“Ok, so we’re here” announced a young woman (no more than 25 years old) with brown hair, a green tight dress and a white blouse under the dress. “Ben, leave the papers on the table, we should analyze the situation calmly”
Ben, a young eighteen boy with blond hair, green eyes and service attitude left the bounties of lost children on the table. The woman, named Gretel, started to analyze the documents with a small frown; some of them were already marked with a red “X”, sign than the group already took care of the witch who did that but still there was a lot of lost children around the area.
On the other side of the table, Gretel’s twin brother Hansel were applying himself some kind of injection making him made a small complain of pain; but once he finished, he sighed in exasperation.
“So once again the damn witches are acting weird. Who cares? They’re witches, act weird is their way of living. What I don’t understand is why the heck they always end up acting weirder than usual around Ausburg”
“Considering this was the Great Witch’s former territory, I’m not really that concerned about that point. What called my attention is the pattern. They look they’re migrating this spot, I wonder why’s that. Any ideas, anyone?”
Ben shook his head.
Hansel and Gretel only groaned while thinking with a strange expression on their faces. Yes, something very unusual was leading all the witches to Ausburg once again, but what. That was the question.
Then, the last member of the crew, a monstrous being who looked like a deformed enormous human just approached.
“What is it big guy?” Asked Hansel to the troll Edward.
“When I served Muriel, she treasured an old book she kept under her bed and contained all the secrets of the Devil” said the troll with his heavy voice. “The potion she tried to make the last Bloody Moon was taken from there”
All the crew looked at the troll very unnerved.
“Edward, are you sure about you’re saying?” Asked Gretel. “This could be very important so I need you to be sure”
The troll nodded slowly while Gretel exchanged a look with the rest of the crew. Once again, she faced Edward with decision.
“Okay. Edward: can you lead us to the book?”
Again the troll nodded making the group to get ready. Gretel took an old book from a shelf of her old home (her parent’s old cabin) and started to prepare several special spells to make their weapons stronger using her recently discovered power as a white witch with the wand she “inherited” from their old friend Mina. Using her mother’s old book, she always prepared the strength spells for any situation; especially the ones like that one.
“Okay, we’ll head to the witches’ old camp tomorrow at first hour” said Gretel when she finally finished. “As you all know, is too risky attack witches in the middle of the night”
No one put any objection and proceed to sleep for a little; even if they knew their relaxation won’t last. At the next day, after a quick breakfast, the group followed the troll to the Great Witch Muriel’s former maw.
Hansel and Gretel were armed with a powerful modified rifle, several pellet bombs, a special whip with metal pieces on it and crossbows. Edward were carrying a chariot where the siblings had their final card: a weapon developed by themselves that shot powerful and big bullets at great speed without need to recharge in a while killing everything on their way.
Ready to everything they entered to the forest where they massacred an entire coven. Leaving Ben in one spot to prepare the traps (sharp tensed cables hidden between trees ready to cut into pieces any with who try to escape by air) armed with one rifle in case he need to defend himself; but not being invulnerable to magic like the twins, he was not allowed to go further.
When Edward, Hansel and Gretel finally arrived the place, a quick move called their attention. Not in the mood for stupidities, Hansel shot one arrow where he heard the sound. A horrible scream of pain was heard ant between the bushes, a toad-witch jumped inflating her dewlap and attacked Hansel with her tongue; catching him by the ankle. He felt but quickly took a knife from his coat and cut the horrible tongue making the witch to scream even louder.
Gretel sighed preparing her crossbow and began to shoot merciless to the witch. The monstrous being took her wand and sent powerful spells around the hunters (it was well known that the siblings were immune to black magic) hoping to delay them and give her the time to escape. Enormous roots came from the ground and blocked Gretel’s path to the witch; in the meantime Hansel, sick of the stupid fight, threw one of his pellet bombs ripping off the lower half of the witch’s body. She cried and tried to drag away from Hansel and Gretel but Hansel just sent a direct arrow to her head.
She stopped moving.
“Okay, that was fun but we wasted our ammunition in vane, we’re not getting paid for this one” complained Hansel. “Ey Big Guy!, where’s the book you were saying?”
Edward guided the siblings inside the witch’s maw. The last time they were there Gretel was taken as a prisoner by Muriel during the ritual of the Bloody Moon; but that was past history. Now Edward was leading them to the altar, an altar to the devil decorated with black candles, human skulls and other disgusting things. Edward moved a heavy stone from the altar and gave the book to Gretel. She nodded satisfied.
“Thank you so much, Edward. Now let’s get rid of this thing before any other witch find it” proposed the huntress.
Hansel in the meantime just finished to burn the remaining of the witch he killed. Gretel arrived ready to add the book to the burning pile, but a strange black fog came out of nowhere and pushed away Gretel taking the book in the process. Hansel jumped ready to fight directing his weapon to the fog; that crowd around of a rock and slowly began to take the form of a person.
And for the first time in their long career as witch hunters, the siblings were truly surprised. As a matter of fact, they couldn’t speak about “normal” when they slayed witches for living, but this time they saw something they never even heard of. A male witch; a wizard.
The guy was truly intimidating, wearing a black armor with a long satin red cape; showing a sharpened face with red and green eyes with a horrible smile showing large fangs.
Stills, surprised or not, the siblings stayed calm and only directed their weapons to him
“Okay: give us that book or be prepare to face the consequences” said Gretel.
“The consequences, you said?” Asked the wizard. “What should I fear from you, pathetic mortal?”
“I don’t know, a horrible death perhaps?” Provoked Hansel.
King Sombra had to give some credit to those two mortals. With a single look at him (in both worlds, Equestria and this one he found) they all screamed and shout trying to get away from him. Come on! Not even those women who could use magic in that strange world tried to attack once they felt his power. But these mortals dared not only to confront him, but threat him as well.
“Again, what should I fear from you, future slaves?”
As an answer, both of them grinned shooting. Somehow he eluded both shots but now it was his turn and the great Sombra won’t let two mortals to intimidate him. He extended his hand sending a crystalizing spell to the siblings, ready to transform them into simple statues and forget them forever.
But nothing happened. Instead of crystal statues, he faced the two witch hunters smiling at him like nothing.
“Well, you asked for it” said Hansel shooting again, but this time the detonation completely destroyed Sombra’s hand; making him scream in pain, but this wasn’t over. Hansel charged at him kicking Sombra at the chin making him fell on the floor. Hansel grinned and stepped on the bloody stump that was once Sombra’s hand.
“I knew you were only appearance” said calmly the hunter while Sombra cried in agony.
Gretel’s arrow penetrates Sombra’s shoulder, making him scream again. Hansel got tired of step on him and kicked on the face. Sombra rolled by the floor, causing the arrow penetrate his body even more. Again he cried in pain.
Knowing it was his only option, he turned into the black fog and ran away from the two hunters who began to chase him shooting every often. However, being in his fog form, the projectiles didn’t affect Sombra this time.
Accelerating, Sombra finally lost the siblings and recovered his solid form; in his current state he couldn’t resist too much in his ethereal form, that drained a lot of power from him and the King still had to reopen the portal to Equestria and then heal his wounds. It was the first time in his life than his cape was covered with his own blood.
“Damn it, and all because I lowered my guard for a second. The dumbest mistake of all; now I’m paying the consequences. DAMN YOU MORTALS!!”
Gritting his teeth, the dark King tried to move silently; he was not able to fight anymore. On a corner he saw a solitary young tree; and because he saw several witches using branches as a quick transportation in this world, he took in and flew as fast as he could to get back to the portal.
But in the middle on the way, his left leg was cut off by a wire hidden between the trees. Sombra fell again yelling and crying. Why he had to overtrust himself? He had being so careful since he freed again, so why he had to made such a dumb mistake?
Sombra got up as he could (still holding Muriel’s book) and crawled painfully only to see his beloved leg before him; but he had no time to think when his leg was completely destroyed by a new shooter. Sombra turned only to see Ben directing his rifle to him.
“Is over!”
“FOR YOU!!” Shouted Sombra sending a powerful attack to the young boy releasing the book for the first time even if he was severally injured.
Ben was sent backwards several meters by the impact.
Again Sombra recovered the book when a new arrow pierced his remaining leg. Turning around, he saw that Hansel and Gretel finally got him.
“This ends here and now!” Shouted Gretel, infuriated by seeing one partner injured.
Sombra was lost, he was about to die horribly painfully and all because his own stupidity.
“Any last words?” Asked Gretel with her eyes bursting in hate.
“Yeah, I made a child’s mistake and I’m about to die; underestimated opponents who really have intentions to kill me. The idiot of Celestia should learn a few things from you. Still, this isn’t over you foolish child, NEXT TIME I WON’T BE TAKEN BY SURPRISE YOU HEAR ME?!”
And still holding Muriel’s book against his body, Sombra reunited all his remaining power and created a whole new portal. It was a desperate situation and he had to.
A flash of black light (the signature of dark magic) blinded the hunters while the portal sucked the five of them inside it.
They felt how they fell in an infinite space while Sombra recovered a little and got away from his enemies, as far as he could.
In the vacuum, Hansel and Gretel tried to stay together holding hands but at some point their hands became something else, without fingers on it forcing them to separate. They were about to fell in different points when a powerful embrace held them together along with the unconscious Ben.
“Edward!” Celebrated Gretel.
“Trolls serve witches”
They finally arrived to the new world, and everything went black.
Sombra appeared near to his provisional hiding spot in the middle of nowhere; where he was received by dark crystal monsters he created long time ago. The crystal creatures took their unconscious creator inside and began to heal his wounds the best they could; replacing the bloody stumps with dark crystal prosthesis.
The only good thing was that Sombra kept the book. Now nothing could stop him to take over Equestria forever; and once he had his kingdom, he was going to return to the human world to have his revenge on the witch hunters. Yeah, it wasn’t over yet.