Mathew locked his gaze upon something in the sky above. There, floating through the power of magic alone, stood the Princess of the Sun… Celestia. Her eyes met with his and they simply stared each other down. Twilight and her friends were struck with both awe and fear. It was the first time they had seen such a stern expression upon their princess’ face.

Luna, no stranger to her sister’s wrathful side, held her composure. She looked up to her sister and took a breath. “Sister, what is the meaning of this? Why do you appear now – with such an intimidating display in front of the town’s people?” she asked firmly.

Mathew chuckled while letting a smirk spread across his lips, his eyes darkening and the billowing of his hair intensifying. “Yes, Princess…” he remarked coldly, “do tell them. Tell them exactly why you decided to show up, right now, with that fire burning within your eyes.”

Luna looked back and forth between Mathew and her sister, slight confusion playing on her features. All the while, Celestia’s visage did not change – not even a single twitch in her face. The one thing that did change was the intensity of her eyes, as well as the slight increase in how fast her multi-colored hair blew around in the air around her.

Mathew’s smirk faded slightly and his eyes hardened, like pools of ice. “If you don’t tell them, I will,” he said firmly.

Celestia’s eyes narrowed and she spared brief glances to the ponies below her. Twilight, the Element Bearers, Luna, along with a tenth of the population of Ponyville all stared at her from the ground. She knew she could silence Mathew should she truly wish to, but doing so, as well as continuing to conceal her goals, would only give her more problems in the long run. Ultimately, it all came down to what she wanted to do to keep things simple for once. “Very well, Mathew,” she replied, rising to meet his challenge. “I’ve come to take what is rightfully mine… the life of Nightmare Moon.”

The entire gathering of ponies gasped in unison. Celestia had never resorted to such extremes. In all the years since her rule began not once had she ever taken a life, yet she was there to do just that. Needless to say, everypony was shocked.

“What?” Luna asked with wide eyes.

Celestia spared her a short glance before returning her eyes to Mathew. “It's exactly as I said. Nightmare Moon, the very one who took you from me, the same cursed creature that now rests within that… human, will die by my hoof today. I have waited for a very long time for this day to come to pass,” she said calmly, the flames of her wrath burning brighter in her eyes with each passing moment.

Both Luna and Twilight took tentative steps closer to Celestia, but were instantly stopped when a flash of dark grey wrapped around them. A barrier had covered them, trapping them inside – along with the other element bearers, Spike and Discord.

“So… you still refuse to tell them everything? Just get it over-with; Nightmare killed your mother,” Mathew said loudly and boldly.

All eyes darted to Mathew, then back to Celestia… who did not have a pleased expression on her face. For the first time in a long time, the sun princess was showing her anger outwardly. “Must you continue to test my patience, Mathew?” she asked him with a slightly raised tone.

Mathew simply shrugged and let a small grin play on his lips. “Depends on how far you truly wish to take this. Are you really sure you want to bloody your royal hooves, Celestia? A few thousand years is a long time… yet you have never allowed your heart to heal. Instead, all you’ve done is pick at the wound to keep it fresh… for some petty revenge that has gotten out of hoof.”

Celestia’s eyes narrowed once more and her tail flicked in a rare display of annoyance. “And what would you know about my mother’s death? I’m sure all you’ve been told came from Nightmare Moon’s mouth. I, however, witnessed it!” the sun princess nearly yelled.

“As did I,” Mathew replied angrily. “You know, just as well as I do, that Nightmare is connected with me in a very intimate way; our lives are bound through body, soul and mind. I’ve lived that moment, through her memories…”

Celestia let a scoff escape her. “Which only makes me see you as her accomplice – even more so than before. You saw her murder my mother, yet you still defend her.”

“Because this isn’t right,” Mathew rebuked. “She has suffered enough, just as you have, so let your heart heal and lay the past to rest. Believe me when I say; killing her won’t make the pain go away,” Mathew said – pleading to Celestia. “If killing those who wrong you solved anything, then my home would have had fewer wars – and a heck of a lot less death. All you’ll accomplish by ending Nightmare is continuing the cycle of pain and loss – she’s Luna’s mother for crying out loud!”

Silence filled the air like a thick choking fog while Mathew held his gaze on Celestia, his eyes searching for some sliver of compassion from the sun princess.

“How dare you…” said Celestia, her words laced with barely restrained hatred. “You’ve done enough, Mathew, now keep away from my sister. Prepare yourself-“

“For what!?” Mathew bellowed. “Why is it such a terrible thing for Luna to know the truth? For once! You’ve lied to her for the past few thousand years about-“

“SILENCE!” Celestia roared in her Royal Canterlot voice. “You are a thousand years too young to be telling me what is right or wrong! I’ve done far too much, for far too long, to have my plans foiled by a repulsive creature like you.”

Mathew’s eyes narrowed and his lips curled downward in a hateful frown. “Indeed you have… you’ve done so many things for this moment, haven’t you,” he said. “But being alive for a few thousand years doesn’t make you as wise as you believe – and it’s about time I showed you your error.”

As soon as the last word left his mouth, Mathew flung his arm out to the side and then drove a glowing hand into his chest. The sickening sound of his ribs cracking and flesh being torn immediately followed. His display had baffled Celestia and stunned everypony else. With an agony-fueled roar, Mathew finished the act by tearing something out of his body.

A crystalline object rested in his hand that started to glow brighter by the second. An eruption of shadow magic burst forth from the object, consuming Mathew’s body in a flash of darkness and splashing to the ground with a fleshy thud. The black substance rapidly withdrew from its shapeless form and condensed into the shape of an Alicorn. Mathew’s body slid out from the center of the mass as it shifted.

It was instantly noticeable that the wound to his chest had vanished, and that a glare of firm resolve had been etched upon his face. An instant later, the rapid transformation of the shadow substance confirmed everypony’s worst fears; Nightmare Moon had just been brought back to Equestria.

Before anypony could react, Mathew threw out his hand and covered Nightmare in another grey barrier and sent it into the one with Twilight, Luna, and the others. “I believe you have some things to catch up on… as mother and daughter,” Mathew said as he returned his gaze to the (extremely pissed) princess above. “And you are going to stop your immature actions right this instant… or I’ll force you to yield.”

Celestia’s frown slowly morphed into a warm smile. Her eyes almost matched the tender expression on her face, were it not for the twinkle of something dark and sinister within them. She tilted her head slightly and asked, “How, exactly, do you plan to stop me, Mathew? Or, I think the more important question would be – why try to stop me from avenging my mother’s death… as well as your father’s?”

Mathew glared at Celeatia with a look of borderline hatred. He had expected her to try and use something like that against him, but it did not make the sting any less painful. Deep down, he was sure that line had also hit Nightmare pretty hard. Still, he managed to reel in his anger with nearly disturbing ease. His expression melted away into a serene smile of his own. “That’s funny coming from your mouth, Celestia. After all… you knew of a way to send me back, yet you chose not to tell me,” he said calmly.

Mathew then spared a glance to Luna and the others. “Care to tell everypony why you chose to keep me in your world?” he asked with a tinge of mock enthusiasm.

Celestia stopped smiling, letting the frown return in full force. She hated how the lowly human kept looking at her sister every time he shed a new detail of her actions. “What point would there be in such an act? You obviously seem to know a lot about my actions… so why don’t you tell everything to them? In the end, nothing you say will make a difference,” she said coldly.

Mathew’s fake smile vanished from his face as a look of… pity… took hold. “You’ve known since the day Luna took me into the maze,” he said wistfully. “After that event, the day when we found out my body could regenerate, you stopped actively watching me. You doubled the number of guards that watched me, you added small restrictions to where I could go and what activities I could do, and you tried to get Luna to stop seeing me as often. You knew… you knew everything from that night on… and you did nothing to help me.”

Celestia arced a brow at that and tilted her head again. “Why would I have aided you? You are correct in noticing what I did once I learned of your true purpose in this world, but you actually think I would have helped you?” she asked. “I see no reason, now or then, why I should have felt compassion for a being such as you. You, whose very species has lost all connection to harmony and committed such atrocious acts of violence, all in the name of what you call peace? Do you take me for a fool, human?”

Mathew’s face turned angry. “The acts of some should not force all of humanity to pay. Not all of us are accountable for what others have done,” he replied hotly.

Celestia’s brow rose a pinch higher and a sly grin etched its way into her features. “Says the one who killed a poor creature in cold blood.”

Mathew’s heart lurched into his throat and his eyes widened. He quickly recovered from that low blow, anger burning brighter within his chest, and stomped his foot down hard. “And what makes what you’re about to do any different?” he asked, realizing too late that he should not have said that.

Celestia actually started to chuckle at his outburst, looking down upon the poor human with pitying eyes. “Oh, Mathew… the difference is that my actions are justified. Do you not realize what Nightmare Moon did to me when she felled my mother? She didn’t simply take away my parents, she forced two foals to have to fend for themselves in a harsh world. The ponies feared and mistreated Luna and I, when we were so young and vulnerable. I had to take her into a safe haven, raise her and myself to be strong enough to survive, and hide my grief for many years. Nightmare left me with a scar, one that ripped open every day I saw my mother’s sun rise. Every day was a reminder of what had been taken from me, and what I had been forced to endure because of her. My grief nearly brought about my end… I had lost the will to live… until I realized a very important thing. I came to a simple conclusion to my conundrum… wait for the day that I could repay Nightmare Moon for what she had done to me.”

Mathew’s eyes went wide in slight disbelief. Her reasoning was so… childish! Then again, the look in her eyes did not exactly give off any real confidence that she was all there at the moment. Her many years of life had given her numerous experiences, but that telltale lack of rationality, especially in this case, threw up a ton of red flags in Mathew’s mind. He knew he had to try again to convince Celestia that she was not thinking strait – that she needed to stop and look at the reality of her situation.

Celestia then turned her gaze away from Mathew, fixating on the form of Nightmare Moon within Mathew’s barrier. “In any case, I think it’s time I finally got what I came here for. Nightmare Moon… why don’t you come out and face me? I’ve grown tired of talking with your pawn.”

Mathew instantly teleported between Celestia and Nightmare and took a defensive stance on the top of his barrier. “I don’t think so,” he said lowly, “we’re not done yet. I told you I wouldn’t let you get to her. If you want to get to her, you’re gunna have to get through me first.”

Celestia laughed at his display and shook her head. “It’s a shame, really. I had hoped you would know you don’t stand a chance against my magic,” she said confidently. “Well, no matter, I was going to have to be rid of you anyway.”

Mathew was struck with an uncomfortable sensation in that moment. He had not seen anything like that from his visions… it was something new, and he did not like it. His eyes burned golden as he let his anger boil within. “What do you mean by that, Celestia?” he asked her.

The sun princess simply smiled and raised her head to stare down her muzzle at him. The look she gave him was the same as when you see a pile of vomit in front of you, filled with disgust. “No matter what you did… which side you were on… in the end you’ve been nothing more than a disposable tool. In a small way I’m glad you chose to protect Nightmare Moon… it makes ridding my little ponies of your tainted presence easier, in the end. Now back away quietly… you have no right to interfere with my plans further.”

Mathew’s face morphed into the purest embodiment of rage and his dark magic erupted and swirled around him like a cloud of angry locusts. “I’m just a tool in all this? A simple pawn that only had one purpose in your plan – to die? You think that my life means nothing? You think that revenge makes my life so easily worthless? FUCK YOU!” he roared angrily! “I have EVERY right to deny you what you seek, simply because you did all of this knowing full well what it meant for my life – all from the very start! YOU LET NIGHTMARE BRING ME HERE! ALL FOR YOUR REVENGE!”

The dark magic around Mathew’s body suddenly stopped swirling and was sucked into him in a flash of black smoke. Arcs of ebony light danced across his form as his eyes became endless pools of the void. “YOU LEAD MY FATHER TO HIS GRAVE… AND I SHALL EXACT MY VENGANCE UPON YOU FOR THAT, CELESTIA,” he said, his voice eerily similar to the Royal Canterlot voice in its power.

A series of magical circles encased him at that moment and he let loose a bellowing yell of pain and hatred. Mathew’s chaos magic took hold of his internal magic and he activated his spell. A wave of pressure pulsed out from him, knocking most ponies off balance and a short flash of light followed in its wake. There, standing in all his glory, was Mathew in his truest form of magical prowess.

Mathew’s hair had hardened into jagged black spikes, tipped with the pale blue glow of raw magic. His eyes were deep voids of darkness and seemed to bleed black magic vapor. Sharp fangs bared their lethal intent through a snarl on his face. His body had become fit and lean, the pinnacle of perfection, and claws tipped his fingers. To top off the intimidating ensemble, a long tail of dark magic writhed behind him and two powerful bat-like wings (which constantly burned away and repaired themselves) jutted out to show an impressive wingspan.

Celestia wasted no time in raising her own battle garments from their arcane resting place. She opened her magic to the might of her sun and ripped open a portal, teleporting her golden armor and donning it within mere seconds. It was quite the sight, seeing the sun princess covered from head to hoof in golden plates. The final piece of her battlements was a long spear, studded with enchanted gems of every color and tipped with a long blade that resembled a beam of sunlight.

Mathew seemed to boil over, but not in anger… disappointment. “So… you want to treat this as a game? You won’t stand a chance if you don’t use your full potential against me, Celestia,” he warned her.

She simply smirked. “You may have strength, Mathew, but your dark magic is weak against the light of my sun. Besides, I am not fool enough to spend all of my power fighting you… I’ll need to conserve my strength in order to defeat Nightmare Moon. Now… enough talk!” she said and charged up her horn to begin her assault.

Mathew narrowed his dark eyes and sighed as he crossed his arms and waited. He watched as the magic flowed through the air, into Celestia’s horn, and took form as her spell. “It’s not enough…” he mumbled under his breath.

After a few seconds, her spell finished forming and Celestia released it – a beam of magic. The arcane lance crossed the distance in the blink of an eye… and poofed into nothingness the instant it touched Mathew’s chest. Celestia’s eyes widened for a moment. She clearly had not expected her spell to end in such a way.

Mathew noticed her surprise and used it to taunt her. “Told you,” he said calmly. “If you thought Discord was a troublesome foe, then you stand no chance against the likes of me, Celestia. Now relish in the beating I’m about to give you… as an appetizer for what I’m really going to do to you if you don’t take me seriously.”

A pulse of shadow was all Celestia saw before her world started to turn upside-down. Mathew teleported right beside her and sent his fist right into her cheek, sending the sun princess flipping through the air. Another teleport and he sent her up with a powerful kick. Then, without even giving Celestia a chance to recover he whipped his tail around and snatched her out of the air – flinging her body strait to the ground.

A massive cloud of dust erupted from the road as the body of the most revered ruler on Equus crashed into it. Mathew floated in the air, almost lazily, and observed the location of his victim. “Six seconds…” he mumbled to himself. That was how long his attack took before she hit the ground.

“RAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” came Celestia’s battle cry as she unleashed a massive beam of magic toward Mathew’s form. The beam, easily fifteen feet wide, slammed into Mathew. The sky lit up in a bright flash of gold and a crack as loud as lightning deafened everypony for miles around. The shockwave from the blast blew out windows and sent ponies falling to the ground roughly, but had not done any serious damage to them… somehow.

All that remained after the blast was a cloud of magical residue where Mathew once hovered. Celestia let a slight grin form on her face as she glared at the cloud. There’s no way he got out of that. I hit him… and now he’ll be severely injured. Then… I shall kill-

The sight of the black wing peeking out from within the cloud above stopped Celestia’s thoughts cold. The wind slowly cleared away the residue around Mathew… to reveal a body without even a single blemish. Her grin sank into an angry frown and her spear teleported to hover by her side once more.

“Want to take me seriously now… little foal?” Mathew asked her, his arms crossed and a look of pity on his face.

Celestia flared her magic and the dust and grime on her vanished – a cleansing spell. She fixed her full attention upon the floating form of Mathew and glared fiercely. Her body began to tense as her horn glowed once more.

Mathew watched the magic flow around Celestia’s horn again. Ah… just like the vision, Mathew thought. She’s still on that path. Damn it, just open your eyes already! Before it’s too late…

Celestia charged her spell and, in a flash, teleported right behind Mathew. She brought her spear about in a powerful swing. Her attack missed as Mathew teleported just a few feet away. He looked at her with that same pitiful expression. Something in that look infuriated Celestia and she lunged forth to strike again and still she missed.

At that moment something clicked in Celestia’s mind. She realized that each of her moves had been read in the same way she used to read his. She narrowed her eyes and straitened her posture. “You can see it… can’t you? You have the vision,” she said slowly.

Mathew simply nodded, his darkened eyes never blinking.

Celestia let a deviously toothy grin spread across her muzzle and her eyes flickered to life with a magical glow. “Looks like you were right. I do need to take you seriously. I hope you know what this means for you,” she said in a low growl.

Celestia’s horn burst with power, easily gaining multiple layers of over-glow, and a wave of golden light swept around her body like a dazzling blanket. The magical energy swirled about and hid her body from view. The air turned heavy and seemed to heat up with each passing second. Mathew noticed the change and glanced at the ponies around before fixing his eyes back on the vortex of golden light.

She’s finally deviated from that path, Mathew thought quickly. From this point on… I’ll have to keep pushing her. She has to see the truth!

The heat intensified around Celestia, vaporizing the clouds in the sky, and making a few ponies faint from the rapid change in temperature. Mathew’s face cringed slightly, but he held his focus on the swirling magic around Celestia. Then, in an impressive display of raw power, the magic reacted and a blinding flash erupted.

Mathew was the only one who did not have to look away from the flash, his eyes no longer meant to see the physical world. In the wake of the light stood Celestia’s true form – the embodiment of the daughter of creation – the Princess of the Sun. Her eyes were pools of white magic, with red fire in place of her mane and tail, and a bright orange coat that seemed to darken and smolder around her hooves.

Gone was the battle armor but the spear remained, looking more like a massive axe (the blade looking like half of the sun with three spikes on the back side). Celestia lifted her weapon above her head and narrowed her eyes. “Prepare yourself!” she yelled and surged forth with lethal intent.

~~***~~

Meanwhile, within Mathew’s barrier, a different conflict had taken place. Nightmare Moon stood with her back against the side of the magical shield, her wings spread wide and a look of determination solidified on her face. Her piercing turquoise dragon eyes glared at the other ponies around her. “You will not interfere with his battle!” she stated firmly for the fifth time.

Luna stomped her hoof and glared back at her mother. “We must do something to help him!” she argued. “Even you know that no living being stands a chance against Tia’s true form!”

Twilight stepped up beside Luna, an equally intimidating glare of her own pointed toward the dark goddess. “Luna has a point. I’ve never heard of Celestia being able to change forms like this, but I trust Luna on this. There must be something we can do,” she said.

A dull series of booms drew everypony’s attention up to the skies above. Mathew and Celestia were really going at it now. Each time their swings met, a wave of power erupted like a thunderclap. The sight was both fearsome and awe-inspiring. Nightmare still refused to yield, doing her utmost to protect the inside of the barrier from Luna and Twilight’s assaults.

The tension within the barrier’s confines thickened and it seemed that another battle would possibly occur between a mother and daughter. The tension quickly vanished when a less than pleased Draconequus snapped his fingers. Having succeeded in drawing everypony’s attention, Discord proceeded to sigh and rub the bridge of his nose with a paw.

“Can you all sit down already?” he asked them in an annoyed tone. Discord fixed them with a stern gaze. “Nopony can, or should, do anything right now. Don’t any of you realize why Mathew put us all in here?”

Nightmare sighed and finally turned her attention back to the sky above. “Mathew did this to keep us all safe. Just look at what those other ponies are going through…” she said and trailed off as she glanced at a few of the terrified civilian ponies who had no idea where to run or how to hide.

Discord nodded gently, which turned out to be a pointless action since all eyes were focused elsewhere. He cleared his throat and continued. “This was all part of Mathew’s plan. Luna and the Element of Harmony took priority, so he made sure to keep you all out of the crossfire. Besides,” he said and a smirk shaped its way across his face, “if you do manage to get out of this place, you’ll only find your magic is useless.”

Twilight’s ears perked up and she eyed Discord dubiously. “Why’s that?” she asked.

Nightmare was quick to provide the answer. “Because Mathew has saturated the entire area with his magic nullification.”

Twilight turned her attention to Nightmare and cocked her head in slight confusion. “How did he manage that? I thought his nullification was limited to his body,” she said curiously.

Discord chuckled and all eyes turned toward him. “That’s easy to explain. He combined his nullification with his chaos magic. I’m sure you noticed him kneeling down at some point, with a hand placed on the ground.”

Twilight nodded. “Yes. I thought it was odd… but why didn’t I sense his magic?” she asked.

“Because you were already within his effective field by then,” Discord answered. “Before you saw him here, he had already gone all across Ponyville placing little runes in specific locations. That was my cue to get to Luna. I could feel his chaos magic at work, even from all the way near Canterlot. He wanted to make sure he saved as many ponies as possible.”

Luna gasped in realization. Her eyes darted down to the massive teleportation spell on the ground that she could see, if only faintly. “So then, that spell circle is to save us in case things go badly! But why did he waste so much of his magic to protect us so? Now we know there’s no way he can best my sister!” she exclaimed in worry.

Nightmare Moon spoke next, her voice calm. “There is no need to worry about that, Luna.”

Luna and twilight both looked at Nightmare incredulously, but Nightmare simply held her passive composure. “Mathew developed a means to counter his loss of magical power,” she said softly. “Twilight might have noticed it when she attacked him a few days ago…”

All eyes turned to the purple Alicorn and she shrank back under the wave of attention. Rarity also thought on the event for a few seconds before it dawned on her. “You mean when Twilight’s magic had turned into that vapor?”

Nightmare nodded. “You are correct. It had been inspired through instinct on Mathew’s part, but he found a way to use his nullification in a different way; one that was outside its intended purpose. When Mathew focuses on a location on his body, he can shift the coverage of his nullification magic. In doing so, he can cause a new type of field with it. As such, it allows him to either completely cancel out the offending magic, or he can use it to change the base properties of the magic. What he learned from his encounter with Twilight was that by breaking down the magic of others, it turns the power into an absorbable form. With Celestia’s previous magical attacks on him, he’s had plenty of power to take in to replenish his reserves… although…”

Applejack’s heart skipped a beat at that last phrase. Something in the way Nightmare looked as she finished through up a red flag. She walked right up to the dark goddess and looked her in the eye. “What do ya mean by ‘although’?” she asked and her ears slowly pinned back.

Nightmare stared silently into Applejack’s eyes for a few long moments. Another thunderous boom echoed outside. She took in a long deep breath and slowly let it out, her shoulders sinking with the effort. “The act itself requires him to use his own magic to initiate the conversion. Simply put… Mathew uses a large portion of his magic to accomplish the spell, but the gain is only sixty percent of what he cancels. Given what I’ve seen… it means that Mathew still lacks the upper hand in this fight.”

The space within the barrier went deathly silent, the exception being the sounds of battle outside. Rainbow Dash finally spoke up, dragging herself to her hooves from the spot she had allowed her flanks to drop. “Does that mean… even with all that strength… the princess is going to… to kill him?” she asked, struggling with her loyalty to the human she once called her friend.

“We just have to believe in him,” came Pinkie’s soft voice from her stationary spot near the side of the barrier.

Everypony present, including Discord, turned their eyes to the pink mare. Her poofy hair had deflated slightly and her once joy filled, blue eyes seemed half hollow as she watched Mathew’s struggle. A small smile was still held in place on the end of her muzzle, but it was obvious to all that she was forcing it.

Twilight walked over to Pinkie and gently nuzzled her cheek. “So if we believe in him… he’ll be alright?” she asked her pink friend.

Pinkie Pie started to cry quietly. “I don’t know Twi… but while you all were arguing… I got the feeling that one heck of a doozy was gunna happen,” she choked out before her body gave in to the sobs of her sadness.

Silence reined over them once more as the weight of Pinkie’s word hit everypony. Glances were quietly exchanged, and emotions began to sink into the depths of sorrow. Nightmare Moon slowly walked over to stand before Discord, a look of pleading in her eyes. “Discord…” she said softly, “I know you said there was nothing you could do to help, but I have to know. How did Mathew bring me into this world?”

All eyes slowly turned toward the two conversing deities as Discord inhaled deeply. With a heavy sigh, he answered his long time rival. “I’m sure you noticed that you no longer have your connection to him. He removed your core from his chest, Nightmare.”

“Impossible…” Nightmare whispered, shocked beyond belief. She then turned her gaze back toward Mathew’s form in the sky. She stared at him for a long moment before tears started to form in her eyes.

Luna took notice of her shimmering eyes and stepped closer to her mother. “Nightmare Moon? What is it?” she asked.

Without taking her eyes away from Mathew, Nightmare grit her teeth and suppressed a sob, swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat. She blinked and a tear trailed down her cheek. “He’s dying… with each passing moment, the life sustaining magic that my core provided him is slowly seeping out of him…”

Author's Note

Part one of the battle and things are looking pretty bad for our buddy, Mathew. It's a race against time...

Tune in next week for the final chapter guys. It's gunna be a doozy.