Prey and a Lamb

by Lambs Prey

65.4 Steal the Stars Right Out of the Night

The air had a chill.

Prey sat in the shadow of a boulder, just a small shape in the fading light. The stone was tinted a faint green by the sinking sun. Set high up on the mountain, the capital city of Equestria glittered and shone. But down here at the mountain's base, there were no other light sources.

A light down here would only draw unwanted attention.

Set into the rocky base of Mount Canter, less than twenty yards away from Prey's hiding spot, a half obscured tunnel mouth emerged. There was no path leading to or from the tunnel. No one ever came this way. The deepening darkness had slowly turned the lush grass and soft plants of Equestria growing around here pale and cold.

An owl silently winged by overhead, a ghost in the coming night. 

If you listened very intently, you could catch the occasional high pitched squeak of bats. 

Stars sleepily blinked into existence far above.

A cool breeze briefly stirred.

Somewhere a fox barked-

-A point of burning orange in the night. A blink. It struck right in the middle of the boulder strewn ground. Orange bloomed in an explosion of magical energy. It flared upwards, like an enormous burning flower, banishing shadows in brilliant blinding orange.

The sound of the explosion was very tame in comparison to its size. Nor did it seem to do any physical damage. No heat or shockwave reached Prey where he hid.

And then the air between a clump of three huge boulders, as tall as houses, a clear patch of nothing warped. The night air twisted, and then seemed to snap, like an elastic band stretched too far.

Suddenly revealed in between the trio of boulders, a rough wooden hut appeared, lantern light spilling out of the doorless entrance.

Lemon Pink ran out of the hut in alarm, a heavy cloak around her shoulders, and cast about wildly in the night.

Blinding electric blue split the night in a flash. Thunder cracked. Lemon Pink disappeared in the lightning flash.

Disappeared, as in, vanished like a popped soap bubble.

Before the thunder had even finished echoing off the mountainside, three separate Lemon Pinks burst out of the hut. Once again they cast around wildly, heavy cloaks flapping, then each identical Lemon Pink took off galloping in a different direction.

A second lightning bolt ripped out of the night before the Lemon Pinks had gone more than five steps. Thunder cracked, and white storm fire scorched a rock black. But the two remaining Lemon Pinks ran on.

They didn't get far.

A tight ball of magical light sprung into existence right in the path of one of the fleeing duo. The hovering magical flare swelled alarmingly, bleeding green sparks. The Lemon Pink swerved away, but the spell kept swelling, bulging with pressure. It shook, an overfilled balloon about to burst-

The fleeing pink mare vanished as the spell finally detonated, some kind of vine tangle engulfing everything in the area.

The last running Lemon Pink looked back, and a hooded pony appeared out of thin air mid leap. Twin metal scorpion tails blurred and cut the last target in half. Or would've done so if that mare hadn't also been an illusion.

The dual tailed thief leapt back into the night and vanished. Literally two steps, and they were gone. Where had they gone? Where had the Lemons gone?

For a second, the night held its collective breath as all the hidden combatants paused. A disturbed pebble rolled noisily down a green stone boulder.

And then another burning orange flower bloomed in the night, the explosion rising as high as a tree in an instant. Twenty yards away, a cloaked Lemon Pink with her head down and sneaking away popped into existence. She looked back. Purple eyes widened in the dark.

For the third time, a lightning bolt lanced out of the night, crossing the distance instantly. This time, Lemon Pink didn't pop like an illusion.

She shrieked in a deafening squeal, her cloak catching fire. The burst-splat was lost under the thunder crack. In the moment after, a scattering of burnt chunks dropped out of the night.

Deafening silence descended.

On the scorched dirt, the figure and cloak continued to burn.

...eight, nine, ten, eleven...

The artificially twin tailed pony stepped cautiously out of a deep patch of shadows, one foreleg covering their muzzle. One bladed stinger reached out and cautiously prodded the lumpy shape under the burning cloak.

The hooded pony withdrew with a hiss of disgust.

"It's a pig," They called out loudly, "Like a real actual pig."

Silence. Then a lightning bolt tore into the abandoned ramshackle hut. For good measure, another one of those vine explosion spells appeared, charged up, and detonated over the remains a few seconds later. But otherwise nothing happened.  

Another silence. Then, a cloak was thrown back and the armoured unicorn leader, the same one who'd destroyed Prey's lair, stepped out from behind an illusionary veil. "Seal the area. Use it." He ordered.

From out of the stony ground right next to the scorpion tailed pony, who was backing away from the burning pig carcass, a unicorn's head popped up. The rest of him followed, stepping up and out of the earth like they were just climbing a staircase.

The newly emerged pony looked around, standing right in the middle of the dark area. From under their cloak, they whipped out a short staff. It was platinum, encrusted with glowing, obviously magically charged gemstones, winking in the night.

With a word of command, they raised it high in their aura, and then stabbed it down into the hard earth. The staff shook, the myriad gems flashed in patterns too fast to follow, and a charged hum filled the air.

Prickling needles assaulted Prey's hooves, as a powerful wave of magic surged out from the planted staff.

Above, the stars in the sky faded under a blanket of golden mist, which swirled into being from nowhere. At the same time, more mist noiselessly appeared on all sides, growing upwards to meet the descending dome. It wasn't just golden curls of mist either, there were also bright patches of light drifting randomly along inside the walls of mist. These drifting patches sharpened even as the night of the outside world faded from view, locked away under the huge golden dome of mist. Those bright patches now looked a lot like drifting stained glass windows.

The phasing thief let go of the platinum staff and stepped back, the glitter of the blue jewel set in their chestplate joining the flashing patterns of the staff's gems.

Prey crouched lower in his hiding place, breathing as shallowly as he could.

All around the expansive mist dome's perimeter, more hooded ponies appeared. Some stepped out from behind illusionary veils, one pulled off an invisibility cloak, one shimmered into focus with a red glow from a hoof anklet, and yet another appeared in a crack of teleportation.

"There's no way out! You're trapped in here now." The lead unicorn called out loudly. He stood strong in his indestructible armour, measured voice like tempered steel, shoulders thrown back, braced and ready for anything.

No answer met his challenge.

Around the dome, each of the other eight ponies held magic and artifacts at the ready, prepared to act in a split second. Nine unicorns in total. Next to one cloaked pony who was levitating an oversized shimmering blade without any hilt or handle, the alpha stood, huge bulk hunched over as he rested his weight on his forepaws. Despite the bandages adorning his legs, the last diamond dog still stood, a brooding figure waiting for revenge.

"There's no escape now," The leader called again, voice never breaking from its level tone, "You've no more tricks left! No more foul creatures at your command, no more traps or twisted magic. This is the end of the line. It's just you, and us."

Such bold words should've sounded trite, they were exactly what you might read in one of those ridiculous hero books ponies were so fond of, but here in real life, it didn't sound trite. It wasn't some idle boast. It was a promise of the inescapable.

"There's nowhere to go. Come out and face your judgement."

Had that challenge ever worked? Ever? In the entire history of the world?

Pause. A long moment. Finally, a jagged slab of rock shifted, lifting up on previously unseen hinges and thumped into the dirt. A cloaked mare crawled out from the dark hollow underneath, and stiffly got up.

No one shot at her or said a word as she jerkily straightened. Her smooth pink fur was almost dark blue in the low light, and her waterfall mane was all tangled. She looked around, head jerking between each pony of her encirclement. Lemon Pink stood, shoulders hunched, looking like a cornered animal.

"Well?" Lemon spat after a tense silence, "What grandiose speech do you have prepared? Throw the book at me, maybe? Go on. Here I am! Let the trapped and outnumbered mare have it."

The armoured leader looked at Lemon for a long moment, expression hidden under his enchanted hood. Then he sighed and gave a half shake of his head, "No, I don't think I will. What's the point? Your sentence is set. We are not ordinarily judges or executioners, but for something like you-"

The alpha let out a rumbling snarl, cutting the night, "No! Want to know. I will know. Want to know why. Why is my pack dead?"

"Whatever the warlock says won't bring them back. She'll just hurt you more with her lies." The pony beside the bristling alpha tried to dissuade him, but the huge diamond dog didn't care.

"Tell me! Why did you murder my pack!" He all but roared.

Prey opened his mouth, and Lemon Pink opened her mouth and spoke his words for him by proxy, "Because I'm selfish. Because I needed sacrifices to save my own life. Because there were no other bodies readily to hoof. It means less than nothing, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry. However if you're talking about the diamond dogs you came to Canterlot with? I didn't kill them."

"Liar."

"I didn't kill them. You did. You led them in the attack on my lair. Both times. That's on you and your thief friends. You could've just walked away, all of you, but no, you just had to steal my safety. I merely acted in self defence, so all those deaths are on you. There. That's the reason why."

The alpha didn't move. He stood, hunched over in the dark, "That is all?"

He started lumbering slowly forwards, a deep growl building up, "That is all? That reason why? That is all? No, can't be. My pack, all dead for that? No! I refuse! Tell me the truth! Why?!"

"Don't. She's just goading you-"

The alpha kept going. The unicorn tried to block him, but he may as well have tried to stop a rolling boulder. The hulking diamond dog didn't even seem to notice him as he pushed forwards.

"No. Stop."

"Why?" The dog howled, voice full of fury and pain, "Why? Tell me why."

Lemon started backing away, and the floating blade appeared against the back of her neck. It had flown so fast and cut the air so smoothly there'd barely been a whisper. Lemon froze as the hovering blade halted her retreat.

The pony getting pushed ahead of the alpha was leaving furrows in the dirt, but he didn't try to halt the dog with magic, "Stop it, it won't help. She's just goading you. Listen to me-" 

The dog stumbled badly, and blood blossomed a dark stain on the bandages on his hindleg. The unicorn cursed, "You're aggravating your injuries. Don't. Hey, stop!"

The shadowy pony with the scorpion tails faded into view in front of the alpha, "Listen to Avocado. Stop, you're only hurting yourself. Remember what we said, yes? I'm your friend, you can trust me, but you need to stop. Your stitches-"

The alpha stopped. He looked down in a daze at the two hooded ponies baring his way. Even hunched over, the taller unicorn's horn tip barely came up to the dog's chest. The alpha's face was utterly blank.

'Two is likely as good as I'm going to get.' Prey decided.

The diamond dog unbent, wounds forgotten, and lunged. A huge forepaw swept up both ponies in a crushing embrace as the alpha folded himself over them.

Then he erupted in an explosion of bone rot.

There never had been a second diamond dog captured by the veropede. There'd been no Goldie for the alpha to track, wounded and bleeding, back through the tunnels to discover Prey's hideout. The alpha and the captured diamond dog were one and the same.

And when the veropede had delivered the wounded diamond dog, thrashing, fighting, and glaring fit to burst with hate, Lemon Pink had broken his mind. She'd removed his memories, implanted false ones, and imposed mental commands. She'd made a puppet out of the last diamond dog.

Then she'd quickly sent her broken puppet back topside just in time to meet up at the emergency rendezvous point. From there, the dog had been picked up by the thief left on watch, patched up, and hurried back just in time for the meeting in the travel lodge as the sun was rising.

When the diamond dog had spoken to the assembled thieves, he'd only been parroting words given to him.

When he'd demanded to be left alone to perform the last rites for his dead pack, he'd actually returned to the sewers, as per his mental commands. Whereupon, Lemon Pink had brought her puppet to Prey, so the lamb could turn the dog into a walking bomb.

And when the alpha had guided the thieves down the mountain to this place, the loyal, helpless, and obedient puppet had really been guiding them all into a trap.

This whole area, purposefully chosen down here at the base of the mountain and away from Canterlot city, was layered with runes. Invisible to the ponies, the green stones of the tunnel and this area were crawling with the efforts of Prey's ceaseless labours. This was the battleground Prey had been preparing in advance, and the thieves had trusted and faithfully followed the alpha right into the middle of it.

None of the diamond dogs had ever actually lived to escape the sewer.

Down to the last dog, through one means or another, Prey and Lemon Pink had been the means of the whole pack's death.

*Ssscchkk-HHHss*

The brand new pool of bone rot splashed as the surviving, non-organic items the two liquified thieves had on them at the last fell in. The twin scorpion tails created the loudest splash.

They all froze. Even now, even after all the terrible ways to die they'd encountered fighting Prey, even after all that, these ponies were still frozen into shocked immobility for a moment. 

They couldn't help it. They gaped at what until only two seconds ago, had been a trio of living, breathing, sentient beings. Death. It always caught you off guard.

And then, terrible outrage and fury; "You die!"

The floating blade pressing into the back of Lemon Pink's neck snapped down like a guillotine.

Lemon's head fell off. Blood sprayed across the dirt as her body collapsed, legs kicking in wild muscle spasms.

Another pig carcass suddenly lay there. Headless, kicking, spurting blood, but a pig nonetheless, not a pony. A wicker skeleton frame had been grown over and into the pig's body.

Prey may never have recreated the evil of the kindersnatches, but he was not above taking tips. A real flesh and blood body had tricked the thieves' spells, and the runes carved into the dumb animals hide, now fading, had fooled their eyes and ears. Lemon Pink had merely been controlling her simulacrum puppet via these runes and the wicker parasite.

"Shields!" The unicorn leader bellowed, "Fall back. Sierra, unseal us!"

The thief with the phasing artifact was still staring motionless at the puddle of bone rot and what used to be people he knew and possibly loved.

"Sierra!"

Sierra jerked, wrenching themselves away. They leapt for the platinum staff, snatching it up. The golden dome of mist immediately began to silently unravel, the bright stained glass window patches rapidly fading away.

'Too late. There's no escape now.'

Prey's hot fury had guttered out at the alpha's violent death. Now it was all just cold anger and an unbending determination to finish this.

An invisible barrier halted the thieves flight back towards the tunnel. The cloaked ponies who ran into it just... stopped. All their forward momentum simply ceased. They just couldn't step past an invisible line of runes in the green stone.

"Ponyfeathers! There's a shield!"
"It was all a bucking trap!"

Yes, a trap. Too late the cry, too late the wisdom. There was no leaving now. The various fake Lemon Pinks had only existed to bait the thieves into stepping inside. The staged interaction between the illusionary pig puppet and the mind controlled alpha had only been a performance to further that goal.

Once Prey was certain he'd lured them all inside, he'd activated the huge trap array he'd spent so much time working on. The thieves sealing the area with their artifact in an attempt to stop him from escaping was darkly ironic, because his plan had been the exact same thing. None of them were getting away. Not this time.

Prey stood up from the shadow of his boulder. Above, the stars coldly twinkled, impossibly far away. Prey was outside of the thieves' encirclement. He'd never even been inside of the golden mist dome, whatever that was. He'd merely been observing everything from afar via runes.

The thieves were shouting, exchanging calls and instructions, backing away from the invisible barrier. None of it mattered, because it was too late. They were already completely trapped.

This was why you never monologued or talked. If you were going to kill someone, you just did it.

Prey looked towards them. The hooded thieves. They were trying to break through the barrier now, but they couldn't. It'd taken them mere seconds from discovery to switch to trying to brute force their way through the shield. Too late the wisdom, too late the escape. Too soon the death.

Prey half squinted as bright flashes of multicoloured light lit the inside of the barrier. Powerful magical spells were being hurled, but they were immediately misdirected and syphoned into the ground. They were trapped in a circular area with roughly a thirty-five yards by thirty-five yard radius. But none of the seven surviving ponies had yet realised the true extent of the trap.

Prey looked down. His hooves were still shaking. His body felt full of jitters. He was about to kill again. It was so easy to kill, but it still never got easier.

One of the hooded ponies tried to teleport out, a logical next step.

Logical -but fatal.

Prey saw him charging the spell and averted his eyes just in time. There was a flash of yellow and the distinctive loud *Crack*

Unicorn's had long ago invented anti-teleportation enchantments to ward their secure areas against intruders. Leylines and bedrock were a naturally occurring example of this. But what all warding methods had in common was the effect of shunting the intruding teleporter off to the edge of the protected zone. That, or the teleportation spell simply fizzled out upon being cast.

That was just how anti-teleportation enchantments worked. Magic and matter had to go somewhere, it couldn't just disappear. That was a universal law.

Prey's runic array didn't break that law. But the teleportation didn't fizzle, nor did the unicorn simply reappear, pressed up against the invisible barrier.

A teleportation spell was an immensely complicated bit of spell work. It needed to be, for first the spell needed to work out if the user could arrive on the other side safely, and if not, then make course corrections, and only then initiate the switch between the two places. The mathematics involved were mind bendingly complex, but the spell matrices performed all the necessary arcane calculations under the surface without the caster ever being aware, provided they had enough power and the skill to pull it off.

Teleportation spells also had fail safes built in, and the spell also automatically cast a shield over the user during the exact moment of transport to protect against external forces.

The spell was designed to just safely fail if any of these conditions weren't met.

But what if in that moment of instantaneous transit, those fail safes themselves simply ceased to exist at the same time as the whole spell failed?

The teleport cut out midway as all the magic was syphoned off. The result was messy.

Red viscera sprayed the inside of the barrier so violently that the splatters shot up over ten hooves high.

This runic array was Prey's work. It was his weapon and his trump card. It was what he'd poured all those hours into preparing for this inevitable confrontation. And even if he hadn't had time to include more lethal arrays inside, like more flare traps to finish the thieves off, he'd had long enough to perfect the barrier itself.

Nothing was getting through, except for light. But not heat, not magic, not force, not even air.

The only reason Prey could hear the thieves' shocked screams and neighs at the sight of the violently failed teleportation was because of the runes he'd included, sending out what was said on the inside to the outside.

Within the null-magic barrier, the thieves were all falling back from the huge red splatter, as the viscera slowly began to slide down the invisible wall.

Prey hadn't had a few hundred extra hours to include arrays inside the barrier to properly circumvent the thieves' artifacts and finish them off, but he didn't need to. 

He'd nearly perfected the barrier. He'd said it earlier. Air could not pass in or out.

The hourglass had already been turned over. The thieves' sand was already trickling down.

That was how they would die. Trapped, unable to escape, with their oxygen slowly dwindling and strength fading. Prey had not dismissed the possibility that perhaps one of them knew an air purifying spell, or might even have an artifact on them to that effect.

Even now, they were trying to employ said artifacts to break the barrier. Nothing was working, though.

But it wasn't just their air that was limited. Their magic was too. The whole array was draining away magic from the area, even the ever present ambient magic of the world.

Prey half closed his eyes against the intense magical flashes banishing the night, enduring the deafening thunder cracks and booms. He couldn't even work out half of the spells the thieves were trying, but it didn't matter. None of it was working. If they kept it up, Prey estimated it wouldn't be too long before all the magic within the barrier was completely used up. They were already burning through their available mana at a rapid pace.

First they'd run out of magic, then they'd run out of air.

'They'll get to experience what it's like to be powerless before the end, what every other non-magical person feels everyday of their lives.'

Prey stepped out from his shielded hiding place. The unicorn with the floating magical blade who'd decapitated Lemon's simulacrum was now trying uselessly to cut through the barrier. Even their telekinesis on the weapon was sputtering out every time it touched the invisible divide, and the physical blade itself was turned aside every time without fail.

Prey looked at the futilely struggling thieves for a long moment, caught inside his trap. They were refusing to give in. One was trying to dig under the barrier. Smart, but it wouldn't work. The runes encapsulated beneath the ground too.

'It's because they haven't realised the extent of their situation yet.'

Lemon Pink quietly emerged from her own shielded hiding spot. She walked up to stand beside Prey in the shadow of the rock, joining him in watching the trapped ponies. There was a spark of cold contempt in the dispassionate set of her face; "Typical ponies. Defiant and self righteous to the end. How like Captain Fire Strike."

Prey nearly snapped at Lemon that she hadn't even been born when Fire Strike was alive, that she'd never actually faced him. But then in a way she had, through Prey's memories that were also her own.

"They don't have that long," Prey stated, "Maybe half an hour of air. More if they spend their mana on purifying that instead of attempting to escape. Less if they try fire spells."

"Then it would be good if they did not realise that until it is too late." Lemon stated, as more magical flashes split the night.

Prey twitched an ear without looking away. It was the signal for her to explain.

"Distract them. Give them a target to rage against. Let them use up all the magic and all the air." Lemon said.

Prey understood what she was suggesting immediately. Provide a distraction so the thieves didn't realise the dwindling air and magic were limited resources. In other words, do the stupid thing and go out there to gloat instead of just sitting here and waiting them out. Right now, the unicorns flexing their collective magical might down there only thought they were trapped, and that with enough effort and ingenuity, they could escape. They hadn't yet realised what was really going on.

But if one of Prey's rules was to never take unnecessary risks, another was to never underestimate magic.

Just because it shouldn't be possible for the thieves to escape didn't mean it definitely was. A one percent chance was still a chance. Prey didn't believe they could escape, but he'd been wrong before. Besides, a cornered animal is the most dangerous. If they knew about their dwindling air supply...

He sighed to himself, 'I should've created the array to just drain all the air in one go.' 

But doing so would've created a risk. The required array and runes would've left a physical loophole in the barrier. If they'd been fast enough, one of the unicorn's could've exploited the weakness, shot a spell through, or magically affected the world outside in a way Prey couldn't have predicted. But back to Lemon's suggestion:

"Alright. Summon up an illusion of me and you. Just visuals will do, no need to waste magic making it perfect. The runes will do the actual projecting of sound in and out." Prey ordered.

"Yes, Prey." Lemon lifted her unusually sharp horn as it lit with a sickly silver glow, then she paused:

"What shall I say to distract them with, Prey?"

"Gloat, monologue, make it up. Try tricking them into answering some questions maybe. It doesn't really matter. They're going to die here, but I hate torture. I hate pain."

These ponies had attacked him and his. He hated them, and he was going to kill them. He was disgusted at their galling arrogance, and furious that they'd posed a risk to both him and Crimson. They deserved this. 

But even as he hated them, he also hated seeing pain and death.

And while Prey most certainly would fervently wish it upon his worst enemy, he still hated ever having to see it. Because he knew what it felt like. It reminded him. Prey hated being weak like that. Really, he just hated this whole thing. Anger, hate, and black bitterness. What a potent cocktail it made for. All with the added cherry of self loathing over the diamond dogs floating on top.

"I don't torture for the sake of torture." Prey repeated again, and honestly believed it was true.

"Yes, Prey." Lemon Pink acknowledged, and cast the illusion.

Through the invisible null-barrier, the surviving thieves spotted the approaching illusion of Lemon Pink and Prey almost straight away. Most of the hooded ponies were visibly panting from the strength of their magical exertions.

"There! There she is."
"Traitor! Warlock!"

The unicorn leader, the one in the armour was visibly shaking with barely suppressed fury as Lemon Pink and the lamb obediently following by her side came up, but the stallion still retained control of himself. He didn't speak or shout his hate like his fellows were doing. He merely waited.

Lemon Pink halted her and Prey's illusionary doppelgangers about fifteen hooves away from the barrier. Far enough to hide any finer, inconsistent details in the illusions. The fake pink mare's head turned slowly, as if regarding each of the trapped ponies. She spoke:

"Well, how do you like your war? Not how you thought it would end, I'm sure."

"End?!" The unicorn with the floating blade spat, "This hasn't ended. It's only just begun."

Lemon arrogantly ignored him, just smirking down her muzzle's length at the fuming leader, "I asked you a question; how do you like your war? You declared it was a war oh-so confidently when you went down to destroy my home, I've merely answered your challenge."

"You were watching us down there?" The armoured unicorn ground out from between clenched teeth.

"Watching and listening. The gall of your precocious arrogance, 'This is war'? Please, don't make me laugh. Actually, do. Your pathetic ideas of war are hilarious. You think you know war? You know nothing about war. Go survive a week in the Resistance under Torment's claw, earn your name and your mask, then you can talk to me about war."

"You're disgusting." The armoured unicorn stated, voice flat. "You're proud, actually proud of being good at killing people."

Surprisingly he said 'people', not 'ponies'. "You're using your tally of murders like an achievement and a mark of wisdom. You're disgusting. You shall be number three, but this time I'll take on your burden with no regrets."

"Oh? Number three what?" Lemon's illusion asked challengingly.

The stallion regarded her, and for a long second it looked like he was done, but then he spoke again: 

"Only twice before in my long years of protecting Equestria have the Order had the misfortune of digging out a worm as foul and far beyond redemption as you. But when we get out of here, you shall be number three. There is no rock you can hide under where we cannot find you. No prison cell awaits you, no mercy or pardon. You, traitor to Celestia, are not even a pony. You've wilfully erased the gift of the light of Harmony from your soul. You merely are a monster. You shall be number three, but this time, there shall be no guilt. You can't feel guilty over putting down a monster."

"Poetic. Really, you touched me with that last part. I've heard a lot of last words, forgot them all too by the way, but yours, I think I'll make an effort to remember."

A magical fireball launched at Lemon flared across the barrier, and vanished. The pony who'd fired it glared as they panted, or at least Prey assumed they were glaring under the hood:

"I hate you. *pant* I hate you so much. You're everything I hate. *pant*. You've got your own internal narrator going in your head right now, thinking; 'Oh, I'm the misunderstood good guy'. Well guess what!? You're not!"

This second cloaked pony sucked in great lungfuls of air, "You're just another filthy warlock! You're nothing but a wretch, a deluded horse! *pant* You're always the same, thinking you're better than everyone who doesn't have magic. I'm ashamed to even be the same race as you. *pant* Those diamond dogs were a thousand, no, a million times the pony you'll ever be."

The unicorn leader rested a hoof on the gasping stallion's shoulder, but his hooded gaze never left Lemon Pink, "I don't think you were listening Quarter Staff. I already said it didn't I? That there isn't a person, it's just a monster."

Lemon Pink raised her eyebrows, next to her, the illusion of Prey all but ignored by all, "And you call me arrogant? That I'm the one who treats non-unicorns as lesser? Have you looked in the mirror, horn-head? You're the ones who led all those diamond dogs to their deaths. Tell you what, cut off your horn and go without magic for the rest of your life, then I'll take your words seriously."

The furious thieves stared at Lemon Pink in disbelief. She was clearly also a unicorn, same as them. 

"So she's a mad hypocrite as well as a filthy, lying, murdering, evil, sick twisted, bucking, pile of road apples." One of them laughed harshly, but without any sort of humour.

The illusionary Lemon Pink paused, "Don't presume to know me, or what I am. Or speak of madness to me." She added as an afterthought.

The lead thief turned away in disgust, still half supporting the panting Quarter Staff, "Ignore her. She's trying to distract us. She obviously can't hurt us in here, or she would've done it already. Find a way out and don't listen to her lies."

"Aren't you going to preach to me about the righteousness of your 'Order' and how good will always prevail?" Lemon mocked, flapping a hoof insultingly. 

"No. You are a waste of breath." The leader didn't even turn to look back at her. He began casting some sort of scanning magic over the area.

Hurriedly, Lemon tried for another distraction, "Oh well. I guess I'll just have to 'ask' whomever your precious order sends out on crusade next. With as many artifacts as you've stolen to hoard like dragons, they'll definitely come to reclaim yours once I've pried them all out of your cold, dead, hooves."

A thief let out a whiny of mocking, but utterly forced laughter, "Ha. Ha! You'll not get a single artifact even if you could defeat one of us. You think we didn't think of that? Greedy traitors like you are all the same! *cough* None of these artifacts can be allowed back out into the world. We'll defend them with our lives. If we should fall, you'll lose any chance of getting them."

'So they all have a self destruct of some kind, then.' Prey thought. He wanted those artifacts. He'd so far been letting Lemon make her speech up as she went without interrupting, but now he did.

"Try baiting out more information about this self destruct." He ordered.

Next to him, the real Lemon Pink nodded. Illusionary Lemon Pink flicked her tail dismissively, "Oh that's no problem. You'll either eventually trade the artifacts to me yourself as payment to release you, or you'll tell me how to undo whatever self destruct enchantments you've placed upon yourselves."

"We'll tell you nothing."

"But you will."

"A weak bucking warlock like you will never break one of us. *cough* Do your worst." The unicorn spat.

"I do not torture." Lemon Pink said, voice as even as a summer breeze, "There's no point. You see, your minds will betray you."

The utter disgust and hate filled contempt seemed to ooze through the invisible barrier there was so much of it. "Vile. Mind leeches, all the same. They all think they're chessmaster geniuses. Ha! As if. My grandfoal could beat you blindfolded in real life."

"Just try reading my thoughts, I'll break you, you twisted bucker. Bring it on! You're talking big and you haven't even taken the first swing. I've known all about your dirty underhoofed magic ever since you mind warped that poor maid and made her take the blame." The second thief finished with a cough, tone all but dribbling venom. 

They were trying to find strong enough words to hurt Lemon with, trying to adequately express their fury, since they couldn't do anything more effective. But they were ponies. Vitriol did not come naturally to them.

Lemon wasn't phased by their words or their threats, "Defensive enchantments and mindlocks won't save you. They're easily enough removed. And I can see none of you has ever encountered a real mind leech before."

She pointed between them one by one, "None of you have. I can see it. You're not afraid enough. I could leave a hole in your mind with surgical precision. Prey doesn't see any reason to be so kind."

In their hiding place out of sight, Prey snapped his head around to frown at Lemon Pink. Why'd she gone and given them his name? There was absolutely no need to. The thieves were already all dead anyways, so don't give them any more information. Or was Lemon Pink's own creation affecting her into ranting?

The thief named Quarter Staff was still panting heavily beside the armoured leader, who was looking hard at them, "Quarter Staff?" He asked sharply.

"Just used too much magic at once. *pant* I'll be fine."

The leader looked up, ignoring the illusion of his enemy just beyond the barrier but far beyond his reach. He looked around, then abruptly upwards. The stallion's horn glowed beneath his hood, and a white flare shot up. It winked out as it hit the barrier ceiling, about thirty yards up.

"Everypony, report! What's your magic like? Who feels it's off?"

The thieves stopped. A unicorn who'd been attempting to use something that looked like a conjured sand storm of glittering diamond dust to bore through the barrier was the first to answer. "My reserves are... nearly gone. And... I don't know why."

"I, mine are the same."
"My spells don't feel as strong as they should."
"Mine neither."

A moment of dreadful silence as the hooded ponies all looked at each other and glared killing hate at Lemon and Prey's illusions. "Is... Is this place draining our magic?"

"No, that's not possible."

"We'd be able to tell straight away. There's nothing draining magic from me."

"No, this bucking barrier must be weakening us somehow."

"It's not draining our magic," Quarter Staff gasped in realisation, "We're just not regaining any!"

He pointed at Lemon Pink, shouting, "You! *pant* What did you do to curse this land?"

Lemon's image did not reply. It didn't move at all.

"Aaaarh! Buck!" A golden spear head of magic struck out uselessly at Lemon in an expression of futile hate.

"Stop!" The leader barked.

"No more spells. Preserve your magic and your strength. She means to exhaust us all first. No doubt she'll send in her 'pet' to finish us off afterwards." He added, shooting a hidden glare at Lemon and Prey's figures.

Ponies, unlike other races, had magic woven into their very beings. They passively utilised its benefits all the time. Even earth ponies, who had the fewest leylines, got to automatically enjoy extra strength and stamina in everything they did. It was also why ponies, especially unicorns, got to live longer than all the other races. It had to do, quite literally, with how magical they were.

So when this magic disappeared, those enhancements a pony had been enjoying their whole life and had never experienced life without, the sudden withdrawal left them feeling empty, nauseous, and shaky. Normal.

All of this went doubly so for unicorns, thus why they hated overdoing it magically and burning all their reserves. Because it felt horrible to them.

It was why the thieves had all completely overlooked their own shortness of breath and panting as just a symptom of this.

The lead thief drew all of the surviving unicorns back from the barrier, speaking in an undertone he obviously didn't know Prey and Lemon could still hear; "Save your magic, the warlock wants us powerless. We're not passively losing any magic, so as long as we don't use any, we'll still have our reserves. What's left of our reserves, at any rate."

"So we just wait her out? Once Celestia's dawn has come, somepony will eventually notice all of this going on down here at the base of the mountain and call the Guard. We can talk our way out." The thief with the blue jewelled chestplate, the one which allowed them to phase, had either been too scared or too smart to try it on the barrier after what'd happened to the failed teleporter.

The armoured leader shook his head grimly, "No. We cannot wait. That traitor is just there beyond the barrier, demanding justice. This is a war, so we'll use everything we have."

Prey tensed.

The unicorn pulled out a little plain wooden box, awkwardly using his hooves instead of his magic, and flipped up the lid. Inside was a patched ball of scrap cloth. A rough pincushion. It looked utterly normal. There were three large pins in it. Two of the pins were pushed all the way in up to their heads. The last one stood out.

Nearly all the thieves couldn't help but draw back in distaste, but with just as much caution too. Dangerous. Powerful.

'There. Attack.'

The armoured unicorn warily reached towards the last pin.

"Sir, wait. Shouldn't-?"

Prey had no idea what the artifact did, and no interest in learning.

The hard earth and stone beneath the thieves' hooves bulged, then erupted. A geyser of dirt and rocks showered the area. The veropede lunged out of the earth, a blurred rush of teeth, legs, mandibles, and death.

The other cloaked thieves, still in the act of falling down were ignored, as it went straight for the leader and the pin cushion.

Prey'd had the veropede dug in and hidden under the area from the very start. The monster was his insurance, his backup plan, but not one he'd wanted to use. After experiencing the veropede first hoof, the thieves would've had to be mentally impaired to head into this fight without being confident they could kill the veropede. An artifact, a specialised spell, Prey didn't know what they'd prepared, and he had no intention of finding out the hard way.

The veropede was just hidden there as backup while the trapped unicorns slowly suffocated. It didn't need fresh air, not like the thieves did at any rate, not after what Prey had done to it to keep it alive.

Earth and dirt sprayed everywhere. The veropede bit forwards like a bear trap snapping shut. Blinded by dirt, knocked off his hooves, and falling, the leader of the thieves never had time to react.

*Ca-crrunc-krang!*

The power of the stallion's armour saved him. Not the steel of the armour, such a weak metal was nothing in the veropede's teeth. But the golden projection of light that covered the stallion's whole frame in an invulnerable aura? That was another matter entirely.

The veropede thrashed its head, teeth breaking on the shield, and the invulnerable unicorn was hurled far into the air. The stallion soared over twenty hooves up, cloak flapping, before gravity reasserted itself.

He landed on a boulder. The boulder cracked, but the leader rolled back to his hooves completely fine, his invincible armour shining. But the box and the pin cushion it'd contained were gone from his grasp.

'There. That. It's food. Take and leave.'

The veropede twisted around, its segmented upper body still reared up. A magical *Boom* of conclusive force shuddered into its side, and was promptly ignored as the veropede dived towards the small raggedy ball of dropped cloth, half buried under fallen dirt in the night.

"It's after the pins!"
'Take and leave.'
"Don't let it!"

The levitating blade from before came spinning in so fast the air shrieked. 

The veropede twisted its upper body to the side, and the spinning blade only buried itself in the armoured plates of its side instead with a wet thunk. Prey's tool barely slowed.

"No!"

A magical shield projection, the same interlocking crystalline one from the sewer, barred the veropede's way. 

The veropede crashed into it like a battering ram, buckling the knees of the unicorn casting it. What had once halted the veropede underneath Canterlot couldn't function to the same degree without enough magic. The shield disintegrated into pieces. Not enough.

"Stop it!"

 A magical artifact of some kind lit up under a unicorn's cloak as he threw himself in the way. 

The pony breathed, and fire erupted from him like a dragon's breath. The fire wrapped around the pony, moulding into flaming extensions of their limbs. A helmet of fire blazing in the shape of a dragon's head opened its mouth in a roar, shimmering flames so hot the surrounding air began burning-

The veropede crushed the unicorn into paste, bringing its reared upper body slamming down on top of the flaming figure.

It was a whip strike, but the whip was as thick as a tree trunk. The impact shivered through the ground, the unicorn's skeleton snapped like twigs, and the fire was smothered instantly.

The veropede tramped the crushed body underfoot, sharp legs puncturing holes, and skittered for the dropped pincushion. Stunned shock, then:

"Nooohohooo." Someone scream-sobbed.

Half a hoof before the veropede's reaching antenna hooked the pin cushion, an aura snatched it away. 

'Enemy. Rival hunter. Attack it.'

The veropede rounded on the panting unicorn with the hovering rag pincushion held before them, horn aglow. Quarter Staff looked up as the veropede reared above him, armoured mass, legs and spines mere outlines in the night. Quarter Staff turned his head. No one was close enough to help him. He looked towards the phasing unicorn, sprinting forwards but still too far away.

"I'm sorry." Then his telekinesis flung the pincushion towards his friend.

The veropede jerked after the flying cloth ball, but not before its second to last remaining antenna, covered in barbs and hooks, ripped off most of Quarter Staff's face in a wild blow as it skittered past him.

The corpse formerly known as Quarter Staff fell to the ground, hood torn away, but his horn was still glowing in a last act.

The fallen pony's cloak bulged and ruptured. Huge spines of ice ripped out, shooting forth from an amulet, only visible hanging around the pony's neck for a moment, before Quarter Staff's body was crushed in the expanding mass of freezing spikes. Cracking and shattering noises resounded.

The ice stabbed into the ground, shoving ice's mass off center, filling the air with reaching spines and catching the veropede in the side.

Ice tips broke on the hardened carapace, flowed over the veropede's body and under it, still expanding and freezing solid in the span of a heartbeat.

The sudden explosive expansion of deadly ice came to an end with a last shattering crack. Icy fog billowed. Frozen nearly completely around the veropede's middle, a huge chunk of ice now held it trapped.

The veropede squirmed, dozens of sharp legs grating jarringly on the slippery ice. It flexed its long body, and cracks shot through the frozen water, but it wasn't enough to break free from the dead weight trapping it. In the end it hadn't been fast enough.

The phasing unicorn who'd been thrown the pincushion in Quarter Staff's last moments, Sierra, clutched it to his gilded chestplate. More fog was rapidly filling the air, billowing off the ice. Sierra stared at what remained of the pony, as frozen as the iceberg, unable to look away. His chest heaved.

"Nooo!" He screamed in horror, and then again in rage, "NOOO!"

The veropede heaved, and more sounds of ice breaking rang in the night.

"NO! NO! NO!"

Rage shook the hooded stallion's whole frame, he shouted at the veropede, at Lemon and Prey's illusions beyond the barrier, at everything. "NO!"

He reared up, raising the pincushion above his head.

For a moment, even hidden more than thirty yards away, Prey thought for a moment he saw the single extended pin glint in the night. A terrible premonition seized his heart. His stomach dropped. His eyes widened. He reached out a hoof. 'Attack, kill-'

"No more coward! Face us." Sierra screamed, and brought his hoof down, hammering the last pin home.

Something seized a hold of Prey. He couldn't move. It grabbed him from the inside, from the outside, every inch of his wool was suddenly gripped in the power of something else. He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe, react or think. He'd been nailed to the spot, pinned.

Everything was dark. Blackness. He couldn't see.

Premonition. It was so strong, both the gripping power and the feeling that it blanked Prey's mind to everything else. He'd felt this knowledge before, and it was utterly wrong. Prey was terrified.

And suddenly the whole world was made of cloth. Everything, from the earth to the sky, it was all just one big patchwork. It was only the stitching which held everything framed in its proper place.

'~A stitch in time, running through the hangmare's twine~'

The force grabbed Prey, and it ripped him from his sewn position in the world, and mercilessly darned him back into another.

But that wasn't the worst. In that briefest sliver of time, if it lasted long enough to even be called time, as Prey was torn free, he looked back. There was a hole in the world where he had been. The torn out stitches were already reaching across, sewing the hole back shut in an instant.

But it wasn't before Prey caught a glimpse of the black hole being sewn shut, a glimpse of what was on the other side of the cloth.

Prey knew what was on the other side. Hungry Things. He saw again a glimpse of one, or maybe hundreds of them.

The thieves were wiped from anything Prey cared about. They didn't matter, because there was a hole in the world. This was his fault. He wasn't meant to have been stitched in there, he shouldn't have existed! Prey would've given anything in that moment to not have that hole there ripped in the shape of his shadow. But it was too late, Prey had already seen.

Hungry. Eyeless heads stirred in the depths of Prey's head, looking blindly up towards the mind ocean's bright surface. Hungry to join in.

The stitches pulled across. The hole shrank. Mental cage bars bent. Hungry. The hole shrank. Hunger stretched out a claw, rising through the water, or was it through the black hole? Stitches flew. So hUngRy.

The fabric yanked shut, the hole vanished, the stitching finished-

-Prey gasped stale air. He was on his back.

The real world was all around him, the night, hard earth, chill air, the stink of death and blood. He could move, he could see! The world of cloth and stitches was gone. It'd never existed. Here and gone in an instant.

Prey's stomach abruptly rebelled. He rolled onto his side just in time to throw up. His body shuddered. It came out incredibly acidic and bitter. Prey retched again. He was shaking. An almost insatiable hunger gripped him, but the thought of food brought on yet more retching as his stomach cramped up.

He gasped for air, it was hard to breathe.

"What-?No. This isn't what I wished for! Where's the warlock?"

"What did you do?"

"The monster, it's breaking free!"

Those voices screaming and shouting were the thieves. That cracking of ice was coming from the veropede breaking free. Bile still stung his throat. Prey could feel the mental connection to his tool, but it was in the wrong place. That wasn't right. The veropede was not where he'd left it.

It was too loud, too close, it wasn't right. There was supposed to be a null-barrier in the way. Prey pushed up with his hooves and shakily raised his head.

Before Prey could react, an armoured unicorn, face hidden under a hood, loomed above Prey. The thief leader. A hoof lashed out, the kick knocking Prey onto his back, half splashing into his own sick.

Prey's head was spinning with disorientation in the stale air, but he wasn't hallucinating. He was inside the barrier. His anti-magic barrier which was supposed to block any kind of magic. Yet somehow, Selenia's pincushion had ripped him from safety and dropped him here. Right into the surviving thieves' hooves.

'Oh no.'

"It's breaking free!" Someone yelled again.

The armoured unicorn looming over Prey twisted around at the desperate shout, distracted from the lamb. "Celestia have mercy-Get clear!"

Prey didn't understand the finer details of what had just happened. He was scared and shaking. Something bad had just happened and he'd been ripped from the world to here. But the thief leader had just inadvertently exposed his back. Prey couldn't hear the stallion's thoughts, they were locked away, but he was still within range for Prey to touch.

'Die!'

Prey rolled onto his belly and swiped out. He just needed one touch.

Prey didn't need to take over a mind nor absorb it if he didn't want what was stored inside. Right now, he wasn't interested in whatever secrets the thief's mind held. Prey just wanted him to die.

Gold light flared. The leader jerked, twisting back around in surprise to look down at Prey where the lamb had his extended hoof nearly touching the stallion's rear leg. Nearly. Prey's hoof pressed uselessly against the hard, slippery barrier of the invincibility magic. So near and yet too far.

Prey recoiled. The leader kept staring down at where his armour had kicked in and protected him from destruction. But another shout snapped him back to the present.

"It's not going to hold!"

Ice shattered, and the veropede broke its middle free.

The leader spun back around again, assessing the dire situation in a heartbeat. The other three remaining thieves had spread themselves defensively around the veropede in a wide arc.

"Celestia damn it! Why'd you waste the last charge on grabbing that stupid sheep?"

"I didn't! I said I wanted the monster's master, not the filly!" The phasing thief shouted back, half hysterical with fury and fear. 

"You could've just killed the monster instead!" The other thief screamed back. The veropede picked that one to lunge at. They just simply had the bad luck of being the one in the path of getting to Prey and the thief leader the fastest.

Prey desperately grabbed at its cold insect mind, 'Protect your hatchling.'

"Ponyfeathers!" The cloaked pony backpedalled, the veropede closing the distance in mere heartbeats.

"Azurite run!"
"Get out of the way!"
"Move!"

The targeted thief tried to cast something, but whatever it was sputtered out halfway through. Not enough magic left.

Telekinesis seized a hold of Prey. Prey screamed in response, trying to clutch at the ground, but it was hopeless. The armoured leader yanked Prey up in front of him. Prey's head spun dizzyingly and the world rocked as he dangled upside down.

"Stop!" The leader bellowed at the frozen illusion of Lemon Pink, "Stop or I'll-"

The veropede didn't stop. It was too fast and even a veropede couldn't just suddenly halt that much charging armoured mass over the course of only two yards.

Prey's own ears were flopping over his eyes as he was shaken in the aura, so he only half saw the cloaked thief dive out of the way. Too slow. Their rear half was still in range of the veropede's spread mandibles.

With those mandibles, veropedes could bore through solid stone.

A bangle around the leaping pony's foreleg flashed blinding white and shattered.

*Crack*

The empty cloak was snatched up in the veropede's mandibles and shredded in an instant, but the thief was gone. Where-?There. The unicorn had been teleported about ten paces away and next to the phasing thief.

They landed from their leap, sans cloak. They were actually a caramel speckled stallion, clad in light chainmail. 

"Stop right now or she gets it!" The leader bellowed at Lemon Pink again, shaking Prey until his teeth clacked.

Lemon's illusionary image was still frozen, utterly immobile. The real Lemon Pink couldn't do anything, she wasn't the one in control.

'Danger! Stop.' Prey screamed across his link into the veropede's mind.

The monster's many legs locked, digging in. Its armoured length ground to a halt over the course of ten hooves. When it stopped, it was less than five yards outside of the antenna attack range of the leader holding Prey hostage.

The leader was indestructible in his armour. The veropede couldn't harm him. 'Filthy, filthy magic.'

Prey struggled wildly, still suspended upside down, ears and dangling ribbon swinging. He had to get out right now. But the unicorn tightened his telekinetic grip, locking Prey's limbs into place.

"Back off. I've got your foal, apprentice, paramour or whatever, and unless you want to see what I'll do to her, back off. Now. I said now!"

"Let me go!" Prey squeaked. He was sick with fear, he was going to throw up again. His head was thudding with blood.

"NOW!"

"Stop!" Lemon's image flickered out and vanished outside the barrier, but her voice still came through, "Stop it at once."

"Have your evil beast back off, or else." The leader barked.

It was hard to concentrate, but Prey had to force the connection through, 'Go. Over there. Away. Go.' 

The veropede waved its two remaining antennae in the air, furling and unfurling them unhappily. Meat was so close, and one of its hatchlings was in danger. It started forwards.

'Go away, go away. Stop. Over there. Food, food over there!' Prey mentally screamed.

"Last chance!" The leader lifted Prey higher in his aura threateningly.

"Stop it. Don't." Lemon's voice came, strained.

The veropede halted. Then it finally turned and began to scuttle away towards the remains of the pig which'd had its head chopped off.

But Prey couldn't breathe a sigh of relief. He was still captured. His eyes stung, 'Oh please don't start crying right now.'

A tense moment passed as the last four thieves all stared at the departing veropede. The de-cloaked, caramel coloured one, Azurite, was still lying on the ground next to the phasing thief, clutching a hoof to their chest and wheezing badly. Their ears were splayed as far back as they could go.

"Good. Now drop the barrier and let us out." The leader demanded.

No response came from Lemon Pink, still hidden out there in the night.

"Didn't you hear me? I said, drop the barrier and let us out." The horrible aura holding Prey frozen fluctuated around the edges. Prey bit down on his tongue. Emotional instability? No, the magic was fading. It just wasn’t fading fast enough to save him.

"Let us out."

"....I cannot do that." Lemon Pink finally answered, tone closed.

"Release us!"

"I cannot do that," Lemon repeated, "The... barrier can't just be disabled. It wasn't made to be turned on and off like that. I can't do it. Don't hurt hi-her."

'What is she playing at?' Prey thought frantically. They were going to kill him! Or torture first, then kill. Lemon Pink knew how to disable the null-magic barrier, Prey could do it himself from within here if he could get access to the right runes.

'Lemon's lying. Why's she lying? She can't betray me like this. What's she trying to do?'

The other three thieves were hurrying over to the leader as he shouted back his reply, never turning their backs on the veropede, "Don't spout your lies to us! Do you think we're stupid? Of course you can turn it on and off, you meant to come in to steal all our artifacts. So turn it off right now or I'll be forced to kill your foster foal."

"Kill Pr- kill her, and you're all dead. My veropede will rip you all to shreds." Lemon Pink immediately threatened.

"Veropede. That's that *cough* monster, right?" The phasing thief with the gilt chestplate spat.

"Yes. That is my veropede. It will obey my every command. You have no chance of beating it, especially with your magic rapidly running out. If I wanted to, I could have it kill you all. The only thing keeping you alive right now is my adopted child's life. But if h-she dies, so does each and every one of you."

Lemon's voice was flat, cold, but she kept slipping. Lemon didn't panic like a normal pony did. The thieves didn't know it, but those repeated near mistakes showed Prey how off balance and unstable Lemon Pink was.

This had all spun out of control so fast. Prey blinked hard as he uselessly struggled. He was very afraid, his heart racing. He had to think, had to figure out how to get out of this alive.

It wasn't just the thieves, the air was also going to run out soon. Everyone was already breathing heavily, or coughing and gasping, even if they hadn't yet drawn the connection.

"So it's a stalemate, is it?" The thieves' leader asked. His tone said he had something bad planned.

"An impasse. Your mutually assured destruction should you kill my child." Lemon Pink echoed.

"You don't seem to understand..." The leader said from behind Prey. He couldn't twist around to see, "It's not this foal keeping us alive, it's us keeping this foal alive. If we die, then so does your child."

"But so will all four of you." Lemon Pink shot back.

"No, all five of us. Five. Your little filly is stuck in here with us, remember?" The aura holding Prey gave him a shake up and down. Prey's wool was crawling in disgust.

"H-She's only a child. She's innocent. Are you prepared to murder a child in cold blood? Will the rest of you just stand there and let him do this?" Lemon asked.

"I can't believe it, you're honestly trying to pull that?" The de-cloaked caramel unicorn spat, eyes still fixed on the veropede.

"Your lies are completely transparent, you're only trying to turn us on one another."

"Foal she may be, but after everything you've done to us, to the diamond dog pack, how both of you've betrayed and murdered and killed and stolen and lied-No, this is justice. You're the one who took and corrupted this foal. You have no one to blame but yourself for her fate." The leader responded, not moved an inch.

"So we're back at an impasse." Lemon repeated.

"Hardly. I see a very easy way past it."

Prey wanted to scream. He could feel it bubbling away in the back of his throat.

He was helpless in the magical grip of this unicorn. He hated unicorns, he hated magic, he hated these thieves and all they'd taken from him. But he was too weak to fight back. He'd been overpowered and beaten in an instant by the filthy unicorn and their filthy artifacts. They were the same. They were always the same! Using their power to crush others.

Hot tears blurred in his eyes. Tears of terror and hatred.

Prey understood it. He knew what both the thieves and Lemon Pink were each angling for. It was so simple for someone like him to figure out. If only he wasn't caught in the middle, like a bone between two timber wolves.

Lemon couldn't immediately give in and do whatever the thieves demanded, even if her whole reason for existing was to serve Prey. If she folded and lowered the null-barrier, not only would the thieves escape, refill their magic reserves, and immediately attack, but they'd also realise how valuable of a card Prey was to hold. They'd know they could demand anything from Lemon. There would be no way the thieves would release Prey after that, even if they hadn't already made their plans of destroying Lemon Pink abundantly clear.

No, they wouldn't let Prey go afterwards either. They'd execute him before Lemon Pink's body had even stopped twitching. There was no means of forcing them to keep their word later if Lemon Pink folded now. And then there was the hate. You couldn't forget the hate. It wasn't the sort you could just move on from.

The thieves hated Lemon Pink. In their eyes, she was the cause of the deaths of so many of their order. They didn't have a clue that the lamb they now held captive was the one really in charge, not Lemon.

But even without them knowing that, there was obviously no way they'd let Prey go. If they did, the veropede would just attack, and with their rapidly dwindling magic, they wouldn't be able to win. Unless, of course, they could get Lemon to lower the barrier. Thus, the thieves were tied into not accepting any deal which didn't involve the null-barrier getting turned off.

They were trapped inside here, but so was Prey.

But so was the veropede.

But Lemon was the only one who could let them out.

But she wouldn't.

But they wouldn't release Prey if she didn't.

But they wouldn't keep their word even if she did.

But she couldn't let Prey die either.

"The way I see it, even if the barrier goes, we've no reason to release your foal, because the moment we do you'll just stab us in the back with your Nightmare conceived centipede abomination." The thief leader paused, breathing heavily.

Prey stilled his struggling for a moment. What was he going to say?

"So for us to even consider any deal where you don't betray us immediately like the liar you are, first the veropede has to go."

"Impossible. It cannot leave the barrier, same as you." Lemon refused.

"Let me rephrase that. 'Kill your veropede'."

"What?"

Lemon wasn't alone, 'What?' Prey echoed, although he could not speak.

"Kill it. We refuse to negotiate while you hold a knife to our throats. So kill it, destroy it. Then we'll talk." The unicorn demanded.

"No. Why on Equus would I even consider that?" Lemon Pink projected abject disbelief.

"You'll do more than consider it if you want your foal back safe and sound. The veropede has to go for either of us to have any chance of reaching a compromise."

"No. Have you forgotten who holds the power here-?"

"And it is not you. Your foal is in our power. It's you who's forgotten. You made a mistake trying to trap us like animals. There's nothing more dangerous than a cornered animal."

"If my foal dies, so do all of you. In fact, why don't I have my veropede start to kill you one by one until it's just you left? A life for a life, one for one. That'll be more fair."

"Come and try it!" One of the thieves yelled, but it was the leader who answered Lemon, cutting her threat off cold.

"If you want to make threats, so be it. Here is my threat; do that, and your foal loses a leg. Or maybe an eye. Or their tongue. Or how about one of these long ears?"

Prey squeezed his eyes shut as the unicorn's aura levitated his right ear up.

"You wouldn't." Lemon stated.

"You think not?"

"You wouldn't." Lemon reasserted.

"It would only be justice."

"You still wouldn't."

"Try me. You choose, your monster, or your child."

Prey was ninety-nine percent certain the unicorn meant it. "Choose" he was saying. Prey or the veropede.

That wasn't even a choice. There was nothing Prey wouldn't do to survive. Prey had bought this veropede in blood and guilt, much like Crimson had bought the powers of his jade necklace before it'd been stolen. These thieves had already stolen his first veropede, invading his base and killing it, and now they wanted to kill the second.

'No one steals from me.'

Prey kept telling himself that, but it was just a lie. Wishful thinking. He didn't have the strength to back up his claim. He was weak, and the strong take from the weak. 

The thieves had stolen from him, and they were going to continue stealing from him. Ruin had stolen Prey's brother, Breaker. Captain Valour had stolen his hope of escape. Luna had stolen his freedom. All of them had stolen from him, and he'd never succeeded in taking anything back from any of them.

"No one steals from me?" What a joke.

There was a long silence from Lemon Pink. Prey's head was swimming. Was it just the blood from being held upside down or was it the lack of breathable air adding up? What was Lemon doing? She knew there was no choice here.

"I cannot." Lemon stated.

Prey's eyes shot open. No. Nonono, what was she doing? She couldn't!

"Then your foal dies." The leader replied simply.

"No, stop! I cannot just kill my veropede. How would I even do that?"

"Stop lying. Warlock's like you are all the same. You never trust anything you can't control. You must've cast a self destruct on that monster just in case you lost control." The unicorn retorted with pure disgust.

Prey had put that rune on Lemon Pink's neck himself, just in case.

But there was nothing like that on the veropede, because if it came down to it, Prey and Lemon Pink had access to the veropede's mind. It was bound to them through blood magic. What comes from you belongs to you. Lemon Pink wasn't bluffing.

"There is no spell like that. I cannot just kill it with a mere command, it's not possible." Lemon said.

"You think you're so clever? Fine, we'll pretend and play along. Have your monster swallow this then, and it'll do the job."

Prey couldn't turn his head to see what the leader was holding, but his mind flashed to that artifact they'd used to blow up his crystal cave underneath Canterlot Mountain. Anger boiled up in Prey, but it guttered into ash just as quickly as it rose. These people would kill him if he didn't kill his veropede. Not in the future, not soon, but right now! They would kill him right now unless he gave into their demands. 

His veropede. He'd spent so much time and effort to preserve its life. But Prey had to survive.

All tools are discardable, that's what made them tools in the first place. The veropede wasn't a person, it was just a thing, a weapon, not even a pet. There couldn't even be a comparison.

'...Come. Here. Rest and food here. Come.'

The veropede turned its spined length around, peering with an eyeless sack covered head. It started scuttling forwards in the near dark, remaining antenna questing out ahead.

Seeing it move, Lemon Pink speedily spoke to confirm Prey's decision, as if she were actually the one controlling it. She spoke coldly, with the tone of someone reluctantly compromising for something they didn't think was worth it:

"Do not think this means you've won. I'm only doing this to get P-my child back. You're still trapped inside my barrier. If you want to get out alive, you'll have to take my deal."

The aura holding Prey up was starting to stutter more and more. It was getting hard to breathe. Tersely, the leader shot back, "Don't delude yourself. You'll take our deal."

The thieves all tensed up as the veropede came closer, "Uh, I don't think-"

"That's far enough. Have your beast stop or else."

The veropede stopped. An object was thrown past Prey. It thunked heavily of the stony ground in the dark.

"Eat that. Make it eat that right now. I'm warning you." Their lead ordered, breathing heavily. His telekinetic grip was starting to jerk Prey erratically around.

The moment Prey had learnt the thieves had some sort of self-destruct on their artifacts, he'd known he had to stop the veropede from consuming any of the thieves. But now they meant to force feed it a bomb of some kind. Prey's runes couldn't protect it from the inside out.

'I'm going to kill you. You're going to die and it's going to be me killing you.' Prey silently promised. His head was pounding, his eyes swimming, the thin air just wasn't enough. Oh wait no, those were just unshed tears of helpless frustration.

"Sir, your magic-" The cloaked thief started.

"I know." He snapped back, then shouted again at Lemon Pink, "Stop stalling! Have it eat that, or else."

Prey could only watch as a hooked antenna slowly reached out and picked up the object. It looked like a ruby encrusted sphere.

Clumsily, the veropede passed the ruby sphere beneath the obscuring sackcloth.

'You've stolen from me. I'll make you pay.'

*CrumP* The verpede's huge frame jerked violently.

It twisted back on itself, antenna thrashing. There was something wrong halfway down its throat. It reared up, a horrible hiss splitting the night, and out of its maw, thick, stinking smoke poured, even blacker than the night. The veropede slammed itself into the ground, then whipped around and smashed into a boulder. The boulder cracked and the earth shuddered. Its mandibles tore of hunks of stone, it was frantic, thrashing and flailing, antenna wildly whipping.

It reared up even higher, head straight back, spewing more smoke. It screamed, a twisting grinding hiss, then it fell over.

Prey watched his weapon's death.

The veropede didn't die just then though, death is rarely instant or clean. It shrieked again, lying prone on the earth, spitting stinking acidic smoke, it's whole length shuddering. It's legs began to curl up. Another hiss. It twitched. It twitched some more. It kept twitching and shuddering for an interminably long minute.

*Cough* "Finally." Azurite spat, glaring and panting. He was sweating now too.

Prey struggled upside down in the unicorn's aura, but it still wasn't weak enough to break free from. His weapon, his mage killer, was gone. No weapons or tools left, he was trapped inside his own trap now.

Prey managed a strangled sound, but he couldn't talk. The unicorn's telekinetic grip was holding him rigid and immobile, including his jaw.

How was he going to get out of this? 

'I don't have a plan. There's nothing. I have nothing. Nothing.'

Prey had come to this fight knowing he could die. You couldn't hold back in the hunt, you had to go into every fight giving it your all. But now he'd lost. The thieves had captured him.

But give up? Never. Never never never ever. Survive, live, do whatever you have to. But Prey couldn't even beg, because he couldn't talk. He was powerless in the unicorn's grip. Prey hated magic. He loathed its touch with every fibre of his being. Giant corpse maggots crawling across his whole body looking for an open wound would've been preferable to this magic prison.

Lemon Pink's voice came through the barrier, cold and angry, "There. You've had your show of trust, now it's my turn. Release the child."

"Not a chance, witch. Not until your barrier is gone."

"And what assurance do I have that you'll release her once it's gone? One of you will have to stay behind in my power if you want an exchange."

"I'll say it again, not a chance. *Pant* You'll get none of us. Now lower your barrier."

"No. Not unless you can provide me assurance you'll release hi-her. I want at least one of you as insurance."

"I want doesn't get. You can have my word and nothing more."

"That's not nearly enough. You will just lie."

"You're a traitor to Celestia, a betrayer. Out of the two of us, it's only my word which is worth anything. Take it or leave it. Now lower the barrier, or else." The thief leader challenged, laying out his ultimatum. 

There was a silence. A long silence. Then Lemon Pink answered: 

"...No. You will simply kill P-her once you are free. So you will simply stay trapped in there until you can provide me with the assurance I want."

Prey so desperately wished he could speak with Lemon, so he could know what she was trying to do and instruct her what to say. She'd made so many mistakes already. Prey would die if she made another one right here. If nothing else, if she carried through on her threat and left them in here, they'd still run out of clean air and die.

"Fine."

The magic holding Prey paralyzed winked out. Prey gasped and fell, suddenly able to open his mouth. He only just managed to cover his head and curl in. Prey hit the stony ground on his back. What little, weak breath he had fled. He panted, not able to get enough stale air, but immediately tried to scramble to his hooves anyway. If he could just touch one of the other thieves-

Telekinesis violently yanked his rear hooves out from under him. Prey hit the hard ground again on his front. His wool did nothing to soften the impact.

Then the aura let go again and a strong hoof drove down into the middle of his back.

For the third time, the dirt pressed up against Prey's face. Stone chips dug into his cheek. He gasped, the hard horseshoe digging into the ridges of whip scar tissue, but that pain was secondary to trying to breathe. The air was so thin, his chest was heaving, but getting crushed into the ground, he could only half fill his lungs.

He was a runt. They were full grown adults. They didn't need magic to keep him physically immobilized.

" 'et me go." Prey wheezed weakly. He was ignored. 

Prey tried to push up, trying to get more room to breathe. He may as well have been trying to push a tree off his back. In his armour, the leader's hoof was as steady as a rock. He didn't even seem to feel Prey's efforts as he spoke back to Lemon:

"Fine. That's fine. Waiting here until morning is completely fine by me. You think we need our magic? I can crush your foal at any time with my bare hooves, no matter how repugnant the idea is. *Cough* Now that your monster's gone, you have nothing left to threaten us with in here. *Gasp* We can out wait you. *Cough* When the sunrise comes, ponies will see us down here and come to help."

The hoof driving into Prey's back pressed down harder, probably without the leader even meaning to, the magical armour distorting their perception of their own strength. Prey struggled, but even if he could touch the unicorn, the invincible armour's shield would again protect him. 

"Hear that, witch? We will outwait you! And if you try and run away right now, your foal's life is forfeit. Hear me?! *Pant* If you don't stay until morning, and don't surrender yourself, your foal dies."

The thieves leader was using his first hostage, Prey, to make a second hostage out of Lemon Pink. How quickly the tables can turn. The sheer audacity and iron confidence needed to make such a threat when under this pressure was stunning. But the thieves were operating under one big misconception.

"That's where you are wrong..." Lemon's voice came, "...You do not have the time to outwait me."

" 'no." Prey tried to gasp out. 'Don't tell them!'

"Your air will run out long before morning comes. That is why you'll make a deal with me, or you will all die. "

The thieves, all of them, they each instinctively stopped breathing for a moment as Lemon's words hit them. All that coughing and wheezing, it was only now that they realised what it meant.

"She didn't." The Sierra pony whispered in fury.

"Going to suffocate us?" Azurite echoed.

Prey struggled uselessly, cold dirt grinding into his cheek. He was unable to see their reactions, only hear. 'That idiot. Why'd she go and give it away?'

"What-I,-what do we do? What can we do?"

"I'm not dying like that. No way. No way."

"Noponies dying like that," The leader cut in, having regained his voice. Now he was even more angry, "Not unless this witch is also prepared to smother their dear adopted daughter along with us."

"Which is why you will make a deal with me." Lemon broke in, projected voice coming to each one of them.

"I wouldn't trust you to keep your word if my life depended on it." The leader spat back, "And it does. You are a liar through and through. Nothing has changed. You will never let us go if we don't hold your foal. *Cough* Therefore, I now know I can never let your foal go."

"But, how are we going to escape?" Azurite asked, voice trying to be brave, but the lack of air made it sound hoarse and afraid. No, he was afraid.

"You won't. Not if you don't take my deal. You'll die." Lemon's voice hissed, finally cracking and giving into anger.

"Sir? How...?" Sierra's voice trailed off, asking for reassurance.

"Do you all trust me?" The leader asked from above Prey, still pinning the runt to the earth.

There was almost no hesitation, "With my life. You've saved me more times than I can count." Sierra answered.

"Me too. I promised- *Cough* To Tartarus and back." Azurite echoed.

"To- *Pant* To the end, whenever or wherever that may be." The last thief answered, wheezing breathlessly.

"Thank you. I hold your trust most precious. If we get out of this...But now isn't the time. If we give that hateful witch back her foal, she'll never lower the barrier. But if we keep her-"

"-Then if the barrier stays up, *Pant*, and we suffocate, *Cough*, but so does her foal." Sierra finished in understanding.

Prey didn't have any breath left to swear. 'Why why why why?'

"It's a game of chicken. Whoever breaks first, loses. We've no choice but *Cough* to hold out."

"No!" Lemon's voice burst in, "I will let you go, I promise. You can have me instead."

"Lower the barrier. That's the deal." The leader ordered, unflinching.

Lemon Pink seethed, "That isn't a deal! You will just kill us both the moment I do. I will come inside the barrier if you let P- I mean, let the lamb go. You can have me instead."

That was a good bargain, surely the thieves wouldn't refuse when they were all about to suffocate-

"You're lying," The leader responded with complete conviction, "Lower the barrier."

Turn off the null barrier and they'd kill Prey. Leave it up, and he'd suffocate. Guaranteed death either way. It was getting harder to breathe by the second.

"But you'll all die! Don't you understand?" Lemon hissed.

"We understand completely. But, *Pant* for *Pant* Celestia and Equestria, *Cough* we are all willing to make the ultimate sacrifice."

What could you do in the face of such suicidal zealotry? When someone is prepared to die right here and now, not at some vague undefined point in the future, but with death staring them in the face, how can you possibly change their mind?

You can't. 

There was nothing left for Lemon or Prey to threaten them with.

The last four surviving thieves were willing to die rather than give in.

Prey was not willing to die just to kill them. He was not willing to die for anyone or anything. He pushed as hard as he could against the ground, muscles rubbery with the lack of oxygen. His head pounded with black spots. He strained and kicked. The hoof digging into his back was immovable.

The strain proved to be too much. The muscles along his arched back gave up and cramped. "Gak!"

Prey collapsed under the leader's hoof. His back was being screwed up, like the muscles had been stabbed with a pitchfork and the fork was now being twisted around and around. He couldn't get enough air. 'Why now? Why? Just why?!'

Dirt ground into his cheek. Prey stared sideways at the night, eyes wide. He couldn't get enough air to breathe, let alone make sounds of pain. He was hyperventilating uselessly, there just wasn't enough air. He was getting dirt in his mouth, trying to pant.

There was a roaring in his ears. His back was rippling with fire. The thieves' voices were muffled. They were talking, also panting and wheezing. They were too far away to hear.

His lungs and his back were on fire. 

'You're going to pass out. Stop gasping, breathe slowly. You can't pass out here.'

But he couldn't stop. Pain was pain. When you're in pain, making the pain stop comes before everything else.

His lungs were hurting so badly now, rapidly growing worse, drowning out the muscles cramping under the thief's cruel hoof.

'Stop gasping. Stop gasping, stop stop stop.'

Black. Prey opened his eyes. The first thing to strike his senses was stale, foul air filling his nose and lungs. His back arched fiercely, but the cramps had stopped.

'I blacked out. How long? A few seconds? A minute?'

It couldn't have been longer than that, since he'd woken up. The air was running out too fast.

'I almost died.'

He was still going to die. With great effort, Prey raised his head off the dirt enough to turn his protesting neck and look.

He saw the other three thieves, Sierra, Azurite, and the last unnamed one. They were all laying down on the ground, heads drooping, breathing heavily. Prey didn't know what'd been said, but they were obviously trying to preserve their remaining strength.

The leader? He was still standing over Prey, pinning him like a bug to the earth. He was swaying, also breathing hard, but his strength was still far greater than Prey's.

Lemon's voice was still coming through the barrier, trying to make the thieves see sense: "Your deaths will accomplish nothing. Surely you can't be serious, think of how much you each have left to live for. Families, a lover you always meant to go back to, children? What about your parents? Grandparents? Did you ever say goodbye? Siblings even? Think about all those who need you."

Lemon Pink's entreaties were being stoically ignored. The thieves had set their course unwaveringly.

'She'll lower the barrier, right? Drop it at the last possible second once everyone's fallen unconscious from the lack of oxygen. She can't have not thought of that.'

"What will your deaths accomplish? Your Order will die here with you, and I'll still be free and alive. There'll be no one to stop me going on a killing spree of revenge. If you die here, I'll kill a hundred people for each one of you. Poison, bone rot, blood magic, kindersnatches! I'll kill scores of ponies before anyone stops me." Lemon Pink threatened.

Finally that was enough to get a reaction, but not the one Prey or Lemon wanted, "You're only, *Gasp* proving that, you cannot, *Gasp* ever be allowed to go free. *Cough* This must be done."

Lemon's threat hadn't worked. It had done the exact opposite of work, only reinforcing the thieves' resolve. Prey weakly struggled under the hoof, but he didn't have any strength. He felt sick to his stomach. He was light headed, but conversely his head was also pounding.

Bitter spite. That is what Prey felt. What did his thoughts turn to as he lay slowly choking? 

Hate. 

Hate. Fear.

Hate hate hate. And fear. And hate. And fear.

It always came back to hate and fear in the end. If someone sunk deep enough into hate, they'd discover a truth. That there isn't a bottom. There was always space for that extra little bit of suffering and hate in the world.

Hate at life for being so uncaringly unfair. Hate for himself for being a weak runt. Hate at Lemon Pink for not saving him. Hate for the now dead diamond dogs. Hate for Luna trapping him here in Canterlot. And most of all, hate for these thieves. 

The hoof crushed him into the dirt. With great difficulty, Prey painfully twisted his leg around behind his back and tried to touch the leader's hoof again. To break, to mind kill the hated one who'd done this to him.

The slippery, immovable aura of the armour stopped him again. Prey slumped, utterly spent. He couldn't find any strength, and the stale, bad tasting air was so thin. Paper thin. Trying to breathe the paper. The pounding in his head was getting worse.

'Hate you. Hate you. Hate you. Hate you. Hate you. Hate you.'

Would it be so bad to give in? He was dying.

'I don't wanna' die. No. Please no.'

He could do it. With his death, he could do it. Make them pay. Make them all pay.

'Hate you, hate you, hate you, hate you, hate you, hate you.'

Prey knew how. He could tear a hole. He'd seen it. He'd always been carrying the necessary piece in his head, hadn't he? If not for this, to make everything pay, then what for?

But... 'No, never, no no no. Not me. Please not me.'

His extremities were tingling, going numb. His ears felt freezing cold, but his lungs burned with a fire.

Garrow whispered, 'Would be so easy, yez'? No reason not to. Easy. Easy-peazy-heart blood-squeezy.'

Prey tried to tell him to go away. His face was freezing, his heart racing away. Was the leader still pinning him down? He didn't have the strength to move to check.

Of course, Snake had to slither out of his mind to say his piece too. Or was it actually just Prey himself thinking it, and not the old voodoo witch? 

'Your pitiful life means nothing. Good, bad, these are only concepts. They have no power. Only nature will endure. Centuries after the mud has reclaimed your bones, the Deeper Green will still stand.'

Was there any reason not to? Drain his ocean, break the rusty cage, and let them out to eat? Starving, ravenous hunger.

'But I'll die. And I don't want to die. Hate them. Hate you. Hate you hate you hate you hate you.'

Prey's list still had names on it that needed crossing out. Circled in red and underlined. Who was going to do it, if not him?

In the end, it all came back down to hatred. Pure, petty, and simple. Hate.

You hate what you fear. And by everything dark and unholy under the Wolfing Wood, did Prey hate the idea of dying.

The rituals, the curses, the lich's mirror. All committed in the pursuit of survival.

Prey blinked fuzzily. He was gasping continuously, but it wasn't doing anything anymore. So he stopped. He blinked again, scared to close his eyes because his body was telling him to. His ear was half flopped over his face as he lay there. Vaguely, he saw blue.

What was...? Oh, right. His ribbon.

His... ribbon. His little joke on the whole world.

It wasn't such a little joke anymore. Its glossy silk surface reflected black in the night, the end lying an inch from the end of his nose. Prey fancied he could see his own wide eyes reflecting back in the dark silken sheen. It quivered each time he exhaled.

Why hadn't he used the ribbon?

Oh, he remembered now. Because of the unicorn's stupid, unfair armour.

That Indestructible magical armour. No match against thin thin thin air.

Prey's lungs were shrivelled up. His head pounded with blackness. It wouldn't be long now. 

Were the thieves already dead? Unconscious? Lemon Pink wasn't going to be able to lower the barrier in time, was she? The window was too small. Prey was scared.

The ribbon stopped quivering.

Prey didn't close his eyes. He was afraid of what might be hiding in the dark.

There was a memory, remembered forwards, instead of backwards. It didn't fit with Prey.

A button eye, forever staring at nothing. Stuffing pulled wide at the stitches, letting the straw spill out and the blackness contained within gape wide from between the threads.

Now why was that familiar?...

It didn't matter anymore, not now. Gossamer was long dead, led to his death and killed by Prey in his own cleverness.
How pathetic.

'I hate.........'

I fear......

.