Fencer was panting in exertion by the time she reached the front of the crowd.
It hadn’t been easy to get there. The curse of weakness that Lex had placed on her activated if she came within ten feet of another pony, which meant that being in the middle of a huge group like this kept her continuously debilitated. With everypony’s eyes glued to what was going on in front of them, they had barely noticed her feeble attempts to nudge her way past them. In the end, she’d needed to lean forward and practically fall onto whoever was in front of her in order to make them move aside, a process that she’d had to repeat several times and came perilously close to bumping her still-bandaged horn on multiple occasions. But now she’d finally made it…
Ahead of her, Lex was still battling the ghouls. Even as she watched, he sent another pack of the undead ponies flying…but even from here, Fencer could hear the loud grunt of effort he gave as he swung his scythe, the motion made with visible exhaustion. The sight was enough to make her brow furrow slightly; why was he wielding it himself when the thing was able to move on its own?
Pondering that for a moment yielded no obvious answers, and Fencer put the matter aside as she turned her attention to the other pony on the battlefield: Sonata. Standing halfway between Lex and the disguised ponies, the other mare hadn’t done anything since the battle started that Fencer could tell, presumably having been relegated to some sort of backup role. As it was, she was yelling encouragement and cheering whenever Lex dispatched another squad of ghouls, sounding for all the world like an excitable filly caught up in her favorite show.
Fencer considered Sonata for a moment longer before returning her gaze to Lex, watching as he strained to lash out with his scythe again, only barely managing to complete his swing before the latest wave of undead ponies reached him. At this point, it was only a matter of time before he was overwhelmed and the ghouls got past him. That thought made her work her jaw, moving her tongue behind the knife in her mouth so that the tip of it sat between her front teeth, ready to be pushed forward in an instant. That done, her eyes flickered back to Sonata.
It was almost time…
Lex's lungs were burning as he lashed out with Severance again.
It was like he was underwater, his every motion sluggish and struggling to draw breath. Each time he swung Severance it felt like he was trying to lift a mountain. Worse, the aftermath of each strike brought with it a wave of dizziness, the world threatening to spin wildly out of control as he struggled to lift the scythe again.
And still the ghouls rushed toward him, undaunted. Although the ground was littered with ichor and body parts, there was no sign that their ranks were being depleted. If anything their numbers seemed to have swelled, drawn by the piles of rotting meat that were the remains of their comrades. But even those morsels weren’t enough to distract them for very long, most of the ghouls taking only a few bites of whatever gobs of decayed flesh and bone were in their path before turning their attention back to the living pony right in front of them.
Not having the energy to so much as mutter a curse, Lex tried to raise Severance again as the next group of ghouls rushed toward him…and found that he couldn’t. For a moment he struggled with the seemingly-immovable weapon, before aborting the attempt. “Kill them,” he wheezed at the scythe, his telekinetic hold on it sputtering out. It immediately moved to obey, slashing the ghouls to pieces with an aggressive swing.
For his part, Lex turned his attention toward the three globes of lightning that he’d conjured, pulling them back from where he’d spread them around the battlefield. By now, the bodies of trampled ghouls had started to fill in the holes that Sonata had overseen, which meant that trying to use the balls of electricity to funnel the undead ponies toward them was of minimal effectiveness. Instead, he withdrew them so that the three orbs were arranged right in front of him, forming a defensive line. From behind them, Lex watched as Severance continued its attack, swinging wildly at any ghouls that got near it, and for a moment hoped that maybe this would be enough…
No, he realized an instant later. This isn’t going to work!
As if to drive that point home, a lone ghoul managed to slip beneath one of Severance’s attacks, stumbling toward Lex even as it tried to regain its footing. Seeing that it was trying to angle itself between the globes of lighting, Lex mentally adjusted their positioning, bringing them together just as the undead pony started to slip between them. It shrieked as it was electrified, its body spasming uncontrollably while it sizzled before finally going still, collapsing to the ground limply as smoke rose from its charred body.
Lex knew the near-miss was a harbinger. When he had wielded Severance, none of the attacks that he had made had been random. As soon as he’d fully grasped the level of power that the living weapon was able to bring to bear he’d begun placing each strike carefully, analyzing the number of ghouls rushing at him and the speed of their approach, working out the optimal timing and direction of every slash so as to keep the horde from overwhelming him completely. Even when he’d begun to falter, he’d managed to recalculate his attack pattern and somehow been able to hold the line.
But Severance wasn’t attacking with that same level of precision, instead simply lashing out at whichever group of ghouls was closest. There was no greater strategy involved to its swings that Lex could see, no attempt to use the destructive shockwaves of its blows to try and force the oncoming ghouls to move into better positions for follow-up strikes. It’s reacting to the flow of battle rather than trying to control it, he knew, and that wasn’t a sustainable defensive plan...as the two further ghouls that managed to slip around another of Severance’s blows showcased a moment later.
Both of them met their deaths in an instant as Lex maneuvered the orbs of electricity to intercept them, but he knew he was acting on borrowed time. While he could use his magic to attack the ghouls that got around Severance, he only had so many attack spells left. Even these lightning globes wouldn’t last forev-
The three balls of lighting suddenly winked out, their durations exceeded.
Lex had just enough time to stare at the space where they’d been before he registered another ghoul slipping by Severance, and immediately started casting another spell. The undead pony, legs akimbo as it just barely managed to fling itself over a strike that decimated a score of its fellows, shrieked with deranged laughter at its success. Rolling as it landed, the thing barely managed to stay on course as it targeted Lex, leering hungrily as it rushed at him. But it flew backward a moment later as he completed his spell, summoning the miniature tornado that he’d used back when he’d first met Cloudbank and her friends and letting it impact the ghoul head-on. The small vortex of air had no power to actually cause damage, but it could at least fling an attacker away…but only one attacker at a time, and it would only last for a little over a minute at most. His remaining attack spells weren’t much better, and once they were all expended, he’d be completely unable to retaliate against any further ghouls that managed to reach him.
The only viable option was to take hold of Severance and use it directly again…but that simply wasn’t possible right now, not when the simple act of gesturing and chanting his spells felt like a colossal effort. For a moment Lex considered trying to guide the scythe verbally, instructing it on the precise placement of its strikes, but he discarded that idea almost as soon as he thought of it. The split-second nature of the fighting meant that verbal instructions wouldn’t be able to keep up. But with no other methods for plugging the holes in Severance’s attack routine, he’d need to rely on what little magic he had left, and that wasn’t-
Two more ghouls slipped around Severance. Barely able to move, Lex mentally directed the tiny tornado toward one of them, starting to cast a spell that would hit the other with a spurt of acid. But his reactions were too slow, and the first ghoul managed to slip past the small whirlwind while the second one was barely grazed by the stream of caustic liquid.
Lex had just enough time to grimace, eyes widening at what was about to happen before the ghouls barreled into him and knocked him to the ground, their jaws falling open as they leaned down to enjoy their hard-earned meal.
“Lex! Lex! He’s our stallion!” cheered Sonata as she watched her boyfriend use those zappy-ball thingies to kill more of the ghouls, Severance taking care of the rest. “If he can’t do it, no one…um…huh.” Pausing as she tried to think of something that rhymed with “stallion,” Sonata shook her head a second later, abandoning the attempt. “Okay, do-over. Ahem. Lex! Lex! He’s our guy! If he can’t do it, we’ll all die!” A moment later her brain registered what had just come out of her mouth, and she grimaced. “Ew, no! That’s awful! Lemme try again.”
She’d been cheering for a little while now, since there was nothing else for her to do, but she didn’t particularly mind. Although she’d known Lex had some sort of plan to win, she’d still been nervous about how tired out he looked. But looking at him now, he had things under control, and that was good enough for her. This was Lex’s show, and she was used to being a back-up singer anyway, even if part of her still wished that he’d give her a chance to show off just a little. He could, like, let one or two of those things come after me, just so I could blast ‘em. Severance wasn’t the only one that could make bad guys go flying, after all; she’d done that to some of those sahuagin that had boarded their ship back when they’d first gotten-
Her daydreaming was interrupted as she saw Lex suddenly get tackled by two of the ghouls, causing her to freeze in alarm. “Hey…!” she yelled, not sure who she was talking to as she took a half-step forward, her concern skyrocketing when Lex didn’t fling the undead ponies off of him. Instead, he only thrashed feebly as they leaned down to bite him. “Hey! Severance! Do something!” But the scythe didn’t seem to have heard her, continuing to mow down any ghouls that got near it, leaving Lex to struggle on his own. Panicking, Sonata sang a quick spell before sucking in a lungful of air…
“GET LOST!”
The spell, the same one she’d used to finish off Monitor, sent a compressed pulse of sound rocketing towards the ghouls on top of Lex, hitting them with the force of a hurled boulder. Although it wasn’t enough to rip them to pieces the way Severance did, it still knocked them off of Lex and back into the press of ghouls, leaving Lex clear. Rushing over to him, Sonata felt relief wash over her as she saw him struggling to rise. “Are you okay?!”
“I can handle this,” groaned Lex, blood dripping down his right foreleg from what looked like a nasty bite wound. “My defensive enchantments stopped most the damage…” Despite his words, he was having trouble getting to his hooves. As Sonata leaned over to help him, she realized that he wasn’t moving his injured leg, as if it had fallen completely asleep.
She had just opened her mouth to mention that to him when another ghoul slipped past Severance, landing barely three feet from her. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she started to open her mouth despite knowing that she’d never be able to cast a spell before it made it to her. The spells Lex had cast on her, she realized, were about to be put to the tes-
“Protect her!” rasped Lex. Instantly, Severance swung around and speared the ghoul through the chest in a single motion, lifting it up and tossing it away like so much garbage, returning to the horde without any hesitation. But although Severance had left its position for a mere fraction of a second, that was enough to court disaster as four ghouls managed slip by it, rushing toward Lex and Sonata.
One of them was immediately repulsed by Lex’s pony-sized tornado, but the other three were completely unobstructed as they lunged at the pair. Not knowing what else to do, Sonata threw herself in front of her boyfriend, ignoring his horrified yell and gritting her teeth as she felt hooves and teeth strike her hide…but no pain. For a moment she was confused, before realizing what was going on. His spells worked! Grinning in sudden elation, Sonata sang another quick spell before turning and giving another magically-enhanced shout, this one wordless. It wasn’t quite as powerful as the spell she’d used a moment ago, but it was enough to make the ghouls’ bodies quake under the force, their bones splintering at the sonic impact. The sight made Sonata’s chest puff up with pride…until two more ghouls got past Severance to join them.
“We’ve gotta fall back!” she decided, reaching down and heaving as she did her best to scoop up Lex. “We need to put some distance between ourselves and Severance!”
“No!” protested Lex. “If we try to retreat now we’ll be overrun!”
“That’s, like, gonna happen anyway! We have to-” She stopped abruptly as she caught something out of her peripheral vision, blinking as she realized it was coming from the direction she was headed in: back towards the illusory hole. Turning her head, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped at what she saw.
Garden Gate was charging at them with a knife.