Destination: Thataway!

by Hawattie

The Abysswalker

The door to the boss room opened easily enough; there wasn't any need to hunt for great big keys in even bigger chests which are locked behind a maze of rooms filled with traps, puzzles, and monsters or anything like that. Although if there was a need for that, I'm sure my friends and I would be up to the task.

An open air Colosseum of aged, moss-covered stone lay behind the door. Small clumps of grass grew up between the cracking flagstones of the ground and shafts of sunlight filtered through the still air. A small grave made of the same stone as the rest of the room stood a silent watch over the area. A single white flower lay at the gravestone's foot. The only imperfection marring the serene picture was copious amounts of a strange, black liquid strewn about the ground. It almost looked like blood.

For a moment I wondered if we had wandered into some strange, ancient section of Ner's fortress, but I noticed a slight flickering in the corners of the circular room which gave it away to be an illusion. My guess was this was a place Ner had encountered during his travels to other worlds.

By some unspoken agreement, my friends and I walked slowly and quietly into this serene place. There was one other doorway leading out of the room ninety degrees to our left. I walked up to it to check if we could skip this boss, but a wall of white light blocked my path. No matter how I pushed the softly glowing mist-like substance did not permit entry.

"I wonder whose grave this is," Aquapony's voice shattered the silence, even though he was speaking at no more than a whisper. I turned from the white light to face him and saw my other two friends turn from what they were inspecting too. We all gathered around behind Aquapony to look at the stone.

To no surprise of mine, it was Ner'Ghalad who answered. "His name was Artorias." A casual glance over my shoulder revealed the necromancer not two paces behind us. "Known as 'the Abysswalker.' In life he was a knight in the kingdom of Anor Londo. His was tragic tale; he was corrupted by the very force he sought to defeat." Ner was more solemn than I had ever heard him before.

With a wave of Ner's hoof the gravestone melted away into shimmering white mist. In its place stood the ghostly image of a tall human in full plate armor. Despite being wispy and translucent, we could all see the battered condition of his armor and greatsword. He stood slightly hunched, as if in pain, and his left arm hung limply at his side, clearly broken. Another ghostly human entered the Colosseum through the same door we had. Unlike Artorias, this new human looked to be in peak physical condition. The two immediately began to fight. Artorias moved with a speed and grace that belied his battered appearance and the newcomer was hard-pressed to keep up. Faint echos of steel clashing against steel reached my ears.

"Some time ago," Ner said, "the Chosen Undead finally laid Knight Artorias to rest." As if on cue the newcomer landed a final blow on Artorias. The Knight fell to his knees, unable to fight, and the Chosen Undead raised his weapon high to strike the final blow. Both specters faded away, one triumphant, one slain.

Ner's tone suddenly brightened. "Luckily, I came along not too long after! Thanks to my magic, I was able to create a lasting impression of the late Knight. An impression which you'll need to defeat in order to move forward. Good luck!"

A dark swirling vortex materialized where the grave stone had been. We all backed away from it warily. "Oh! One more thing," Ner said. "There's four of you, and you've seen how Artorias fights. It wouldn't be fair for our dear old Artorias if I didn't give him an edge, therefore I'm healing him up to full health and restoring a small bit of his sanity." Ner disappeared in a puff of smoke. "Have fun!"

The vortex began to thin, revealing a silhouette. I immediately noticed a couple discrepancies between this silhouette and the ghostly image of Artorias we'd seen. For one, it stood straight and tall, not bent by pain in the slightest.

The Courier, always the quickest on the draw of all of us, fired a shot from his largest rifle straight at the silhouette's head. The silhouette made a movement almost too quick to follow and the sound of a bullet striking solid metal reverberated throughout the room. The last of the dark vortex cleared, fully revealing the second discrepancy I'd noticed. The Courier's bullet, flattened by its own momentum, fell away from Artorias's massive greatshield.

Knight Artorias lowered his shield and the Courier lowered his gun. For several seconds we all just looked at each other. Unlike his ghostly version, Artorias's gear was in peak condition. Sunlight gleamed off of his armor and his blue cloak was whole and un-tattered. Artorias looked every bit like a storybook knight in shining armor. Finally, Artorias spoke, "Whatever thou art..." he raised his sword and shield to a ready position, "Stay away!"

My response was to draw my axe. For a split second Artorias seemed to deflate, and I got an impression of deep remorse from the knight but it was gone quick as it came. That was all the warning we got before he was upon us. I had thought him swift before, but what I saw then blew that away. In the span of three -- no, two seconds, Artorias crossed over a dozen paces, sliced straight through one of three illusory Fphants, -the real Fphant's location was unknown- bashed Aquapony into a wall with his shield, and disarmed me. I had a split second to register my axe spinning over my head and lodging itself into the wall fifteen feet above my head before I joined Aquapony's fate of being shield-bashed into a wall.

Artorias never let up his assault. As the wounds I sustained from blunt-force trauma healed up I watched in awe as blow after blow from both sword and shield rained down on the Courier. Fphant's copies were mostly ignored, Artorias's sweeping strikes dispatched any of them that got close and ensured that the real Fphant couldn't do anything to help the Courier. Amazingly, the Courier was able to keep up with the hail of blows. He had the eagle-tipped staff I'd only seen him use once before on the train out and was using it to deflect Artorias's sword while staying out of range of the Knight's shield. The Courier was somehow able to prevent the heavy metal weapon from breaking his wooden staff to splinters. I have no idea how that worked, but it was cool to watch.

Then, after what seemed like minutes but was probably only seconds, the Courier messed up. A parry failed to fully deflect the Knight's blade. Artorias's greatsword splintered through the wooden pole, slammed heavily into the Courier's side, straight through the his light armor and into the flesh beneath. Bright red blood sprayed in an arc which mixed with the black fluid already on the ground. The Courier fell to his knees in a way eerily reminiscent of how Artorias himself had in his last fight.

With solemn finality, Artorias raised his sword high to strike the final blow. The Courier, panting hard, closed his eyes in acceptance. The sword fell.

I didn't let that blow land. With speed I didn't know I possessed I threw myself at the Courier, knocking him out of the way. Artorias's sword instead bit into my shoulder. I felt bones shatter and any movement of my foreleg was met with lances of agony.

Artorias's expression was unreadable beneath his helmet, but I got the feeling he was impressed. Whether he was impressed by my taking the hit for my friend or by my durability I wasn't sure, but it didn't matter. The Courier was doing his medic-y stuff to heal up. I needed to buy him some time. Artorias moved to strike the Courier again, but I blocked his path, standing protectively over my friend. "Not on my watch!" I growled.

I mentally added a tally mark to an imaginary chalkboard titled "successful badass one-liners." It was the first tally mark.

Artorias made to shield bash me out of the way again. This time I was ready for it and braced myself for the impact. It didn't help.

I was sent sailing halfway across the room and rolled to a stop at the feet of Fphantom. I stared dazedly up at the mirage, he looked down at my battered self. "Got any ideas?" Fphant asked.

For an instant I was about to answer in the negative, then a light bulb appeared over my head. I shot a glare at Fphant, who gave a sheepish grin and dispelled the illusory light bulb. "Actually yes," I said, "can you go grab that thing I made last chapter?"

Fphant mouthed the words "last chapter" confusedly, but agreed and vanished into thin air. I pulled myself to my hooves and hoped my little chat with Fphant hadn't cost the Courier his life.

No sooner had I wondered that then I felt a tap on my shoulder. An inspection revealed the Courier sprinting away from me shouting, "Tag! You're it, no tag backs!" and Artorias charging towards me from the other direction.

"Well sh-" was all I had time to say before I was knocked off my hooves yet again. I took the brief moment of flight to reflect that, had it not been for the enhancements the sorceress had forced upon me I would likely have been dead several times over by now.

As I pulled myself off the ground for the third time this fight I realized that Artorias had stopped his attack. He stood a short ways away from me, ready to resume fighting at a moments notice, but not currently attacking. "Thou art strong," he said. "Surely thine kind are more than pure dark." To my surprise he dropped his guard entirely, sword and shield hung limply at his sides. His gaze fell to the ground. "Soon... I will be consumed. By 'them.' By the dark."

I followed his gaze and realized he was looking at the black liquid on the ground. As we watched the black liquid coalesced into some form of specter. It had no shape and seemed to suck the light into itself. It moved to Artorias and, when it touched him, the knight reeled in pain. His shield dropped from his hand with a dull clatter. A dark aura, similar to the one he had arrived in, surrounded the knight. Just before the aura finished coalescing, Artorias made direct eye contact with me. "I beg of thee: the spread of the Abyss must be stopped. The necromancer must die."

The aura reached a peak, completely blocking Artorias from view, then dissipated violently. When it cleared it revealed Artorias to be in the state we'd first seen him in when he was a ghostly apparition; nearly broken.

Apparently his mind was as broken as his body. Instead of the warning we'd received before his last attack, we were instead treated to an unholy roar followed by him viciously hurling himself sword-first towards the nearest person he could see; namely me.

However, he wasn't nearly as fast now as he had been, and he only had one arm to work with. I'm not saying I didn't take his sword straight to my gut, because I did, but he was slower about it than he was before.

A fact the Courier took full advantage of. Gunshots rang out from his end of the arena. Small, clean holes appeared in Artorias's plate armor where the bullets hit. Black blood slowly oozed from the holes, but the wounds didn't seem to affect Artorias at all.

What the bullets did do was attract the knight's attention. Leaving me with a hole in my gut, Artorias turned to attack the Courier. Unfortunately for Artorias, the Courier now had the upper hand. Since his favorite melee weapon was broken, the Courier was dueling the knight with two blue-bladed knives, one in each hand. The Courier's knives found their way into the joints of Artorias's armor again and again, while the knight's greatsword was unable to land a single blow. The impressive parries were back along with several badass dodges and one time the Courier even managed to flat out block one of Artorias's swings with his knives.

"I brought your thing," Fphant said suddenly from beside me. I totally didn't jump and shriek in surprise. Nope. Fphant totally didn't chuckle at my expense because I totally didn't get surprised. "Would you mind telling me what it does?" he asked when he was done not-chuckling.

"I'll let you know when I find out," I said. I idly fiddled with a couple of knobbly bits on one side of the contraption.

Fphant raised an eyebrow... I think. "You don't know?"

I grinned my patented mad-pony grin at him. An explosion -probably from the Courier- happened behind me for emphasis. "I haven't the foggiest. But who wouldn't want to press this shiny red button I've affixed to the side of my contraption?" I pointed at the shiny red button I'd affixed to the side of my contraption for emphasis.

Before Fphant could reply I pushed the shiny red button I'd affixed to the side of my contraption.

A high-pitched hum on the edge of my hearing preceded a bright blue glow emanating from the core of the device. Fphant took two cautionary steps back from the machine, then two more. It was probably a smart move on his part. The blue glow grew brighter and brighter until it was two bright to look at. I shielded my eyes with a hoof, then wondered why I was still being blinded. With a start I realized that the light was emanating not only from the machine, but from me as well.

"This is probably gonna hurt a lot," I mused. I slowly rose a few inches into the air, not very far but enough so that I couldn't touch the ground at all. I probably looked like quite the sight; a magestic pony-shaped blue star rising up to smite my enemies with divine power... and stuff!

I waved my hooves around trying to make something happen. My efforts proved fruitless, I just kept getting brighter and rose a couple more inches. When I was about eight or nine inches off the ground I slowly rotated until my nose was pointing directly towards where Artorias and the Courier were locked in combat.

"Is turning you into a floating lantern all it does?" Fphant asked with disappointment lacing his voice.

As if to spite Fphant's skepticism the machine chose that moment to finish doing what it was doing. My forelegs were forced in front of me, my hinds out behind me like I was diving, it was the most aerodynamic shape I could be put into without breaking bones. For half a second the high-pitched humming stopped and I felt some last-second adjustments being made until I was pointed directly at Artorias.

To this day, I believe I am the only Earth Pony ever to have broken the sound barrier, which is what I did when the machine sent me thataway.

Author's Note:

This chapter brought to you by the Piano Man.
Knight Artorias is a character from Dark Souls, which is a fantastic game and you should play it if you haven't. Prepare to die.
Most of Artorias's lines come straight from unused audio files from the game.

I kind of just gave the Courier whatever weapons he could possibly use. So far we've seen him use an AMR -with normal, AP, and explosive ammo- a hunting shotgun, the most badass pistol ever, Old Glory, and now he's dual-wielding bowie knives. Dual wielding should totally be a thing in the next fallout game, especially since Bethesda put it in Skyrim.

Stay awesome. Try not to die.