//------------------------------//
// 79 - No Turning Back 
// Story: Lateral Movement 
// by Alzrius 
//------------------------------//

The undead ponies poured through the hole in the wall, unleashing pandemonium as they flooded the restaurant. 

Snarling and howling in hunger, they lashed out at everyone indiscriminately. Three of them immediately flung themselves into the air, rotting wings stretching out as they attempted to bring down the blurred monster hovering in place. Four headed straight for the pudgy fish-creature, and an equal number charged the sahuagin warrior. Two more, seeing that every other available target was taken, charged towards Lex.

Attempting to duck under a rotting hoof failed, but his defensive spells and items caused it to scrape harmlessly over his flank without breaking the skin. Another one leaned in to bite at him, but Lex batted it away with a growl, moving back to buy himself some breathing room. The two undead ponies advanced on him, seeing that he was moving into a corner of the room and thinking him trapped. But their vicious grins vanished a moment later as he dissolved into shadow, and the pair shrieked in frustration as they rushed at him, their teeth and hooves passing through his insubstantial body uselessly.

Lex, for his part, had ceased to worry about his now-powerless assailants, and instead turned his attention to the rest of the brawl. Although he hadn't held much hope that the undead horde – which he had found lurking around the edges of the vicinity, drawn to the sounds of the conflict just like he’d thought they’d be – would be able to bring down the aquatic monsters, he had thought that they’d at least be able to slow them down. But it was rapidly becoming obvious that the unliving creatures weren’t much of a threat at all. 

Even as Lex watched, the sahuagin with the large trident – apparently unharmed so far – speared one of the undead ponies through its head, lifting it off the ground and letting it wriggle for a few seconds before it went still, tossing it away with a flick of the weapon a moment later. He didn’t stop there, his lower arms lashing out to tear most of the flesh from another undead pony’s skull, though its reaction was simply to sneer and attempt to bite at him. Its reward for its efforts was that the sahuagin skewered with its trident it just like he had the other one. The remaining two were undaunted, but their strikes just seemed to bounce off the creature’s scales.

The pudgy fish-monster was faring even better. Despite the four undead ponies surrounding it, it was dodging or blocking every attack they made. One leaned in to bite at it, but was repelled by a finned limb catching it by the forehead and shoving it back. The recoil of pushing its opponent away moved the ichthyoid backward just far enough to avoid another pony’s hoof. Continuing with the motion, it bent its body backwards at the knees to avoid a third undead pony’s bite, and for a moment looked like it would fall over. But a single upper limb reached the ground first, catching its fall before it collapsed, even as the other swatted aside another hoof-strike. 

Its position left it vulnerable, its back barely off the ground and its belly bared, ready to be torn apart…or at least that’s how it looked to Lex. But rather than trying to right itself, the creature flipped its back legs upward, pushing itself into a headstand, and kicked out. Each leg went in a different direction, striking an undead pony’s head hard enough that Lex could hear the crunch over the din of battle. Wounded, the two undead ponies fell back, which gave the pudgy fish-thing enough room to flip itself back onto its webbed feet and follow up its earlier attacks, one arm hitting an undead pony’s neck in a chop so strong that it tore the thing’s head clean off.

Only the flying creature seemed to be having trouble. Although its blurring magic hid any wounds it might have taken, the three undead pegasi on it were steadily pushing it back into a corner, much as Lex had been. More than that, the two undead ponies that had been on him were headed towards it now, having spotted more tangible prey. Although they weren’t able to fly, the ceiling was low enough that they were just barely able to reach it with their hooves as they jumped.

Lex couldn’t make out its sibilant voice over the noise, but the creature must have cast a spell, because a moment later it was wrapped in flames, a wispy coat of violet fire surrounding it. For a moment Lex thought it had miscast whatever spell it was attempting, but a moment later one of the unloving pegasi tried to bite the creature, apparently undaunted by its burning shield. Its jaws seemed to catch on something, but it instantly drew back, shrieking horribly as its head caught fire. Batting at the flames with its hooves uselessly, it began to careen around the room before crashing to the ground, still burning.

The sight seemed to be the last straw for the undead ponies. Although the conflict had lasted barely more than ten seconds, it was enough to firmly drive home just how outmatched they were. Acting on some unspoken signal, they turned and ran as one, the bulk of them heading for the hole in the wall that Lex had conjured, while others scrambled to reach the doors and windows. 

Cursing at how easily they’d been routed, Lex cast another spell, knowing that it was all he had time for before there was nothing left to distract the aquatic trio. He needed to do something to take at least one of them out of the fight; not necessarily kill it, but isolate it so that he wouldn’t have to deal with it before finishing the others off. Making a quick decision, Lex focused on the floating creature, still hovering near the ceiling, and chanted a spell. It seemed to recognize what he was trying to do, because it began to dart away, but it hadn’t moved more than a foot before a spherical force field sprung up around it, just barely large enough to contain its bulk. It thrashed, and Lex could hear it hissing curses, but it was contained, and would be so long as the spell lasted; while it might have countermeasures, such as another dispelling spell, that was an unavoidable risk. 

And then there was no more time to worry about the captured thing, as its companions were on him.

A trident flew at him, and Lex barely managed to twist to the side, letting it embed itself in the wall next to him. But immediately, the pudgy fish-thing was there, having covered the distance between itself and Lex – almost twenty feet! – in a single leap. A punch tore through his shadowy form, and although there was no physical impact Lex still couldn’t hold back a grunt of pain, trying to move backwards through the wall and escape. 

But Monitor had no intention of letting its prey get away a second time. It let the momentum of its leap carrying it past the kill-now enemy and, rather than falling, reached out to grab the trident that was jutting out from the wall. Taking hold of the shaft, it swung itself back up and perched on it, directly in the path of its enemy’s intended escape route. 

Lex immediately came to a stop as the thing interposed itself between him and the wall, narrowing his eyes. The thing wanted to have a showdown? Fine. It took only a moment to cast a spell, one that – as with the dragon – would seal the creature within a prison of ice. But in the split-second between when the last syllable of the spell left Lex’s immaterial lips and the first patch of frost began to spread, the creature dodged out of the way. It shouldn’t have been possible; there was no ray or beam for it to avoid. But somehow it did it anyway, tumbling down and yanking the trident out of the wall, tossing it back over to the sahuagin, who caught it easily.

Worse, at that moment Lex heard the flying creature he’d sealed hiss the words to a spell – that same dispelling spell that he’d half-expected. Luckily his force field spell held, but if that thing could keep attempting to bring it down then there was a real chance it would succeed before it ran out of spells. Which meant, Lex realized, that he needed to take these other two down before their spellcasting ally rejoined the fray.

As he glared down at the remaining pair of enemies, Lex couldn’t help but wish for the thousandth time that he could use the area-effect destructive spells that were so common on Everglow. If he could have, he’d have gladly rained fireballs and lightning bolts down on the pair until they were charred beyond recognition. But that option wasn’t available to him; he had decided, back when he had developed his thaumaturgy, that learning magic that allowed for such a high degree of collateral damage was the height of irresponsibility. So instead, when learning to shape his thoughts so as to be able to contain magical energy, he had deliberately excluded any concept of destructive magic that wasn’t individually-targeted from his mindset. The result was that such magic was quite literally unthinkable for him now.

It was, he’d come to realize later, a decision made purely because he hadn’t been able to conceive of living in a land that wasn’t as peaceful as Equestria. The idea that he’d one day find himself in a world teeming with dangerous monsters and ruthless people, a world where survival was an open question and so would require commensurately dangerous magic, had simply been beyond his imagination. But for all that he’d come to rue his decision, it was too late to change it now; the new thought-patterns had been thoroughly written into his brain by then, and changing them simply wasn’t possible, not without inflicting catastrophic damage to his mind.

And then there was no more time to curse his shortsightedness, as the two monsters rushed at him again.





Cozy groaned, holding her breath and keeping a hoof over her nose until Drafty and Cloudbank settled down, having blown the horrific stench away with their wings. “Thanks, girls,” she coughed, gulping down a lungful of fresh air.

“That wa-, ack! Aw-awful!” gagged Aisle, still looking a sickly green.

“I think it means we’re getting close,” replied Cloudbank. “This is probably another one of the defensive spells Lex put up around the shelter.”

An amused snort came from Drafty. “It’s kinda funny though, isn’t it? I mean, he’s a big powerful wizard and all, so I thought he’d use walls of fire or summoned demons or something to protect this place. Not a rotten egg smell.”

“That was not a rotten egg smell,” moaned Aisle. “I’ve smelled rotten eggs before, in my job at the market. Whatever that was just now was ten times worse.”

“Then we should get moving, just in case it starts to come back,” said Cozy, shaking off the last of her nausea. 

“I agree,” nodded Cloudbank. “I think we should try going this way,” she pointed off to the right.

“How come?” asked Drafty, cocking her head to the side.

In response, Cloudbank picked up a pair of loose nails that were on the ground. “Listen to this,” she instructed the others, before tossing one straight forward. Although it was immediately lost to sight thanks to the swirly mist around them, they could still hear the faint clinking as it struck the ground.

“Okay, so?” asked Aisle. Cloudbank gestured for him to wait, then tossed the second nail off to the right, in the direction she’d previously indicated. The group kept their ears perked, but there was no sound to be heard, as though the mist had swallowed the nail utterly before it could hit the ground.

“Huh. That’s weird,” admitted Drafty.

“I heard it – or rather I didn’t hear anything – when we were blowing that bad smell away just now,” explained Cloudbank. “The wind from our wings was sending debris in every direction, but I couldn’t hear anything from over there.”

“Works for me,” said Cozy with a shrug. Behind her, Aisle nodded.

“Alright, let’s see if we can finally get where we’re going!” Drafty smiled, and her obvious attempt to be enthusiastic made Cloudbank chuckle.

Deciding to copy her friend’s attitude, Cloudbank pointed a hoof towards the area of soundlessness. “Alright, everypony follow me. Shelter ho!” 

She just hoped that she was right about that being their destination, and not some new disaster.