Legends of Neirule
It's Over, isn't It?
Previous ChapterNext ChapterSolaris's steel armor gleamed in the sunlight. He jogged down his lines as he inspected his ponies. Twilight's wings fluttered against her side in agitation. Only Applejack's steady presence kept her from bolting down and give the stallion a piece of her mind.
Solaris had been avoiding her for the last several hours.
Her eyes wandered to the non-unicorn portions of the army. They were rather bland. The pegasi and earth pony portions were decently armored in paler blues. However they seemed more disciplined than their unicorn counterparts. Twilight puzzled at the oddity.
A rust roan met her eyes briefly. He seemed a bit confused but gave a slight nod. As his unicorn commander shifted, the earth pony returned to parade stance.
Twilight was struck by his vivid blue eyes.
Solaris, seemingly satisfied, spoke in his native tongue to his people. Twilight had wished she had learned Neirulian when she had the chance. The cadence of his voice was steady but the mien serious. The unicorns looked in discomfort but the rest of the army remained stoic.
“Vanzei! Vanzei, Solaris-ra!” The army shouted at the end of the speech.
Solaris strutted toward the building, only pausing a step when he saw Twilight and company.
“Morning, milady.”
Twilight glared down her nose. “Hmph. Are you now ready to hear what we've found?”
He caught her hoof and kissed the back of it. “Of course. I apologize but it is often difficult to get my army prepared.”
“I see.” Twilight didn't think so but she let it go. “The town is a giant spell.”
Solaris crashed into one of the pillar. “What?”
Twilight's lip twitched at the humorous sight. “The only reason Dragmire is repairing the town? It's a powerful containment spell as far as we can tell. I and my researchers have identify the two anchors from what information we obtained. Earth and wind. An wiser and more experience mage identified a partial glyph as being fire.”
The king wheeled on her and placed his hooves on her shoulder. Applejack glared darkly at him.
“What other information have you put together?”
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Carter groaned as he attempted to splat out cotton that wasn't there. His head hurt in only the way a fractured horn did. He couldn't quite remember what had happened. Except that whatever it was, was BAD.
The memories were there, but they seethed in the dark corner of his mind. He couldn't, won't touch it, not yet. The time wasn't quite right.
He stared at the wooden beams of the roof. Shifting revealed a restraining cuff on each leg. Carter sighed to himself. Maybe he should have listened to his sister and not gone into archaeology.
By time, the doctor had returned, Carter had drifted into a deep sleep.
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Dash kicked the last block into place. The make-shift stairs would allow her to climb to the top.
“You know, it sucks not being able to fly here.”
The furball scanned the horizon for any strange red-eye bugs.
Dash pulled herself up the ledge and paused. “I realize you never gave me a name.”
The furball stopped its scan and turned to Dash. There was genuine surprise and a painful emotion. Dash shifted.
Dash received the feeling that there was more to that but didn't push. Impa was snarky, sure, but the creature had been friendly in its own way.
Dash continued to climb. Impa warned her of the stupid trumpet head bird thing just before it blasted her in the face with its cry. Dash managed to give it a good buck.
“Are you sure this is not Tartartus?”
Dash didn't see the low-glowing glyph until it was too late. Suddenly she wasn't in the strange world anymore.
She had her claws deep in someone's chest. The armor scraped her scaled forearm but didn't impede the strike much. The stallion, wild-eyed, flailed. The eyes were strange-looking. She couldn't see anything reflected in it.
The stallion's lifeblood slowed as his body shuddered. He slipped off her claws. She pulled her arm freed. Humming, she lifted the blood-stained claws and stroked the stallion's slacken jaw. Before she could reach for his eyes, an arrow sprouted into the dead stallion's side. The light of day dulled a bit.
She leaped over the corpse and dove into the desert sand. Hundred of arrows peppered the spot and the corpse she had been near.
As sudden as it was, the episode was over. Impa was yelling in her ear. She attempted to bat Impa away, but her claws past through.
Dash stared at the claws that slowly returned into hooves. The spell that allowed her her birth-form hummed. When she was safer, she would freak out but this place was not the time to do so.
“What the buck was that?” Her voice was hoarse.
<...> Impa was frowning.
Dash looked at the concerned little monster and shook her head. “Nothing. What happened?”
Impa made a soft grunt and the soft glowing glyph became bright. It didn't look like most glyph she had seen before. She looked to Impa whom sighed.
Dash hummed as she memorized the form. As an archaeologist, she had come across many a glyph and accidentally activate more than her fair share. Foreknowledge was a nice bonus.
Impa pulled her own energy back and it returned to its original state. They exchanged a glance and silently began to move again.
The strange half-light seemed to fade as a blue light began dominating. Impa's form began looking transparent in that light. However it continued forward so Dash didn't express concern. Impa seem to hate the fact of its intangibility or reference to it in any manner.
Dash's thoughts were captured by the portal. It was like a mirror, reflecting forms in infinity that weren't present. Impa bobbed side to side, her claws wringing.
Dash frowned before spotting a loose feather. Dash gulped.
“Not good.”
Impa jumped into Dash's shadow.
Dash nodded and leaped for the portal. The portal wobbled like a pool of water. There was resistance and then Dash felt everything stretch.
The colors rushed past and she felt somewhat disoriented by the shift. Suddenly her hooves hit stone. Then suddenly they were claws as the form-shift spell failed. Dash could feel Impa's mounting anger as the furball scrambled to reweave the spell. She crashed into the far wall.
They were in the inner most sanctum of the Town Heart. Dash was puzzled by the lack of sand and debris but she recognized the place as where she had saved Carter. The sound of battle draw her attention.
She scrambled onto her feet and lunged for the door. Impa, cursing in that strange tongue, trying to redo the spell.
▬
Dragmire was an impressive stallion. Twilight couldn't help but admire the dark Lord. Aside from his army of undead, he clearly could hold his own. Solaris, being the typical stallion, had gone toe to toe with the ancient warlord.
Despite being actually more slender than Solaris, he met blow to blow without sweating in the hot sun. Twilight blasted a few more of the ink creatures. It had been a surprised to find Sumimonoke, not umbrum or any other shadow-beast.
Rarity was still complaining on how hard it would be to get the ink out of her fur after this. Twilight dodged being speared by one of the skeletons. It didn't last long under the blasting spell. Shards of bones rained down.
Applejack was busy bucking the Minotuar skeleton. Pinkie and Fluttershy were holding an retreat route to the airship. Twilight's moment of distraction placed her right in the path of one of the dragon skeletons.
Twilight stared blankly for a heatbeat at the blackened fangs. Then a familiar blue blur slammed into the undead's skull. A familiar ah-yeah rang out. The entire battle stopped.
Twilight looked into the sky. There, jacket torn, Rainbow Dash hoovered. A familiar smirk was on her lips. Twilight's eyes teared up.
“Sorry, I'm late.” Rainbow Dash stretched her wings in a beat. “Shadow-butt over there had a nasty maze.”
Dragmire screamed. “Cijo!”
Solaris was sent rump over head when Dragmire used a magic blast. Dragmire shifted to a shadow form and leapt into the air. Dash dodged him easily but he flowed after her.
Twilight scrambled to think of a spell to stop Dragmire. The calm and collected king had disappeared, leaving what looked like a crazed pony. Twilight finally remembered a spell she could use.
The skeletons had collapsed where they stood, creating an annoying obstacle field. Twilight kicked a skull, accidentally knocking it into one of Solaris's soldiers attending on of his comrades. Twilight called an apology.
Dragmire was shooting energy blast after energy blast. Rainbow swooped and dodged. Twilight estimated she might have a minute or two more before Dash tired. Twilight flapped up onto one of the balconies of one of the buildings. She only needed a clear shot.
There!
Dragmire bellowed in rage as he crashed into one of the damaged garden plots. Twilight in the far corner of her mind was puzzled by the fact he returned to solid form. The Medusas spell hobbled him before rushing over him. He was frozen in a partial upright state, his mouth opened in a scream of “Cijo.”
The ink-forms dissolved into mist. Dash landed delicately, favoring a slightly singed hock. She seemed to regard Dragmire in a contemplative mood. She then whipped around and bucked the statue as hard as she could.
“Rainbow!” Twilight yelled as Dragmire broke into three pieces.
Dash looked almost as angry as the day their friendship had fractured. “Sorry, Twi. He more than earned that kick.”
Twilight didn't say anything. It did horrify her a little bit to see Dragmire killed so easily but the relief of finding Dash and averting evil overran that part.
She pounced on her old friend and cried into her shoulder. Dash muttered 'ow' but wrapped a hoof over her shoulders.
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