Destination: Thataway!

by Hawattie

We need diamonds, or sherbet, or a squirrel with a gun

We escaped the thrashed train car just in time. As soon as we'd all tumbled out onto the hard ground the flat side of a gigantic axe made of several sharpened bones of enormous proportions held together by magic slammed into the smoking train. Nothing was left but a metal pancake swirling in a cloud of bone dust.

"New plan; don't get hit by that thing." I glanced to the Courier. He pulled the largest gun he had on his person off his back. This one seemed to be as long as the man was tall, and if the size of the bullets he was putting into the thing were any indication it had a power to match.

I didn't directly see Fphant, but there was an odd shimmery patch next to me that spoke with his voice. "Where'd that Ner'Galoo guy dig this thing up?" I could see his point.

The titanic beast's four skulls were unlike any skull I'd ever seen. They certainly didn't look like those of the pony skeleton's we'd been fighting thus far. The only creature I could imagine them being from was something like the Courier, but there were no humans in Equestria, especially gigantic, three-story tall humans. Also, there were four of them. Did I mention that? It was kind of creepy. The skulls floated above a rib-cage which in turn floated above a pelvis, which floated over the ground on a swirling whirlwind of energy with no legs to speak of. Their vertical orientation once again reminded me of the Courier.

Oh, and did I mention it had wings? Well yeah, a pair of the bony appendages sprouted from the back of its ribs. I glanced at the Courier. Unless he was really good at hiding them under his armor I didn't think the man had wings.

To top off the creepy picture, the thing was holding the aforementioned axe in its two bony hands. An axe, I might add, which was being swung rather quickly in my general direction. Fphant was out of my sight the minute combat had started and the Courier had run to the side the instant he'd seen the beastie prepare its strike. I was too busy describing things to notice the attack until it was almost on top of me.

A hasty leap to the side barely brought me out of range of the monolithic weapon. What it didn't bring me out of range of, was the rubble and bits of dirt thrown about by such a massive impact. I half-rolled, half was flung from the impact site with all the grace of a drunken ragdoll. You should see my drunken ragdoll impression. It's quite good if I do say so myself.

Luckily, while I lay in a battered heap several meters from the trench the axe left in the ground, my friends were doing their best to actually fight the beastie. Loud, and I mean very loud - that big gun of his gave off one hell of a bang -, gunshots sounded out as quickly as the Courier could reload. The bullets managed to chip considerable chunks of bone from the beastie, enough to annoy, yes, but not enough to incapacitate. Fphant was still nowhere to be found.

The Courier's distraction took the beastie's focus off of me, which was good. I don't think I could survive a direct hit from that axe of his. Of course now the Courier was the one in danger of being annihilated by the beastie.

With a great roar, or was it a whinny? I pulled myself off the ground and began firing lasers at the beast. I think I managed to get two or three blasts off before the beastie dealt with me. Without even looking back the beastie pulled a huge bony spike out of nowhere and threw it at me. If I had the reaction time of a machine and the ability to propel myself large distances in infinitesimal amounts of time I could have avoided the great spike sailing towards my body. As is, I got to learn what it feels like to have a two-foot thick bone wedged in your gut. It friggin' hurt. Like, a lot. If the Sorceress hadn't severely increased my tolerance to pain this would have made me pass out in the first half-second, and the only thing saving me from bleeding out was the soft glow of my magical healing . Lucky me. To add insult to injury, the beastie mockingly shouted, "Stick around!" at me.

To make matters even worse, the beast took that moment to throw a handful of blue fire in my face. The obviously magical flame stuck to everything it touched, coating myself, the spike nailing me to the ground, and the ground around me in flaming blue brilliance. Was it just me, or did the fire feel rather cold to the touch? My mane and tail were the first to go, burning away in seconds despite the utter lack of heat generated by the flame. Next came my coat, which lasted even shorter. Finally the flame reached my skin. I braced myself for the pain to come, steeling myself for whatever being cooked alive by cold fire feels like. Probably unpleasant.

After ten seconds of waiting I peeked one eye open. Oh, the flames went out. Now if only this Celestia-damned spike would get the hint and leave like its fiery companion had.

Well, at least the fight was going well. The Courier had (somehow) managed to keep ahead of the beastie's axe while continuing with his withering barrage of... are his bullets exploding on impact? Yes, yes they are. That is rather badass, if I do say so myself. Fphant had climbed onto the beastie's back and was all but being ignored while he hacked apart any bone that he got his hands on. Together the two had shattered several of the beastie's ribs, knocked one of its wings clean off, and put one of the four heads out of commission.

Woohoo! Go team!

Of course, as soon as I realized things were going well for us things stopped going well for us. The beastie stopped trying to hit the Courier with his axe and started to spin. It accelerated sharply for a couple seconds before topping off at around three spins a second. All of the bits of bone that Fphant and the Courier had knocked off were swept up into the beast's spin, creating a whirling storm of bone. Following some unknown compulsion to announce its attack, the beast bellowed, "BONE STORM!"

Did I mention that aside from all the flying debris this created, the beastie also held its axe at ground level -the perfect height to splatter us with it?

The Courier hit the deck, shielding his face with his arms and rolled around to try to avoid the spinning axe of death. Fphant clung valiantly to the beasts shoulder for a time, until an errant flying bone smacked into the mirage, loosening his hold and flinging him away. I just chilled on my bone spike, watching it all and wishing I could do anything other than be impaled on a bone.

For once my wish was granted. A large bone -I think it came from the beast's destroyed wing- collided with my spike, snapping both into pieces. With a groan I lifted myself off the spike, clutching a hoof to my gut to keep everything inside while I healed up.

A few seconds later the beast's spin was winding down and I was healed up and rarin' to go. Round two. Fight!

As soon as I trusted my hooves to hold me, I led a glorious charge to close the distance between myself and the monster assaulting my friends. The beast noticed I was up, and apparently decided it didn't like that. It pulled another gigantic bone spike from wherever it got the first one from and hurled it at me.

I think there's a quote that fits this situation. It goes a little like, "Fool me once..." something something. Whatever. Quotes are unimportant. What is important was how utterly awesome I must have looked as I nimbly dodged the massive spike without halting my righteous charge towards the beastie.

It tried its bone spike trick several more times during the moments it took me to approach. None of the spikes hit their intended mark. I think the beastie must have realized it couldn't hit me with the sharpened bones when its tactic suddenly shifted from lobbing the singular spikes to spraying its icy blue flames everywhere.

Thinking quick, I ducked down behind one of the fallen spikes just before the flame reached me. If I remembered correctly the fire only burned for a few seconds before going out; I just had to wait it out and I could resume my reckless charge towards the bony beastie.

As it turns out, me staying in one place to avoid the fire was exactly what the beastie was counting on. A sharp whistling was the only warning I received before my cover was shattered by the titanic force exerted by the beast's axe. Shrapnel from the shattered spike pelted my skin as I tumbled away into the fire. The fire didn't "burn" really, it was more of a "your skin is turning black but you can't feel it because you're too damn numb," feeling. Luckily the fire only lasted about three seconds longer before dissipating.

"You alright there?" the Courier called from where he'd taken shelter behind the remains of the train. He appeared to be relatively unscathed, some singed hair and a bit of blackened armor seemed to be the only damage.

I coughed, tasting blood. Then I had the wierdest sensation of that blood in my mouth being pulled back inside me by my magic healing. "Been better," I called back truthfully. Accepting my reply, the Courier resumed firing his exploding projectiles at the beastie. A thunderous crash signaled the thing's second wing falling to the ground.

"What does it take to kill this thing?" I growled. Most creatures I'd met would give up fighting after getting both their wings shot off, half their heads disabled, and sustaining at least seven shattered ribs. Yet this beastie just kept on fighting like there was no tomorrow. I managed to fire off a couple lasers towards the beastie's heads before having to roll out of the way of its axe. I stood up and didn't even have time for another attack before having to hurl myself bodily to the ground to avoid getting my head taken off by a horizontal swing.

I noted that I hadn't seen Fphant in a while. That either meant he didn't want me to see him, or he had been knocked out of the fight during the beast's spin. I hoped it was the former.

My dodging continued for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes before I found an opening to get inside the beast's range. A mighty downward swing buried almost the entire head of the axe into the earth and the axe's handle, to a daring fellow like myself, formed a neat bridge straight up to the beastie's face. Wasting no time -the beast had already begun to lift its weapon from the earth- I jumped as hard as I could onto the handle and, hooves scrabbling for purchase the whole way, ran up it as fast as I could.

I wasn't quite fast enough. Before I was even halfway up the weapon it was lifted sharply beneath me. I found myself flying through the air above the beastie. Now, I did what any reasonable non-pegasus pony would do when given an impromptu flying lesson against their will: I screamed my head off and flailed my hooves like wild. I hardly noticed when all four of my hooves connected with four rather hard things which felt suspiciously like skulls. Besides, I was in panicked flailing mode. I couldn't control what I might accidentally smack on my swift descent to the earth.

I impacted the ground with enough force to bounce a couple feet into the air. If the sorceress hadn't strengthened my bones I'm sure I would've heard them break on that impact, as is I think we'll have a new me-shaped divot in the ground.

"Did you get the number of that bus?" I groaned. Peeking an eye open to check on the state of the fight, I discovered the beastie was nowhere to be found. And where did all these bones littering the ground around me come from? I'm sure those weren't there a moment ago...

Oh.

"Did we win?" I asked feebly.

"I think we did," the Courier replied. "And might I say, of all the ways I expected to kill the thing. I did not expect it to be thataway."

Author's Note:

Breaking news! Local moron teams up with alien hero to take down the first boss of Icecrown Citadel! Read more in panel seven.

Thataway now a way of doing things, not just a direction!

And another long chapter. First one to break 2k words. I would have split this one into parts, but I didn't want to stop the action halfway.
Oh and yeah, I did use both metric and American units of measurement in this chapter. Sue me.

Stay awesome. Try not to die.