldn’t be sure, it seemed like he wasn’t outraged nor even particularly surprised by what had happened. “An adherent of the Night Mare showing mercy?”

“There’s a difference between mercy and contempt for pointless cruelty,” snapped Lex, his eyes and horn glowing as he kept Nisha’s paw away from her face.

“Ah, but cruelty is simply the word for pain that’s deemed unnecessary, which obscures the truth that the goddess teaches us,” replied Grim Darklight.

Slowly, the stallion stood up on his hind legs, making the gesture that signified being a member of the Night Mare’s faith as he circled one foreleg with the other, pantomiming wrapping it in wire. As before, the motion caused his suit to stretch and pull across his body, the inner hooks tearing through his flesh and causing bloody rivulets to trace down his body.

“That all pain is necessary, because pain is the sensation of weakness being expelled, which is holy unto the Night Mare.”

Lex snorted. “That’s nonsense. Strength must be actively sought out and cultivated by those who would possess it. It can’t be forced on someone the way you’re trying to do to Nisha.”

“And yet the Charismata itself is the forceful injection of power into others,” answered Grim Darklight easily.

“The injection of the Night Mare’s power, at the discretion of her Chosen,” corrected Lex. “It has nothing to do with the recipients cultivating power of their own.”

But Grim Darklight had an answer for that as well. “And that will change when I finish my holy undertaking.”

Lex could already foresee what he was about to say, but his moral code demanded that he not condemn someone for something they hadn’t yet done, and so he grit his teeth as he asked the obvious question. “And that is?”

Grim Darklight waved a hoof at Nisha, who grunted, her paw going limp in Lex’s grasp. “To remake the Charismata into a blessing that binds others to myself, letting me share their power as they share my pain, strengthening us both. When this is done, it will be something greater. It will be...”

He threw his head back, raising his forelegs upward as if in supplication, wings spreading out as his tail thrashed...and the blood he shed splattered onto the ground around him in large splatters, more than anyone should have been able to lose without going into shock, and yet Grim Darklight didn’t so much as tremble as he spoke again, his voice hushed and reverent.

“The Agonata.”

Lex’s expression could have been chiseled from stone as he stared at the maniac across from him. But it was Nisha who held his attention at that moment, her body shaking in ways that he was no longer certain were due entirely to fear. If Grim Darklight wanted others to feel pain as a method of growing stronger, and he didn’t seem to be bothered in the least by what his suit was doing to him...

Without hesitation, Lex cast a spell on Nisha, causing her to shudder as she gave a sudden cry of relief.

That confirmed it, just as his trans-temporal sense had shown him it would. That spell was specifically designed to offset the target’s ability to feel pain. While it lasted – which would be for just over a day with how much power Lex had put into it – the target wouldn’t be able to feel any sort of physical discomfort, losing the ability to register such sensations until the spell expired.

Lex intended to get her out of here long before then.

Grim Darklight seemed to register what had happened also, because he suddenly staggered, a grimace crossing his face. “You dare-”

“I have no interest in listening to the further ravings of the deranged,” spat Lex. “Your convictions are heretical, your ideas are facile, and your actions are abhorrent. Even if the Charismata was mine to give away – which is a privilege that belongs exclusively to the Night Mare – I would never give it to someone as loathsome as you.”

“I’ll ask you one last time, Lex, don’t do this,” murmured Sanguine Disposition. “Know the difference between strength and obstinacy. Think of everyone else who’ll be affected if you throw everything away here.”

“He’s already gone too far!” snapped Steel Soul. “You heard his refusal! He won’t turn over the Charismata, which means that it needs to be taken from him!”

Turning to glance back at the mechanized stallion over his shoulder, Lex’s lip curled. “And you think you’re the one to do it?”

“There’s none more suited!” replied Steel Soul with an audible sneer. “Are you under the impression that you’re strong just because you’re a titan? I’ll disabuse you of that notion first, and then of strip you of the power you don’t deserve!”

Then let it be done, ordered the Night Terror, her position once again hidden among the stony outcroppings that filled Mare Occultum. I care not who delivers the killing blow, so long as Lex Legis is struck down. Let him pay for his defiance with his life so that I may strip the Charismata from his soul.

“Now that’s what I wanted to hear!” Steel Soul’s weapons thrummed louder, the glow of his weapons brightening even more. “Keep your distance, bloodsucker! The one to slay this arrogant fool will be me!”

Lex didn’t bother waiting for Sanguine Disposition’s reply, instead turning to face Steel Soul directly.

“Come on then. Let’s see which of us is the greater champion.”

Author's Note

Enraged by what Grim Darklight is doing to Nisha, Lex refuses to surrender the Charismata, prompting the Night Terror to call for his death!

With Steel Soul challenging him first, will Lex be able to overcome the mechanical champion? Or is he facing a foe that he's not prepared for?