The Immortal's Game

Chapter 10: Showdown

        I felt my head throbbing as soon as I began to wake up. I could see from where I got up that I had been tossed clear across the car, along with Trick who was currently missing his hat. Scarlet was on the ground and was in the process of regaining consciousness. I didn’t see Mari anywhere though, which worried me. “Hey, Mari! If you’re still in one piece, mind telling me where you are?” I heard a groan coming from a pile of luggage in the very corner of the room.

        I walked over to the pile of suitcases and proceeded to rummage through and pulled out a rather grumpy Mari. “I’m never riding a train again for as long as I live.”

        “This was your first time riding a train, that and you’re technically not even alive. You can’t really complain since it’s your first time and it went horribly due to something beyond your control.” I looked looked towards the front of the train and saw other ponies getting off of it. From what I could tell nopony died in the wreck, so I was relieved.

I felt a magical presence that had me worried, especially since I knew he wouldn’t be here on his own. “Mari, please tell me I’m not the only one who feels that.”

“You mean Raze? Or do you mean Rogue, who’s also here and probably ready to kick your ass?”

“Yeah. This ought to be fun.” I turned towards Trick and Scarlet, who were both up. “Hey, we have a couple of problems on our hands.”

“Aside from the train being wrecked?” Said Scarlet, who was clearly in pain.

        “Yeah, Rogue and Raze are both here. And I’m willing to guess neither one are very happy right now.” I said. I was worried more about all the civilians in the area more than the upcoming fight. “Scarlet, Trick and I will take on the Reapers. Since i’m a wanted criminal and have my face on just about everything I don’t think they’d listen to me if I told these bystanders to run, can you take care of that? And take Mari with you.”

        Scarlet nodded in response. “Where should they go?”

        “Tell them to go to the other side of the train. That would probably be best. And Trick, grab your hat. I have a feeling that this won’t end well for either side.”

        “Just saying this now, I call dibs on kicking Rogue’s ass.” Trick said as he put his hat on, a determined look in his eyes and a smirk on his face. We started our walk towards the front of the train, prepared to face the Reapers that Celestia had sent. The train itself didn’t look like it would be going anywhere anytime soon, since most of it was derailed and the engine was mostly destroyed, presumably by Raze.

        Trick and I arrived at the front of the wreck, with a welcoming committee of two somewhat insane ponies. “Why hello there, Walker. I see you brought a meat shield with you this time.” Said Rogue, sitting on top of the wreckage of the engine. “Afraid to die?”

        “No, not really. Last time I wasn’t really expecting you but this time it’ll be different. And he’s not a meat shield, he’s the guy who punched you in the face then danced away.” Rogue looked at Trick for a moment, then Trick did him the honor of taking off his hat. I could see that Rogue became instantly aggravated.

        “Oh, it’s you. The only pony stupid enough to turn down being a Reaper. I guess it’s time I pay you back for that punch.” Rogue hit the metal of the engine with his armored hoof, denting what was left of the train. “With interest.”

        I turned towards Raze who had been off a ways from his superior. “I see you’re still alive, and I’m going to assume you’re the one who did all this?”

        Raze stood in place, motionless. “Where’s the one that hurt Rosy?” I could feel a pressure coming from him, emanating in my direction.

        “Sorry to say, but she’s a bit busy right now. I’d be happy to take a message then beat you senseless.” Replied Trick, who I assumed had begun to take a “liking” to Scarlet. I needed to remember to tell him she was a lesbian after this, otherwise things could get a bit awkward.

        It seemed that this was a battle that could very well get out of hoof. Since Scarlet and Mari were elsewhere it was a two against two fight for supremacy. I took a more offensive stance, while Trick took off his hat. Raze’s eyes began to gloss over and a light blue glow took over and spread to the rest of his body, while Rogue hopped off the remains of the train and cracked his neck. The area we had derailed in was a lightly wooded area, with mostly flat terrain, which meant there wasn’t many places to hide.

        Trick turned the top of his hat towards himself, and from the opposite end which he had pointed towards Rogue came a large multi-chambered device. “You’re mine, Rogue.” The device began to spin and small blasts of energy came out of the contraption. Rogue began to move as to dodge the blasts and quickly became invisible. Trick began to turn himself and his hat in the direction that Rogue had been moving in, hoping to hit him.

        I focused on Raze, whose energy had become almost crushing by now. I saw that it was scorching the earth around his hooves, leaving nothing but ashes. I began to charge my own magic, although I already knew it wouldn’t be much help this time. His energy formed a long tendril that looked quite nasty. If there was one pony I would not want to piss off, it would probably be Raze. The tendril seemed to move on it’s own accord, and given Raze’s general workings I knew it probably was. It wrapped itself around a tree’s trunk and pulled it out, roots and all.

        The tendril whipped itself at me, releasing the tree. I dodged to the side quickly, glancing back to see what had happened to the tree. It had half buried itself in the ground near the train. Well, at least it doesn’t have to get replanted now. I loosed a bolt of lightning towards Raze, only to see it dissipate before it even got within a foot of him. With as strong of an aura as he had, I was worried that I wouldn’t even be able to so much as scratch him.

 I looked back at the train, noticing some jutting pieces of metal. I used my telekinesis to pry a long rod from the shell of the train then hurled it with towards Raze. More tentacles formed, although not as thick as the one that had been used to fling the tree, and shielded him from the missile. They collided against the shell of energy and clattered harmlessly against the ground. Well, that’s disheartening. I grabbed more of the pieces of metal and began to lob them one after another, like an archer unloading his quiver. Each met the same fate as the last.

I risked a glance over at Trick, seeing how his fight against Rogue was proceeding. Quite a bit of the terrain surrounding Trick had been torn up by his magic attacks and he was panting heavily. I saw a bit of blood on the ground several feet from Trick, which meant that he had hit Rogue at some point or another. The device from before had disappeared from his hat, but his hat was still off of his head. Rogue was nowhere to be found.

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        I stood there, exhausted from burning through so much of my magical energy so quickly. Rogue was annoyingly slippery. If I used Smoke anymore I would pass out fairly soon. Perhaps I should elaborate on what’s going on, my name is Hat Trick: professional showpony, gambler and master manipulator of space. “Smoke” is my faster firing version of “White Rabbit”, although it’s shots are much weaker. Walker was busy fighting Raze, and from what I could tell he wasn’t doing so well.

        I collected my thoughts and worked out how I was going to deal with Rogue’s annoying invisibility, which he had refused to drop since our fight began. From what I knew, it was his natural field bending light around his body itself. I kept my hat at the ready, but if I didn’t want to pass out mid fight I needed to hold back on using magic. That left only “Mirror”, my sword which could cut through magic and my hooves as weapons.

        I went through a list of possible ways I could get Rogue to show himself. He wasn’t very honorable so calling for a “fair fight” wouldn’t work. I looked at the ground around me, noticing that it was rather dry, which gave me an idea. I began forcing my magic outwards in every direction, stirring up a lot of dust from the dry earth.

I watched the area around me, where the particles of dust had begun to float around freely. I watched the particles float gently down, perceiving any and all changes that were made. The dust to my right began to move rapidly, which signalled the approach of the invisible Rogue. I pulled Mirror from my hat and moved the flat of the blade to slam it into Rogue, only to be met with the sound of metal hitting metal.

Rogue’s invisibility dissipated, revealing it’s user whose armored hooves were pressed against my sword. There was a burn along the upper part of his left foreleg, presumably from where I had hit him while using Smoke. “So, you figured out where I was. I’m actually impressed.”

“Don’t be, messin’ around with space is my specialty.” I said with a smirk on my face. Rogue was putting all his weight into pushing Mirror back towards me. I swung the sword around, causing him to drop his hooves to the ground. I took Mirror and did an overhead swing with it, attempting to cut Rogue. He quickly raised his hoof, deflecting Mirror back upwards. The sound of the metals colliding jolted my focus and made me lose my mental grip on Mirror. I watched as Mirror buried itself halfway in the ground.

“Now would you look at that, the knight’s apprentice has lost his blade. Both you and Walker are weak, and I honestly don’t know how you’ve survived this long. You see it’s my belief that those who are weak die quickly, and those who are strong rise to power and continue to live. There’s no need for the weak who only take up resources and space, so why not get rid of them all the quicker?

“You had a chance to become strong by becoming a Reaper, so why in the name of all the stars would you ever give up that chance?”

“Because I’m not really a fan of becoming a raging asshole who kills off anyone that’s not deemed as ‘necessary’. That, and you guys are all insane. You shouldn't kill off those who are weak, you should help them survive.” I grasped Mirror with my magic once again and yanked it from the ground, swinging at Rogue.

Rogue simply grinned as he swatted Mirror away, sending it spinning skyward. I smiled and began to charge up my magic. “Why do you look so happy?”

“Well, simply put you’ve forgotten why I was a Reaper candidate in the first place.” Rogue gave me a confused look. “I’m a badass when it comes to manipulating space.” Rogue’s eyes shot open and he looked up to see Mirror disappear into a rift, created by my magic. I opened the other end of the rift directly above him, sending Mirror clean through Rogue’s body. His body split in half, killing him instantly. I pulled out a pair of sunglasses from my hat and put them on. “Man, I didn’t even have enough time for an awesome pun.”

I looked over at Walker, who was still fighting against Raze. The fighting stopped as soon as they both looked over at my battlefield, and more specifically it’s bloody result.

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        I watched as Raze looked over to where Trick and Rogue had been fighting. It seemed that Rogue had lost, and the penalty was his life. Normally, I would be pissed off that he had been killed, but given the situation I was more worried. Raze was fairly close with Rogue and he wasn’t exactly “stable”, so seeing a friend of his cut in half could mean trouble for anything involved.

        Raze gave a primal scream of rage, and the energy around him intensified. All the plants around him began to die and the ground was scorched black from all of the energy he was outputting. In this state Raze would likely be able to take on Celestia herself and would probably have a decent chance of winning the fight against her.

        Trick swung at Raze with his sword, yet despite the fact that it was designed to cut through magic it was blocked by one of Raze’s tendrils of unfiltered magic. Trick continued to push against the tendil in hopes of breaking through, but his attempts were only met with Mirror being snapped in half.

        “That... Can not be good” Said Trick, now looking at his damaged sword. I had to agree with his assessment of the situation, so far luck hadn’t been on our side if Raze was able to become this wild. Neither my magic nor Trick’s could touch him, and those tendrils stopped any physical attack from the outside. The chances that we would win this fight had been reduced to almost nothing.

        I looked around for something, anything to help me win this fight. I looked at the remains of the engine and began to formulate a plan when my thoughts were interrupted by a yell from above. I looked up to see a red pegasus descending with great speed from above. Scarlet? What the hell is she... I realized what exactly she was planning to do with all that speed. She was coming down faster and faster, and was aiming straight for Raze’s blindspot.

        Scarlet fell straight on top of Raze with as much speed as she could physically muster and delivered a drop that ended with a sickening crack from Raze’s spine and a yell from his throat. His energy dissipated quickly from the sudden shock and I took the chance to plunge into his mind.

There was so much chaos and rage, it was almost unbearable to be in there. I worked my magic and erased his mind, leaving behind only a block to seal away his immense power. Finally, the Reapers were defeated. I returned to my own mind and fell over exhausted and panting from over exertion. Trick was taking deep breaths while leaning against a nearby tree. “To be fair, he did sort of deserve that. He did break a mirror after all.”

I gave Trick a glare. “After all that you are seriously going to make a joke as bad as that one?”

        “Gladly.” Responded Trick with a smile. I gave a smile in response, now the only thing left for us to do was run or fight from Celestia. After all, she was out of pieces to play now. Rogue was dead, Raze and Rune were brain dead (and Raze was probably paralyzed from that attack by Scarlet) and Rosy wasn’t much of a threat with her wings crippled.

        “Walker, what do we do now?” Asked Scarlet.

        “Not sure. Depends on how we want the future to be. If we run we can all be safe and out of Celestia’s reach, but if we fight we can help everyone but we’d probably die.” I laid out the options to her plain and simple. I’d rather not fight, but we could possibly win.

        “I vote,” said Trick, “we knock down Tia’s door and kick her flank.”

        “I second that vote”. Replied Scarlet.

        “Does the talking skull get a say in this matter?” Questioned Mari from inside Scarlet’s saddlebags.

        “Sure, why not”

        “Then I vote for the offensive option as well.”

        I got up and smiled. “Majority vote, it seems. Even if I wanted to run I couldn’t just leave you three to fight her yourselves.” I looked towards the south-west. “Next stop, Ponyville.”

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        Celestia tapped her hoof on the ground of her chambers. Rune, Rogue, Rosy and even Raze had all been beaten by Walker and his ragtag team of consorts. She was certain that they were coming for her next, and there was very little else she could focus on other than how she was going to destroy them entirely. She considered calling upon Twilight again, but after her fist humiliating defeat by Walker, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to combat the combined forces of Walker’s group. With the rewards up, Walker couldn’t move too freely and he wouldn’t be able to get very far with a herd of guardsmen after him.

        Celestia gave a frustrated sigh, It seemed to her that she may just have to stop holding back on Walker. There were some things even she was able to hide from the Royal spymaster.