Whimsyshire

Fury Incarnate

Envy had to admit, whatever this thing was it was powerful. Envy flexed her talons, the bones popping as she readied herself for the first move. It was just a matter of timing, she needed to wait for something, anything to throw the Immortal King's focus off so she could pounce. Envy eyed the joints in the armor, the leather straps that held the ancient plates together. She would have to strike there first to open him up for a mortal blow.

"You are indeed very strong, but after using so much energy on my men you must be running low on your reserves. Bow down before me and lay down your arms, I might be merciful enough to grant you a slow death." Envy bantered, hoping to throw him off balance. The only thing she got in response was a deep, cruel laugh.

"What do you find amusing insect? You think yourself better than a god?" Envy said, rage building at the insolence.

"You do not understand how I fight at all. I draw power off of the primal energies of fury, and my fury only builds as I fight. If you wanted to fight me when I was at my weakest you would of had to show some bravery and meet me first in battle." Bannuk taunted.

Envy was near her limit of control, if something did not distract him soon she would just have to exert herself and tear him to pieces with her full power. Envy stepped off the boulder upon which she perched. She circled Bannuk, who stood his ground keeping an eye on her as he hunched down and held his weapon close in front of him in a defensive stance.

A lone Griffon, seeing his queen about to engage the Barbarian dove with reckless abandon as it screeched at the giant man. Bannuk hearing the screech turned his attention to the sky, and swatted the dive bombing Griffon away with his maul, cracking it's skull open as if it were an egg. This was what Envy waited for however.

With talons as sharp as a razor, and hard enough to cut through iron Envy started to tear at the leather straps along Bannuk's arms, chest, and neck. Bannuk had a hard time catching the flailing Envy as she sped around him, but he finally managed a clip her with an elbow to the skull. The blow was glancing, but got her off of him.The chest plates of his armor, and his pauldrons fell to the ground, exposing his pale flesh underneath. Envy grinned wickedly at this.

Bannuk seeing that his armor had been torn from him ground his teeth in anger. She was fast, and he would be in trouble if he got distracted again. Seeing the legacy of Worusk torn from his very body however, gave him pause. Bannuk would need to change his style up if he was going to fight something this fast, the maul would not cut it.

Bannuk took off the helmet, fearing it would get in his way if she darted out of it's limited field of vision. He dropped the maul and instead grabbed the legendary weapons he had strapped to his waist. These dual swords were brutal and rather larger than a regular sword. Most important of all, was the origin of these swords. They were known as Bul-Kathos's Children, and were used to slay thousands who had stood before the legendary Barbarian of old who guarded Mount Arreat first.

"You think taking off more of your armor and dropping your slower weapon will let you keep up with me? I will rip you to shreds, and I will leave your vitals for last, lest you accidentally have a quick death." Envy said, licking her talons at the thought of his blood running down them.

"I will take your precious dogs, and finally make them my slaves. No more will any have better jewels than I, and when I am done with your subjects..." Envy said with a malicious grin, "I will gather your pony friends, and kill them one by one in front of each other. Perhaps that will show those insolent ponies to have what I cannot!"

Hearing threats against him were nothing to the Barbarian, even the dogs he could stand because he knew they were tough enough to survive. But the girls? Bannuk hated those who would persecute the innocent, especially when he considered them friends. Bannuk was nearly at his full capacity for rage, his fists shook and began to glow red. The very air itself trembled at the rage being barely held back, the floodgate of Bannuk's self control threatening to burst.

Envy seeing the rage, and thinking that she was close to making him go berserk so she could take advantage of an angry opponent egged him on. Envy had fought many a worthy foe, and they would always slip up when provoked by their own rage.

"And before I kill them, I will let them comfort my army in the barracks. I will see the last of their innocence stripped from them before they die. I will-" Envy was cut off as she realized she might have made a terrible mistake.

Bannuk's body began to grow, his muscled swelled, and the leg plates of his armor flew off as the straps that held them together broke. His skin began to glow as red as heated steel, sracking in areas, revealing magma underneath the skin. His white hair and beard grew out, and now hung around his head like a lions mane. His eyes and mouth glowed with an inner fire, his anger made solid form. Bannuk had become Fury Incarnate.

Envy took to the air and hovered ten feet off the ground as she looked down upon the now colossal Barbarian who seemed more best than man now. She flinched as the molten gaze fell on her, and she could feel the blood lust emanating from him thick in the air. It was as if his anger made the very air itself crave for her blood, and a gust of fire that had appeared on the breeze forced Envy to land.

Bannuk then took off, faster than a being as large as he had any right to move as he slammed his shoulder into Envy. Envy drew her own sword as she realized she did not have the upper hand in this fight, she may even be in mortal danger. The power such a being held, and his power did not scare away the others around him? Why was he so lucky, why was he so loved?

Envy's eyes began to glow a bright green, and her power surged through her veins as she allowed herself to reach one hundred percent. It had been centuries since she was last fighting a being that caused her to use this much power.

The two took off simultaneously at each other, Bannuk swinging his mighty swords with a speed that belied their size. Envy barely managed to dodge with her lightning quick movements, only with the aid of her wings did she manage to twist and weave between blows and managed to score glancing cuts along Bannuk's arms and legs. As an opening appeared, Envy lunged.

Bannuk seeing a jab heading for his chest intervened in the nick of time with his left forearm, the blade piercing through and coming out the other side, just short of his chest. Bannuk did not flinch, he ignored the pain and delivered a devastating kick to Envy's chest, sending her sprawling away from him. She coughed out a beakful of blood, and wiped her face with the back of a talon. If she had been a little slower and had not moved backwards and reduced the force of the impact she might have had her entire rib cage collapse on her. Envy glared up at the Barbarian who pulled a sword that now glowed red out of his arm, the wound cauterizing itself with only a small splatter of the lava that ran through his veins on the ground.

"M-monster..." Spat envy, nursing her chest that had multiple broken ribs.

Bannuk strode up to the fallen Griffin, the ground burned beneath his feet. As a force of nature he stood towering over Envy, who only glared back. In a last ditch effort, Envy launched an arcane bolt from her talons. The bolt was swatted away, but had served its purpose as Envy began to fly away. Bannuk was not having any of it.

With a mighty bound Bannuk had landed on Envy's back, and drove his knee in between her shoulder blades as they fell. Envy Screeched and tried to twist from under the molten Barbarian who singed her feathers and back fur. The struggle was to no avail, Bannuk proved too heavy and Envy met the ground with her already broken ribs.

Bannuk stood and stepped back, his fiery glare observing the broken form in front of him. Envy's rib cage had completely collapsed, blood seeped from where bones stuck out of her chest. Her spine was snapped where his knee was, the bottom half making an odd looking lump in her back where it bent upwards. She had the thousand mile stare as her beak moved weakly, trying in vain to bring in a gasp of air. Her right talon clenched and opened as she fought for consciousness. She was finished, and Bannuk let his fury abate as he shifted back into his normal body.

Something did not feel right though, the ancients were finishing up the last of the Griffins that had not already fled. Envy was as good as dead in a minute or so when she finally suffocated. What was that strange feeling? He had felt this before, twice before to be exact. First when he slew Diablo in the Chaos Sanctuary, and then when he sealed Azmodan in the black soulstone. This feeling meant his victory was hollow, he was not done yet.

"Who is there?" Bannuk boomed over the battlefield, he could feel someone watching.

A dark, maniacal chuckle was his answer. Then a pair of eyes appeared, followed by a wide grin, with one tooth sticking past the rest. The chaotic form of Discord then emerged out of thin air.

"What a wonderful performance of chaos! Nothing quite does it like a war, does it my sweet Envy?" Discord cooed as he pinched the dying Griffon's cheek.

Envy focused her eyes at the familiar voice, and tried with all her might to move away from Discord, but her wounds were too serious and she was stuck. Blood gurgled from her beak as she tried to force what little air she had in her flattened lungs into a scream. Discord only laughed at her vain attempts.

"Now now, is that any way to treat your savior Envy? Without you this lovely war would be done, and if that happened I might become weak enough for the elements to work on me again!" Discord exclaimed, snapping a finger. Envy's chest was immediately inflated with a sickening series of pops as ribs mended to their rightful places.

"Aaaaaaah!" Envy screamed in torment as her body knitted itself back together and she experienced the pain of the injuries happening again but in reverse as nerves hooked back together.

Bannuk had seen enough, he charged at Discord. The drconequus saw the Barbarian coming and decided it best not to be where he was, so with a snap of his fingers he teleported several yards away just as a sword cleaved the air his face previously occupied.

"Ho ho! Close one, I might have to watch out for you, lest I end up like my friend here." Discord said, pointing his lion paw to Envy.

"Well, it has been a blast watching this whole thing play itself out. But alas, we have regrouping to do. Tata!" Discord grinned as he grabbed Envy who had just started to raise herself off the ground and teleported away.

Bannuk watched them leave with a look of disgust on his face. If he had not wanted her to suffer, he could have just crushed her skull. But he let his rage cloud his judgement and she got away. But such was the cost of Bannuk's power, when at full strength he could not plan, only act instinctively. He was grateful that he was alone on the battlefield, comrades had fallen to him before when they had gotten in his way during his berserker transformation.

Gazing over the ruins of his town, Bannuk noticed the ancients were done with their butchering of the Griffin army and he let them return to the high heavens. Bannuk stood as the only one left on the battlefield, bleeding from the few cuts Envy had inflicted that had not sealed up. He was tired, but now was not the time to rest. Bannuk had dogs to rally.

Ayida and Thorne watched the majority of the battle. They knew better than to get in Bannuk's way when he got like this. They were happy enough though to shoot down any Griffons who had tried to make their way towards Ponyville. But one thing put them off, what was that thing that took Envy?

"Celestia has some answering to do..." Ayida mumbled as she watched Bannuk retrieve the pieces of the Immortal Kings Legacy from the battlefield.

Thorne looked at the burned town, and the slaughtered Diamond Dogs. He focused mainly on the dead women and children, as he felt a familiar revulsion rise in his stomach.

"We have some vengeance to enact..." The Demon Hunter said as he fired another arrow at a fleeing Griffon. The arrow homed in on the Griffon, and found the heart easily. Thorne's eyes glowed red as the corpse plummeted from the sky.

"Let us go give that old fool a hand before he collapses from exhaustion." Ayida stated as she strode down to the burning ruins of the town.