Bloodlines

The strategy of the sisters was sound. There was only a little issue.

“I do not want to blight you.” came it from Silk. The two rulers had heeded his warning. Right now, he was a foe they could not realistically win against, without a sound plan, or without destroying too much of an area. That was the problem with alicorn might. It was just that impressive.

“Why not?” It was not difficult for Luna to discern what the stallion meant. Luna and Celestia had not advanced their troupes further, not wanting to risk another Silver Horseshoe incident. So they found themselves alone at the workshop of the stallion. It was no big surprise, with his name, but he was a tailor.

But he seemed to be an odd one, for most of the designs made no sense to the princess of the night. Suits that covered the entire body and had metal rods sewn into them or sticks. There was even one with bamboo, a rather rare material in these parts, with the import being quite difficult.

Then there were sleeves with similar designs and pants that seemed to not be able to move at the joints. They all seemed to be made for a pony of the same size and design, clueing Celestia for her part in, that they were probably made for the same stallion. Though, if that pony was Silk was just a theory.

“You are not pour sister. She fought and billed my brother. So she has proven herself already. I also have a reason to rest her. So far I am testing her out and see how far she can go and how much of my thrills I need to use.” His speech pattern was slightly inconsistent. It seemed to flare up when he moved around and stopped, when he remained in place.

“I do not plan to ravel all I have. I might be impaired, but I am not thumb. So, I honed show every ring I got.” The initial bad taste that the comment of her not being her sister left on her tongue slowly faded, as the stallion continued to speak and was replaced with determination. Not just to prove herself, but show that she was also a foe worth fighting.

It honestly had hit her honor a little, but now she saw a challenge. “Well, I am just as strong as my sister. So, with rejecting me, you are rejecting her. Or do you say that you don’t think you can beat her?” she said smugly, taunting Silk. Who did not even look at her and actually continued to work on a cape.

“I know I can take her or you. She fell without me lifting a single leg. She would have lost her head next. I am satisfied, but if she wants to challenge me, that is her right. Not yours. I do not accept substitutes.” he explained her calmly. He stood before his table the entire time and his fingers and arms moved mechanically, repeating the same motions, like a golem of sorts.

It was a little eery. But only Celestia noticed, while Luna was fuming a little. Her passionate nature had backfired, as her taunt had not gotten the result, but instead a rebuke to her. But before she could speak up Celestia did.

“And what if I told you that my sister is not my substitute, but an extension of me? We usually fight strong adversaries with two. Your brother technically bested me, nearly killing me in an instant and I simply survived, because of external circumstances. If you actually want to beat me at my all, you will allow Luna to fight on the front row..” That was Celestia’s tactic of reason. Although.

“I have nothing to prove anymore. If he fell to one of you and not both that simply means that in the end, I am simply better against you. A fish is better at swimming than a worm, but a bird will pick off both, if given the chance. But what do birds and fish do underground? They die. You two are birds, but this is my underground and once your metaphorical wings are useless, you are doomed to die.”

Silence reigned afterwards, both Luna and Celestia being a bit floored. Until Celestia finally sighed. “Very well.. I had hoped that it would not come to this. But it appears we have no chance.” she sounded truthfully saddened. And the moment she flared her horn there was a whirring sound coming from the stallion.

“Don’t even try. Do it and you will taste death.” Silk spat, his head not even turned towards them. But Luna understood and both readied themselves and with a silver flash they were gone and with a golden one the workshop was set on fire.

Both alicorns reappeared a good distance away from the building, but they could hear a nearly inhuman roar from within and the mad revving of the weapon, before Silk burst from the front door. Fabric and wood bursting around him, before they rained to the floor.

“COW DARTS!” He screamed and looked around for the two alicorns. As agreed upon, Luna stepped in front while Celestia moved to the back, both summoning their weapons. Then something odd happened. From the stallion’s hips shot two smaller blades into the ground and he was suddenly pulled forward, on his nearly invisible strings. Two more were added from his hips and as the old ones were pulled out from the ground, the other were launched forwards.

With that rather bizarre, but effective was of locomotion, the armored tailor was onto them in but a moment. Both Luna and Celestia had just enough time to avoid the oncoming blades. The stones behind them were torn apart in a cross shlash. Something rather worrying.

It told Celestia that he just used two angles at once. Something he had not done before. But now, as Luna took up his attention with a shot she noticed something. And the fight began.

It was surprisingly brief, as Luna, who had thought she could confidently avoid his attacks was taught that confidence in the face of the unknown was foolish. That was painfully obvious, as her stomach was torn open.

Where before the stallion had delivered fast, but methodic attacks from the same spot, allowing Celestia to simply decide at what range she wanted to take his attacks, he was now going on the offense.

Gone was the polite attitude and rather fair treatment. With the shortened range, his attack speed increased, proportionally so. With the range halved, his attacks came twice as often. Quartered it became quadrupled. Where before the fight had been like a game of chess, with Celestia trying to bait out new moves out of her opponent, both alicorns were now forced into a rabid battle.

Sure, the attacks were still very logical and mechanical. That was just simply now something they could use right now. They noticed that as soon as he actually landed a shot of one of those pulling blades into Luna’s armor and before the alicorn had a chance to teleport away Silk was already flying towards her and a horizontal slash was thrown her way.

And that marked the end of that fight. As the blades were dragged through her stomach she was unable to react. But Celestia was able to. She had seen with horror how the first blade struck and despite her immediately charging up a teleport spell, she simply managed to keep her sister from being cut in half.

With a loud noise, the alicorn of the night was teleported to her sister’s side and collapsed, vomiting up blood, while holding the deep, nasty wound in her body. But before she even hit the ground Celestia had already started to cast a healing spell onto her. Only for her to stop in her tracks, when two blades shot past her, into the rock behind her. But before she could teleport away they were pulled back and Silk came to a stop before them, skidding over the ground, as he had been the entire time.

“Satisfied now?” he asked with a nearly bored tone, as he hung from the strings, that were attached to nearby rocks. All four kept him suspended and he was slightly bouncing up and down.

Celestia was not quite sure what he meant, then her eyes widened in understanding. “Since when did you know?” She asked, slightly shakily.

“Honestly, I just noticed a bit ago. You see.. Burning wood is not known for its stability.” he responded and his arm tilted to the side, then bent and his thumb straightened, which made him point at the workshop. “It’s an illusion, is it not? A really stable one. Even when my blades cut through it, it only moved, but did not falter.” his tone was even, but it was clear that he was still rather upset.

“You are VERY lucky, that I am not a spiteful stallion.” he said, with strained voice and stared down on the princesses. “But fine. You want to fight me so badly, with the two of you, then so be it. You better bring your best performance next time. Because this.” his strings receded back into the holsters on his hips, that only now became apparent in purpose, and he landed on his feet, a soft clicking being heard. “is read coloss.”

With that he walked off, leaving Luna and Celestia to patch the night alicorn up. The wound, while initially rather grave, had been quickly healed.

“Alright.. You can have the frontlines back.” coughed Luna, wiping away bits of blood from her chin. “I am not gonna get myself fileted again.”

“You don’t have to. I think I have an idea how to deal with him from now on.” replied her sister, looking at the now only slightly damaged workshop, that Silk approached.

“You know, I think I now know how Iron Crest beat him. We are so used to fighting things with magic, that we forgot a real challenge. All we need, is a weapon he can not just dice up. And we need to change the terrain to our liking.”

“Oh yeah, why not also turn this into a fertile forest, when we are at it.” came the sarcastic reply from Luna, who was still recovering, causing Celestia to snort in amusement.

“I suppose that could be nice. But we saw it. The hammer that Iron had. It was able to raise and lower the ground. His entire mobility is based on the terrain. Rocks he can hook onto, stone, where his blades can take hold. Elevation in some parts. If we keep changing that, we can change his motion too and force him to not use it, or use it in a way we want him to.”

That earned Celestia a nod from Luna, but then the night princess brought up a good point. “Well, and what weapon do we have, that is not just gonna be shredded apart? I would not like to test if my glaive is as durable as I would like it to be.” she admitted, which in turn earned her a nod.

“Yes, I would not like to risk damage to my spear either. But we have another rather tough weapon.” It was then, when Luna understood and the two left for this day.

The next they returned, Luna wielding a certain, ruined hammer. It was heavy, but useable. And while they could not use its special properties, they at least hoped they could block the chain blades with it.

With Silk already waiting for them, the fight could begin. He did not even comment, that they brought the hammer of Iron. Instead, he just readied himself. With their plan set, they started off, with luring Silk towards the foot of the nearby mountain.

They tried to avoid using the hammer for as much as possible, relying on what they knew. The increasing speed at a cost of range, the set angles. Everything was starting to come together. It was like a puzzle, with Celestia relaying informations to Luna, who then used it, until she was wounded.

And so it went on, for a couple of days. Each day, they learned a few new things, or refined their tactics. At day three Celestia already was shifting around the ground, creating spires, to intercept the hook blades, that he used to move around, as well as shifting them, to drag the stallion along. And finally the hits connected.

The hammer impacted, but did no discernable damage, while Luna took a deep gash along her chest. On day five, they found out that Silk could in fact, use his legs. So far, he had completely refrained from doing so, relying on the wires alone to move, but as they completely made the terrain theirs, turning rocks to sand, leaving only a few boulders for his maneuverability, to read his movements.

But when he actually started to use his legs, his entire fighting style seemed to change. He had stopped talking altogether, seeing no reason to converse and the sisters, who were mostly focused and had not gotten any response, had eventually stopped too.

A week was over. His patterns had expanded. Celestia was not entirely sure how he did it, but he was combining longer, slower attacks, with smaller ones. It still all came down to something like a rhythm game. Only now there were more complex notes.

Half notes and quarter notes so to say. An attack that came four times as fast, but had only an eight of the range, with two even faster ones. Sure, with his motions limited, it was no longer an offensive threat, but their attacks were connecting less and less, until they felt like they were back at square one.

“It is infuriating.” commented Luna, pacing back and forth in their tent. “I should be faster than him, yet he always has his blades right where I want to strike him, forcing me to deflect.” She was no longer getting turned to mincemeat but even with their alicorn endurance, the fights were starting to wear on them.

Each of them could only last about an hour, before they became too drained to fight at peak performance, which allowed, with sufficient rest, for each to fight 6 times. Their troupes were still not able to advance. Not just because of Silk, but because of the fortified nature and the unstoppable trading routes from the south.

But still, right now they were simply choking the remaining nobles and wealthy revolutionary leaders. Few soldiers died these days. It was more a war of bureaucracy. Which left Celestia and Luna to square off against Silk. Which, at this point, while frustrating, was also something rewarding.

Celestia had already figured out a way to just destroy him, and so did Luna. Both being able to either just open a chasm and crush him, or dump lava onto him. But there was something, that kept them from such means. For one, Silk was not really standing directly in their way. And he probably knew it.

He also proved to be rather fair, if not very likeable. By now it was a challenge. And their dedication and maybe their pride kept them, from either turning away, or ending it in a cheap way.

“It surely is quite problematic. As much as we are learning about him, he is either learning to cope with out strategies, or that these were all things he already knew and had a contingency plan for.” Celestia had by now started to make a few diagrams, with range, speeds, angles, which differed depending from the side they attacked and much more.

A long list of crossed out maneuvers and a few spots with question marks remained. The princesses were slowly running out of angles to attack and options to take, that remained fair.

“Tell me sister, how did the Spire fight again? If Silk says, that he was bested by him, maybe that gives us an idea.”

“I do not think so. He fought with force, which I am not able to replicate. His hammer hit like a meteor and caused by entire armor to ring like a bell…” She suddenly stopped and Luna looked at her sister with a raised eyebrow.

“Could it be that?” she mumbled to herself and started to draw wave patterns. Thanks to her understand of illusionary magic she had a good understanding of how sound was created, as she had to often make the air vibrate in certain ways, to mimic noises.

“You remember the whirring? Of his armor. By now I barely hear it, but the origin of it are his blades. They move so fast and run between those little slits in his armor and weapon, creating this annoying noise. They are vibrating in a certain speed that way.

“If my theory is correct, we can jam his armor, if we force it to vibrate so strong, that the blades bounce around and chip into the armor itself. It could tear the armor apart from within!” She was excited by this. This was something they could do without resorting to outside sources. It would be using his weapon against himself.

“But.. that would destroy his armor.” said Luna slowly, dampening Celestia’s excitement about her idea and both grew silent. “I mean.. Yes, he is our adversary, our enemy. But well, you told me how much Sparrow and Blackbird loved their weapons. I think, with how well taken care of the armor is, that Silk feels similar.”

“I suppose you are right. But if we hope to reach the frontlines ourselves in the coming years I fear I see little other options. I mean, we could tell him about it and he might give up. Or we continue our attacks, until we find an opening. But as far as I can tell, his defenses are impeccable.” Concluded Celestia with a saddened sigh.

Silence reigned once more, before Luna nodded slowly. “I do not like it sister, not one bit, but the future of our nation might depend on this. We are so close to snuff out this bloody, misguided revolution, born from fear. Some of the nobles have defected, seeing our cause, but if we are to finally put this to rest, we need to be present. We already spent so much time here, two weeks nearly.” she shook her head, but then steeled herself.

“We will give him a warning. But if he does not back down, we.. We will have to do it. Even if it kills him.” her voice turned bitter and cold, as she suppressed her own disdain at the thought of killing the stallion, which she had by now found admireable in his unflinching, powerful demeanor. A similar respect, that she had found with Ivory, just that this pony was no criminal, but simply a soldier.

Celestia felt similarily reluctant, but then she sighed. “It is about his honor too. We will make him show us his best, and one we can overcome it, we will defeat him. He might be the strongest foe I have ever faces, but we will overcome him, together.”

Wrapping a wing around Luna, she gave her a comforting smile, masking her own sadness. And with that Luna felt the warmth of her sister’s embrace dampen the sadness she felt within. “He would show us no mercy either, out of respect. At least not, if we chose to fight it out till the end.” These were words of encouragement.

The rest of the evening and night were spent to develop a way to cause the hammer to vibrate. The inability to cast magic on it was a huge obstacle, but finally, with using a few enchantable materials and forming a sort of cage, that did not touch too much of the hammer at once, they managed to replicate the effect.

And when the time came, to face Silk once more, both Luna and Celestia felt the urge to not appear before the workshop. They had a fair way to win. But with it had come the realisation, that none of the two wanted to end the live of their opponent. But duty and honor compelled them.

“I see you finally came up with something interesting.” came the unexpected comment from Silk, who stood before the door of his home and workplace. The alicorns both showed surprised expressions, which earned them a chuckle.

“So far you just tried to poke holes at me and you slowly learned the basics on how to handle me. But this.” he pointed at the hammer. “This looks like you mean it. Like you want to actually end me.” It seemed that despite his words, which were heavy in meaning, he was rather light hearted about it.

“You say this, but will you back down? You will die in this fight.” Said Celestia, with a slight frown, while Luna held the hammer in her right.

“Why of course not. You think you can kill me. That is exactly what you need to win a fight. If I die, I was weaker. Both in mind and in power. None of my family members regrets dying for our cause.” he simply said and then pulled out his glaive, the blade still as one.

“But if you are fighting me for real, with all your resolve, I will meet it, with my own. Be careful not to be torn asunder.” With that the clicking noise was heard and he started moving towards their usual fighting ground.

“It will be my hour to fight Equestria’s furor rulers.” he lulled out and then fell silent, while Luna and Celestia looked at another, nodded and then followed him.