Heir to the Shadows

Chapter 14 - No Second Chances

A beam of pure energy pulsed from Gusty’s horn. The fury of the disintegration ray caused deafening cracks of thunder to shake the Queen of Fire’s throne room. In their wake, great holes were bored through the mountain, sending rock and lava spewing everywhere. The magic could not hurt him, but the snap-back of the air, and the crash of rocks generated by its vacuum definitely could.

Guardian Angel let his momentum carry him into a rockface where his legs sprung down from absorbing his speed. In a single instant they unwound, sending him rocketing towards the afflicted mare. She teleported. His whole body tingled with danger and he spun wildly in the air, knowing that both Gusty and Ashijinir were trying to smash him with various objects in the grand cavern.

More thunder, this time of shattering stone and changing gravity, exploded. Craning his head, as his speed increased the demon stallion spied Gusty floating behind her giant scaly ward. On instinct alone he dove down towards the now ascending waves of gold and trinkets. Peppered with tons of material he broke through the painful thicket and found the stone floor only to watch it all come crashing towards him. This was madness. He could not even pause to think. Gusty and the Curse combined proved creative and powerful beyond his comprehension. He had been right. He could not hold back. But at this point, Guardian Angel was not even sure if it mattered. His quarry was on a different level. He would be surviving on guile and timing today. If he survived at all. He would. That grit of confidence was all he had now.

The challenge made his heart race. To truly cut loose without the worry of hurting somepony spurred Guardian Angel into a frenzy. The fire of his demonic body flashed white, brighter than even Gusty’s horn. The falling avalanche of gold melted around him as it neared him. The torrent of liquid metal did nothing. It dripped off his body and armor as he stared up from the mounds of wealth at an indignant alicorn mare.

A jump and flap put him in the air right next to her. Gusty’s magic flared but moved slower than before. The demon smiled, his fangs glinting in the fury of his flames. Ashijinir roared, a swing of a paw and claws drew his eyes away from the mare as she teleported away. Guardian Angel caught the great dragon’s hand with his forehooves, and their extended blades. She pushed him downward in the air but retracted her paw quickly. Her mewling growls fearful. She had not even moved him from where he hovered in the air. Her age and power proved meaningless, the Queen of Fire was not ready to help Gusty and the Curse.

Something hit him and for a moment Guardian Angel’s vision flashed fully into his life-sense. It was Gusty. Surprised, but pleased the mare had chosen to tackle him, his power raged out. With a wing he grasped her horn and instantly the hybrid-monster-friend-mare gasped and tried to activate her magic. It did not work. Unable to teleport, she glowered at him, her teeth gritted so tight together he could hear them creak under pressure even in the hail of roars, rushing wind, and magic.

A disintegration beam far greater than any Gusty cast before knocked his wing away and impacted his face. What a calculated risk! He thought to himself. The blow was tremendous, his vision again flickering out of regular sight. It hurt this time. The sheer force of the slamming air and the breaking of normal physics tore away his helmet and his chest harness and turned them to dust. Their millennias of beings washed in Shadow-kin blood useless compared to Gusty. As the metal disappeared he was catapulted into something solid and unyielding. Guardian Angel could take the punishment but it would be better to avoid a blow like that again. He hopped up quickly, his eyes regaining their sight over his life-sense as he did. Gusty was already upon him.

He blocked her sword with his gauntlets, as it came teleporting in at her behest. The protection and blades had thankfully survived the deadly ray, having been just far enough away. Gusty snarled. Her eyes waxed over into fully black orbs. For a brief instant Guardian Angel was transfixed with horror. The Curse slipped his blades, taking its advantage and buried Gusty’s sword deep in his chest, piercing lung and heart alike. Spitting up blood as the beast resummoned its pilfered weapon, he roared in a perfect rage. It repaired the damage.

However, the pain and the blow was not what infuriated Guardian Angel. The site of the Curse manifesting upon Gusty’s face spurred a new wave of power and his instincts took him. With a lurch forward, Guardian Angel successfully grabbed her horn again with one wing and her forelimbs with the other. His own hooves wrapped around her chest and his maw went plunging into her neck. He did not taste her blood. A part of him was thankful for that, he had no idea what Gusty’s magic-laiden ichor would have done to his ability to control himself. With a roar more terrifying than her dragon's, Gusty caused an explosion.

The blast sent him slamming against rocks and coins. With a cough, once he could stand, the demon found more of his own blood rolling out of his mouth. Even at full power, he could not keep this up. He needed to make a surgical strike to end this or he would die. What the fuck was Zeccaran doing in there?

When he looked up he saw Gusty flapping a hover some distance away. A score of scavenged weapons from Ashijinir’s horde held firmly in her magic. In a single rush they came flying at him in a massive, combined attack. The mare herself flew after the horde of weapons, her horn firing out more magic. He had not fully recovered yet. Regenerating internal injuries of such severity did take an amount of time it was not instant. However, he did not have that small amount of time, he needed to dodge. In that infinitesimally small moment of time he had such thoughts. Then his body acted and his mind shut off.

A wave of weapons crashed by as he barrel-rolled through them. Beams of magic missed and exploded with powerful compressed air. Another wave and he was closer to Gusty now, the glow of the lava and the gleam of Ashijinir’s emerald scales casting the mare’s face in red and green light. Finally, just as he went to attempt to zip through the last hail of blades there was a blinding flash of green. Gusty herself slowed her flight, the remaining weapons in her telekinesis, save her sword, fell down to the ground. She hovered right next to him, the black ink that had covered her eyes disappearing.

The alicorn looked upon the demon in confusion. It was clear, the intelligence that sparkled in her ocean blue eyes did not comprehend what she was seeing. Gusty tilted her head, before raising a hoof up to it. Her eyes pinched shut in pain. With a groan she shook her head. The groan turned into a growl and her eyes waxed pure white with magic and then faded into the terrible dark voids they had been before.

“You are lucky, Usurper.” Rattled the fake tones of the Curse. It shook its head some more.

A scant few thoughts sped through Guardian Angel’s mind. Green magic. Zeccaran. The vacant and curious look of his Gusty Twilight. Then he felt it. She was alive.

“There seem to be more beings besides yourself that desire Gusty restored to who she was before. But we are perfect as we are. There is no going back.” It said, the beast raised up Gusty’s sword.

Guardian Angel felt a cold and cruel laugh rise in his throat. He let it spill out of his lips and the Curse took a step back as he rose up from the ground. This battle had just changed its nature. Gusty was alive in there. Tears nearly rolled over his cheeks at the relief. The vaunted trust he had put in Zeccaran had not been ill-placed. There was a chance. Guardian Angel would take it. He would win, even if he would not see his victory.

Lunging forward he slashed at the body of his opponent with his gauntlet blades. He could feel his demonic magic run hot and the Curse failed to teleport, her horn sparking with spells that lacked the power to escape. However, Gusty’s natural agility saved her possessor from suffering a debilitating wound. He still hit her chest, rending her armor like it was not there. The blow sent them tumbling away, pushing her far enough away from the epicenter of his anti-magic field that she managed to cast. The demon watched as the combination-mare winced as she narrowly managed to force enough magic out of her horn to patch the wound. With all his speed in the air Guardian Angel put himself above her and upon her as she finished. He was quite unwilling to let the momentum of the fight shift from his favor. He only needed her still long enough to concentrate and not just twitch with instinct and reaction time. Just a moment to center his mind and throw his everything into an attempt at invading her mind.

Gusty and the Curse seemed to take notice of his intentions, slow but successful teleportation spells firing at random as he zipped about the cavernous throne room. Ashijinir for her part tossed rock and breathed fire at him vainly. Trusting his instincts Guardian Angel stopped trying to predict where she might appear and sped up instead, making no attempt to maneuver to her. Feeling her magic swell, the demon veered towards the sensation. To his eyes it was in slow-motion, Gusty appeared before him. Her eyes widening as his body collided with hers. Anypony else would have been dead instantly from the impact of his weight, but she twisted and rolled with the blow with such grace that she nearly escaped his hooves.

Now conjoined in a midair grapple Guardian Angel purposely stabbed his left wing’s thickest bit of ectoplasm onto her horn. The magic flesh rent and some of his blood coated the spike. Then they started to fall. Gusty’s wings did not have the strength to keep them both aloft, he was far too heavy for her. So down they fell regardless of how angrily her wings beat. To its credit the Curse with its black eyes, pummeled him with its hooves. Simultaneously shrieking with anger as it tried and failed to cast more magic, the blood on its horn blackening and cracking, but not allowing spells to complete, for now.

Unwilling to let the fall crush her, Guardian Angel pivoted so that he would hit the rock first. Then it was time. The scant half-a-second they had before they hit the ground was all he had to make his move. He drew a deep breath. All of his magic, all of his hurt, all of his desire: all of it pooled deep in his lungs in that one moment. Then, just as he felt his back start to touch the rock, Guardian Angel released the power. His one goal, the only reason for existing now: find Gusty. Find her and separate her from the Curse. Only he could do it, and Guardian Angel would.

His vision faded to black, only to return as brilliant currents of magic. He could see Gusty, radiant and glorious. He could see himself too, equally vibrant and pulsing with living magic. Then he saw it. The black heart of the Shadow-kin Curse. The Mytsn. She was coiled up deep within the alicorn mare. With his will alone, Guardian Angel sped towards it. As his essense touched Gusty’s the vile ink inside of her recoiled tossing them all about but he would not be assuaged. He reached the strange center of darkness and suddenly was overwhelmed.

Screaming, cursing, voices of ponies and dragons he did not recognize completely overcame his senses. Focusing only on maintaining himself, Guardian Angel leaned into the sensation of falling he had acquired. It was like Luna often described, it had to be what she meant. He smiled grimly. He had retained his sight. That was new for him upon entering the realm of minds. Vacantly, as he fell further and the magic of the waking world faded away into empty void, leaving him to wonder if he had died. Had he overstretched his abilities, was this it? If it was, death was just as pleasant as he had always imagined it. A simple finality where there was only thought and himself. The whole realm of the endless void at his command to fill himself with pleasures and pains until he would become utterly content.

However, it was not so. His body felt like it had impacted a great pit of cotton candy and his descent slowed rapidly. Finding some form of footing, Guardian Angel stood. There was nothing in this place. It was a plain grey, empty and naked. Unsure what to do, the demon stallion stood still, analyzing what he was seeing. There was no trace of his quarry. The dark entity seemed to have no access to the environment as of yet. Subtly, he could feel the location ungulate, no, breathe. Then where was he?

A rush of wind and water propelled him forward as his mind’s every slight thought changed the environment. Unable to calm his thoughts he instead focused on a single question: where is Gusty? Immediately, he was rocketed forrard, the land about him becoming paler and whiter slowly as images and noises of life seemed to breeze into and out of existence. Then he saw her.

Before him, Gusty Twilight sat facing away. She made no notice of him as his hooves clopped down on the soft surface of the ivory ground. Instead she simply kept watching strange windows that looked into different worlds. Guardian Angel’s mind nearly froze with the number of possibilities and number of scenarios the mare had to offer. The line of the images went on beyond his sight. However, as he grunted vacantly staring out along the line of memories he heard her gasp.

“It's you! She said you would come here! What are you doing here?” The demon-stallion turned to find the alicorn balking at him in a mixture of shock and curiosity.

Before he could answer her an angry hiss drew his eyes towards its source. As if squeezing through a tiny hole, a black amalgamation that was the Curse slowly pulled itself into existence. Guardian Angel wasted no time. He had every advantage and he intended to use it. With a single leap he sunk his teeth into the dark mass. The Mytsn shrieked in surprise, its voice echoing as if it came from everywhere. However, it was not the only voice that yelled. Gusty screamed in a cry of terrible pain. His mare’s tone increased in desperation as he tore off a piece of the evil entity and swallowed it. Guardian Angel ignored it. If he had such power to exist in this mindscape then he would ‘consume’ as much of the Curse’s magic as he could, even if it hurt Gusty. They had both already agreed that was what he should do anyway.

A burst of something flashed his vision into his life-sense and tossed him across the area. It hurt. He had not felt pain like it since he had devoured Nyx.

“Why did you do that?! We are connected! That hurt!” Gusty cried.

Befuddled, Guardian Angel looked at the intricate white light that was the alicorn. Her vibrant blue eyes showed only confusion and hurt. He was doing what he promised. Gusty had to know that. Low, delighted laughter came from the Mytsn as she was given the opportunity to properly form in this strange realm. Primal fury filled Guardian Angel. He did not know why Gusty attacked him, but he knew the Curse was the reason it had happened. He galloped towards his quarry once again, intent on destroying it.

They collided in a grapple. The fire from his wings and the strikes of his hooves caused the dark entity to snarl with cold delight. Gusty screamed again. There was another pulse of powerful mental fury and Guardian Angel was tossed across the area. He did not rapidly regain his footing like last time, instead bouncing along the hard ground in pain. When he stood and looked back over to Gusty, her light stood in front of the black shadow of the Mytsn. The alicorn was ready to protect the monster. This was wrong. Guardian Angel felt fear pull a lump into his throat. Had Zeccaran been wrong?

It was just like the Market Square in Canterlot. Only this time he was alone, so very alone. The stallion shuddered. He stared past Gusty defiantly, looking directly at the dark shadow of the Curse. He could see its tendrils. Terrible black tentacles of magic lacing into Gusty. If he could sever them he could win. But did the Curse know he could see them?

“You cannot win, demon,” the beast said.

Gusty huffed and stomped a hoof in agreement.

“We are bound. We are friends. You cannot separate us. Even in this realm!” The Mytsn shouted at him. Then, as if sworn to move by the statement, Gusty rushed at him. Her powerful will already causing him harm just by proximity.

That was when Guardian Angel understood. The Mytsn had tied itself to the deepest parts of Gusty. No matter what he did, even if he succeeded in killing it, the Curse would destroy Gusty with it. Frozen in place, the stallion’s thoughts ceased and time seemed to grind to a halt. He was terrified. He could not move. He had lost. Everyone had lost. The world had lost. It was over...

Gusty suddenly impacted him and he felt like his whole body exploded. Even his life-sense winked out and all he could see was darkness. When he finally stopped tumbling and thrashing about he tried to stand but found only pain and a lack of mental control. Growling and scraping at the ground with ethereal hooves, he pushed past the pain. However, his inability to stand was not a matter of will, but a matter of power. His magic was being disrupted just as much as he was running out of magic to use.

Worse, he could not defeat Gusty’s will. He knew that. He had tried back all those years ago in Canterlot when she had taken pity on him. Finally now that enough of his power had piled within him, he struggled up, blind and unable to do more. He could hear the mare pacing around before him. This was like it had been when he had joined Luna several months ago. Just flailing around in a void, searching for tastes of magic.

“Stop this. I do not want to kill you. Please, we can work together!” Gusty called out to him

“Yes, Usurper. Like I told you. Together!” The Curse echoed her sentiment with a sickly sweet tone.

Guardian Angel did not respond. Instead, he just focused on trying to collect his mind. Even if he had lost, he would take the Mytsn with him, he needed to be able to see to do it. Slowly, his life-sense returned. Gusty stood before him, her horn aglow, her face twisted in pain and fury. He huffed, tired. He was actually reaching his limit. The alicorn was sending him above and beyond what he could do. It brought a smile to his face. She was the only one that could. He stared at her, watching the pulses of magic ripple over her body here in this subconscious realm.

That was when he saw it. Deep within Gusty, there was a flicker of sadness in her eyes. Truly, he felt it more than he saw it. It was the simple kinship of suffering that had once bound them together. That was what had kept the two of them alive then, if only it were that easy this time. She did not even recognize him. It infuriated him to a degree. Everything he and Amethyst, and Luna, and Bunker, and Celestia, and yes even Zeccaran had worked for had been destroyed. This was not the Gusty they all loved. She was no longer the same mare, but her power, her determination, the core parts of her that made her so unstoppable remained.

A flash of a thought washed over his mind’s eye.That was the key. He had not beaten Gusty back in Canterlot, but he had survived. He had redirected her power. The tendrils, the Curse! Oh, what a helluva to die!

This renewal of will caused his chest to swell in sensations of power and magic.. So long as there was a chance he had to try. When he turned his gaze to look at her directly. Gusty snarled incredulously as if she knew what he was thinking. That was just like her. How many times had she tried to hit him and now finally succeeded? It was unimportant. He had a singular purpose now. After all this was the dream realm. Imagination and will were all that mattered, and what he lacked in willpower against Gusty, he easily made up for with creativity. For in this realm, he too could use magic. Here there were no restrictions. How had Luna described teleportation?

A flash of light and crack of thunder and he was beside the Mytsn. Shocked and horrified, the beast slashed at him. He allowed it to hit him. The injuries it caused he could feel rend his flesh in the waking world. He was running out of time, his will and power already at their breaking point. He had perhaps the most fleeting of moments left. It would be all he needed, Guardian Angel swore that to himself.

Wrapping up the tendrils that connected the monster to Gusty with a wing, he promptly stuck the dark flesh into his mouth. He clamped down with all his force, all his will, his everything. He may not be able to stop Gusty from ejecting him from this realm and burning up all his energy, but the Curse could not withstand his desire. He could only hope it would work.

With an angry shriek of pain Gusty appeared before the two monsters. Guardian Angel bit through the tentacles and sucked as much of the Curse into his maw as he could. This was it.

“No, let me go! Gusty wait!” The Mytsn cried.

For a brief moment, the alicorn faltered. It was as if the severed connection between Gusty and the terrible Shade remained. Her face hardened. It was as if she had truly awoken in that moment. Her horn blazed. Her determination to blast him far greater than whatever power his ancestors’ Curse possessed over her. Guardian Angel clamped down harder on her tendrils. His hunger was nearly as powerful as his desire to win.

An irate horde of bees and light overcame his senses in the next instant. The sensation of being thrown high into the air took Guardian Angel. However, he could still feel the Mytsn struggling in his mouth. He would not let go. He would die first. He would keep his jaw clenched even after death. All that mattered was that the beast came with him into the physical plane.

Once there it would be over. He would consume it just as he was always meant to do. All the scattered pieces of the Shadow-kin would be united and it would be over. They would die together. There would be no regenerating today. He could feel how sapped of magic he had become. How did Luna do this all the time?

A brief respite of blackness gave way to ruddy light. The demon’s senses kicked back in with the transition.

Guardian Angel could feel warm stone against his back. The Curse shrieked angrily in the olden tongue of his ancestors. The demon-stallion kept his jaw shut but sucked in more of the creature’s body and magic. It provided no sustenance.

That drove him more. It angered the demon greatly that something so weak, so devoid of magic of its own, had caused so much heartache and pain. It would suffer for it. Even in his determination his vision faded. He pulled more on the Mytsn, but no life-sense-sight replaced his sight this time. The damnedable beast in his mouth still struggled though it was more than half-eaten. There were voices and shouting. He did not recognize them.

Terrible pain erupted in his stomach. Even as she was ended the Mytsn was still fighting, stabbing him with its free flesh. He bit for more, sucking down the monster. It begged, but he did not hear it. He only ate more. He hated it. He loathed the dark entity more than himself and more than any of his failures. The realization gave him power. Enough to finish the job. He sucked down the last tentacle and the screaming went silent. The pain in his chest and belly slowly numbed. There was no more Curse.

Overjoyed he rolled to his hooves. Quickly, his empty vision became currents of magic. He looked up and found Gusty. She stood above him, her face cast in a thousand yard stare. That was when Guardian Angel’s whole body tingled. The sort of tingle that had gotten him his name. The creeping, appalling feeling of his special talent, his Cutie Mark. It had not been activated in over ten years. Something was frightfully wrong.

All he could hear was Gusty’s breathing. In the vision he had her features slowly eroded away. The light and magic around her condensed and pulsed. It was just like what he had felt in the Frozen North, but now he could see it happen. That made it so much worse, the warning serving only to make more anxiety.

The rumble of cracking stone and whistles of superheated wind and rock came. A sun of pure magic energy howled where he could still feel Gusty. Its epicenter slowly expanding in a vicious and angry torrent of unstoppable force. She had gone berserk. This time, he did not have the power to stop her, much less help retain her memories.

A burst of air pushed him along the smooth stone of the cavern. Worriedly, he looked away from the blinding ball of light that was Gusty, and found Ashijinir’s slender form. The dragon was a pale tube of illumination in comparison.

“Queen of Fire! Run!” He yelled.

For as well as he could scream, she likely did not hear him. In fact, no one would be hearing anything beyond the howls of the wind that Gusty now commanded. Huh, what a bit of cruel irony. Gusty Twilight. A windy end. Another explosion of magic went off, it spurred him back into reality from his exhausted mental dissociation. It also knocked Guardian Angel from his hooves. In pain he stood back up, tired. The hard irony made him sick. To think her name was how he was going to die!

Despite his desperate situation, the demon-stallion noticed the emerald dragon slink away. She disappeared through some grey outline of nothingness. He could only assume that was the cave that had led to the gilded throne room. Thus, he turned his eyes back towards Gusty’s gleaming sun. She was already hovering on nothing. The grey and black rock that had been below her was replaced by a black nothing. The tendrils of magic that she sucked in and spat the only thing that supported her.

He had to stop her. Guardian Angel just did not know how he could. He could barely stand the wind and magic she tossed about. He was exhausted. His whole body hurt, and the headache he had probably would have killed even Luna. His breaths were heavy, and he could taste iron. Brute force like the Frozen North Incident would not work, but he did not have anything else. He was the only one that could even survive this storm. And right now, he probably would not.

Sadness drew tears to his eyes. They were quickly whipped away and into the air. This was the last step. He just had to knock her out and it was done. It was too bad the last leg of the journey was always the hardest.

His wings moved on their own. His body, his practice, all the preparation moved him more than his desire or will did. Guardian Angel’s mind drifted. Each flash of air made him ache. A slash into his legs, a bludgeon to his wings and he lost the ground he had gained toward her.

Perhaps a choke hold? He considered. A bite to the lower neck could cause shock and put her down too. Would she survive that?

Guardian Angel did not know. He could do more than puzzle over what to do as he approached again. Huge disintegration explosions went off around him as he moved. A third hit him and his vision went black. However, he was not knocked out. He could still feel his body and hear the wind. He could feel her mind, and taste her location on the air. He would reach her. He just was not going to be making it in one piece.

More wing pumps and more explosions. What was the point of all this? His mind wondered. A simple answer came to him from some still functional part of his brain.

Her. Amethyst. Luna. The World. What wasn’t it for?

Huge geysers of lava flew up around the alicorn and the demon. They were only a short distance away now. Guardian Angel felt old. HIs hooves hurt, but even as they were exploded off by the intensity of Gusty’s constant barrage, they grew back all the same. Each wingbeat was starting to cause him excruciating pain. He reached out for her. Vaguely, a little flicker of light appeared in the blank void that was his sight. It was just before his snout.

With a final lunge he wrapped his hooves around that spot. Magic grabbed his body and tried to toss him off. Joints and bones snapped in response but his will kept the demon in place. He could do nothing else. To let go, to give up now, it was to admit he was nothing, and that all the death and destruction that had led them here was in vain.

His regeneration failed. He could feel his lungs and heart struggling to keep good blood flowing. This was it.

With a brief motion he could again feel what had to be Gusty’s neck. This was his final option, there would be no second chances, he had to do this right. Opening his maw he jammed his teeth down as hard as he could. He did not even pierce her skin. Guardian Angel clamped down in defeat, his maw wrapping around soft flesh and compressing. It was all that was left. It reminded him of when he had fought Nyx all those years ago. Just like then he was reduced to nothing, his existence just pure defiance in the wake of utter defeat. He could not breathe, blood bubbled out of his nose. Then it all faded black. His last thought was simple contentment that even in death, his jaws would remain locked, and just maybe they would slowly make Gusty pass out from lack of oxygen.