I sailed through the air for what felt like months before slamming hard into one of the colliseum's walls. I slowly slid down the wall to land, upside-down, in a crumpled heap. As I blinked back stars I got a good look at Ner's monstrosity.
It looked like someone had taken all of the animals from a zoo and stripped them of all of their horns, teeth, claws, and all of the other sharp or dangerous bits, then stuck them all on a spider bigger than two or three elephants hiding under a sheet. Obviously, the spider was made from bones, because Ner' had no originality. I decided to call the spider Timmy.
With lightning speed--nothing that big should move that fast--Timmy skittered right up to me and roared in my face. Its mouth, tipped with pincers longer than I was stretched wide, far wider than it should have. The mouth opened until it split the spider's big undead body near in half. Instead of guts, I noted, Timmy seemed to posses an innumerable number of sharp, jagged, twitching pieces of bone.
Quick as a snake, the spider snatched my healing body up with one of its limbs. Its serrated points dug into my skin as I was jerked straight up into the air. Then the spider let go, and I experienced a brief moment of disorientation as I was launched skyward.
At the top of my ballistic arc I spun in such a way that I was looking back down at the ground, far, far below. Timmy looked like a big spiky puffball from up here. My friends were little more than tiny dots getting knocked around by the spider.
As I began to fall, I watched the spider rushed over to one of my friends, I was too distant to make out who, and snatched them up like it had snatched me. It spun them about real fast and threw them into the rest of my friends, they scattered like bowling pins. Over the next few seconds, the spider moved from dot to dot, knocking my friends around like marbles.
It didn't look very violent at a distance, one might almost mistake it for some sort of rough-and-tumble game, but as I drew closer to the ground I could tell different. By the time I was close enough to make out individuals, not a single one of my friends was left standing.
Timmy, apparently unscathed, strolled casually underneath me and opened its big mouth wide to catch me. I desperately shot some lasers at its face, but the destructive light simply splashed off the spider's bony body.
Only seconds to go until I landed in the spider's mouth, my mind was racing trying to find a solution. My attack hadn't worked, but I wondered if I could pull off a viable defense. I cloaked myself in light and focused all of my will on making it as tough as possible.
My luminous shield blocked my vision, I was falling at the spider blind.
I think I screamed with effort, but I couldn't hear it over the wind.
I could only hope I wouldn't die a horrible and messy death.
~~~
Ner'Ghalad smiled to himself as he watched the mismatched fight. Through observation he had learned that the best way to kill the group's troublesome leader was to drop him from somewhere very high; so Ner' had set the spider to do just that. Ner' squinted and could just barely make out a flailing speck high up in the air.
Then it was a simple matter for the spider to clear away Ner's lesser enemies. With over three fourths of Ner's magic being channeled into the construct, it had ample power for the task. The spider swiftly finished its business and positioned itself to catch the pony it'd thrown.
Ner' nearly laughed out loud when his falling enemy's laser attacks bounced harmlessly off of his minion. The necromancer was particularly proud of this construct: It was the final product of a thousand years spent traveling the multiverse learning about necromancy.
The moment of Ner's triumph approached. The necromancer held his breath as he watched his foe plummet towards the spider's waiting maw. He wished he had a camera.
Then, something unexpected happened, and Ner's smile fell. One moment the pony had been falling to its doom, the next moment, the pony was gone and Ner' had to shield his eyes to see what was falling in his place.
Ner's jaw dropped.
~~~
My legs felt like jelly, but that was a good thing because I could feel them. My ears were ringing and I smelled dust. My eyes were clenched shut, but I was aware of a very bright light fading away.
I was still alive.
I took a deep breath, got a lungful of dust, and started coughing up a storm.
Slowly, the dust cleared.
The coliseum was still standing, but it had seen better days. Most of the walls were cracked and the ground resembled a crater more than a floor. Jagged shards of bone, presumably from Timmy, littered the ground. Eerily slowly, a section of the stands collapsed entirely.
My eyes found my friends and I hobbled over to them. I staggered as one of my legs gave out, and I looked to see a big sliver of bone sticking out of it. There was no pain, but my healing factor didn't seem to be kicking in; I wondered if my stockpiled magic had run out. I couldn't quite remember how to replenish my magic, but it was unimportant at the moment.
I reached my friends and nearly wept with relief: They were battered and barely conscious, but alive.
I limped over to the Courier, flipped open the bag which held his medical supplies, and froze in place: Something cold and pointy was pressed against the back of my head.
"I will admit," Ner' monologued, "You put up a much more impressive fight than I had anticipated." The necromancer circled around to my front so he could gloat to my face, all the while keeping his loaded crossbow glued to my skull. "Especially that bit at the end, when you called a blazing pillar of light down from the heavens to smite my spider from the face of the earth. I truly did not expect an attack of that caliber.
"Unfortunately for you," Ner's grin resembled a shark's. He "This is the end of the line."
Ner' fired his crossbow.
Nothing happened.
We both looked stupidly at the weapon. The string had discharged, but had passed straight through the bolt without launching it. I reached up a hoof and poked the bolt, it went right through.
"Looking for this?" Fphant asked from the side.
Ner' and I whirled to face him.
"What?" I shouted.
"But I-" Ner' exclaimed at the same time.
I saw two Fphantoms, one standing, one groaning on the ground, and it took me a moment to realize the one Timmy had thrashed was a fake. The Fphant who had been leaning casually against a crumbling wall, twirling Ner's bolt around his fingers, stepped forward before either of us could react and rammed the bolt deep into Ner's chest.
The necromancer stumbled backwards a couple steps, eyes wide as saucers. He coughed and there was blood. Then whatever vile magic Ner' had imbued the bolt with started to work. It had been intended to kill me; the magic made short work of Ner'Ghalad.
I blinked and there was nothing left but ash. The Pawner fell to the ground with a dull clank.
A deep rumble shook the coliseum. I had enough time to share a look of alarm with Fphantom before the whole world started crumbling around us. The walls fell to stones and the stones broke into pebbles and then into dust. The ground heaved and the dirt we were standing on started sliding away into nothing.
The shaking must have roused some of my friends. "What's going on?" Unique shrieked.
"Where's Ner'?" the Courier asked. Despite being the most injured of the lot, he already had one of his last remaining guns out and was searching for a target.
"Ner's dead!" I shouted over the rumbling. "Now the world's falling apart for some reason!"
The Sorceress's eyes bugged out of her head. "Ner's dead?!" she echoed, "He was the only thing holding this pocket dimension together! If it fails with us inside it, we'll be lost in time and space! We could end up literally anywhere!"
"Is there any way to have that not happen?" Aquapony squeaked.
"There is, but-" the Sorceress lit her horn and screwed her eyes up in concentration, "I don't know if I have enough magic!" Her eyes opened and locked onto the Pawner. "That! Give me that! It can probably get us out of here."
I scooped up Ner's fallen crossbow and hoofed it over.
She took the weapon in her magic and focused, slowly a glowing bolt formed on the string. She shot it at a wall and a light blue ellipse sprang into existence. Through the center of the portal I could make out trees and a blue sky. "Everyone through," the Sorceress shouted, already running, "It won't last long!"
As if to emphasize her point, the ground shook even harder. I lost my balance and fell flat on my face. I tried to pick myself up, but my injured leg gave out and I fell to the rapidly disappearing ground again.
"Come on!" Unique shouted. Him, Aquapony, and the Sorceress were already through. I dragged myself upright again right as the Courier made it through the portal. Only Fphant and I were left in the collapsing dimension.
"Hurry!" Aquapony shouted, "It's almost gone!"
Fphant was nearly to the portal. I was still a bit further off. That was when the ground shattered. The facsimile of dirt we had been standing on broke like glass, revealing a swirling grey haze beyond. For one brief, horrifying, dizzying moment my legs continued to run and the portal flashed invitingly.
"NO!" the Sorceress screamed, then the moment was done. The portal fizzled out of existence and Fphant and I were left in a featureless grey void. I slowed to a stop, facing the way the portal had been.
There was a ground of sorts. At least, there was something we could stand on. I couldn't distinguish it from the sky.
"Where are we?" I asked, peering around at the unfamiliar landscape, I half expected Ner' to pop out of nowhere and shout "surprise, it was another trick," but no such thing happened.
Fphant simply shrugged. "Now what?" He asked in return. Compared to the flat grey void, Fphant's constantly shifting appearance looked even more bizarre.
"Now?" I took a deep breath and scanned the horizon. Featureless as far as the eye could see. "We pick a direction and start walking," I met Fphant's eye and grinned my madpony grin, "Destination: Thataway!"