The Bill-inning

by EmperorDalek

Chapter 14

Adventures in the Dreamscape Part 4
Battle at Fawful Castle Part 1

---

Silence, that was all that dominated every corner of the vast and infinite space that surrounded one planet in particular that always is enveloped in darkness, even during the day…for it is really is a day of darkness a Dark Day as created by this planet’s ruler who bears the name of Fawful.

The Sun is dark, the Moon is dark, even the rays of light that penetrate through the – even dark – skies is nothing but a black a wave shining down from a world beyond that consists of nothing but the great dark.

All across the world from which Fawful rules her great empire there are great and terrible camps where the local populace has been made into slaves to serve her foul war machine of eternal desire for conquest, in these terrible factories great war machines are forged, great beasts whose skin are iron and their very breath is flame from their cores.

In great castles Fawful’s governors rule their respective sectors as set up by Fawful, they report to her on the success of progress of the construction of various projects…

But recently contact with these production plants have been cut, and at a steady pace more and more of them seem to be forcefully cut off from communicating with Fawful Castle…As time have passed more and more of these production plants have been crossed off as no longer operable due to abrupt interruptions.

Because of these interruptions Fawful have been forced to constantly reschedule her weeding with Cipher for fear of attack on that particular day if she is too lax, thus she cannot take any chances.

A fleet of Airships have gathered to form a protective perimeter around Fawful Castle, but Fawful will not do anything until this annoying revolt has been crushed and her authority is once more the one that reigns supreme.

---

*Present*

Standing atop the deck of the main Flagship in Fawful’s armada a creature with a small body that is hidden behind green robes and a white mask that bears the same facial expression as Fawful is scouting the landscape from the Bridge of its particular Airship.

Moving around down on deck several other identical clad figures are attending various duties, all standing at the ready in case the enemy suddenly appears to attack the castle.

‘’Captain,’’ a random crewmember speaks up as it approaches him.

‘’Speak soldier.’’ He instructs.

‘’No sign of the enemy has been seen as of yet, though, the other ships are reporting in the same news.’’

‘’Hmmm…’’ he raises his – stubby – arm up to touch the underside of his mask. ‘’Inform all ship Captains that at the first sign of anything suspicious report back to me, no risks are to be taken that will devastate our armada.’’

‘’Yes sir.’’ He said before away and walking off to tell Communications Guy to relay that message to the rest of the armada.

With only the sound of the ship’s propellers sounding on the air the Captain put both arms behind his back as he continued keeping his eyes peeled on any signs of trouble approaching the castle.

The Bullet Bill cannons were full loaded and ready to fire so unless they were attacked from above then there was nothing that could penetrate their prepared defense.

---

(Listen to this track until the next music track)

Behind the castle walls, out in one of the courtyards a column of six with two rowed battalion of mask-wearing creatures were marching. However, unlike the ones on the Airships these ones were riding sword tipped pogo sticks.

After rounding a corner, the battalion vanishes from sight, probably further down the hall, a sudden *POOF* flash emerges in the courtyard, standing in the once vacant space is both Princesses Luna and the one to be named Peach, someone who had her kingdom stolen from Fawful.

With multiple turns as she looked around the courtyard she made certain that no one had seen them in there since it had been a longshot in teleporting there in the first place with just the two of them.

‘’Okay, the coast seems clear,’’ Luna assured Peach, guiding her attention along the stone walls until she spotted a pair of doors. ‘’There, -! that door should lead into the main halls that lead directly to Fawful’s throne room.’’ She pointed her hoof towards the doors to show.

‘’Indeed they should.’’ Said Peach.

Stepping/trotting up to the doors Luna’s horn started to glow as magic flowed to its tip, an aura enveloped the handles of both doors, pushing them open for the two females to enter inside the dark corridor leading into the deep inner workings of Fawful’s castle…

But despite the doors being closed behind them a figure atop the nearby battlements peeked its head out from behind the wall that it had hidden behind, a devious grin forming on its face.

‘’Heehee…Won’t this be an interesting tale to tell the master?’’ It chuckled to itself as its eyes narrowed towards the door. ‘’But just who exactly were they? I have never seen that blue horse thingy before, and that other pink dressing Human is not one that my memory is telling me that I should be familiar with…’’

‘’Bahh…Whatever, I have a message to deliver.’’

It turned around and started to bounce along the top of the wall.

After some time of bouncing the figure started following a stone bridge that lead out across a gap between the wall and the main castle, vanishing down into the darkness of the open doorway as it ventured deep into the castle.

---

After some time of continuously bouncing through various corridors and hallways it arrived at a pair of rather large doors.

Knocking on them, it was suddenly startled when an angry, ‘’What?!’’ Shivering it was hesitant on opening those doors at first, but finally did.

Pushing one of the doors open the inside of the room was nothing but pure darkness, gulping down before stepping into the room he slowly bounced inside the barely illuminated shadows. The light from the opened door being the only source of light.

He did not stop until he reached the center of the room, though, not of his own wish to do but because raspy breathing could be heard throughout the room.

Nervous, his head started looking throughout the room.

A pair of large, blood-red veiny eyes looked back out at him from the darkness, narrowing as they only continued to make him feel uneasy about coming here.

‘’Speak...’’ The voice instructed, a predominant metal tapping beginning to accompany it as those angry eyes looked back in expectantly at the new arrival.

‘’W-well,’’ he stuttered nervously shifting the attention of his eyes around the room. ‘’Intruders have somehow breeched the Airship armada and snuck into the castle.’’

‘’Intruders?’’ The eyes bulged wide from surprise, accompanied by a hint of lightly uncovered rage. ‘’What did they look like?’’ The eyes asked in anger as they became cross, a loud of something being gripped tightly sounding shortly after from behind the shadowy veil.

‘’O-one was a blue horse and the other was a Human in a pink dress.’’

‘’Hmmm…’’ The eyes grumbled, shrinking back down as they looked away. ‘’The former sounds familiar, but the latter is all but a mystery that I cannot catch.’’

‘’She was wearing regal attire so she might originate from one of the conquered kingdoms.’’

‘’Perhaps…’’

‘’S-shall I go and deal with them, master?’’ He asked.

The eyes looked up staring back out at him again.

‘’Yes, we must stop them from delving any deeper into the castle…Go,’’ out of the shadows a clawed hand reaches out to him. The rattling of chains being the sound that accompanied its slow movement out of the darkness and into the partial light. ‘’Assemble your squad and begin sweeping the halls, corridors and all other corners of the castle. We cannot allow them to overstep their boundaries more than they already have.’’

‘’Y-yes master, I will see to it immediately.’’

With a bow the newcomer gently started to bounce back the way it had come, making sure to maintain a continuous visual fix with the eyes in front of it…

Slowly, the claw retracted back into the dark, vanishing from sight.

Behind him he closes the door as he bounces out of the room, returning the room to its dark and lightless environment, the only source of light, ironically, being the only to shine any sort of illumination is the pair of glowing eyes.

---

*15 Minutes later…*

Wandering in through the halls and corridors of Castle Fawful Luna could not help but think it was more or less, kind of…dull, it wasn’t as awe-inspiring as she had expected from a place that was described as belonging to one of the cruelest rulers, instead it mostly consisted of dark stone walls, purple flame torches aligning the wall and banners that depicted that ever maddening grin of Fawful. Even the carpets had her face.

While on their small journey they came upon a long hallway part of the castle that had these glass windows through which shone black light.

Outside the windows the two females could see the vast armada of Fawful’s Airships forming a protective circle around the floating castle, their banners flying the always present face of Fawful on it.

Scrunching her face at it Luna could not help but still glare angrily at it, Fawful’s joy was but the misery of others, it was sickening…and somewhat disheartening since she could make out, not too well but well enough, the crews of the Airships moving to and fro in tending to their respective job.

It was the fact that they stood up on all fours that got to her.

Behind the duo further back a small formation of those hooded/masked individuals were bouncing down the hall on their sword like pogo sticks.

One of the masked bouncers at the back did a turn of its head looking down the hall on its left.

Oh it’s just a Human wearing a dress and a horny blue horse with wings, it gently resumed its bouncing, following after the rest of its companions shortly after having that thought pop into its head.

Wait, what? W-was there anything about that that made sense? Its mind screamed as it poked its head back out from behind the wall at realizing how bonkers that sounded.

---

For the next ten minutes the duo of females trotted/walked down the hallway, Luna was looking around at the hallways which despite looking fairly similar still had some elements that drew her attention and made it difficult for her to look away, the paintings, the tapestries, and especially some of the more spiked windows were all things that her eyes, no matter how she wanted to, could not look away from.

Peach hung her head low, holding one of her arms with her hand as she walked beside Luna.

Gently raising her head, she then lowered it again back down, but not before noticing something that looked to be rather sudden, and just enough to get her to do a double take.

Her body tensed freezing in place, and not moving another step further from where she was now standing.

Luna’s peripheral vision did not fail her, as while she was admiring the right side of the hallway they had been travelling down on she had suddenly noticed when Peach vanished from her sight.

She stopped and turned back towards the motionless Human who was wearing a look of frozen shock, beckoning Luna to not only raise a confused brow at her, but also turn her own and look back down the hall where Peach had seen whatever had caused to just suddenly stop in her tracks like that…

But when she looked down the hall her eyes grew wide from surprise…but mostly from shock at what meet them.

‘’Well, well, well, boys,’’ a figure riding spring knife at the back – with a pair of floating eyes – which is ridden by a red round horned figure said. ‘’Looks like we’ve found ourselves a good couple of trespassers.’’

‘’Yeah!’’ One of the figures of the formation spoke up in synchronized bounce.

‘’Ooh, you’re going to get it!’’ Another said as it too bounced in its place.

‘’Listen up gang, these two are obviously intruders who intend on crashing master’s awesome party so it’s our duty to make sure that these two intruders don’t get any further than where they have come.’’

The smaller figures started bouncing up and down, cheering as they were all getting hyped up to contend with these two unfortunate souls who thought that they could defy their master’s word and come here unannounced without an invitation.

While the group cheered in front of their leader, Luna and Peach merely turned to eachother, exchanging confused looks with one another.

‘’Um…I’m sorry, but who are you?’’ Luna asked as she turned back to face the group.

The cheering suddenly went silent and all eyes fell upon her, an uneasy silence hanging on the air.

‘’What?’’ Luna asked confused from all the stares she was receiving.

‘’Y-you seriously don’t know who we are?’’ One of the small creatures asked.

‘’Uhh-‘’

‘’Yeah, seriously! Like, what rock have you been living under?’’ Another one of them rudely interrupted her.

‘’We are the proud Shysters, and this,’’ all of them moved out of the way, extending their arms back up towards their leader who stood behind them. ‘’Is our great leader…’’ with a sudden synchronized turn of their heads they all looked back at the two females. ‘’Who is going to pound you two rule ladies into granite after he is finished with you.’’

‘’Oh you guys…’’ The leader gestured with its hand, averting away in a voice that Luna and Peach knew to be feigned humiliation.

‘’Okay...But the issue still stands about who you are. You still haven’t told us your name. Which is…?’’ Luna leaned her head in a little closer, raising a brow at the spring knife’s rider.

Inside his eyes flaming orbs started glowing, smoke started coming out of his mouth, accompanied thereafter by actual fire.

‘’RrrrrRRRRGHH…!’’ He growled.

‘’My name’s MACK!’’ He shouted out in blind rage, elongating his neck, which was on a spring, out towards them. ‘’MACK! MACK! MACK! MACK!’’ He repeated with a deep and infuriated toned voice.

‘’OHHhh…!’’ Both Luna and Peach said in a perfectly toned and synchronization.

A silence hanging on the air as silence interjected itself inbetween what the two female had said and what Peach immediately followed it up with.

‘’Well that sounds pretty lame, whatever.’’ Peach suddenly said as she brought a gloved hand up in front of her yawning mouth. ‘’All that buildup for nothing...Aside from a pathetic little tantrum.’’

“GrrrRRRAAAHHHH!’’ Mack shouted in pure rage.

‘’KILL THEM!’’ He shouted, removing a hand from his handlebars to point at the two females.

‘’Yes sir!’’ The Shysters all said in a single voice, as they all started to bounce giddily in place.

(Listen to this track until the next music track)

Bouncing forward, they leaped into action against the ones that had angered their master to such an extent that he actually sent them in first instead of dealing with them first. But whatever, at least now they could get a chance to get back at that ignorant little blue horse for not knowing who they were.

Following the Shysters’s movements with her eyes, Luna suddenly let out a shout of, ‘’Look out!’’ upon finally noticing that the Shysters were riding sword-tipped pogosticks!

Magic flowed to her horn, and she suddenly raised a protective barrier around both herself and Peach.

*BRA-WOING*

Being deflected away by their sharp tips impacting the force field the Shysters were forced to back away, putting some distance between themselves and the females since their attack had relied on them getting in a first strike, but now they were completely exposed being so close – Luna meanwhile took down the barrier.

‘’OOhh…You’re going to regret ruining my fun like that, you female dog!’’ One of the Shysters bounced angrily.

Drain

He shot a fireball at Peach, hoping to get in one for his master – and now him, being insulted.

However, Peach was hit by the fireball, but it didn’t seem to do sufficient damage to her. Surprised, the other Shysters started exchanging looks with one another at his failure.

Drain

All the other Shysters all started sending their own fireballs towards Peach, five of them being sent in Luna’s direction, though, she just raised another protective barrier to fend them off.

Peach on the other hoof/hand was taking most of the fireballs without any problems, aside from her dress becoming darker and darker.

‘’Aw-rgh…Forget her, let’s focus on the horse.’’ One of the Shysters spoke up, his direction being shifted onto Luna. ‘’She seems far easier to take down.’’

‘’Yay!’’ The group of other Shysters agreed in one voice, happily bouncing in place.

The Shysters all got together in a single group, all of them banding together into a rather tight formation.

---

From his spot further back Mack watched the group with intrigue, trying to analyze their strategy. Their two opponents hadn’t even attacked them yet, and they had already done more to harm the Shyster’s pride, more so than any attack so far.

Hmm…I don’t like where this is going, Mack thought as he continued to watch the battle.

---

Lazy Shell

Pulling out a large – and noticeably lacking an inhabitant – Koopa shell, Peach immediately kicked it along the floor towards the Shysters…

*BRA-WOING*

However, the giant spinning Koopa shell missed them as all of them merely jumped up, dodging it.

Seeing this course of action, Luna hesitated slightly on taking her turn to attack, as she squinted her eyes a little, narrowing them towards the group of Shysters.

A smile forming as a plan was created in her head.

She leaned in closer to Peach, bringing a hoof to her ear as she whispered what she was thinking to the growing frustrated Human female.

Peach’s face changed from annoyance to a smirk that Luna returned back with a rapid synchronized tapping up of both of her eyes.

‘’Just let me do my thing first.’’ Peach nodded, holding up a thumb to her.

Luna nodded and then turned her head to look back in direction of the Shysters, her eyes narrowing upon them.

Upon closing her eyes an aura began enveloping her horn, growing brighter and brighter as she concentrated more and more energy into pulling the spell off in the way that she wanted it to.

Moon Beam

Luna’s eyes shot open – her eyes enraptured in a white glow – and the buildup energy in her horn exploded out across the hall, surrounding all the Shysters. Aside from Mack who was much further back.

When Luna’s eyes, and horn, died back down to their normal selves she blinked her eyes a good couple of times.

However, upon looking back towards the Shysters she saw exactly what she wanted to see.

Groaning and laying on the ground, the no longer standing up on the pogo sticks Shysters were all covering their eyes with the eyes of their masks.

‘’GAH...! It burns!’’

‘’I cannot see!’’

‘’MY EYES!’’

They all called out as they lay on the floor. Some even had spiraling eyes and starts above them from the mere impact against the floor had disoriented them.

*The enemy was Paralyzed by Luna*

With a smile Luna turned her head back towards Peach, to which Peach looked back into her face as well.

‘’Now!’’ She shouted as she pointed her arm back out towards the group of grounded Shysters. Peach just did a mere nod of her head before directing her attention back to the Shysters.

Lazy Shell

Once again she pulled out that giant shell out, and after putting it down on the floor kicked it over towards the downed Shysters.

*BLAM*

Once the Shysters were hit by the spinning shell they all experienced a brief but damaging hit from the shell when making contact with them.

‘’Ughhh…’’ The Shysters groaned as they all lay on the ground, beaten from the quite damaging damage sustained from Peach’s Lazy Shell attack.

Well...there goes their promotion, thought Mack as he watched with horror-struck eyes as his Shysters all lay defeated in front of him. Fine *Sigh*…Looks like it’s my turn to have to deal with these two troublemakers, myself.

As they both watched the Shysters lying motionless on the ground Luna turned towards Peach, a smile looking back up at the victory-struck woman who was pumping her fists in a victorious manner.

‘’Good job Peach.’’

Peach turned towards her, giving Luna a confident smile back.

‘’Hey, don’t sweat I,’’ she said as she extended a raised hand out to her, giving a thumbs up. ’’It’s a little thing called teamwork, pal.’’

‘’Sure thing,’’ slowly, she turned her head back in front of her, staring down the hallway that now looked to be free-range. ‘’Now, let us be on our way so that we- ‘’

‘’No!’’

A voice shouted at them from down the hall, earning both of their attention. Down at the other end of the hallway they could see the angry-looking Mack bouncing madly in place, steam was coming out his head, and both his eyes and mouth was flaming, black smoke appearing through it.

‘’I will not allow you to move another inch further through this corridor!’’

*BRA-WOING*

He jumped up high in the air. Both Luna and Peach’s eyes watching him as he rose first high up, and then descending back down, this time much closer to them.

‘’This is where I will end your whatever little game you think you're playing!’’

(Listen to this track until the next music track)

The floating eyes of his knife-pogo stick started to glow red as he pulled his head back.

Flame Wall

Suddenly moving his head forward in a quick motion, making it spring forth due to the spring that was his neck it was pulled back to his body.

In front of him, a giant tall wave of fire suddenly started to come hurtling towards them at a quick speed!

Peach narrowed her eyes towards the fire, and hurried to pull her arms up in front of her in a defensive stance…
Luna, however, only started pulling energy into her horn, but because the fire was approaching her at an uneven speed it was hard to properly defend from it. It ended up reaching her before she too soon and she was, unfortunately, intercepted by it and engulfed as its heat passed over her body. Getting Peach too in the progress.

As the wall dissipated Luna was left sizzling from the intense heat, while Peach had not suffered so much as a scratch on her, instead only lowering her arms back down, shooting Mack a confident glaring smile.

With her peripheral vision she noticed Luna had been roasted from Mack’s attack, her overconfidence fading at the sight of this.

‘’Hey Luna…!’’ Luna’s left-side ear twitched as it picked up Peach’s voice. She turned her head looking back at the Human standing beside her on her left side. ‘’Mack’s is going to use magical attacks to contend with us, but despite his appearance don’t be fooled since his attacks, while quite weak, they can be a little difficult to defend against unless you are skilled at fighting him.’’

Breathing a little heavier as she recovered from his attack, Luna just nodded back to Peach, despite not knowing what she was just told; ‘’difficult to defend against unless you are skilled at fighting him.’’ What did that mean?

‘’My turn.’’ Peach said, suddenly extracting another one of those over-sized shells out of her dress, holding it with her hands.

Narrowing his eyes in glee, Mack tightened the grasp on the handlebars of his knife-pogo stick, preparing himself to avoid her attack. Sweat beginning to run as he watched Peach’s hands begin to let go of the sides of the shell. The timing was everything here, it always was.

With rough strength involved, she suddenly kicked the shell with her foot, sending it spinning through the air.

Watching with interest, Luna, Peach, and Mack watched as the shell started to go down towards the floor. It was going to touch down with the floor and move along the floor like when they fought the Shysters.

There! Mack shouted inside his mind seconds before the shell hit the floor.

Jumping upwards, his pogo stick quickly started going where he wanted at quick speeds, which was up.

*BRA-WOING*

But when he was up in the air, about to begin gloating at how their attacks were not going to do much to him, he suddenly grew wide-eyed, as while in mid-air his red pupils looked down towards the floor just in time to see the shell suddenly, and very unexpectedly, ricochet off the floor, instead speeding up towards him.

‘’Wait, what?!’’ He shouted at seeing this sudden change in how events were supposed to go down.

*WHAAAM*

Those were his only words before the shell hit him point-square in the face. He was hit so hard by it that his head was sent backwards by his spring-neck, disconnecting his head from his body.

The pogo stick returned back down to the ground, along with him still standing atop it, but instead of looking the way he had when he hangs down behind him while his arms were trying to reach behind him for his head.

‘’I will get you for this…’’ Mack shouted while still struggling to get his head back. ‘’That is, once I get my thoughts straight.’’ He grunted when he only ended up hitting his own head with his hands instead of actually getting a grip on it.

*Mack was neutralized by Peach*

‘’Yess!’’ Peach gestured with her fist in a victorious manner as she saw Mack struggling.

With a turn of her head to her right, she looked back at Luna, who was still a little surprised by everything that had happened.

‘’Luna!’’ The voice of Peach shouting to her seemed to snapped her out of it, and she, like her, turned to her left, meeting the other female’s face.

‘’A little advice!’’ Luna blinked her eyes a series of times. ‘’Mack is weak to electricity, my recommendation would be to use it on him before his defenses come back online and he will able to counter it.’’

*DING*

Luna’s eyes widened, turning back towards Mack while watching him continue to struggle even harder to reach for his head now that he had overheard the two of them talking about his primary weakness.

She frowned at first, feeling somewhat remotely sorry for Mack, despite his attempts to impede their advancing deeper into the castle to reach Bill Cipher…

‘’Luna…now!’’ Peach shouted in pint-up frustration when she did not seem to be doing anything.

Mack grinned, his hands finally gripping onto his head, getting enough of a grip, and began to lift it back up into its proper place.

Luna was motionless, her body consumed by pity, clouding her mind, and holding her back, preventing her from doing what had to be done.

Suddenly, everything started to turn red, getting progressively redder and redder.

Peach, being the only one of the group who could turn her head, looked to her right, staring out through the glass windows, but in doing so also dropped her jaw and instantly widened her eyes as she saw what was approaching them at rapid speed.

‘’Luna, get down!’’ Peach screamed as she extended a hand out to her, her loud warning being picked up by Mack, who was very surprised by what he was hearing...

Was someone attacking them? If so, then he needed to hurry and get his head back on so he could better contend with it…

However, unfortunately for both sides, a rapidly approaching fireball penetrated the glass windows, shattering the glass into tiny little pieces.

With tremendous force the fireball shot down into the floor, crashing against it, which only seemed to ignite it as an explosion erupted outwards from the point of impact!

*KA-BLAAM*

The explosion had the intensity of ten nukes, which made its shockwave look tame.

Luna’s motionless body, before she was swallowed up by the flames, suddenly saw a black shape position itself in front of her, holding its arms up in a defensive stance.
Mack on the other hand was just engulfed in flames, and then forced back through the hall.

The flames did not merely stop once reaching both sides, instead it travelled out through the hall, destroying more and more that it came across, causing entire walls to collapse as its foundations were weakened.

Before long smoke could be seen rising up from the castle’s center. The tallest tower creaked as some of its standing strength was lost. However, this was not enough to bring it down.

*Five minutes later*

With giant cracks and holes in the blackened walls, small remnants of fire remained in the mostly destroyed hallway. Black soot and ash were all that was left of the paintings, tapestries, and other fragile objects.

Pushing several large stones of the wall and ceiling off him, Mack grunts as his body emerges out from behind a small mound of destroyed rubble on the floor. In the meantime, Luna, who had not flinched from her spot suddenly blinked her eyes as she noticed that the entire hall had seen quite some devastating destruction.

‘’Ohhhh…’’ A figure moaned in front of her, grunting in pain as her scorched, singeing form lay down on the floor in front of Luna.

Gasping, Luna rushed over to her side, holding her body as she lifted Peach’s still smoking body up off the ground to hold in her arms. ‘’Peach! A-are you alright?’’ She asked as she lifted the woman’s body up.

*Cough Cough*

‘’I’ve been better…’’ She said weakly, as a smile started to form on her face, before having it be interrupted by another onslaught of coughs, making Luna nod her head, smiling with the sound of a sniffle accompanying it.

‘’Look,’’ she weakly raised her head, averting her head away from Luna, to the side, as her eyes tried to look to her left. Raising a weak hand, she pointed a finger back out at the other end of the hall where Mack was stepping back out into the center of the room.

‘’Mack is still alive…Y-you need to finish the job, so you can…’’ her face contorted, being accompanied by a painful groan. ‘’So you can get deeper into the castle and reclaim that which was stolen away from you.’’

Back down at the other end of the hall Mack was weakly walking out to the center of the hallway, his torn and shredded cape blowing in the breeze.

He was noticeably lacking his knife pogo stick, and considerably weakened as evidenced by his walk, and one of his arms were hanging down beside his body in a useless manner, one of his horns were broken, and the other had chips in it, his mouth was missing several teeth, and his left eye was flickering back into being normal while also being damaged at the same time.

He breathed heavily, obviously still alive, but recovering at a very, very, VERY slower rate than he was used to.

Narrowing his eyes, he glared back towards Luna and the dying Princess whom he did not know who was.

Peach continually tried to speak, only to suddenly feel something inside her snap!

Her eyes suddenly shot wide, and she let out one mighty gasp for air as her lungs started failing.

‘’L-luna!’’ She struggled as she tried to get what she was trying to say out…-

But was cut-off mid-sentence as her face become blank, her mouth hanging agape. Her head, like her arm, fell back down against the scorched ground…-

All movement becoming silent, motionless.

(Listen to this track until the next music track)

Luna’s look of concerned sympathy only grew pale at the sight of Peach’s motionless form as it lay there in front of her.

She tried gently shaking the not-moving Human body with her hoof, but no matter what she did nothing seemed to affect her. She didn’t flinch, she didn’t speak, she didn’t even breathe anymore, as shown when her chest failed to heave with another inhaling of breath.

‘’Peach?’’ Luna asked in a more worrying tone of voice, her hooves holding the Princess closer to her, shaking her body a little, but nothing she did procured anything other than dead silence, outside of the flames of the destroyed corner of the castle.

Standing at the other end of the greatly damaged hallway, Mack’s eyes narrowed in evil delight as they watched Luna mourn the passing of her friend.

With a silenced grin, he watched as she brought the dead female’s forehead to her own…

Gently putting the body back down on the ground, and standing herself back up off the ground. However, she did not move from her spot as her head was looking down towards the dead woman.

This annoyed Mack, but there was nothing that said he couldn’t use this to emotionally toy with her even now.

‘’Hey! Will you stop being so down in the slums? Some of us actually have things to do!’’

But even with this provocation and vile taunting from him, she did not avert her gaze from her fallen companion.

‘’Hey, you’re acting like someone just died…’’ he called back to her, holding of until just the right moment…

‘’…someone important anyway.’’ He added.

Luna gently lifted her head up, slowly turning it to be facing him directly.

Finally! He had managed to lure her into his little mind game.

His grin grew, though, only making her stern frown, staring back at him from across the hall grow sterner with every passing second.

‘’Her name,’’ she finally spoke, surprising him with her daring to open her mussel to speak like this to him.

‘’…is Peach.’’ She said in a tone as strict and tough as an angry teacher who is unimpressed that the class bully will not bullying the other students.

He backed away by several steps, frightened at what how her voice was speaking back at him.

‘’I may have held back once,’’ gently, she shook her head back at him as some of her anger, surprisingly, was taken off her face. ‘’But I won’t this time…’’

‘’This time, I will make sure to not fail in destroying you…As I should have done earlier.’’

While he backed away a few more steps, the fire in his mouth started to burn a little stronger.

Grinning, he looked back at her with a more courageous look on his face.

‘’Well, it’s nice to see that some of us have not forgotten that we are supposed to be fighting, not just standing around and staring at bricks.’’ He said as he took several steps forward.

She narrowed her eyes angrily at him the way that he was gloating.

‘’I will make sure to leave nothing of you so that my master will reward me with the highest of positions in the armed forces.’’ He scoffed, holding a hand out, and gesturing with it.

‘’I was never one for castle duty, but with your death, like your friend over here,’’ he back his hand at the corpse of Peach. ‘’I will no longer be seen as useless! AH HA HA HA HA HA HA!’’

He raised his arms, holding them up into the air as he laughed manically at how he would be celebrating his victory after defeating her.

Her eyes shot wide open, but not from his plan, no, but from just how…how…how not-fulfilling it sounded.

‘’A-are you serious?’’ She asked casually, with a hint of genuine surprise introduced into it. Magic being charged up into her horn, as while she was taking the time to ask this, she was not going to just leave herself open to attack.

Mack, upon hearing her ask that, stopped laughing, looking back down at her with an annoyed look.

(Listen to this track until the next told to stop)

‘’What?’’

‘’Eh, nothing, ‘’ she shrugged non-gallantly. ‘’It’s just that your goals just seem to be quite…pointless if you’re going through all of this trouble to defeat me…’’

‘’Well, who is to say that I am not aiming higher in life?’’ He asked back to her.

The smoke from the fire becoming quite prominent as it passed through his broken and unbroken teeth.

Narrowing his eyes, he stared back at her with a newfound evil glee.

That’s it, just a little more now… Mack thought.

But his mistake, the one that finally betrayed him were his eyes. From where she stood, she did notice what he was doing with his eyes, and it all became clear to her…But instead of doing anything that posed a threat to him…-

She instead just closed her eyes, calming the rest of her body and mind, not giving in to the anger that he was trying to stir within her.

Her sudden course of action did bring a lot of confusion over Mack, but he still stood firm where he was standing.

He homed in on her, frowning angrily in built-up frustration at seeing her just ignoring him like this.

‘’That’s…IT!’’ He shouted in an intensly loud voice that shattered the glass windows around, though, did nothing to the walls aside from causing specks of dust to fall to the floor, as he slammed his foot hard against the floor in rage.

He shot his head up, extending his arms out, and holding them beside him with tight fists. Fiery black smoke shot out of his eyes.

With sudden movement he raised his hand out in front of him.

‘’SEE YOU IN HELL!’’ He screamed out in violent rage, just as a ball consisting of nothing but pure, fiery energy that shot out in front of him towards Luna, who was still standing completely still in her place.

An almost too-violent sudden eruption from his hand as he sent the ball of intense power flying across the devastated hall towards the spot where she was standing.

…But in single second, all of time seemed to stop, moving slower, as everything around her came to a halt…

Her eyes shot open, looking back out in front of her, catching enough of a glimpse of the approaching ball of flaming energy that was in front of her.

With a single thought the magic that had been stored up inside her horn was finally unleased, an aura of blue magic surrounding the sharp tip, the crackling of electricity surging throughout the aura embalming her horn.

*WHOOSH*

A sudden wind came over the devastated hallway, moving over Luna before the ball of fire did, blowing dust up off the ground, and shrouding both her and it in a wall of grains of broken stone and specks of dust.

With a sudden grunt, Mack’s hand started lightly shaking, as he could feel something fighting back against him. He could still feel the ball that he had tried to attack with still existing, but definitely meeting an obstacle.

‘’Grrr – Come on!’’ He grunted in a quickly mounted irritation that was only getting worse by the second he was faced with this unseen obstacle in the path of his attack.

The dust was blown aside as a light suddenly shined through the wall of the gradually descending grains of dust and stone.

The light fell upon his face, but only on his damaged eye, mixing its blue and red colors to create a purple pupil.

It did not distract him, but he was slightly taken aback by it.

He was about to question it all, but before he could, the dust was blown further away from the hole the light was shining through to project itself onto his face.

Out of the wall of grains, trotting out with a slow and calculated manner in every step she took

…was the, female unknown to him as, Luna.

His violently burning eyes started to grow wide, with a shocked and agape mouth, as he bore witness to not only her emerging out through the wall of dust, but also the still burning ball of fire that he had originally launched at her.

As she emerged from the wall, the dust fell down behind her, covering the ground behind her as she stepped towards him.

From the tip of her horn she was shooting beams of electricity towards the fireball, keeping it in check…But also infusing her own power within it.

The electricity of her spell was bonding with the fireball.

It started to flicker back and forth between red and blue flames, which was slowly starting to merge together in a mix of blue, electrical flames.

Sparks shooting out from it as a result, hitting the floor and causing random burn circular marks to be left behind where they had used to be.

With deadpanned, stern eyes she looked up from the ball of fire-lightning to Mack, seeing the mounting look of fear that was mounting on his face as he was still in quite the disbelief at what he was seeing this random female to be capable of doing.

‘’N-no! T-this can’t be happening!’’ He spoke as he was struggling ever more and more to keep the ball under his control, his power draining every second that the fireball failed to hit its target…and as a consequence, his strength to put a viable counter-defense against her.

His hand had gone from quivering to violently shaking as every attempt of putting out more energy to try and defeat her was just being harshly countered by her power growing exponentially, just as if to taunt him.

‘’NrrrrggghhHHHHH’’ He grunted in growing frustration.

He dropped to his knees, hearing only the violent crackling of the electrical flames as he could now feel the ball getting close enough to feel the devastating energy it was putting out.

He tried looking up to meet his opponent’s face, but all he could see, in this final moment, was the electricity growing fiercer and fiercer.

Again, sparks shot out across the hall, connecting with the walls and shattering pieces of the brick walls.

Still she only continued to slowly approach him, the ball of energy being forced closer and closer.

In that moment he watched as she was now so close him that all he could see were the blinding light of the lightning, -

But for a single moment, he could see her eyes, they were staring back into his fiery ones, but they were not the eyes of a weak little pony Princess, but instead the ones of someone stern, strict, and powerful.

He was, simply put, spellbound by them, his courage fading away into nothing, and all hopes of resistance leaving him, but when he finally noticed this, it was already too late to do anything about it.

Coming to his senses far too late, the flame in his eye finally went out as he realized that all hope had left him.

The mad crackling of the lighting finally beginning to tear at his body, even from his distance, causing cuts and chips in his body.

In his final moments he let out the only sound he could, -

‘’NOOOOOOOOO…!!!!’’

…an ear-piercing scream…

and with that, she finally did it.

She sent the ball forward with a sudden pulse of energy being released from her horn, his screams being drowned out by a violent light unleashed by the energy ball being free from Luna’s control.

It made contact with his body, he let out a final scream as the electricity contained within the ball ravaged him, bringing him more pain than anything he had ever felt during his entire existence!

But that was not all that the electricity did, it caused his entire body to turn grey, solidifying in place, despite his attempts to move, -

But nothing was proving to be effective against his body being turned to pure stone.

His loud scream was cut off as his face was petrified, putting out the flames in his mouth.

Now, nothing was left of him, except a statue that had Mack’s likeness.

The ball came to a stop at the center of him, and started to glow brightly, sending rays of light out through various cracks that it made in his stone body, cracks started running down along his skin, expelling more and more light out, the intensity growing brighter and more violent, ripping first small pieces apart, but then an internal chain-reaction caused an overload of the energy in the ball!

*KA-BOOOM*

His body violently exploded, scattering the bits and pieces of his body around the room as an explosion consisting of nothing but light erupted from his body!

The explosion was so violent that it caused Luna to be sent flying back away by the force of the shockwave, making her fall back down on the burnt floor a good while back from where she had stood.

(Listen to this track until the next told to stop)

Looking back up as she was still lying on her side, she watched in shocked awe, with wide eyes, back up towards where she had last Mack to be standing, -

But all she saw were what little remained of his feet, still petrified in their place, as smoke raised up through the air, but officially there was nothing left of him.

Her attention was suddenly gripped, startled as a matter of fact, as quite suddenly, a metal object suddenly CLANGED down in front of her, steam floating up off it.

Upon further inspection, she saw that it was a, still-petrified, side of Mack’s face. More accurately, his eye.

She, with a slightly nervous face, looked around the destroyed hallway in case any other enemies were headed her way, as she slowly stood back up on her hooves.

When she was standing all the way up, her head suddenly shot up and let out a sudden gasp.

‘’Peach!’’

Turning around, she quickly started to hurry back to where Peach’s body lay.

But when she actually saw it, she suddenly in her tracks, her newly acquired look of concern becoming a sad frown at the sight of the lifeless body of her friend.

Seeing how dirtied she looked, and how motionless she was, she was painfully reminded that she was dead, and that there was no hope of getting her back…not now at least.

Her eyes were closed, making her look so peaceful, so calm, like she was just sleeping, but of course she knew that was not case.

She averted her head, looking back the hall, before moving it back to looking at Peach, giving her once glance.

‘’I will not let your sacrifice go unnoticed, I will stop all of this madness…I promise you that.’’

(Stop listening to soundtrack here)

She was silent for a moment, before quickly turning around, and running down the other hallway.

She ran past Mack’s remains, but did not spare them a glance, he was the least of her worries now, as she hurried down the hall, hurrying with all speed towards where Bill was being kept.

---

After she had left, out of the shadows, a small and constantly re-arranging cube floated down from the ceiling.

It looked down the hallway at her, catching just a faint glance of her before she rounded a corner, disappearing completely from sight.

It turned towards the shattered glass windows, and silently floated out into the night, gradually flying higher and higher up into the air towards the tower.

Author's Note:

*Phew!*

That was one incredible chapter, not just to get through correcting the ''last few'' mistakes before it was published, but also finding the good music ques to use.

I don't know if this new soundtrack inclusion is something that many would appreciate, but it is something, if received positive feedback, might be incorporated in every chapter from now on.
...Idk, it helped me.

Also, the additional litteral sub-title was just to distinguish it a little bit from the rest which i thought was just build-up for what is to come.

Link1 - Bowser's Castle (Second Time) - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars Music Extended
Link2 - Fight Against Monsters - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars Music Extended
Link3 - Fight Against an Armed Boss - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars Music Extended
Link4 - Star Wars Episode III - The Immolation Scene
Link5 - 24. "Voldemort's End" - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (soundtrack)
Link6 - 18 - Loved Ones & Leaving - Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix Soundtrack