Caballeron's Prize

Caballeron and Rainbow paused to breathe as the two surveyed the damage to each other. The count had several light cuts along his arms and a slightly deeper one over his right side where she took advantage of his blindspot, but his stronger earth pony body managed a rather deep slice while feinting between her left shoulder and neck, thankfully missing an artery but still turning much of her arm crimson, wetting the spear to make wielding it more difficult.

The waxed stone floors reflected the pink sky, almost hiding the spatter between them as everyone watched silently. Some in horror, some from fainting, others in suspense.

"You seem winded, cough Doc." Her mouth leaked blood of it's own as her lungs felt on fire, coughing up horrid chunks of sand and blood that loosened in the excitement.

"You're projecting. You sound like you have an extra breathing hole in your lung." He gave a winded laugh, his voice cracking a bit as he wiped his muzzle with his stinging forehoof after seeing the mess her own mouth was in.

"Yeah, well I'm gonna put a hole in that other eye of yours."

He twitched in irritance at the reminder and readied himself with his good eye forward, extending his spears reach more. "You're daring if you do."

Her body jolted on it's own at the smug goading as she blitzed lightning quick with the tip of her spear thrusting straight to his head with all her speed she could. His head dipping out of the way in a fraction of an inch from the bladed side as the speartip snapped his eyepatch. The speed of the moment and sharpness of the weapons caused a moment if pause as their bodies caught up.

The stallion stood still panting in shock as the pegasus behind him collapsed in a coughing fit. Her side torn open as her hoof held tightly while each cough shot blood from the wound. Her breaths gasping as she slipped in a slowly forming puddle where her limbs made contact.

"Rainbow!" Twilight was about to step in as well as the others until the cyan pegasus lifted her hoof to stop them. Her eyes wide as she turned slowly with pained grunts, settling in place as her gaze glowed in spiteful magenta.

"I got him... I got him Daring."

"Rainbow..?"

The stallion turned as the eyepatch fell off. A glowing green gem where his right eye should be, and a loosened contact lense revealing a calm, confused blue under the bright emerald green. His chest split open as he collapsed into a slump, raising his hooves to try and hold the deep slash Rainbow had torn into him.

"Q-quibble?"

She gasped, seeing the slicked back mane fall over his face as he collapsed. She was so blinded by her anger to finish him she hadn't really stopped to look closely at him, thinking the change in his appearance was only from aging and time in the sun in his sinful retirement years.

The gem flashed in Quibble Pants frightened missing eye as another wet sound echoed in the large whitestone chamber while everyone's eyes were left dumbfounded.

The clanking of Withers' knife hit the floor as the other Quibble stood over him with his own blade. The stallion's sunglasses gliding across the floor and off the stage as they clacked and cracked. His neck split open as he collapsed in a pool of his own blood, twitching before his final breath left his body in a near instant.

"Damn traitor."

Slicking back his mane after tossing Withers's dagger, the hunched Quibble near the alter from before stood taller as he vilely licked his only contact lense out with his years of practice, revealing the endless glow of envious green under the surface before spitting that out as well right onto Wither's body. The count revealed.

"Checkmate."

Griiva's freed talon snapped as three armored griffons blasted through the stain glass windows above, diving straight onto Celestia, Luna and Twilight. The three still in shock from the sudden turn of events and Withers' death as the searing singe of three bright green gems burned, shoved into their foreheads.

The screams echoed like a nightmare as the violent magic of the condensed gems seared above their powerful horns. Invasive magic coils wrapping around their head as the magic squeezed and sank directly into their minds. The princess's gazes becoming unfocused and malleable to an unstoppable force.

"Twilight!" Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie Pie all charged forward to try and pry the gems off, but unlike the griffons who had already retreated, they were caught within the bubble of magical excess that organised and assimulated the overwhelming power of the three rulers. The magic floating them in place until it swirled, condensed and absorbed back in, dropping them back on their knees, too late to stop what was happening as they passed out from the intense aura they felt all around them.

Stationary like statues of untold myth, the three eased as they walked closer to Caballeron. Rainbow could only watch in horror as her friend Twilight and the two sisters

"W-What did you do to them!? cough cough cough What did you do!?" Rainbow wheezed. The world spinning around as everything felt like a pure nightmare. Her body burning as she focused on breathing as best she could, unable to move.

Caballeron removed his own eyepatch to reveal a gem much like Quibbles, but held a cluster of refined gems more potent than even the one Griiva wielded. "Perfectly crafted to hold thousands to my will. With these three, I believe I've surpassed even King Sombra in the slave department now..."

He stepped past Withers' body to look over Celestia's blank expression. Her face mirroring his as he looked her over curiously.

"All thanks to you. Of all the ponies in all the lands. You've given me quite literally everything..." He almost spit out the words as the four possessed ponies turned with horrifying stares of smug distain.

Rainbow stumbled in a grunt as she tried to stand. Her legs wobbling as she slipped with a cough, wheezing in place as the count smirked, reveling in his victory. His gem eye flicked to Quibble as the wounded and controlled Quibble turned and picked the spear back up, gazing down dutifully at the wounded pegasus as his own chest wound freely flowed to the whitestone floor. His eyes blank as he was trapped in his own dying body, forced to approach his old friend.

"Not only did you fail to save your precious Scootaloo. Not only did you get your darling Daring killed. Not only did you bring the princess here that could've stopped me on a silver platter! But now you've even killed yet another friend with your very hooves! I can't decide whether I should make him finish you off before dying or let you witness the consequences of your stupidity! Hahaha AHAHAHAHAHAH!"

Caballeron firmly pressed his hoof to his forehead before containing himself, easing Griiva slightly as he let out a controlled exhale. "Or perhaps I should finish these three off..." His head slowly turned along with the princesses with a peircing gaze at the three unconscious mares.

"Caballeron! cough they have nothing to do with you and me. Nobody had anything to do with you and me! Leave them alone!" She bellowed through wheezing gasps. Her eyes tearing up as she saw the blood between herself, Quibble and Withers slowly pooling closer and closer. It became clearer that from the beginning, he would use anything. Anyone to get what he wanted in any way shape or form. He was worse than them all, he only needed an opportunity.

"I was nothing before you came along, Rainbow Dash. Everything here is because of you. All your interfering. All of your dime novel adventuring has costed you all you love. It's perfect." He chuckled, his emerald eye flashing as the three alicorns turned to attention.

"Kill them."

The three horns of the alicorns began to glow as they all gazed at the unconscious mares. Even through the control their faces folded, trying to resist the gem's hold as the shakily stepped forward, slowly dipping thier heads to aim thier horns. Thier magic ready to erase the lives of Rainbows closest friends in her very presence.

"NO!"

The wet sound that had become all too familiar on this tragic day visited one last time. The room was silent as the princesses horns dimmed. Their eyes regaining a life of freedom again as they stared to collect the events that heppened. The high pitched breathing the next thing that caught their ears, turning with a stunned expression.

A choice.

Scootaloo wedged herself between the stage floor and Caballeron's chest. Fresh tears falling down her face as her teeth clenched the fated knife of Withers. Her hoof pressing on the pommel as the blade deepened within the count's chest. Her voice grunting in a sobbing growl as she pushed as hard as her body could, causing the doctor to step back in disbelief.

"Oh..."

The stallion stumbled into the side of the alter, using a hoof to hold himself up. His mouth coughing up his own blood as he stared at Scootaloo, now unvield in her gorgeous dress, his gaze softening at the sight a moment before sliding down to reality at the base of the alter.

"I... Liked... Withers..." She reeled, speaking through clenched teeth. Her own eyes glowing brighter than ever before as the pink hue of the setting sun turned a warm orange, revealing the carnage in it's brutal horror along the cathedral as the very world itself watched silently.

The doctor shakily lifted his hoof, painfully pulling out the knife as he reached to hold his own wound. The blade had cut into his breast pocket, spilling out a folded paper of a stab mark where she had drawn the silly little dragon all those years ago, surrounded by it's hoard. Blood decorated his frustrated smile as he looked up to Scootaloo. Her silver tiara and horseshoes storybook in the orange light as he realised what he lost sight of. "I hated her more than I loved you. It's right this way..." The glow in his eyes ceased as the light of life faded. His arm slumping still holding the bloody picture stuck to his hoof.

The entire crowd gasped as his body slumped, bearing witness to what they thought was supposed to be a simple duel of traditional affection turned into a tragic massacre.

Time resumed as Twilight switched to Rainbow, about to run to her to help only to feel the green gem in her forehead pulsing again. Her will slipping back into it's confines as she stumbled back into a possessed pose.

"You think this is over!? I can still control one of you! Guards! Surround them!" Griiva gritted her beak, about to continue with her own plans, now in charge as the mob of armor clad griffons and pegasi began to move in. The two sisters crouching, preparing for a fight of their own as they glanced to each other with the unspoken understanding of a thousand years of experience. One had to distract Twilight while the other took down the dreaded enchantress.

"I can still control all of Equestria and Snowrock with only this puppet! You surrender now or I'll have this princess have her turn with that knif-"

CLUNK!

Griiva toppled to the floor out cold as Fluttershy stood behind her with one of the guards helmets, shaking in her boots. "...I think we've had enough of that..."

Like dominoes, the guards each collapsed from utter exhaustion at Griiva's unnatural usage of their lack of free will as thier armor thudded to the floor like bell tolls, holding their sleeping bodies in a rush of relief. Twilight snapped from the spell, agreeing with Fluttershy as she used her horn to pull out the gem while the two sisters followed suit. Hurrying, she dove down to Rainbow with Celestia while Luna moved to the dying Quibble, who had collapsed of his wounds.

"Come on Rainbow, stay with us!" She begged. She and Celestia focusing to bind her wounds as Luna assisted the injured stallion pegasus.

"I-I'm fine. Help Luna with Quibble, Celestia. He got hit worse than me..." Rainbow huskily groaned, trying not to move as the large white princess agreed and quickly moved to join her sister.

"The damage is too much. I only know simple healing spells... Somepony come help!" Twilight turned to the crowd, begging as a group of medics shook themselves out of their dropped jaws, quickly hurrying in to assist Quibble and Rainbow, who were on standby for the duel.

Nobody could help Withers however. The only one who was focused on him was the winged filly in a bloody wedding dress, who had turned his head hoping to see him still there. Her lips quivering as no spirit filled his deep purple gaze.

"I should've left with you... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry." She whimpered, curling her head to his as she hugged it tightly, struggling with the weight but not caring as her cries became quieter over the coming chaos as the horrid nightmare wedding came to an end.