The Lulamoon Files

The Lulamoon Files

Chapter Eighteen: Midnight Fight

Written by TheCrimsonDM

All the dogs saved for the biggest one, Chopper, charged at once. Applejack’s gun fired, one of the dogs exploded into a mass of twigs. My stave lashed out smacked the nearest one in the face while my telekinesis lashed out and grabbed hold of the other two. The one I hit exploded, and the two I’d grabbed were unable to move. Out of the corner of my eye I saw another one fall to Applejack's gun, but the last one jumped over Applejack, it was heading open mouthed for me. Applejack’s gun fired and I was showered with twigs, branches and thorns.

It took very little effort from there to throw the two paralyzed ones up into the air a good twenty five feet. They came back down hard and shattered upon impact. My horn was aching from the effort of will that took, but they were down. Only Blueblood and his Chopper remained.

“Give it up,” I said.

Blueblood smiled and backed away. “No, I don’t think so.”

Chopper walked forward, his claws scraped along the deck. Deep low growls emitted from him as he surveyed the quick mess we made out of his pack. Yet I got the feeling he was doing more than just looking around. He stopped just a good ten feet in front of us. He gave one mighty bark and I flinched back.

Chopper still didn’t attack. It was like he was waiting for something. But what could he be waiting for. Something tugged at my mane. I yelped as a thorn ripped itself loose from my hair and flew toward Chopper. The twigs, branches and thorns scattered along the deck all rolled, bounced, and flew at Chopper. I watched in terror as Chopper grew, and grew, and grew some more.

Applejack had grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and pulled me away. I followed her around the dock as Chopper grew six times larger. He was already bigger than either of us but now he was as big as a two story house. He loosed a mighty howl that shook the boat.

“This is bad, this is really bad,” I muttered as I followed Applejack.

“What do we do about that?” Applejack demanded.

I looked back and met the giant Timberwolf’s eye. “I don’t freaking know. I’m skilled in illusions not combat. Honestly I don’t know how I survived up until now. I mean I fought a freaking manticore!”

“You fought the manticore? And won?” Applejack asked, flabbergasted.

Chopper put a paw down on one of the metal containers and walked over it. The metal dented inward as his weight was pressed on it. “Doesn’t matter, it won’t help us here.”

A light blue beam of energy flashed in front of us and hit the deck. I managed to grab Applejack by the tail and yank just in time as the deck in front of us erupted into several spears of ice. I saw Blueblood standing on top of one of the metal containers. His horn flashed again. This time I raised my stave and pointed at the beam of light. I focused my will into my shield and the ice slammed hard into it freezing in a half bubble shape with icy spikes on the other end. My stave still raised I tapped into my evocations and shouted, “Whirlwind Gust!”

The ice shattered and flew out in a spreading ark over the lower deck. I saw Blueblood’s horn light up and an instant later the ice I sent flying back hit an invisible wall. He was quick on the draw that was for sure. Yet he wasn’t our only problem. Chopper was already making huge strides toward us. The ship rocked with every one of his steps.

“This is going to suck,” I told Applejack.

She looked at me with a pair of confused eyes. “What do you mean?”

I channeled all of my energy into my stave. Last time I tried this I didn’t have my focus, I didn’t have my tools. This time I did. Chopper was made out of wood, and loads of it. With my stave aimed at him I was able to send out a telekinetic wave that wrapped around Chopper. His entire body was wrapped in my orchard aura and pain flashed through all of my senses as I attempted to stop him from moving. Of course I only slowed him down.

He was nearly upon us. I shoved more of myself into the spell. Something inside my head snapped. A metallic taste filled my mouth, red hot liquid ran down my nose. This time Chopper did stop. More than that I could feel every single piece of his body. He wasn’t one giant creature, he was thousands of branches stuck together. I screamed with the effort it took but I managed to not lift Chopper, but rather push him off the edge of the ship. With a giant splash that rocked the ship enough to cause me to lose my balance and fall over I knew I’d succeeded.

Of course my limbs wouldn’t obey me when I told them to get back up. I stared at myself in confusion. Applejack was by my side. “Trixie, you're bleeding. Are you okay?”

I shook my head. It hurt. This was bad. Blueblood was going to be up here any moment with both himself and his parasprites to kill us. If I couldn’t move we were screwed. Again I tried to move my limps .My legs twitched.

“N-not good,” I said. My lungs burned and for a few seconds all I could do was cough. Crimson splattered onto the deck from my lungs. “Celestia’s flaming rump. I think, I think I’m done.”

Blueblood was already here. The smile on his lips was sickening. “Oh my, that was impressive. But of course you were never a match for me.”

Applejack had her gun trained on him in seconds. But he wasn’t having it this time. Blue light flashed brightly from his horn and a shotgun spread of icy pellets shot out at Applejack. I saw her jump to the side, yelp, and then she hit the deck like a rag doll. Her side was peppered with steadily growing red spots.

Blueblood smiled at her and then fixed his gaze on me. “Tenacious wasn’t she? Yet powerless as most earth ponies are. I was impressed she would even dare to fight against her betters but perhaps that’s your fault. She believed you to be a proper unicorn, yet your blood is dirtied with mud pony genetics. You could never stand up to me.”

My insides were twisting over Applejack. She wasn’t moving. She was just lying there. I needed to do something. Anything to help her. Yet I was half way in the grave myself, what could I really do?

Blueblood looked up into the night sky. “What a wonderful night it is.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you doing this?”

Blueblood fixed his gorgeous gaze at me. Somehow even if he was the second most evil thing I’d ever encountered he was still attractive. “Because, the goddess needs an army for when she returns. Soon she will come back to this world, freed from her lunar prison. When she does, all of the little sun worshiping fools will meet their demise. The unicorns will be put where they belong, beneath me. I might not be related to Queen Platinum, but I have royal bloodlines that go far deeper than some pathetic unicorn. I am related to the Sun Queen herself.”

I glared at him. “You? But you use ice magic? That’s, that’s-“

“The Moon Queen’s domain. Who did you think was my goddess? The Moon Queen was imprisoned over a thousand years ago, when she tried to bring the world a night so vast and deep that there would be no escape from it. Of course she will return, and when she does, the night will never end, and your precious sun loving friends will be trapped in the glory of an eternal darkness.”

So that was his plan. To bring back the Moon Goddess, and to give her an army of monsters. He looked up into the night sky and laughed. “Come my swarm, devour my enemies!”

There was a terrible buzzing. From out of the sides of the ship I watched multicolored prismatic streams of parasprites fly up into the air. They quickly gathered together into a massive cloud of angry buzzing above Blueblood. His horn was still glowing.

“Eat them,” he ordered.

The swarm came down upon us. For a very short moment I was terrified. I tried my magic, and my horn merely sparked and fizzled. I was going to die. There was no way to get out of this one. The only thing I had on me was a dumb key. I pulled it out and smashed it in a fit of rage. A solid note rang out loud and clear. The Parasprites stopped dead in their tracks.

I looked up at Blueblood, and his eyes were wide in horror. “You, you can’t. The key! The control key! Why do you have it?”

I smiled as I hit the key again. The parasprites jerked awkwardly. It looked like any kind of tone might affect them, but more so than that, I believed this key had special properties to control these things. Perhaps it even had special properties to control more. I thought about the collars that all had locks on them, this key couldn’t fit them, but maybe it wasn’t meant to go into the locks. Maybe it held a deeper symbolic message, a spell command that I could use.

Blueblood’s horn lit up. “I’m going to end this, end you, before you get a chance to start being cleaver about that key.”

I grinned, or perhaps grimaced, hard to tell. “Buck, you.” I rang the key again.

The parasprites jerked once more.

Blueblood screamed, I threw the key at him. Whatever spell he was preparing was dropped as the key bounced off his chest and he went diving to catch it. Every muscle in my body was burning as I rolled over. Blueblood missed the key and it hit the deck bouncing and ringing out as it did. I saw Applejack, her body motionless, but I also saw her revolver sitting right next to her.

It burned like liquid fire being washed over my nerves as I pushed myself up and limped to her side. If I was going to die here, by Applejacks’ side, than I was going to at least do so with style. The last few steps I collapsed and hit the deck hard. I reached out and bit the handle of the revolver and turned toward Blueblood.

He finally managed to grab the key and rose up triumphantly. He wasn’t even looking at me. “Now you can’t stop the parasprite swarm from eating. HA!”

I pulled the trigger. No fancy words, no one liners, no nothing. While he was looking away I shot him and the bullet went right through his neck. The key was held aloft in his light blue aura but fading quickly. He looked over at me, surprise clearly written on his face. “But… but you can't.” Blood fell out of his mouth with every word.

I dropped the gun. “I did, and killed all three of us in the process.”

He took a few steps forward. Narrowed his eyes and though he should not have been able to speak I could hear words through gurgling and they made my very soul turn cold. "You will never stop the goddess."

When he fell over I relaxed. Next to me was Applejack, she was bleeding out into a puddle of warm red liquid. For a moment I watched her. Content to die by her side. She was my friend, until the very end. A small breath escaped her lips and I nearly shot up straight.

It took my last remaining strength, but I had a chance. A very slim, very small chance to save her. I pulled the last of my potions out of my pocket, it was in a flask and I lifted it up to her lips. Without magic, and only trembling hooves this was made a thousand times more awkward than it should be. I managed to get enough of the potion down her throat that I could see the holes on the side of her body change. Little half melted ice pellets were pushed out of her skin and the wounds sealed up afterwards.

After that I allowed my body to completely collapse. We were drifting off to sea, with who knows how many brainwashed ponies and caged monsters. I was dying from magical overexertion. The parasprites kinda just flittered about in the air, not eating us. Yet Applejack was alive. I watched as the parasprites slowly drifted away, going in every direction and the stars were once again revealed to me. With a painful and slow check of my mom’s pocket watch, I found out it was half past midnight.

“Well,” I said quietly as the blackness washed over me. “Goodnight, Applejack. We made a good team.”

Then I fell into the dark abyss. Content to go and meet death once more. I just hope he wasn’t shouting this time.