Howling in wordless rage, Lex struggled to maintain his telekinetic grip on Severance.
The depression that he’d been struggling with all morning was completely gone now, swept away by a tidal wave of fury at how the Night Mare’s weapon had betrayed him. This thing killed a pony! he seethed inwardly, certain now that Severance had dealt Silhouette a mortal wound. While he was no doctor, Lex couldn’t imagine how the black-and-white stallion could possibly have survived; the blood loss alone had to have been fatal. This thing KILLED A PONY!
Severance had just done the very thing that Lex had set out to prevent ever since he’d returned to Equestria. All of the hardship he’d endured, all of the pain he’d struggled through, all of the setbacks and sacrifices…he had borne them all for the sake of safeguarding his people. And now Severance, having known full well the premium that Lex placed on pony lives, had just murdered a pony right in front of him. That it had done so for the greater glory of the Night Mare was no excuse; as far as Lex was concerned, any sort of hegemony that required shedding pony blood wasn’t worth achieving.
And yet Severance had not only done such a thing without hesitation, but it was trying to do it again! The weapon thrashed and shook, struggling to shake off his magical grasp and lunge downward toward Princess Luna; only the fact that Lex had poured additional magic into his telekinesis let him maintain his grip on it, and even then only barely. In his mind, the weapon’s voice urged him to release it, to let it strike down the pony that would dare to usurp the Night Mare’s rightful domain over the night. But the twisted urgings only caused Lex’s anger to soar higher, and he couldn’t hold back another wrathful scream. “I SHOULD NEVER HAVE OVERLOOKED YOUR FAILURES!”
Severance had failed to protect Cloudbank and the other ponies he’d sent into Vanhoover. It had introduced Fruit Crunch and his friends to the Night Mare despite them being quite obviously too young to appreciate what they were getting into. And now it had just killed a pony and was intent on killing another. No matter that it was the only easy way for him to restore his spells. No matter that it had proven instrumental in defeating the ghoul horde. The scythe had proven itself to be a threat to the people he wanted to protect.
Severance had just forfeited its right to continue existing.
His hold on the weapon already starting to slip, Lex raised a hoof and began to snarl the words to a spell.
Celestia and Luna sprang into the air, giving the scythe in the purple aura a wide berth as Lex began casting. Both of them had seen the new magic that Twilight had brought back from her time on that other world, and recognized Lex using it now. Not needing words to coordinate their actions, both alicorns moved in opposite directions, winging around until they were on either side of him, looking down at the treacherous unicorn from above. Without waiting for him to finish whatever spell he was casting, the pair pointed their horns at him and silently called upon their own magic, each of them sending a brilliant beam of energy lancing downward.
Despite having given no indication that he’d been paying attention to either of them, Lex clearly saw the attacks coming. An instant before Celestia’s beam would have struck him, he ceased to gesture and chant and instead threw himself to the side, the brilliant ray of energy cutting a deep groove into the ground where he’d just been. But the crossfire that the alicorns had put him in meant that he’d only managed to dodge one attack at the expense of another, and Luna’s beam struck him in the side a half-second later. The impact drew a cry of pain from his lips, sending him stumbling, but to both sisters’ surprise he managed to keep to his hooves. Even his hold on the scythe didn’t give out, the purple aura remaining in place around it. If anything, it seemed deeper now, though neither could guess why that was.
“What are you doing?!” Lex roared, craning his neck as he looked back and forth at each of them before pointing at the scythe. “I’m trying to protect you from that treacherous thing!”
“The same way you ‘protected’ Silhouette?!” screamed back Luna.
For a moment Lex looked almost confused by the statement, before his eyes widened in understanding. “You think I wanted that to happen?! Severance acted of its own accord!” He focused on Celestia then. “I told you that I wasn’t going to attack you!”
“You’re not trustworthy!” The words came easily to Celestia’s lips, remembering again what Aria had told her. “You revealed your real feelings when Silhouette saved my sister at the cost of his own life! You won’t trick us again now!”
If looks had the power to injure, the expression on Lex’s face would have sent both alicorns tumbling from the sky. “You fools! My words were for Severance! Not you!”
“LIES!” Luna’s eyes blazed with righteous condemnation as her horn began to glow, calling on her alicorn magic again, determined that her next attack would be one that Lex Legis wouldn’t shrug off so easily. “YOU ARE A BLIGHT UPON EQUESTRIA! AND YOU WILL NEVER HURT ONE OF OUR LITTLE PONIES AGAIN!”
Then she pointed her horn directly at him…
Lex swore under his breath as the alicorns made it clear that they wouldn’t listen to reason. Despite the seriousness of the situation, he couldn’t help but be livid at the unfairness of it all. The two ponies that he respected the least, and were his biggest obstacles to uniting Equestria under his rule, were now the ponies that he had to protect, even as they attacked him! In another context the irony might have been humorous, but right now it was anything but!
At least he’d been able to finish casting his spell before the Royal Sisters’ attacks had reached him. That was fortunate; if he hadn’t been able to complete it in time, then he would have already lost his grip on Severance. As it was, he’d be able to hold onto it for a little while longer now…but only barely.
The spell Lex had utilized – one of the complement that he’d prepared among the few that he’d had time to renew – had been the stamina-enhancing spell that he’d created a few days ago, in the wake of Tlerekithres’ defeat. He hadn’t used it since his disastrous attempt to conjure food and water for everypony in the camp, when he’d come close to killing himself by channeling more magic through his body than he could safely handle. But that was different from now, he knew. That had happened because he’d channeled additional magic into this spell as he’d cast it, enhancing the physical hardiness it granted him and then using the increased endurance that had granted him to channel even more magic through his body. It had created a positive feedback loop that had led to him moving more power through himself than his body had been able to handle. This time he hadn’t augmented the spell, letting it operate within its normal parameters. It was still granting him greater endurance, letting him push his physical limits and in turn increase how much supplementary magic he was able to channel through his body, but now it should be safe. It was thanks to that spell, for instance, that he’d been able to take Luna’s attack spell without being overly injured.
It was also the reason that he’d been able to maintain his hold on Severance. While the scythe was still struggling to break out of his telekinesis, it was no longer in imminent danger of escaping. Thanks to the spell increasing his endurance, Lex was currently able to channel more magic into his telekinesis, keeping the scythe from getting away. But this is still only temporary, cursed Lex silently. Worse, while I’m holding Severance like this I won’t be able to channel any additional magic into anything els-
Then Luna unleashed her next attack.
Unlike the thin ray she’d just fired at him, this one was a massive burst of energy, the beam measuring feet in diameter instead of millimeters. Lex wasted a half-second staring upward in stupefied horror, before his survival instinct kicked in and he transformed into a shadow, surging backward just before the alicorn’s spell struck the spot where he’d been standing, reducing the ground to a smoking crater. He didn’t stop moving, and that was what saved him from Celestia’s follow-up strike, as a beam of similar intensity to Luna’s came hurtling down at the place he’d just vacated. Like her sister’s, the magic scorched the land, reducing terrain where it struck to a smoldering pit.
The heavy bombardment was enough to throw Lex for a loop. This is wrong! Celestia shouldn’t have this much power! The examination he’d made of her before had been cursory, but it should have detected this level of strength! And Luna should have been the same, or even weaker from a millennium of imprisonment in the moon! But apparently nopony had told the alicorns that, and the next pair of magical blasts they sent at him were also intensified. But this time Lex was ready, and a thought was all it took to raise a dome of black crystal around himself, pouring dark magic into it in order to thicken the structure against the impending assault.
The solidified darkness that he could conjure was many times stronger than steel, and practically impervious to damage. But as the alicorns’ attacks slammed into the hastily-erected dome, Lex felt it shudder under the assault, cracks spiderwebbing through it as small pieces began to fall from the ceiling. Another four or five hits will bring it down, Lex decided. He could reinforce it with more dark magic, but producing that much material would be severely taxing, and since he couldn’t channel additional power into his dark magic while he was holding Severance, it would likely only delay the inevitable.
Lex’s next thought was to drop into the ground the way he had against so many other foes when he’d needed to take cover, but he didn’t dare do that now. While he felt confident in his ability to retain his awareness of where to direct his telekinesis even while moving blindly underground, there was still a chance that he’d lose track of his positioning relative to Severance. If that happened, the scythe would break free, and Lex had no doubt that it would cut down Luna – and quite likely Celestia, if she moved to protect her sister – in short order. That couldn’t be allowed to happen!
But at the same time, Lex knew that if he went out there now, in all likelihood his current array of defensive enchantments wouldn’t do very much against the level of magic that the alicorns were currently throwing around, and he’d only prepared a few more. Worse, their assault meant that he couldn’t devote his attention to dealing with Severance. There was one – and only one – spell in his arsenal that Lex felt had any chance of destroying the scythe, and it would require him to channel as much magic as he could into it in order for it to have any chance of working. But that would mean releasing Severance before he cast it, and if the alicorns attacked him and disrupted his casting before he could unleash it-
“LEX LEGIS!” bellowed Luna. “YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE! SILHOUETTE WILL BE AVENGED!” Her statement was followed by another heavy strike to the dome a second later, causing more cracks to spread through it.
I’m going to have to deal with them first, concluded Lex grimly. There was no other choice; the alicorns wouldn’t be talked down, and he couldn’t go after Severance while they were attacking him. That left no choice but to take them out; he’d just have to hope that they’d be more inclined to listen to him afterward.
But for now, Lex swore to himself as he began casting the few defensive spells he’d prepared, if it’s a fight they want, then that’s what I’ll give them!