//------------------------------// // 101 - Making Ready // Story: Lateral Movement // by Alzrius //------------------------------// Nosey grunted as she took a heavy strike from a harpoon-wielding sahuagin, barely managing to turn so that it hit her armor rather than her face. Although the blow didn’t penetrate, it almost drove the breath from her lungs due to the sheer force of the impact, making her armor chafe painfully against her soaked skin. Digging her hooves in, Nosey telekinetically lashed out with her rapier, stabbing at the arm the sahuagin was using to wield its harpoon. Her attack was less focused on trying to score a damaging blow than with making the creature withdraw its weapon, causing her to grin when it hurriedly withdrew its arm and shuffled backward a few steps. Bringing her rapier back into a ready position, Nosey kept her eyes firmly on her opponent, not that she could make out very much. The heavy rainfall and the fact that she’d lost her glasses at some point meant that, even with her armor glowing like a lamp thanks to Cozy’s light spell, the sahuagin had a somewhat blurred appearance. It wasn’t a major handicap, but it was enough of one that she already had cuts and bruises all over, despite not having killed one opponent yet. She had barely gotten her weapon back up when the sahuagin, apparently determined to finish her off, rushed back in again. This time its harpoon was pointed toward her legs, trying to hobble her. Nosey responded by bringing her rapier down sharply, the side of it deflecting the tip of the harpoon. But rather than trying to recover its weapon, the sahuagin instead released its grip, letting her parry knock it from its claws. For a moment Nosey felt elated that she had disarmed her enemy…only to realize that the sahuagin wasn’t aborting its initial rush towards her. Too late, Nosey realized that she’d focused too much on her opponent’s weapon, rather than the sahuagin itself. She tried to swing her rapier back up, but the sahuagin was already inside her reach, one claw reaching out to grasp her mane as she tried to throw herself backwards. Opening its maw, it leaned down and sank its teeth into her neck, causing Nosey to scream in pain. She tried to shake the creature off, but its grip on her was too strong. Worse, the thing started to thrash back and forth, keeping its jaw tightly clamped, and she suddenly realized that it was about to tear her throat out. Panicking, she fumbled to get her rapier back into position, but the thing’s thrashing and her poor eyesight were enough to leave her disoriented, unable to align the weapon properly in her telekinetic grip. The fangs in her neck sank deeper, and as its jaws closed tighter Nosey found that she couldn’t breathe anymore, and only dimly realized that she was going to die. I finally get to be in one of my stories, and it turns out to be my obituary. The thought, tinged with ironic humor, floated through her mind. It was a joke that she’d told herself periodically over the years, usually when she was feeling particularly down. Now it looked like it was about to come true. She wondered if Lex would give a quote about her… As her vision started to dim and she felt blood running down her neck, Nosey thought of the pony whose story she’d barely begun to write…and suddenly she felt angry. She had no idea why, but rage suddenly poured through her, and it gave her strength as she dug her hooves into the wet ground, surging forward even as she telekinetically moved her rapier, positioning it on the ground just behind the sahuagin, pointing directly upward. With the last of her strength, Nosey threw them both onto the blade. The sahuagin released its jaws from her throat as the rapier pierced its body, and it spasmed as it slid down the blade, struggling futilely to free itself from its impalement. Above it, Nosey came down on the tip of the rapier as well…which immediately stopped as it hit her armor, leaving her leaning on the point of her sword, watching from barely two feet away as the sahuagin’s struggles slowed and finally stopped altogether. Although she knew that she should be horrified that she’d just killed another living thing, all she felt at that moment was a numb sense of satisfaction at having won the fight. “Read it and weep,” she croaked, barely able to speak with how savaged her throat was. Rolling the dead creature over, she yanked her rapier free from its corpse and wearily stood up, readying herself for the next enemy. But even as she did, she heard Lex’s voice ring out. “It’s all clear up ahead! Keep moving!” Grinning, she couldn’t wait to tell him that she’d contributed to defeating the army of monsters. He’d have to admit that she was more than just an annoyance then. It didn’t occur to her to wonder why that thought made her so happy. “It’s all clear up ahead! Keep moving!” Just raising his voice was a dedicated effort, and Lex had to pause to get his breath back, leaning on Aria. “What about the others?” Cloudbank pointed towards the wall, forgetting that only she could see through it thanks to Lex’s scroll. “They’re still hypnotized by that thing’s lightshow.” “That should wear off in just a second,” rasped Aria, struggling to make herself heard over the storm. “I’ve seen them use it before. It doesn’t last very long if they can’t concentrate on maintaining it.” “That’s-, hey! You’re right!” Cloudbank exclaimed. As if on cue, several ponies began to emerge from the other side of the wall, a few of which were blinking and shaking their heads. Near the front of them was Cozy, who gaped – along with several others – at the sight of the dead aboleth, turning a gaze that was a mixture of confusion and amazement towards Cloudbank, able to tell that the pony with the giant scythe was probably responsible for the thing’s having been beheaded. But Cozy’s amazement was short-lived. As her eyes moved towards the fallen ponies that were scattered about she gasped in horror, before immediately running over to check on them. The sight made Lex avert his eyes, knowing that he couldn’t deal with the guilt of having led those brave ponies to their deaths. “We need to move on,” he spoke just loud enough to be heard by the ponies closest to him. “We’re almost to the pier, and th-” His words were interrupted as Cozy unleashed another wave of healing energy, causing him to look at her sharply. “What are you doing?!” “They’re alive!” she yelled back, and the words made his eyes widen in amazement, not daring to hope that she was right. But even as he looked, the ponies that had been lying insensate around the aboleth were starting to groan and move now that they had been healed. The sense of relief almost caused Lex to collapse, but it was followed immediately by shame. He hadn’t so much as bothered to check their condition because he was sure they’d been killed, and hadn’t wanted to make his guilt worse by seeing their dead bodies up close. If Cozy hadn’t been there… A loud cry jolted him out of his recrimination, and he looked up to see Cozy backing away from the surviving ponies, a horrified look on her face. The ponies themselves were the ones letting out screams as they looked at themselves, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Their coats were sloughing off in large clumps, and the skin beneath them had turned into a translucent membrane that looked nothing like healthy flesh. Suddenly Lex knew that it was no coincidence that these ponies had survived their charge on the aboleth; it had let them live because it had done...something to them. But even as his mind reeled with this latest evidence of the horrors that were arrayed against them, more ponies were pouring through the illusory wall, and Lex knew he didn’t have time to be caught up in this latest problem. “Cozy!” he yelled, needing to call her name twice more before she managed to tear her eyes away from what had happened to those poor ponies and look at him. “We’ll fix them later! For now, just keep them close to you!” She looked ready to protest that last part, but bit her lip and nodded, turning back to the afflicted ponies to try and calm them down. For his part, Lex turned back to Aria and Cloudbank. “We need to get to the pier.” Another flash of lightning ripped through the sky as he spoke, illuminating the kraken that was still waiting for them there. Lex narrowed his eyes at the sight. “It’s time to end this.” Tlerekithres watched as the ponies made their way closer. They didn’t seem to be in a hurry, but that was fine; he had a large number of magical tattoos, and could only activate one at a time, so the respite was advantageous for him. So far he’d only been able to make use of three of them; one to make his position appear to be a few feet off from his actual location, another to increase his speed, and a third to make his flesh as hard as stone. The first two effects could be invoked three times in a given day, but the third one was different; it could only be utilized once before having to be prepared from scratch. Even as he watched, the sigils on his flesh vanished, confirming that the magic had taken effect. Although the use was a moderately expensive one, Tlerekithres paid it no mind. After all, refusing to make use of resources when the situation called for it, in the name of preserving them for later, was no different than not having them at all. To err on the side of caution was still erring, after all. As the ponies drew closer to him, Tlerekithres considered his attack options. He could have ordered more of his minions to surge out of the water and attack those herd animals en masse, he knew. Even if they couldn’t breathe in an airy environment, his slaves could hold their breath long enough to rise up and overwhelm the ponies with sheer numbers. But that was an imperfect plan. His slaves would be at a severe disadvantage out of water, since the ponies would only need to fortify their defenses and his slaves would be forced to retreat or suffocate. The other option was to increase the winds even more. As it was, the brewing storm was already so great that the ixitxachitl that had cast flight spells on themselves had since retreated back into the water, knowing that to remain in the air during the windstorm was courting disaster. But that plan was also discarded; increasing the storm’s power to the point of bringing down a tornado would likely cause that scythe to be flung someplace random. Just the thought of getting his tentacles on an artifact as powerful as that scythe was enough to make Tlerekithres undulate in desire, and the prospect of not getting it because a tornado had tossed it beyond his reach was untenable. That left only one remaining choice: fight them personally. It was the more dangerous option, but also the one that offered the greatest rewards. Besides, he had numerous tattoos remaining, each one containing magic that he had carefully chosen in order to respond to various circumstances, learned over the course of a life that had spanned over fourteen hundred years and more battles than he could remember. Let the ponies come. It was time to end this.