//------------------------------// // 103 - In Extremis // Story: Lateral Movement // by Alzrius //------------------------------// Drafty couldn’t even find the energy to yell as she buried her pick in the chest of the sahuagin in front of her, killing it instantly. The thing’s body immediately fell to the ground, and it was all Drafty could do not to collapse as well. How long had they been fighting? She knew it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes at most, but it felt like it had been hours. Her muscles were aching, her breath was coming in gasps, and her armor felt like it weighed a ton. Risking a quick glance around, she could see that everypony else looked as tired as she felt. But at least they were all still standing, and…was it her imagination, or were their enemies finally starting to thin out? Maybe, just maybe they could- BOOOOOOOOOM! Drafty – along with everyone else, friend and foe alike – froze as a tremendous crash rang out. A split-second later she recovered, glancing left and right to try and ascertain what had happened, but what she saw didn’t make any sense. From out of nowhere, two large piles of wooden wreckage had appeared about twenty feet away on either side of them, as though it had started raining houses. The sheer incongruity of what had happened, along with the slow realization that she’d have died if those had fallen in slightly different locations, was enough to momentarily drive all other thoughts from her mind. Belatedly, she glanced behind her. Barely noticing that Cozy and the others near her were okay, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding as she saw that Lex and Cloudbank were alright. But her calm was shattered as she realized that the other ponies along the edges of the pier were fighting to repel monsters that were coming up from the sides. Even as she watched, one of them fired its crossbow at Lex, narrowly missing him. And further back was a monstrous mass of darkness, impossible to get a good look at save only for the bright blue glow of its eyes and the constant sense of motion around it. The sight of it was terrifying, and Drafty had to resist the urge to turn and run as far away as she could. Instead, she looked back towards her front…and immediately ducked, giving a frightened yelp as the tip of a spear thrust right over her head, drawing a painful cut across her scalp. Their reprieve, it seemed, had ended. Hefting her pick, Drafty tried to put the gigantic monster behind her out of her mind. Hopefully Lex and Cloudbank would be able to take care of it. Somehow. Lex tried to get up, tried to put his hooves under him and raise himself off the ground, but his body refused to comply. Fighting down a rising sense of panic, he made another attempt, and it was no more successful than the first. He even attempted to call upon his dark magic to turn into a shadow, even though he knew it had already been completely expended. “Lex!” Cloudbank yelled as she ran over to him. “What’s wrong?!” “It…didn’t work…” he gasped. “I can’t…bind…it…” For a moment, Cloudbank gave him an uncomprehending look. Then her expression turned into one of shock and despair as his words sank in. “No…” For a moment her jaw worked soundlessly as she tried to process what he’d told her, shaking her head in denial that after everything they’d gone through, after how hard they’d fought and struggled, they were all going to die here. It couldn’t end like this! It wasn’t fair! “NO!” she yelled, her angry denial unable to fully conceal her desperation. “You think of something! Right now you figure something out! We-” Before she could say anything else, the pier gave a sudden shudder, as though struck by a tremendous impact, and began to sway alarmingly. Cloudbank gave a cry of fright, one that was echoed by the vanguard ponies around them as they struggled to retain their footing. Even the monsters climbing the sides seemed to be surprised, with more than a few falling back into the water. “What’s happening?!” screamed Cloudbank, having to repress the urge to spread her wings and fly away, knowing that she’d be at the mercy of the wind if she did. “What’s happening?!” “The kraken!” Lex’s response was a wheezing yell. “It’s attacking…the pier!” He wasn’t sure why the monster was trying to knock them into the water rather than simply crushing them directly, but ultimately it made little difference. One way or another, they were going to be killed and there was nothing he could do about it. This shouldn’t be happening! he raged internally. I was winning! I WAS WINNING! Until that monster had activated whatever those magic sigils on its body were, he had almost been able to take control of it with the Night Mare’s power! Just a little more, and it would have been defenseless and this would all have been over! I can’t lose again! Not when- Wait…magic sigils? It had impeded the Night Mare’s power, the power that the goddess had directly imbued him with, by using magic? But the Night Mare’s power wasn’t spellcasting, nor was it anything like the dark magic of his horn, or any other sort of magic that he’d ever seen or heard about. So why would a magical effect be able to interfere with it? “You shall contain a fragment of my essence within you, your very body a symbol of my power.” Lex’s eyes widened as the words of the Night Mare came back to him. He hadn’t paid much attention at the time, since the sensation of her blessing had made it difficult to think, let alone parse her words, but now he rapidly turned them over in his mind. A second later he came to a conclusion, and a desperate hope formed in his mind…just as the pier shuddered again, and began to list dangerously to the right. “We’ve gotta get off this thing!” hissed Aria, her face twisted in fear. Normally the water held no terror for her, but right now they were surrounded, and she had no doubt that her former comrades would tear her apart as soon as she was within their reach. “She’s right!” Cloudbank looked at Lex. “We need to fall back!” “No…” Lex’s voice was still strained, struggling under labored breaths, but his face had regained its determination, and it brought Cloudbank to a halt. “One…more try…” “Are you completely out of your mind?!” raged Aria. “If you want to die, go ahead! But you’re not taking me-” Her words were cut off abruptly as the end of a scythe swung around to point directly at her face. “You go and help the others,” ordered Cloudbank coldly, nodding her head at where the vanguard ponies on the right side of the pier were trying to steady themselves and fend off the monster horde at the same time, leveling Severance at Aria in a silent threat. “You’re crazy!” Aria snarled, baring her teeth at Cloudbank and giving her a hateful glare. But the pegasus was unmoved, meeting her gaze directly, and a moment later Aria looked away, cursing as she headed towards the embattled ponies. Cloudbank watched her go for just a moment, turning away only after seeing Aria slide next to one of the vanguard ponies and knock some sort of lobster-like creature away with a swing of her thick tail. Satisfied, she turned back to Lex. “What do we do?” “Get ready…” He didn’t elaborate as he held his left hoof towards the kraken, clenching his jaw as he concentrated fiercely. The Night Mare’s power had been impeded by magic, but that meant that it could be empowered by it as well. Since she had imbued his physical self with a shard of her divine essence, then that should mean that it could be heightened by the same overcharging as his other magic was when he flooded excess magic through his body. It was a complete guess, but it made sense…and it was the only hope they had left. Barely noticing as Cloudbank nodded and slowly moved towards the end of the pier, Severance held in her jaw, Lex looked at the kraken and focused with everything he had… As Tlerekithres activated his tattoo – invoking the spell resistance it contained – he felt that unknown power that pony wizard was radiating instantly recede. Suddenly it wasn’t some terrible, threatening creature anymore. It was just a small, pathetic herd animal…one that he had allowed to live for too long. Now that he’d managed to shake off whatever it had done to him, it was time to make sure that it couldn’t try anything else. He reared back a tentacle, ready to smash both the wizard and the pier to pieces, but thought better of it as he saw the winged pony – the one with the powerful magical weapon – move closer to her companion. That scythe had sliced the ship fragment he’d thrown at them in half with a single blow; putting any part of his body anywhere near it would be unforgivably foolish. But how to attack them, then? The answer came to him a moment later, and had Tlerekithres been capable of smiling he would have done so as one of his tentacles lashed out…under the water. Striking the support beams of the pier, he felt the structure shake under the blow, uncaring that he could also feel that several of his slaves had been caught up in his attack and squished. A moment later he struck the pier again, and this time several of the supports broke, causing the entire thing to begin to tilt. Just one, maybe two, more hits, and they’d all be dumped into the water, where his remaining slaves would- All of a sudden the pony radiated that unknown power again, far stronger than before. In an instant, Tlerekithres felt it overwhelm him utterly, completely overriding the spell resistance from his tattoo. Fear – an emotion that he hadn’t felt in centuries – washed over him, and for an instant it was all he knew. “Stop.” The word came from the pony wizard, and although it was barely a whisper, Tlerekithres felt as though the sky itself had fallen on him. In an instant, his body became unbearably heavy, his limbs weighed down as though they were made of stone. “N-No…!” he raged, but it was useless. An instant later, he saw the other pony, the one carrying the magic scythe, charging down the pier towards him, and Tlerekithres knew that he had seconds left to live. He couldn’t attack, he couldn’t get away…but he could still think, and a thought was all it took, another of his tattoos glowing as he activated the spell it contained. Lex felt as though his entire body was on fire. It had taken absolutely everything he’d had to push the Night Mare’s power to the necessary level, but it had worked. Even as he felt his organs twist and rupture, even as blood filled his mouth, he grinned victoriously. He’d bound the thing, forcing it to stop its movement. For the next sixty seconds, there was nothing it could do. A wet, rattling breath was the closest he could come to laughing, able to relax just slightly now that he’d successfully overcome the creature. His eyes slid to Cloudbank, and for a moment he wondered if she knew that this was her chance. He needn’t have worried. In her mind, Cloudbank heard Severance tell her what had happened, and she charged forward, ready to end this once and for all. She was a third of the way there…halfway…three-quarters…! Then another series of magic sigils glowed on the creature’s body, and Cloudbank felt herself come to a halt. Confused and alarmed, she tried to keep moving, but all of a sudden her body wouldn’t obey her. What was- Kill the pony wizard. The voice – different from Severance’s – flashed through her mind, and Cloudbank felt her terror skyrocket at the unknown presence. She tried to fight, tried to deny what she’d just been told to do, but even as she did she felt herself turn around. A moment later she charged again, this time right towards Lex. “S-Sev’rance!” she muttered, only barely able to make herself so much as speak. “Hlp meee!” Severance’s reply was to coldly tell her to help herself. A moment later she felt the weapon’s presence withdraw from her mind completely, and it was as though she was wielding just another lump of unfeeling metal. Panicking, Cloudbank tried to figure out what to do, trying to stop herself in the few seconds she had left before she reached Lex, who was now looking at her with a horrified expression as he realized what had happened and knew that he was powerless to do anything about it. A second later she was standing over him, and she couldn’t stop herself as she raised Severance high above her head only to immediately bring it down in a lethal arc. In that moment, lightning lit up the sky, thunder pealed across the bay, and Severance cut through the air, through flesh, and through bone. But not Lex’s. It took Cloudbank a moment to realize what had happened, and when she did her eyes widened. Someone else had dived in and pushed Lex out of the way, taking the strike that had been meant for him. But it hadn’t been Sonata or Cozy or even Aria that had sacrificed themselves for him. And as she looked at the pony that was currently pinned to the ground via the scythe in her mouth, Cloudbank felt herself begin to shake in horror, and a moment later a scream erupted from her throat. “DRAFTY!” Tlerekithres heard his puppet scream, and suddenly felt the magic that he’d used to control her vanish as she somehow found the strength to resist him. That meant that she’d likely be on him in a few moments…which left him with only a single option remaining. It was costly, but it was the only thing he could do if he wanted to survive this battle, let alone win it. The tattoo he activated then was the only one he had left that could possibly save him now. He had plenty of others, but they were for magical effects such as increasing his physical strength or striking incorporeal creatures, none of which were currently helpful. Only this one – which could only be used once, and then would be expended until he found another slave able to cast this particular spell, which could warp reality itself within certain limits – could still make a difference. Still held immobile, but able to speak, Tlerekithres invoked the spell. “I wish I was immune to the power binding me.”