//------------------------------//
// 162. Battle Worthy of Halls of Valor 
// Story: Rebirth of the Damned 
// by Borsuq 
//------------------------------//

“Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do,” Storm quickly began after Clover’s echo teleported herself and Sir Lightbringer away and the barrier that shielded them from the Boulder Duke dispersed, “Guard, keep its attention on you,” he said, knowing that the sturdy earth pony had the highest chance of withstanding the earth elemental’s attacks. “Serenity, stay behind ready to heal or shield us,” he told the crystal pony; she was the least skilled in combat out of them, but her strong connection with the Light would aid them far more than another weapon would. “Tucker, teleport behind it and attack from the back,” he said; being the most skilled in combat, the unicorn paladin could safely fight from the position farthest from Serenity and therefore farthest from her aid, “while I…”

Storm had to pause as at that moment the Boulder Duke had charged at them, both stone forehooves raised. As they were about to crash down on them, the paladins assumed their positions. Tucker’s horn glowed with magic and he disappeared, while Guard and Serenity jumped away, with Guard staying just outside the elemental’s range with his shield raised, and Storm spread his wings, soaring into the sky.

“... attack it from above!” he shouted, evading the Boulder Duke’s forelegs and raising safely out of their reach above the elemental.

The Boulder Duke’s head had began to turn after him, but Guard threw his shield at it, causing him to divert its attention. As the earth pony grabbed the Light-enveloped shield as it returned, he slammed his hammer against it in taunting manner. The elemental took the bait, and swung its massive foreleg against Guard.

“According to plan so far,” Storm mused briefly as he reached for Spring Binder, then cased flapping his wings and let himself plummet down, opening himself to the Light as he readied to strike.

In mere seconds of his descent, Storm had kept his eyes on the earth elemental, not daring to let any part of it out of sight even for an instant. However, he managed to notice in the corners of his eyes that Guard had succesfully eveded the Boulder Duke’s attack by ducking, and on the opposite side of it Tucker had began his attack (while saying “Now this is something I can get behind, bow-chicka-bow-wow!”), slashing with his Light-enveloped energy sword across its hind leg. The very next second, Storm finally fell on their enemy, swinging the Spring Binder with all his Light-strengthened might, right against the creature’s head.

As the force of the strike shook his bones, he realized that he could see only the barest of cracks on the elemental’s head, beneath the mane-like moss.

“If at first you don’t succeed…” Storm thought, undeterred, as he proceeded to deliver blow after blow against the stone head.

The Boulder Duke ignored both him and Tucker, its attention apparently focused solely on Guard; whether it meant that the earth pony was doing that good of a job taunting it or they were doing that poor of a job causing it damage was unknown to Storm at the moment. The elemental swung its hoof against him again, and this time Guard had to block it. Glowing with Light, he raised his shield and braced himself. The force of the blow had moved Guard half a yard to the side, but as the Boulder Duke brought his hoof back, Storm saw that his paladin brother was unharmed. More importantly, he recovered quickly after taking on that strike; as the rocky foreleg had receded, he struck against it with his hammer, leaving a small crack along its edge.

The earth elemental, who had begun to turn around, apparently thinking that it had killed Guard, once again focused on him. Raising its other foreleg, he struck again, with the same result.

Its inability to crush something so much smaller than itself must have angered it, as after another blow it raised its rocky muzzle into the sky and gave out an almost deafening roar; a sound that resembled more of a rockslide than a sound made by a living creature. Being so close to its head, Storm had to fly slightly away from it; only by sheer willpower he had stopped himself from dropping Spring Binder to cover his ears. It did stun him for a moment, though; long enough for the Boulder Duke to rise undisturbed on its hind legs, and, after a second, stomp with his forehooves at Guard.

Fear gripped Storm’s head as he stared down, searching for Guard among the cloud of dust the elemental’s attack had created. His worries were quickly dispersed as he noticed a glow from within the cloud. Relaxing, Storm resumed striking against the Boulder Duke’s head. At the same time, a glowing shield shot out from the cloud, hitting it square in the face.

The shield was followed closely by its owner. Guard jumped at the elemental’s forelegs, the angle at which they laid allowed him to climb effortlessly up, even catching his shield as he ran. Storm smirked with satisfaction as he noticed what he assumed was a bemused expression on the Boulder Duke’s face. With it momentarily confused - and about to be hit in the face again - he backed slightly away from it, needing a moment to utter a prayer to the Light for more strength.

His concentration was almost broken as the ground below them was filled with golden cracks; cracks that emanated holy energy. Storm didn’t have to look around to figure out what was causing this. From the four of them, only Serenity had strong enough connection with the Light to consecrate the ground in the midst of a battle like Sir Lightbringer could. He was a bit surprised that she had decided to channel the Light to attack the Boulder Duke, but considering that neither of them needed her aid at the moment he couldn’t see a reason to complain. Especially when her attack had caused the elemental to shake, losing its balance; just as Guard lounged at its face, swinging with his glowing hammer. At the same time, Tucker, who had continued to strike against its hind legs, slashed across where a creature of flesh would have had tendons.

Not to be outdone, Storm channeled all the strength the Light had granted them into a single strike; gripping the Spring Binder tightly, he howled and swung the blade against the elemental’s neck.

Of course, he hadn’t expected that his strike could severe it. It actually surprised him to see how deep had his sword cut into the earth elemental’s neck. What he had actually hoped for though was that the force of the blow, coupled with all the damage others had caused it would be enough to topple it.

At first, it looked as if that would happen. The Boulder Duke wobbled, its hind legs caving in, causing the entire hind half of his body to fall. However, although it forelegs staggered, the elemental managed to stop itself from falling over completely.

“Keep hitting it!” Storm ordered, not wanting to give the Boulder Duke any moment to recover.

He pulled it his sword back, intending to strike again… and found that he couldn’t. Spring Binder stayed buried with the elemental’s neck.

Storm blinked as he looked at the sword, surprised. “You’ve gotta be kidding me…” he murmured.

Snapping himself out of his bewilderment, he pulled again, this time harder. When it still did nothing, he changed his position, bracing his hind hooves against the elemental’s neck before pulling even harder while at the same time flapping his wings (and doing his best to not think about how ridiculous it must have looked). After a few moments he finally began to feel Spring Binder’s loosening; at the same time, though, the Boulder Duke had noticed the commotion by its neck and began to turn its head towards Storm.

It really said something about just how annoyed Storm was at his current situation that, as the huge elemental’s face bore down on him from a mere a sword’s length, instead of getting scared he merely shouted “Oh piss off!” while releasing one forehoof’s grip from Spring Binder’s hilt and gathering Light to strike the elemental with a hammer-shaped blast.

Not surprisingly, all it seemed to do was piss off the elemental more; however, the attack had distracted it long enough for Storm to pull Spring Binder free. Relieved, he adjusted his grip on the sword as he fell down… then cursed, raising a shield of Light around himself an instant before the Boulder Duke’s stone hoof bashed against him.

The Light had protected him, but the force of the impact threw him down into the ground. What’s worse, it also broke his concentration, causing the shield to disperse. Not eager to hit the ground with such force, Storm tried to beat his wings and fly up, but he didn’t make it in time. He hit the ground… and felt nothing.

Or rather, almost felt nothing.

Recovering from the ground quickly, Storm realized that a barrier of Light was protecting him again. Sighing with relief and uttering silent thanks to Serenity and the Light, he flew into the air again as that shield too disappeared, focusing again on the elemental.

In the short time that he had been distracted, Guard had once again focused the Boulder Duke’s attention on himself. The elemental had bashed its hoof against his shield, though now with even greater strength than before, as It caused the earth pony paladin to stagger back a little. However, he quickly recovered, and threw a hammer-shaped blast of Light at the elemental as he pulled back out of its reach.

Satisfied to see that the battle was still going well despite his momentary troubles, Storm was about to join Tucker in dealing damage to the Boulder Duke, when a sudden movement from it caught his attention. The elemental had brought its foreleg back and looked as if it was reading to throw another punch at Guard; except, the paladin was still out of its reach.

“Is it going to attack Tucker, or…” Storm wondered as he flew above the earth elemental, observing it carefully. Before he could even finish that thought, though, the Boulder Duke swung his foreleg in the air… and pitched its stony hoof with great speed at the earth pony paladin. “Shit!”

“Guard!” Storm cried, but even before he finished saying his name, the projectile hit its target with a resounding clang!, shattering on impact.

It appeared that Guard managed to raise his shield before the boulder struck him, but it looked to Storm that it didn’t do much for him; the force of the strike threw him backwards several yards. As the boulder’s pieces fell to the ground, so did he.

Almost immediately Serenity was beside him, her hooves glowing with Light as she began healing him. “I’ve got him!” she shouted back; she didn’t sound alarmed, which must have meant that his injuries weren’t too serious. Storm allowed himself a sigh of relief as Serenity turned to him, but then her expression changed. “Watch out!” she warned him, alarmed.

Eyes widening, the pegasus paladin turned his gaze back on the Boulder Duke, just in time to see him once again swing his foreleg, his stony hoof having apparently “regrown”, as it had cast it again, this time at Storm.

Not having time to curse, let alone pray to the Light for protection, Storm cased beating with his left wing while flapping with his right one more strongly and twisting his body, making him veer to the side. The maneuver allowed him to dodge the projectile by a hair’s length; he could swear that the boulder had brushed against his wing as it passed him. However, while he managed to avoid it, the gush of air left in its wake made him lose his balance and sent him plummeting to the ground, spinning around his axis.

Grunting, Storm tried to realign himself and stop his descent, but just as he finally managed to unfold his wings and catch himself in the air, he realized that he had fallen into the Boulder Duke’s attack range.

And it was already bringing down upon him its recreated hoof.

“Shi-”





“That’s two down,” Raogrior commented as the Boulder Duke’s punch threw Storm across the battlefield, incapacitating him.

Arthas clenched his teeth, barely snapping himself from snapping at the val’kyr. It didn’t sit well with him to see his subordinates fight for their lives and not do anything to help them. He had already almost intervened twice, first when Guard had been wounded, then when Storm had been about to be hit. However, just as how Serenity beat him into healing the earth pony, so was she faster in blessing the pegasus paladin with Light’s protection. Unfortunately for Storm, while the barrier was strong enough to withstand the Boulder Duke’s attack, it immediately shattered afterwards, letting him get injured as he crashed against the ground.

“Still, with Serenity there to heal him, he should be capable of fighting soon enough,” Arthas thought, staying his hoof in the end. “Both he and Guard are in good hooves. Of course,” he added, turning his eyes to the elemental, “I doubt it will just stay still while they recover.”





“I’m starting to think that this was a bad idea,” Tucker thought with annoyance, blasting the Boulder Duke with the Light to get its attention while he raced around it to where Storm had fallen.

The elemental, having lost interest with Storm, turned its head to regard him, then raised its foreleg and attempted to crush him by lunging to slam its hoof across his path. However, Tucker had predicted such maneuver, and having more or less gotten used to the speed of the attacks by the Bouder Duke, he had a moment before the stony hoof would descend on the spot where he would be if he continued to run - which most likely would have resulted in him being pulverized - so he jumped upwards. With his movements perfectly timed, he landed on top of the earth elemental’s hoof right as it slammed against the ground.

“Sorry buddy, I’m not into that kind of pounding!” he yelled at it as he immediately lunged from its hoof towards Storm.

The pegasus paladin was laying on the ground, his body having left a short trail after he crashed into it. When Tucker had seen that, he was really worried about his brother, but to his relief Storm was already attempting to rise, although his forelegs wobbled and it was clear he required healing.

“Talk about taking a hard one to the face, huh?” Tucker joked as he landed right beside him, his horn already glowing as he prepared a Teleportation Spell for both of them.

Storm, probably suffering a concussion if the unfocused gaze he turned on Tucker was of any indication, looked up at him with mild annoyance. “It didn’t hit my face, Serenity protected me from its attack,” he explained, spitting out bits of ground and grass. Despite his words and his state - with both his armor and face being smeared with mud and dirt after his collision - Tucker noticed a brief smile cross his crooked muzzle.

“Yeah, well, ground is hard too I guess,” Tucker replied, his spell finally ready, and with entire seconds to spare before the Boulder Duke could attack them, he teleported the two of them further away to where Serenity was busy healing Guard Shield.

The pretty crystal pony didn’t look from her task, but she acknowledged their presence with a flick of her ear. “Do you also feel like this was a bad idea?” she asked, nopony in particular, but considering that she asked that question after the two of them teleported and the possible concussion of Storm, Tucker assumed it was directed to him.

“Nah,” he lied, smirking, “it’s alright babe, I’ll protect you.”

That prompted a bigger reaction out of Serenity. She looked away from her patient to give him that annoyed glare of hers. “Can you make yourself useful and distract the Boulder Duke before it gets here?” she asked, turning her attention back to Guard.

Tucker glanced over at the huge elemental that was charging straight for them. “Probably,” he replied, managing to sound casual; they had about twenty seconds before it would reach them. “How much time do you need?”

“As much as you can get me,” Serenity replied. “Guard’s left foreleg is broken, and so are five of his ribs. Storm must have had at least a concussion,” she added, glancing at the pegasus. “Probably worse. I’m not sure how long it will take me to heal both of them.”

“Say no more,” Tucker said, swinging his foreleg and making his sword emerge, reading himself for battle. As he began to channel one more teleportation spell, he couldn’t help but glance at Serenity and ask with a smirk, “Will I get a kiss if I kill him by myself?”

Serenity once again glared at him, but he teleported away before she could reply.

“YEEEEEEHOW!” he howled as he appeared above the Boulder Duke, falling down right on top of him and shoving his energy sword - which was now clad in the Light’s glow, empowering the strike - into the base of the elemental’s neck. “Eat Light motherbucker!”

The Boulder Duke roared in pain as it tried to reach with his foreleg for Tucker. Fortunately, its stone body wasn’t limber enough for it to manage that. “Still, it is a bit unsettling,” Tucker remarked as a rocky hoof scratched over the elemental’s shoulder, right next to him.

Much to his relief, it brought the hoof back, giving up. Instead, though, it rose on its hind legs, then proceeded to fall down on his forelegs, intending to stomp the ground with both of his forehooves.

“Does it really think that will be enough to shake me off-” Tucker began, only to trail off as he was shook. His entire body was shaking. “Scratch that,” he noted, raising his free hoof to his head in an attempt of stopping it from spinning, “everything is shaking!”

It wasn’t an exaggeration. Everything was indeed spinning. As Tucker looked around, he saw that the ground around them was shaking. Serenity, despite being a safe distance away, had to stop healing their brothers, and was now lying on the ground with her hooves above her head.

“Is he creating a freaking earthquake?” Tucker wondered, a moment before he lost concentration and his sword disappeared, causing him to slide off the Boulder Duke. “Oh shit…”

As he fell to the ground, he realized that the quakes had stopped. The Boulder Duke must have stopped creating them as soon as he freed itself from Tucker, figuring that it could just smash him from so up-close.

It was wrong.

The moment Tucker’s hooves touched the ground, he pushed himself up and jumped, avoiding the Boulder Duke’s foreleg as it swung at him. He even remade his sword and slashed the elemental for good measure.

“Missed bitch!” he called tauntingly as he backed away, intending to lead it further away from the others.

Oddly, it didn’t work; the elemental had stayed in the same spot it was. It wasn’t coming after him, or even raising its foreleg to cast its hoof at him like he had at Guard and Storm. However, its gaze never left Tucker, and its head turned after him as he tried circling around it.

“Okay, so it's definitely planning something-” Tucker began to think, just to be interrupted by tons of massive rock spikes that started rapidly coming out of the ground all around the Boulder Duke. “Son of a-”

Again, his train of thought was interrupted as he noticed a small crack appear in the ground right below him. Realizing immediately what it meant, he jumped backwards right as another spike erupted where he had stood a split second ago. As few more appeared around him, Tucker looked around to see where he could safely move next, only to feel his flank bump into something. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that it was another spike that had cut his escape off.

It was then he realized he was trapped. The spikes were all around him, the gaps between them were not wide enough for him to squeeze through beside one, which so happened to be the one to which the Boulder Duke was heading too.

Of course, Tucker could always teleport to safety. However, magic was never his strong point; those few teleportation spells he had performed in this fight so far had really drained him. He could still do it, but considering the way this fight had been progressing, he preferred to save what little magic he had and see if he could get out of this with just his skills and the help of the Light.

Also, while the spikes had trapped him, they also protected him.

Tucker couldn’t help but smirk as the Boulder Duke (once it finished navigating between all the other spikes between them) stared at the rocky cage with a clear frustration.

“Huh, guess it can’t just smash them,” Tucker remarked, examining one of the spikes quickly; the ones around him were bigger and more sturdy-looking than all the others, not to mention that none of them had appeared so thickly like those trapping him. “So that spell closes in on enemies around it? I doubt it serves to capture them though, considering how I barely avoided becoming a ‘Tucker-shishkebab’ there...”

As he tried to analyze how the elemental’s spell had worked, the Boulder Duke had decided upon its next course of action. As Tucker returned his attention to it, he saw that the earth elemental pushed its massive hoof against the gap between the spikes in front of it, trying to squeeze through it to get the paladin.

Once again, Tucker found himself smirking. “Aw, your dumb fat hoof doesn’t fit?” he asked mockingly, then uttered a short laugh. “You can’t just force the whole hoof, bro! You’ve gotta slide it in, starting with the edge of the hoof!”

The Boulder Duke rearranged its hoof so that now the edge of it slipped past the spikes.

“THE FUCK it speaks Equestrian!” Tucker exclaimed as the edge of the hoof almost brushed against him.

Taken by surprise and fear, he backed away as far as he could as the rocky hoof crept closer, the elemental’s strength causing the spikes to be pushed apart letting him shove its hoof deeper.

“Light dammit…” Tucker muttered in annoyance, reading the teleportation spell.

Before he could cast it though, a very bright light began to emanate around the Boulder Duke. The elemental had seemed to notice it shortly after Tucker, as it took its gaze off the unicorn and looked around… and then up. Following the earth elemental’s gaze, Tucker realized what was the source of the brightness.

A giant, Light-made hammer was slowly descending upon the Boulder Duke. It was seconds away from crashing into it. Even from where Tucker stood he could feel the holy magic contained within that attack; it was almost on par with the power of similar feats Sir Lightbringer had showed them during their training back in the Abbey.

“Wow, you’re fucked,” he told the Boulder Duke, without any maliciousness or any mocking; he was too astonished.

The elemental must have realized just how hurt he would be when that hammer dropped (or maybe it really understood Tucker) as it tried to retract its hoof, probably wanting to better defend himself. However, it had shoved it so deep into the gap between the spikes that when it tried to bring it back, it was stuck.

This time Tucker did snort with laughter, though mostly because it reminded him of how Storm got his sword stuck earlier. His amusement faltered though as he noticed the cracks appearing on the spikes where its hoof was being held.

“I could try holding it with the Light’s chains, to make sure it wouldn’t be able to defend itself, but I doubt I’m strong enough to keep it longer than a second when push comes to shove,” Tucker remarked, frowning. A heartbeat later that frown turned into a smirk as he realized what he could do.

Turning around, Tucker jumped on the spike that was behind him, then used it as hoofing to bounce off and land on top of the earth elemental’s hoof. Steading himself upon landing, the unicorn quickly began to climb up the foreleg, easily passing between the gap now that the Boulder Duke had widened it, and charged at the head.

Feeling him run up its leg, the Boulder Duke turned its attention instinctively back to him, despite the fact that the giant Light hammer was about to blast him from above. Its stone-made muzzle opened, and the creature spit out what looked like huge ball of mud which plummeted at him with great speed.

Fortunately, Tucker had expected some sort of counterattack from the elemental, and had his teleportation spell ready. The moment he saw the Boulder Duke spit the mud ball at him, he cast it, making himself appear right before its face.

“Surprise motherbucker!” Tucker exclaimed, grabbing the elemental’s mane with his left forehoof so he wouldn’t fall off as he extended his right hoof, the energy sword already there and infused with the Light.

At the same time as the giant hammer fell down upon the Boulder Duke, causing an explosion of Light on the creature’s back, and as - for whatever reason - its hind legs buckled, Tucker shoved his sword through the earth elemental’s face.

The Boulder Duke uttered a single, painful cry… and then it fell silent. As Tucker stared, the two small lights that shone from crevices that imitated a pony’s eyes had dispersed.

The earth elemental was dead.

“Huh,” Tucker exclaimed, looking at the unmoving statue the elemental had apparently become as he still hang by its face by holding onto its mane. “I sorta expected…”

With a mild rumble, the elemental fell apart.

“OH SHIT!” Tucked shouted as he fell down, the Boulder Duke’s head having simply disconnected from its body and falling at him from above.

Before he could even think about teleporting away, which he probably couldn’t do at this point anyway, at least not without channeling the spell for longer than his violent descent to the ground would allow, but thankfully, before he could fall down to the ground with the earth elemental head and other remains crushing him, something flew from his side and grabbed him in the air, pulling him away from danger.

“Oh hey, you’re feeling better?” Tucker asked Storm jokingly, trying to sound casual as the pegasus hauled him to safety from the elemental’s remains.

“Serenity healed Guard and I,” Storm replied, either missing or ignoring the joking note of his voice. “We charged in and managed to cut both of the Boulder Duke’s hind legs when the hammer fell… which was probably why it fell on top of you,” he explained, smiling sheepishly as he slowly landed beside Guard who waited for them safe distance away from the elemental. “Sorry.”

“Meh, it’s fine,” he replied, shrugging, then looked over the pile of rocks that had been the Boulder Duke. To his relief, there was no movement from it, no stone was raising and reforming into a new elemental. “So, did Sir Lightbringer decide to join the fight?” Tucker asked, turning back to Storm.

The pegasus stared at him with confusion for a heartbeat before he exclaimed “Ah, the giant Light hammer? No, Serenity had made it descend on the Boulder Duke.”

“Wha-” Tucker began, only to stop, speechless. He turned around, searching for the crystal pony, and spotted her as she trotted towards them. She was moving slowly, probably due to her mind feeling taxed after channeling the Light during the battle. “She can do stuff like that?”

“I might have to rethink the ways I hit on her…” he thought, a little bit nervously.

“I guess we did it,” Serenity said as she reached them, glancing briefly at the pile of rubble that had been Boulder Duke with pity before examining each of them. “Are any of you injured? Again?” she added, clearly doing her best to deadpan but unable to as a corner of her smile curled up in amusement.

“Nah, we’re all good,” Tucker replied, shaking his head along the other two. “But damn was that guy strong.”

“And yet you’ve won,” the familiar voice of Sir Lightbringer came from nearby.

Looking around, Tucker realized that Clover’s echo had teleported the two of them to stand beside them. The echo then immediately disappeared again; in the corner of his eye he saw her appearing among the Boulder Duke’s remains.

“It was a hard battle,” Sir Lightbringer continued, nodding with respect, “you have all impressed me with your skills. You can be proud of them… but of course,” he added, smirking as he looked at Storm, “I expect we’ll all be making fun of Storm for getting his sword stuck like that.”

At the same time Storm deadpanned at Sir Lightbringer, Tucker chuckled, his words having reminded him of that again. The glare the pegasus then gave him had only made him more amused. As Serenity and Guard had also joined in laughter - although Serenity had covered her mouth and was looking at Storm apologetically - he gave out a tired sigh and shook his head.

“It was indeed a glorious battle,” a booming voice erupted above them. As Tucker looked up, he saw the golden val’kyr reapper again, hovering on her massive wings a little behind Sir Lightbringer. “Worthy of a tale among the Halls of Valor. You can be sure I will pass it along to the Valarjar when I return there… along with the detail of getting a sword stuck,” Raogrior added, glancing at Storm, her lips - the only visible part of her face - slightly twitching.

“Oh come on!” Storm exclaimed as everybody else laughed.