Sun Never Sets 2: Fires of Friendship

[Hollow Shades, Village Centre]
[Friday, 8:15am]

Mechadragon Razer tilted its head forward, opened its mouth, and let loose a searing jet of smoldering orange plasma and smoke from within its belly. The ground was almost instantly set alight as the beam struck the ground, burning brightly and stirring up an incredible blaze even as Starlight rolled out of its path.

With her sword held in a one handed, outward guard, Starlight glared up at the machine.

"Listen here, mister! Just because you're big doesn't mean you get to stomp on everyone smaller than you!"

The dragon's foot came slamming down in her direction, as if in response to her comment. This dragon seemed far less personable than their leader, and even the smaller types of dragons. It attacked far more like an animal, seemingly indicative of a less clever intellect. Starlight easily cartwheeled herself out of the machine's way, but then the dragon brought a claw down as a follow up attack right as her feet hit the ground.

There was no time to get out of the way, instead Starlight brought her sword into a guard and sliced out at the dragon's claw, a hit that did little damage but effectively stunted its momentum enough for Starlight to roll again. Mounted cannons on the dragon's shoulders took aim and shot off shells one after the other, and Starlight was again forced to move, breaking into a sprint further into the village. She zig-zagged her movements as the projectiles fired at her, weaving in and out of them and striking at them with her blade when the shots got too close. The rhythmic cannon blasts kept up as she ran, but the dragon didn't stay still, its legs stomped forward in a chase after her. All gaps were closed in just a few steps, and the dragon was once again in foot smashing range.

"Don't let that thing get above you!" Shining Armor shouted over the radio.

"Starlight, you need to focus on disabling its ability to attack you," Sunburst advised. "Go for the weapons!"

The dragon picked himself onto its legs and jumped up, flapping its wings for a large boost in height, then threw himself back towards the earth. Starlight just barely escaped again, feeling like she was closer and closer to finally being too slow, the tremor shifting buildings around her nearly taking her off her feet. As the dragon's guns lined up on her again, Starlight decided it was time for a change in tactics.

Rather than sprint away, Starlight bolted towards the dragon, getting beneath its feet so that its guns could not target her. She then put her sword to work, slicing into the dragon's feet and legs as it tried to reposition itself, turning quickly and smashing into more buildings as it fumbled. Starlight's shoulders and arms shifted back and forth, slashing apart the beast's armor plating until the gray interior was exposed beneath.

Razer recoiled as its foot armor was peeled off, dropping to an unbalanced knee as Starlight's blade bit into it. As its knee bent, Starlight hiked herself up onto it, then springboarded up to a higher target. While mid-air, Starlight focused into her Bullet Reflex right as she passed over the dragon's shoulder and swung her sword through the base of the cannon mounted there. Her blade crackled with power, carving apart the long barrel and smashing the swiveling turret at its base. For good measure, she cut again, and again, falling in slowed time and further damaging the dragon's shoulder and upper leg armor as she fell back to the ground.

As time resumed for her, the weapon system on Razer's shoulder ignited, blasting him back into another stumble. The dragon then turned, its good shoulder facing forward and firing its cannon in horizontal sweeps in Starlight's direction. Windows shattered around her and walls crumbled as they were punctured with new holes, but Starlight stayed mobile and unhittable. Adding to the barrage, Razer extended its wings, and from them opened up a multitude of long rectangular compartments in which great flashes of light were emitted.

Long silvery missiles arced up into the sky above the dragon, smoke trails curving in spirals until the tips of the warheads aligned with Starlight's position.

"What? It has missiles? Where did they get this thing?" Sunburst's voice was frantic. Before, he seemed curious about these machines, but now the unknowns culminated into a terrible destructive terror.

Shining Armor came through with more directives. "Starlight, those missiles will collapse the nearby buildings if they don't hit you, take them down!"

As the six gleaming warheads streaked towards her, Starlight went for her pistol. She drew in a perfectly smooth motion, her feet spread apart and her head level with the threat, and with the draw time slowed into her Bullet Reflex. Her eyes darted between each of the targets, and then in the breadth of a second she raised her sights up to each one and pulled the trigger, snapping quickly between them as she went. All six missiles burst overhead, well out of range of the buildings, only showering down small pieces of metal rather than chunks of buildings.

Starlight flicked the cylinder of her revolver open with one hand, and in the next fraction of a second she'd refreshed her ammo before charging back into the fight. The dragon's shoulder gun fired off again as it too moved for her, trading places with Starlight as she swept beneath it and kicked herself up onto a rooftop. The rotating turret swiveled after her, and the dragon's claw swung around to slap her back to the ground, but she held up a powerful block and shoved the mechanical beast back with the strength of her entire body.

Again, the dragon was recoiling, and Starlight leapt forward onto the dragon's extended arm, running up it's length and deflecting yet more shots from its shoulder gun until she reached it, slashed through its barrel, and diced it into pieces in slowed time while flipping overtop of it. On the way down, she lopped off more of its leg armor, and landed in a safety roll in front of the chapel building.

The dragon suffered another explosion igniting where its gun was mounted, and as it centered itself it seemed to look at Starlight with scorn. It opened its jaws again, and following a bright light it let out another jet of plasma that cut from the ground into the sky, charring the area around the chapel, but leaving its stone construction only slightly marred. The plasma beam cut up, the dragon's back fully straight and its body reared back, its glowing optics a death glare towards the tiny human it was failing to exterminate.

Another beam of plasma cut across, not targeting Starlight but this time aligned with the chapel itself, currently holding and protecting the townsfolk. The beam again lit the surrounding area in flames, but the solid stone structure was not phased.

Starlight jumped to the chapel's awning to avoid the blast, and as the dragon realized that its plasma breath wouldn't work, it heaved one of its great bladed wings back at full extension, then swung down in a towering arc over its shoulder. It was heavy, lumbering, but the massively sharp slab of metal sped back down to earth, its edge glowing in a golden light as some form of arcane power was channeled through it.

It was second nature by now. Rather than run, Starlight braced herself, summoning as much of her own power as she could and taking a firm grip on her own sword, a teal glow building around her to match the golden light of the dragon.

Sunburst was still in a fearful panic. "It's going to crush the chapel!"

Shining Armor already knew what was on Starlight's mind. "Starlight, stop that blade!"

With an overwhelming force, the dragon's wing blade dropped.

With an unbreakable resolve, Starlight stood her ground. Her sword held her sword above her head, one hand on the handle and one on the end of the blade, she stared up into the beast's eyes, and met it weapon to weapon.

She stopped the blade.

The entire building she stood atop shook, wavered, but as she exerted every ounce of strength she had in resisting the dragon it did not crumble. Sparks and violent lightning poured off of the cyborg as her body strained, the grinding between her weapon and the massive dragon blade a mere inches away a constant reminder of how little room for error she had. The force bearing down on her was incredible, and she was afraid the stone pillars holding the awning beneath her might shatter, but she eventually reversed the direction of the dragon's wing and forced it away from herself with a mighty cry of resilience.

Now with no momentum, Starlight wrapped her metal arm firmly under the dragon's razor edged wing, her natural arm going over its flat back end, and she shoved the dragon into a backpedal, walking it back away from the chapel as she jumped from the awning and drove its wing into the dirt. From there, her grip adjusted again, bending to get her entire body around the wing as the dragon was brought to lay flat on its belly.

Starlight heaved, feeling her power cells actively draining away, but also feeling herself being revitalized whatever magic was flowing through this machine's weapons. Pressed right up against the wing, she lifted the assembly back over her head and planted her feet, rotating her entire core taking the mighty metal monstrosity into a 360 degree spin over her head, high over the chapel, then flinging it off in the opposite direction to let it tumble through the air.

"Yes! Yes!" Sunburst's voice contained a still terrified but excited relief as the dragon was launched away from the building harboring the civilians.

She wasn't finished, though. The moment she sent the dragon flying, she leapt into the air after it, running along the length of its wing and dragging the tip of her sword all throughout it. Just as she suspected, more magical energy siphoned through the machines inside, down her sword, and into her body, allowing her to charge up another powerful strike as she reached the thing's back.

"Go! Light it up!" Shining Armor's voice was a hazy echo in Starlight's mind as she kicked off of the dragon, still careening upwards, and then slammed her sword downward through the joint where its wing connected to its body. Her newly absorbed energy was redirected right back out into a blinding flash of a cut that crackled like a bolt of lightning above the town, with a thunderclap following as the Mechadragon Razer was relieved of one of its wings.

The dragon and the cyborg were now both falling, and it still had some control of itself. Even with such a grievous blow, Razer was able to turn itself around midair and whip its tail around at Starlight.

In return, a giant teal projection of Starlight's hand materialized behind her, her tetherhand catching the dragon's tail just in time and redirecting the momentum it was generating. Twisting her body again, Starlight then yanked the dragon by its tethered tail and cast it back down into the trees outside of the village.

The ground shook again, trees parting and smoke billowing into the sky. Starlight dropped back to the earth, rising from a kneel and holding her metal fist up in front of her in a tense but victorious posture. She brought her sword around to the inside of her metal elbow and proceeded to wipe off the machine's glistening red fluid from her blade onto her forearm, where it sizzled and evaporated as her body absorbed its magic.

The dragon lay crumpled up on the trail leading out of the village, its severed wing laying smoking and blocking off the path entirely. Looks like it wouldn't be a problem anymore.

Carefully approaching were the two witches from before, now awestruck at the feat they'd just witnessed.

Starlight immediately turned her attention to them as they raised their blades to her, getting close but not fully committing to an attack.

Starlight, on the other hand, wasted no time getting to business. She brought her sword right into the first witch's guard to press her blade aside, then looped one of her feet between the witch's front leg to extend her nanoblade right across the woman's throat. In the same moment, the other witch brought her sword up from beneath Starlight's vision, and the cyborg in turn pressed her metal forearm against the blade and seized her attacker at the bicep, a tight death grip keeping her weapon bound to Starlight's metal wrist.

"Where is the dragon lord taking your elder?" Starlight asked.

Neither of them could respond, the lethal glare Starlight giving them freezing them in place.

"I don't know if you know this," Starlight explained. "But I drink magic right up... I need it to function, and the two of you are looking absolutely thirst-quenching after fighting that dragon..."

"She..." The first terrified witch began, only a moment of stuttering before Starlight firmly pressed her sword to the fabric covering the woman's neck. "She's likely being taken to the Nocturna Cathedral. Daybreaker's minions pushed us out of there, we regrouped here to evacuate the village!"

"Next question," Starlight still kept both witches bound to her, and they didn't dare make any further moves. "How do I get there?"

"Take the trail east! It'll turn north and just follow the path past the gate to town!"

Starlight shoved both of the witches away from her, one with her arm, and the other with a kick.

"Watch over your people here. I'm going after your elder."

"You'll kill her!"

"No, I'm going to try and bring her back to you alive, if I can."

"But she'll never give you the fragment of the Devil Sword..."

"We'll see who she'd rather have get their hands on it, then."

Starlight would've turned to the north and called in on her radio, but behind her she heard a great creaking, and the witches seemed to scramble backwards in fear.

The Mechadragon Razer suddenly lurched back to life, picking itself up of the ground and screaming out as it lunged for Starlight. She brought out her sword, but the dragon's jaws snapped around her body, and she found herself pressing frantically against the inside of its mouth to avoid being mangled. She reached out and stabbed the thing in the nose as it stood back to its full height, the witches below again fleeing to safety. From her place in the air, Starlight could see a small group of people being led out the chapel and to the east of the town, guided to safety by even fewer cultists and another pair of witches.

The crowd turned in shock as the dragon came back to life, and it flung its neck back and forth, shaking the firmly held Starlight in its mouth and then letting go, giving her a fast, uncontrollable flight through the air over the village. After a three second count, Starlight slammed back first into the very top of the bell tower, her whole body biting into the stone and lodging her in place there with a plain level view of the dragon. She shifted herself, doing her best to pull herself free as the dragon neared, swinging its remaining wing around at her line of elevation.

Starlight couldn't pull herself from the tower's flat wall fast enough. She broke free of the stone, but the wing was already tearing the stone tower apart, and without her own weapon she'd be unable to defend herself from it. The glowing golden blade brushed her chin as she kicked of the wall, her legs moving so fast as to run straight up it as the wing passed beneath her. Soon enough, the top of the bell tower began to crumble and fall with her on it, and she jumped up again, spotting the platform holding the bell itself still intact beneath her.

The dragon made a full spin, and its wing opened up to fire more missiles in the airborne Starlight's direction. Her feet hit the solid and flat top of the newly shaved tower, and she put all her strength into kicking the big, brass bell off its supports and off into the direction of the missile launching dragon. Seeing the spiraling smoke trails incoming, Starlight focused into her Bullet Reflex and jumped forward off the edge, catching her foot right atop the closest missile.

With time still slowed, Starlight kicked off of it, launching herself towards the next missile, and the next, reaching the last one right as the brass bell cracked into the dragon's head. The metal on metal reverberation rang out throughout the entire town, a visible vibration wave shifting through the machine as it stumbled back in a stunned haze, unable to respond as Starlight leapt from its last missile on right onto its snout.

Her sword now right at her feet, Starlight braced her entire body against the mechadragon, locked her weapon's hilt against the groove of her foot and kicked down, tearing through the steel skull and popping her sword up into the air. She caught the weapon and brought it right back down into the top of the dragon's head with a firm grip, and with a full charge from her power cells she dragged her blade straight along the back of the beast, sliding all the way down the length of its tail with her sword dug right in and drawing copious amounts of neon red fluids form the machine.

As she reached the tip of its tail, it curved upwards and she soared back into the air, where she hit the ground in a controlled shoulder roll and stopped at a kneel. The dragon stood behind her, back straight and head tilted to the sky, unmoving as Starlight swiped her sword in front of her, put a hand on her scabbard, and slowly sheathed her blade once more.

Only after her hilt clicked against the scabbard did the dragon finally split in two, separating in a perfect vertical halves for a few moments before violently exploding in a contained yet violent ball of plasma that drenched the surrounding area in black, dusty carbon. Any pieces of the machine that didn't get blown into the sky fragmented and melted, a glowing golden core hanging in place around what remained of the dragon's frame.

Starlight turned to look at the oversized core, a huge, superheated ball that seemed to drip and ooze the same red machine fluid she'd seen from all the others. It began to fall, but Starlight's Bullet Reflex went off a final time, and she jumped forward to snatch the core from the air before it landed.

It pulsed and seared against her metal hand, but its size shrunk as her body got to draining it of its power. The metal of the dragon was melting away in the core's light, but Starlight felt more than invigorated, she felt like she was being breathed into by something very, very hot. Her chest felt tight, her blood seemed to start boiling, and her metal exterior seemed to change as the dragon's core shrunk in her palm. Her breath began to burn and she doubled over, refusing to let go of the core but also struggling to keep herself upright.

By the time the core had shrunk to the size of a softball, Starlight squeezed her fingers tight around it, crushing it in her palm and bringing whatever process was happening to an end. By some magic, the few remaining scraps of the dragon swirled around Starlight, converging on the point she just crushed. The extra-powerful robot juice had a very strong aftertaste, for a moment Starlight's vision was spinning, and the burning in her chest did not fade, but as she got a hold of her senses and the metal fragments spinning about her subsided she noticed her body had changed quite dramatically.

Her left arm, what she had just consumed the dragon's core with, was now a massive, four fingered claw with red trimmings and glowing capsule running up her forearm. In absorbing this machine's power, it appeared Starlight's had taken on one of its attributes.

C010- "Dragonheart":This arm was a complete change of style from her normal one. It was a total recreation of the dragon's claw, a powerful set of digits with far more grappling power than a human-shaped hand, and also featuring a round barrel flush with the base of her palm. An opaque capsule was affixed to her forearm, from which a series of mechanisms seemed to pipe power from it to her hand. How it functioned, or how it even changed, Starlight was unsure, but it was clear that a new type of weapon had anomalously attached itself to Starlight's elbow.

At her feet, Starlight's other arm, the Tetherhand, had detached itself. It was still functional, her limbs were designed to be modular, and so she picked it up and fiddled with the magnetic strips built into her belt until she got it to hang securely off it on her right side, just beneath the edge of her jacket. With a bit of experimenting, she could manually detach her new arm onto her belt, and then pick up her old one very reliably, almost like drawing a pistol at the joint.

"Sunburst?" Starlight's left hand pressed into her ear to listen to her radio. "You're going to want to take a look at me when we get back..."

"That's incredible! Taking in its power changed you..." Sunburst said, "There has to be something up with how these dragons are powered. Keep an eye out for any other side effects, okay?"

"Yeah, will do. I'm feeling a little... ravenous, to tell you the truth." Her settled on her new dragon claw for now, gripping her midsection with the sharp edged appendage. "I don't have a stomach, but I feel... almost hungry."

"You're feeling a form of combat high," Cadence said. "I'm sure you're familiar with it, but I'm monitoring your vitals and these dragons must have some sort of neural stimulant in their.. erm, blood. It's amplifying the experience."

"You think so?" Starlight wondered how much of a machine they really were. These were robots made of metal and magic, but did they have any living components to them? Starlight couldn't see any other types of insides while opening them up...

"It's definitely correlated to your magic intake, Starlight," Cadence said, "Please be careful with how much you take in at once, you seem to be suffering sensory impairments right now."

"No, no..." Starlight shook her head. Things were clearing up. She was in control. "I'm fine."

"Hey, Starlight!" Spike's voice came over the radio. "I was tracking the lead dragon's movements, but she got away from me! I'm cut off near a farm to the east of the village, I need help over here!"

"Get a move on, Starlight," Shining Armor said. "You and Spike need to catch up with Ember and secure Evershade."

Starlight nodded, and took off down the trail to the east, climbing up and over the fallen dragon's wing, the only remaining proof that it had been there in the first place.

[Farmstead, East of Hollow Shades]
[Friday, 9:00am]

Starlight sprinted head at full speed, not paying any mind to staying concealed. She instead followed the sounds of mechanical feet crashing against the ground until she could see the purple and green exterior of Spike, jumping from the roof of a barn and sliding along the ground as a mechadragon with a gatling gun on its arm chased him around with a stream of bullets. Spike tore his metal tail through the yard, barreling behind an out-of-action combine harvester that had smashed into the side of the barn, but the dragon chasing him shot it to pieces, creating a fiery explosion around the vehicle that shook the barn's walls.

GUNNER- Mechadragon Fire Support: This mech wielded a large, six barreled machine gun integrated into its right arm, its wings curved back and with scarce gold plating around a thin and lightweight frame. Its off hand was a basic claw that clamped the side of its weapon for support, firing in controlled bursts at its nimble target. Its face was streamlined, featuring just one sensor with multiple scanning beams within it that could all converge on one target, or split to track multiple things simultaneously within its field of view.

Some of its scanners did just this as Starlight approached, shifting from Spike to her as she darted into an open shed and rolled past a fence in the yard. She'd run into what seemed like a simple farm, a home a bit further off in the distance, abandoned at this point, but very recently.

As Spike bolted off across the gravel road, Starlight stepped in to protect him, drawing her revolver and snapping off three shots at the Gunner. The Gunner's weapon shifted, and it easily shot down her bullets with an overwhelming volley of return fire. Bullets streaked by her, and she dashed behind a string of hay bales, rolling through one and closing the distance between her and the mech.

The Gunner dragon still kept its barrels spinning and its gun firing, but Starlight drew her sword and kept it twirling in time with her attacker, nearly effortlessly deflecting the bullets ripping away at her as she kept moving forward. When she was in striking distance, the mechadragon was surprisingly ready, it stepped back and blocked her blade off its barrels, and then swung its claw at her.

Starlight easily batted its arm out of the way with her nanoblade, and then laid into it with a series of cuts. On its own, the Gunner had little in the way to defend itself up close, but it led out a short jet of flame from its wings and dashed itself backwards while Starlight was swinging on it.

"Huh?" Starlight wasn't expecting such a quick evasion, nor was she expecting the followup of bullets from the repositioned dragon. Its rounds penetrated the walls of the empty barn as Starlight dove to cover, and it kept dashing around, putting itself right where Starlight wanted to run to so it could open a line on her. Just as she thought she was close, she thrusted her sword out and it backed off yet again. She snapped off more bullets at it, but as long as it was looking at her it could shoot them out of the air.

It was as good a time as any to give her new dragon claw a spin...

Her energy charged into it, the capsule lightning up with the color of her teal magic as she extended her palm in the direction of the Gunner, taking a moment before letting loose a bright blue plasma beam from her claw that blew her hair and jacket back for a split second. It was a piercing ray of bright light that shot off for only a moment, but try as it might, it was an attack the Gunner couldn't shoot down. It seized up as the plasma tore through it, stunned and damaged from the searing heat, and Starlight was easily able to rip into it from there, slashing it up into the air and catching it in her dragon claw.

The Dragonheart claw felt like it had a much stronger grip than even the Tetherhand's projected grasp, and the sharp ends of her fingers grasped tightly against the metal of her foe as she lifted it up and smashed it to the ground several times. From there, she lifted the Gunner up by the head and fired off the plasma cannon at point blank range, the headed beam piercing straight through its hardened body and sending it several feet into the air. It slammed back against the wooden bar of a fence on the edge of the farm property, shattering the wood and landing in an unmoving heap on the grass below.

With the battle over, Starlight put her sword away and looked around for Spike. He crawled out from beneath a collapsed shed across the road, and made his way to Starlight and the destroyed dragon with curiosity.

"Thanks for the save, Starlight!"

"I thought you could handle yourself, Spike." Starlight said. "It was just one guy, did it really give you that much of a hard time?"

Spike turned to the destroyed machine, inspecting its shredded steel exterior from afar. Its glowing fluids leaked from the blown out hole in its face, quickly drying up as they spread across the now inert metal.

"These machines are intelligent," Spike said. "On the cusp of being sentient."

Starlight's head titled. "Like you, right?"

Spike nodded. His mind was an unique and well developed system, having had nearly fifteen years to fully form his own type of consciousness. It wasn't something that modern robotics often allowed their machines to do, making Spike a one-of-a-kind thinking machine with his own personality.

"It spoke to me," Spike said, "In a way that only machines can talk to each other. It was like it was a living thing trapped in a metal body. I think it thought I was one of theirs, but then it realized I wasn't taking orders from their boss."

"Well, you are sort of like them, right?" Starlight replied. "You're made of metal and magic too."

"Not to the same extent. I lived my entire life around humans, I might as well be one." Spike looked away, his front paws shifting himself back towards the road. "And besides, I have free will. These machines don't. Even if they can think, they have to obey their master."

"Do you ever wonder about that, though?" Starlight asked. All of her time working with Spike, she'd never known him to be a particularly deep thinker. Not by lack of thoughtfulness, but just by virtue of his personality. "I know you're not being dictated by anyone anymore, but how much free will can one person really have?"

"Eh, I dunno. Enough. It's not a problem I worry about." Spike's optic lenses shifted as his voice took an annoyed tone. He took a few steps forward, back towards the road.

"Let's just get moving, Starlight. Waxing philosophically is a thing for comic book villains."

They moved further up the road, past the farm, into an upward path through the forest. It looked like there were more houses not too far ahead, four of them to be exact, all positioned at the end of the road where a tall gate made from thick logs blocked the path. The gate's entrance had an electrical gear system attached, and it was actively being rolled shut from either side as Starlight and Spike got closer. A running river blocked one side, and more dense trees covered the other, leaving the alternative methods around the gate as swimming upstream or chopping through the woods. The road was gradually widening out from here though, becoming less of a nature trail and more of something one might see an old busted up car driving along, so they had far more space to maneuver.

To the side of the road was an interestingly modern feature, Starlight spotted a set of power lines running along the way on the same side as the river, stretching back the way they'd come from and connecting to a power box by the gate.

More interesting was a very dense resonance in the air, one that Starlight could begin to feel like an invisible fog as she approached the gate. There were more people up ahead, robed figures, members of the cult, clearly gathered in a defensive formation facing the gate. Villagers dressed in ordinary clothes also moved behind them, running back with looks of panic on their faces as four separate shapes streaked up and over the gate wall with a dark blue glow trailing behind them. They wore elegant, glistening robes with faces covered by black veils, long caped fabrics streaking behind them as they hit the ground and glided toward the other cult members. That same strange blue aura permeated their bodies, these were more Nocturna Witches, but...

With curved swords in hand, they began to attack their own.

The lesser cultists intervened first, one struck out with his own sword, but was parried, tripped, and disarmed by one of the witches before finding her cutlass tearing through his back. One cultist raised her gun on another witch, but the witch responded with a pair of guns in return, her magic flaring as she dodged the bullets and perforated her victim in the same action.

These Nocturna were taking out their own people!

Starlight was almost too taken aback to respond, but the moment she came to her senses she rushed up the road. In an instant, she came between a witch and a cultist trying desperately to evade a sword blade, blocking the witch's edge and motioning for the man to make a run for it.

"Spike, make sure these people get out here! Back to the town, wherever is safe!"

Starlight kicked at the witch's knees before stepping into another's blade to defect it from a cowering overall-adorned farmer. Holding the bind, Starlight could see the otherworldly blue glow that surrounded them also emanating from their eyes behind their veils.

Her dragon claw balled into a fist and she punched the witch from behind, then switched to her pistol and snapped right at a third witch in the corner of her vision, chasing after other cultists with her dual revolvers.

The gunshots from Starlight's massive barrel easily overshadowed the average weapons the witch wielded, and she jumped directly into a sideways spin to avoid getting splattered against the nearby house. Starlight's round punched through the wooden wall of the house and shattered the window on impact, but giving her intended target something to think about as she shifted back to the fourth and last witch.

This one was using her sword and a gun at the same time, quite skillfully dueling three cultists at once as they surrounded her with short blades and daggers. The cyborg arriving toppled the score, though, and Starlight would bounce a bullet off her nanosword and reach directly out to toss the witch over her shoulder, firing the Dragonheart's plasma beam into her and sending her scraping against the ground.

With the cultists and civilians now able to guide the others to safety, Starlight slowly held the tip of her sword towards the witch she'd just down and eyed her up. There was a huge tear in the front of her garment, but her body had somehow survived a high intensity plasma beam. The burn mark covered her chest and ribs, but her skin seemed unnaturally pale for a human, graying, like her body was beginning to die while she was still inside of it.

Starlight recognized what this was.

NOCTURNA WITCHES- Protectors Possessed: It was clear the Nocturna had practicing magic users, but humans delving too deep into magic without the proper precautions could be rendered vulnerable to dark forces. Somehow, for some reason, these witches were being possessed, or were corrupted by some force they'd otherwise have control of. She could reason with the ones back in town, even if they hated her, but these women had functionally no control of themselves beyond the force that compromised their minds.

They regrouped into tight formation as Starlight squared up to fight them.

The comment by the Nocturna's elder was true, Starlight had never faced anything like one of their trained witches before. Formal magic users, contemporary demon slayers, other knights and proficient swordsmen, robots programmed to fight with modern tactics, all of those she had plenty of experience with. Animalistic monsters and emotionally charged demons were also a part of that list.

Nocturna witches moved almost as fast as she could, appearing to slide across the rough ground as they moved, and keeping their swords level with her at every given moment. With their wide ended, curved swords, they liked to cut, and their magically enhanced speed let them strike at Starlight from multiple directions within moments of Starlight stepping into a block. And unlike the ones from the town, they weren't scared of a magic-drinking cyborg.

Starlight's sword shifted to her left, blocking off one blade, and her metal forearm shot up to cover her head as another blade came at her neck. Her sharp, clawed fingers extended and she swiped in a wide arc, but the witches could easily back away from the attack before stepping in again. Even the pistol toting witch was right in her face, punching at her with her revolvers and firing them off like the bullets were just an accessory to a metal-framed melee weapon. The sheer amount of arcane steel coming her way was overwhelming, but as Starlight backed off to reposition herself the gun witch leapt to the roof of the building behind her and fired both of her guns down, forcing Starlight to twirl her sword above her head to intercept the raining lead.

Thinking fast, Starlight detached the Dragonheart claw, slapping it against the magnetic belt strip and swapping back over to her Tetherhand. The moment her elbow connected into it, she summoned the huge projection of her fist and swept it in front of herself, shoving back the three other witches all lunging for her as her sword was preoccupied. This was the Tetherhand's advantage: reach. It couldn't pierce like the claw's sharp ends or plasma blaster, but it could attack in a much wider arc.

It was a desperate move, but it paid off, and Starlight pivoted to throw a tether out to grasp the witch on the roof. The projected fingers wrapped around the witch's leg, and she was yanked down to the ground. The Tetherhand was also perfect for displacing opponents, bringing them into attack range when they were off guard.

As the witch tumbled downward, Starlight's Bullet Reflex went off and she swung her sword diagonally into her target before she hit the ground. The nanoblade sliced straight through her fabric and flesh, and the blessed metal also reacted with the witch's magical aura. In the trickling seconds that followed, Starlight watched the witch split into two pieces, and within her body saw something she shouldn't have found surprising.

The witch's heart was overly swollen, a deformed mass that glowed in a neon black color. Starlight had seen plenty of these before, this was a demon heart. The corruption of these witches was deep and permanent. Just as she'd done with the machines, Starlight snatched the severed heart from the air to confirm what it was, and upon feeling its magic she crushed it. Very little blood splashed away from it, demons instead bled a thick black substance that dried quickly and left little mess. The magical boost was still present to Starlight though, a powerful resurgence of energy filling her as time resumed and she looked to the other corrupted witches.

A sword was in her face a moment later, and Starlight spun to brace herself against the wall of the closest building. Two witches swung for her, and she kicked off the wall, backflipping herself behind them and landing feet first onto the third witch. She slammed into the floor as Starlight kicked off of her in sequence, and then twirled into a double slash that put the two witches behind her on the back foot.

Starlight drove herself forward, coming into a quick bind with one witch and immediately crossing her metal hand over to draw her revolver and fire. The witch ducked down, but as she did Starlight titled the angle of her sword and drew straight across her chest, then followed up with a cut to the back of her neck. Directly following that, there was a curved blade swinging for her pistol. She let the metal strike metal, tilting herself to bring her sword to the threat, the witch meeting her in equal exchange.

The kicked-over witch jumped to her feet and raised her pistol at Starlight's back, but the witch with the sword swiped across at her in the same moment. Starlight leaned all the way back, and when the witch's gun went off, the bullet passed over the cyborg and struck its ally. Starlight's own gun was aligned with the shooter, and she fired off two rounds into the witch before spinning back around to cut the last one down.

On her knees, the final witch received the full experience of Starlight's developing mincing abilities, being sliced across precise lines repeatedly until her demon heart was exposed and extracted from her body for the cyborg to consume.

"Demons are corrupting the Nocturna." Starlight's first thought was to inform Shining Armor of the situation, even though he likely watched the fight that just went down through her visor's video feed. "These witches have demon hearts in them."

"You need to be careful, Starlight." Shining Armor's held a harsh seriousness. "You don't know who's been corrupted and who isn't, anyone with magic is susceptible to turn. Are you sure that letting those other cultists go was a good idea?"

"Yes," Starlight nodded. "The ones in the simple robes, they weren't fighting using magic. They're just normal humans."

"But even normal humans can be possessed by a strong enough force." Shining Armor said. "Hollow Shades may need a Burning Ground enacted on it if this gets worse."

"No!" Starlight's response was almost immediate. A Burning Ground- a systematic annihilation of a tainted area to stop the spread of demons- was something Starlight despised about the Order of Light. She accepted her position as a covert infiltration force so that her superiors wouldn't have to drop the hammer on the innocent majority of people that suffered from demon attacks. "No, I'm going to get to the bottom of this."

"Your mission is to secure the Devil Sword and neutralize any threat the Platinum Knight poses. I understand your concern for civilians but a widespread demon invasion is-"

"I know!" Starlight was feeling that burn in her chest again. The thought of seeing the Order strike another village almost made her sick. She put a hand to her head, growling through the processing of mounting frustration "I know, I know, just..."

"Starlight, calm down, please!" Cadence's gentler voice intercepted the stern order of Shining Armor. "Just breathe, okay? We're not authorized for anything yet. Just take a few deep breaths and stay focused, okay? Your stress levels are spiking to unusually high levels for you, Starlight."

Deep breaths. In, hold, out, pause. In, hold, out, pause. Starlight's lungs may have been cybernetically augmented but they still benefited from having more oxygen to work with. She wasn't told there would be demonic forces here, their presence was going to make everything that much more complicated...

She was going to get through this though. She looked up at the big gate blocking her way, and reinforced the mission in her mind. Get the sword fragments, get Mother Evershade back. Cut down bad guys, save innocent people. Breath in, hold, breathe out.

"Okay," Starlight said. "I've got this."

"And please..." Cadence kept her concern for Starlight's well being front and center. "Try to take it easy on the 'eating people's hearts' thing, it's unnerving watching you do it to a human."

"They're demons, Cadance," Starlight clarified, "And I'm not eating them, I'm just... absorbing them..."

"I just don't know if the oversaturation of magic is good for your psyche, is all."

"Cadance is right," Sunburst added. "Your spirit is separate from your body's magic, but you're still indirectly experiencing its effects on you. You can't get corrupted like they can, but..."

Starlight nodded, rolling her eyes a little.

"Yeah, I get it. Ripping people's hearts out isn't good for the soul, right? Don't want me to turn into the bad guy here?" She let her combination of anxiety and annoyance turn into a bleak playfulness. "But what if I like the feeling it gives me?"

None of her support team responded to that, but she didn't hear any of them hang up the call. Cadance made an uneasy sound.

"You wouldn't be the first of the Order's knight's to go rogue on us, Starlight." Shining Armor eventually broke the silence. "Tearing out the hearts of your enemies is a pretty grim thing to be reveling in."

"Er, sorry. I shouldn't joke about that."

"Just listen to your specialists, here," Shining Armor continued. He seemed the most undisturbed by Starlight's new trick, wanting to fairly appraise it for its tactical value, but still had a strong enough sense of ethics to want to keep the conversation focused. "Proceed however you feel you have to, but keep in mind that overcharging your body could have negative effects on you, okay?"

"I get it. I'm going back to the mission now. Sorry."

Starlight looked up from her visor readout as the portraits of her team faded away. Her comment about turning into a bad guy wasn't unfounded, she herself had been a dangerous young sorceress before she'd joined up with the Order. It was almost ironic, her talent back then was in the manipulation of magic itself; she could drain the arcane resonance from things to an incredibly acute degree, even to the point of completely removing the magical essence that all living things possessed. A person would become a weakened and emotionally stunted version of themselves when sapped in this way, and Starlight would go on to take advantage of people she drained, convincing them to help her build a completely magic-free society where she could dictate over them.

It was in this dystopian village she'd constructed that she first encountered the woman that would become her mentor, an Order of Light soldier tasked with securing an artifact Starlight held and neutralizing her. The people Starlight had subjugated were freed by this soldier's hands, their essence returned to them, and Starlight herself had been sliced in two after losing a swordfight with the knight. Rather than leave her to die, however, Starlight had been brought back to the Order in two pieces, where she was remade into a magic-draining cyborg and given a chance to redeem herself under the guidance of the knight who spared her.

But in a cruel twist of fate, that very mentor would defect from the Order after falling to darkness, and Starlight would be the one sent to eliminate her. In that light, it made sense that her team wanted her to keep a clear head throughout this mission. Dealing with demons always seemed to provoke introspection in Starlight...

A scathing and coarse shearing sound broke Starlight away from her inner musings. She looked up to the road ahead of her, where the wooden log gate had been shut, only to see it being bisected by a giant, pitch-black sword. The blade was thick, a part of it jutting out into two spikes a third of the way from where it pierced the wood, and it effortlessly dragged itself through the material as if it were a loaf of bread. The gate creaked, and then the black blade retracted.

Starlight readied herself, watching the wooden structure with both hands in preparation for what might come behind it.

The gate exploded outwards, not just into two chunks, but into dozens of them that kicked up a huge dust cloud over the road. Starlight's visor immediately came up to protect her, and she caught a glimpse of sharpened tree carcass barreling right for her. Instinctively, time slowed for her, and with three perfectly angled cuts she split the wood apart into smaller pieces that flew off in directions opposite her.

Even before the dust settled, Starlight saw the silhouette of a tall, armored figure stepping through the door. As features became visible, it was clear this person was a demon of some kind. Their heavy steel boot was responsible for kicking the gate in, and a massive zweihander sword was held over their shoulder as if it were a one handed blade, it's hilt in a curious crescent shape that almost seemed mismatched with the blade itself. Dusty and scratched up plate armor adorned their entire body, encasing them in an infernal steel colored like a dead midnight sky, and they wore a tattered and shadowy cape over their shoulders.

Most curiously, their chestplate held a heavily damaged and scratched icon of a silvery moon, and the demon's helmet was a domed piece, fully concealing their face with vertical slits, and with a broken and jagged spike protruding from the forehead.

Starlight was familiar with this demon, or, at least the demon this one was trying to imitate. She'd seen that very helmet and insignia before, but their stature was all wrong. Their demeanor was all wrong.

"Nice costume," Starlight taunted. "But you're a little short to be Nightmare Moon, don't you think?"

The figure kept their sword relaxed over their shoulder, and only took threatening steps toward Starlight. There was no air of pride around this figure, no brutal confidence. Starlight had fought Nightmare Moon once before, this imitator had the atmosphere all wrong. The helmet looked almost identical, though, right down to the slits in the visor and a small dent in the side.

"You're probably pretending to be these people's goddess, aren't you?" Starlight asked, her arms opening up as she properly addressed her opponent. "Y'know, the Order takes impersonation of a deity as a serious offense."

At the mention of the Order, the demon's stance shifted. They looked towards Starlight fully, as if they hadn't considered them as a threat before, only something to step on, but now she had gotten the thing's attention. Their blackened blade spun around to both hands, and from behind their helmet Starlight could feel eyes locking on to her.

No, this demon wasn't actively trying to deceive the people here. If anything, Starlight was starting to get the feeling that the demon was connected to the possessed cultists she met before. They walked with a persistent dismissal of the world around them, and they certainly were a source of strong arcane radiation. This demon was here to be a menace.

"Or, maybe you're just a fan."

The demon took several steps further forward, gaze fixed firmly on Starlight as they brought their sword from their shoulder plate to full bearing in both hands. Their blade was held perfectly vertical, just a thin metal bar form Starlight's perspective, one that allowed the demon's aggressive stance to display fully. The demon's head then lowered.

A challenge.

"Okay, pal..." Starlight took her own sword to the ready as she let her feet become lighter, switching her footing so that she was better aligned with her opponent. "Let's dance."

The demon didn't move so Starlight took initiative, jumping forward and swinging her sword down. She aimed past their guard, but as expected, the demon stepped back and brought their blade to the side in a block. Starlight redirected her strike with a sidestep, but the demon simply shifted their core to follow her attack. Their shadowy zweihander blade twisted and slashed in a very short arc right by Starlight's torso, shoving her smaller weapon to the side and nearly catching her immediately. The motion was fast, calculated, and minimalist.

Rather than block, Starlight opted to bend her knees and roll before the sword bit into her, and when she came back up the demon's sword was mid-swing again, this time nearly taking her nose off as she kept her momentum going backwards. The demon's cape twirled behind them and they spun into another angled chop downwards, and Starlight was forced to again get out of the way, this time leaning back into a handspring towards the busted gate.

One more spinning strike from the demon, continuing their momentum into a jump and swinging straight down into the still dodging Starlight. As soon as her feet touched the ground she brought her sword up into a guard, but her balance was knocked off guard as the demon's sword crashed into her. She held strong, but the demon's momentum shifted far faster than expected, not letting the bind last for more than a second, and Starlight felt their boot suddenly whipping around into her side.

She was knocked to the side behind the gate's wall, rolling through a patch of grass and dirt before finally catching herself on a small hill that leveled up over the river. Starlight rose, her nanosword readying to find the demon not charging but steadily walking towards her. She'd rush into meet them, but her sword strikes were again easily deflected, and the demon would not allow for a bind to last. One of Starlight's slashes bounced off their guard just right and bit into their shoulder armor, but rather than recoil or even brace themselves the demon violently shifted their shoulder up to meet her sword, deflecting the sword a second time off the rounded surface and leaving Starlight vulnerable to having her face pounded directly by the demon's metal gauntlet.

Again, Starlight was sent flat onto her back just before the ground dropped off into the river, only a half a meter away from going for an unwanted swim. This time when she stood back up she drew out her revolver and took aim, only to find the demon drawing a short-barrelled lever action shotgun from behind their back and taking aim between their slow, menacing strides. Like Starlight, the demon held their shotgun in their left hand, and they fired in match with each other.

Starlight got off three shots on the demon, each one barely causing them to flinch, but the one shot from the demon's shotgun took Starlight right in the stomach and flung her back to the ground behind her.

Except there was no ground behind her. Starlight's foot caught just in time on the edge of the hill, but even as she went into her Bullet Reflex she found that there was nothing she could do to save herself. The demon seemingly ignored her state of slowed time, suddenly appearing right in front of her and knocking her foot out from under her with a swipe of their massive blade.

Starlight spun in the air, tumbling down into the river with a splash, where she struck hard against the rocks at the bottom and felt the stream pulling her away. Water filled her mouth, but the blow left her head going hazy and her vision spinning. She felt her face break the water, barely floating on its surface as the demon looked down and watched her get carried away, before turning their back and continuing down the road.

She was struggling to remain conscious. Her radio was alight with voices, but she was struggling to make them out or even respond.

"Starlight? What's going on? Answer me, Starlight! Starlight!"