After a snap of the draconequus’ talons, Cromach and Heavy appeared floating above the battleground, Cromach’s long and sleek serpentine body holding Heavy in the air.
“Please don’t do that again,” Heavy winced, “I’m not a wild Corrupted, but I get vertigo too.”
“Sorry, I just wanted to see how things are unfolding without having to deal with guards rushing at us for appearing in the middle of the camp.”
“There they are!” Heavy didn’t bother with further complaining, instead pointing towards a group of six unicorns in Guard armors with Twilight and another unicorn wearing nothing in front.
“Who’s the guy with Twilight?” asked Heavy, “He looks important.”
“Magnus, the primal alicorn of Magic. How they managed to get him involved in this is beyond me, but I’ll take any help I can-” the group of unicorns collapsed, and Twilight’s and Magnus’ horns lit up as reinforcements dragged them off, and new unicorns took the place of those passed out or dead, “What’s that all about?”
“My best guess is that they’re using some kind of magic against Flow, but it’s exhausting to the point that Twilight and this Magnus are the only ones who can last more than few seconds it seems,” Heavy glanced at the brunt of the battle which was Celestia, Luna, and few others surrounding Flow carefully testing the limits of his abilities, “Hey, is that the new Blazing Light?”
Cromach facepalmed. He’d come to the conclusion that it hurt less using his clawed arm instead of talons.
“Yeeeeep...” he whistled, “And there’s One fighting Nightshade and not getting immediately splattered. That’s sight I never thought I’d see. Seriously, why are Brauheim changelings and freaking Silver Sun guys attacking this place?”
“I told you this was all wrong. We need to stop it,” Heavy twisted around to look Cromach in the face.
“And we do that how exactly?” Cromach tilted his head, “These are small armies, and there’s two of us.”
“We kill Flow,” Heavy scowled, “The magic thing is working, because he hasn’t killed anyone around him straight up yet. The alicorns will be pissed at everyone involved, but they won’t wipe out your dwarves, the northern changelings, or minotaurs. Besides, I can see Cadance’s forces coming. The attackers can’t win unless Flow kills everyone. We stop that, we win.”
“Okay, let’s get down to business,” Cromach nodded, and snapped his claws for a change.
The two appeared short distance away from the battle in the blissfully empty east side of the camp. Majority of the Guard forces were on the barricades, and the main battle was no place for them. So, aside from few individuals carrying quickly passing out unicorns away, there weren’t many who could notice them.
“Hey, mister Hastur- Cromach, mister Heavy Hoof!” they heard a female voice, and looked at its source.
Cromach furrowed his brows at the big approaching Corrupted, and only after identifying the dragon scales on her legs, nose, and around her spine, coupled with the butt big even for a Corrupted he asked:
“Harriet?!”
“It’s me! What’s going on?”
“We have absolutely no idea, but we’re here to stop it,” said Heavy, “I would ask you why YOU are here, but it seems you have a gift for getting into trouble.”
“You don’t know the half of it, I-”
“Later!” Cromach raised his voice at her, “Harriet, you stay back. Heavy, let’s end this.”
***
Heavy was confident in his Corrupted regeneration as he jumped into the empty circle around Flow. He felt chill and heard a scream from the unicorn group in the back as more collapsed, but that was about it. Celestia darted forward and swung her halberd, making Flow back off, unable to use his rift summoning attack.
Using the opening, Heavy cocked his foreleg back, and swung it. He saw Flow firmly plant his hind legs down and crouch, then grab the punching foreleg in one smooth motion, and then Heavy’s entire weight got thrown at Celestia. With her sister temporarily dazed from a direct hit by someone three times her weight, Luna immediately too her place, swinging a war mace at deftly dodging Flow.
“Sorry, princess,” Heavy quickly jumped back on all fours.
“Why are you with us?” suspicious, Celestia pushed herself back on all fours, and Heavy saw her black coat criss-crossed with burning scars.
“I have no idea what’s going on, I just know Flow is the main bad guy. Cromach and I were just following the trail of lost Silver Sun money and ended up here. If it sounds strange, consider how I’m feeling with all that’s going on.”
“Cromach?!” Celestia looked around.
“That white draconequus currently punching his own hand, probably for his snapping not doing what he wanted. Nightmare transformed him into that, we’ll deal with questions later. What’s this place anyway?”
“No time. Just stop Flow or we’re all dead pretty much.”
“Was planning on doing that anyway,” Heavy’s back tentacles rose up menacingly, and he charged at Flow again.
Punch after powerful punch, Heavy’s attacks got deflected, blocked, and eventually he got thrown away again like last time. Luna and Celestia weren’t faring better until, with a roar, Blazing Light joined in again, his sword burning with holy flames and forcing Flow to back off instead of blocking bare-hooved.
Heavy remained lying on the ground, strange chill creeping through him from all the light punches he’d just sustained. Trying to make sense of what the little voice inside his head was screaming at him, it took him too long to realize it.
His every blow had been blocked like all the times before. Not by someone with much faster reactions and better reflexes, but as if he’d been fighting someone who had fought and defeated him hundreds of times before.
Pushing himself up, his eyes went wide.
Cromach finally joined the fray, pointing talon and claw guns at Flow and shooting a barrage of energy bolts at him. Celestia approaching from behind did the same with a head-sized ball of magma which Flow caught, spun around, and threw at Luna. He knew exactly whom he was fighting.
Cromach’s barrage hit him in the back, forcing him to stumble forward, gasp in pain, and leaving his dark blue back scorched and bleeding. He turned around, punching Blazing Light in the chin and flooring him instantly. However, at that time Cromach finally snapped his talons properly, and left half of Flow’s flesh disintegrated, leaving behind the still but barely standing equine dripping Corrupted biomass on the ground. The unbroken half of his istrium mask fell on the ground, and he coughed out more black blood.
A batpony figure hiding behind a tent was sighting along the bolt cocked in a hoof-operated crossbow. Starry Night could have used a gun, but bullets were too difficult to enchant properly, being so small. Crossbow bolts were much better at holding spells, and the jagged one cocked in his crossbow was a nasty piece of work banned by international treaties. With Flow weakened this much, he whispered-
“This one is for Bladedancer, monster.”
-and fired.
It went cleanly through Flow’s neck, ripping a hole in the remaining flesh, and making his body jerk backwards.
The final blow came when Blazing Light, pulling himself from the ground with bloody muzzle, levitated his burning sword up, and rammed it through Flow’s skull. He collapsed on the ground, black fire burst out from the body, and completely devoured it along with half of Blazing’s sword.
The air stood still as everyone held their breath, not daring to move in case it would bring the enemy back. The bustle and screaming from the successfully defended edges of the camp was still there, but compared to this threat, few robots and other creatures were unimportant, especially if reinforcements would be here within an hour tops.
“No...” Heavy breathed out, the final piece of the puzzle falling into place as he felt a familiar tug on his soul he hadn’t felt in years.
“Well done, well done, mortals!”
Nightmare’s laughing voice boomed across the battlefield, and the eyes of everyone turned upwards to where her physical body was floating. Her mere presence was paralyzing even though only Cromach, Harriet, and Heavy knew who it was with certainty. The sounds of the battle gradually died off, even Nightshade and One stopping their earth-shattering duel on the south side of the encampment.
“You were all so amusing! Big fight with the bad villain, everyone coming together. Friendship, fun, righteous smiting. Ahhh, what will I prepare for you next? Good question. I suppose you’ll just have to see. Now ta ta, I have to listen to the begging and crying of zebras having nowhere to return after your little princess glassed a quarter of a continent. Such fun! I swear, the struggle of you little creatures to extend your insignificant lives makes this world worth keeping.”
Even her head twitched downwards, though, when a shockwave of immense magic ripped apart the central tent, the war room of the entire operation, revealing a granite altar and two figures.
“MISTAKE?!” gasped Heavy and Cromach as one.
“Seven?” Celestia blinked as well, “What are you-”
Without giving everyone around them a single glance, Mistake’s and Seven’s horns glowed, and the altar cracked before sinking into the ground like a key opening a lock. Two flashes later, they both disappeared.
“Aaaand we’re boned,” was all Magnus could say before the ground began trembling.
Even as far as Nightmare’s features could be read with her white, sawtoothed smile, she wasn’t particularly pleased with the new development of the situation.
“Oops, I might have talked too long. But hey, props to those two for planning out such an amazing distraction. Let’s see how you deal with the real thing now.”
As everyone started fleeing, the spider-like thing from Starry Night’s visions began crawling up from the crumbling crater expanding under their hooves.
***
“THOSE IDIOTS! PAWNS! BRAINLESS DRONES!” furious screams echoed through the air of rather nice and otherwise calm city park, “THEY DESERVE TO DIE FOR THIS! THEY DESERVE TO BE TOYS AND SLAVES FOREVER IF THEY WOULD DO ANYTHING TO REMAIN THAT WAY!” the voice wasn’t stopping its grievances, “ALL THEY’LL GET IS A SLOW AN PAINFUL DEATH AS EVERYTHING THEY TREASURED AND LOVED BURNS AROUND THEM WHILE NIGHTMARE LAUGHS!” in absence of any answer, the screaming continues, “THEY’RE JUST SHORT-LIVED AMUSEMENT FOR HER! WHEN THEY’RE BROKEN AND THEIR LIVES ARE IN RUINS, SHE WON’T BE SATISFIED. SHE WILL JUST FIND A FRESH TARGET!”
This time, a fairly calm, female voice answered.
“If you killed me and most of the population of a continent just to whine here, then I’ll be pissed,” said the blue, see-through soul of Bladedancer, looking at Flow screaming at the clouded sky.
“They WANT to remain slaves and toys, THEY WANT IT! THEY ARE DOING ALL THEY CAN TO STAY THAT WAY!” Flow repeated, this time screaming in Blade’s face.
“You’re not a parent, are you?” she asked, undisturbed by being the focus of his rage. Being a soul gave her a rather stoic outlook on things, mostly through the fact that things quite likely couldn’t get worse.
Flow’s piercing blue eyes stared at her for a while following the strange question, after which he answered:
“Two daughters.”
“Did you let them have all they wanted all the time while they were still too young and stupid to understand what’s good for them?” she raised an eyebrow.
“I wasn’t there for them when they needed me, not enough. Never enough, nothing is EVER enough!” he sat down, clutched his head, and this tim downright screeched, “WHEN WILL I HAVE DONE ENOUGH?!”
“You chose this-”
“YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING, YOU DAMN SUN FANATIC!” he yelled at her again. This time, her soul disappeared, and with it it looked like all the maniacal strength keeping Flow going went away as well, “Screw it all...” he collapsed on the short grass, right next to a smoldering campfire, his foreleg reaching towards a dark green tent in front of him.
***
Heavy was running away with ground breaking underneath him. The creature the crater was revealing could dwarf Canterlot castle with its size. On its own, it wasn’t particularly horrifying. Six mechanical spider legs supporting a blob of fat, grey, minotaur-oid body with four hands, not special at all, and head like a sack of potatoes with eye and mouth holes hurting the brain as it tried to understand the empty void inside them. All in all, Heavy had seen worse. The frost, the feeling of his strength instantly seeping away, the faint sounds of all fleeing creatures dropping lifelessly on the ground, that was the horror creeping all over him.
However, among all that, he couldn’t forget the tug, the chains binding his soul to the Final Sanctuary. They shouldn’t exist anymore, Final Sanctuary crumbled. The pocket dimension of the primal alicorn of Death was gone. He’d been there when it happened.
Then why did every Flow’s touch feel like Void’s power of true death?
No one else had ever been able to use such power consistently, and just that was enough for Heavy to follow the faint tug like he used to do when Blaze, the real one, was still alive. His body melted into pure black biomass, and drained into the ground.
When he opened his eyes again, he stumbled, both from shock and from standing on skewed floor, the black floor of the temple that was Void’s Final Sanctuary. Everything was there, the black throne, the pillars on the sides holding the black roof instead of walls, the steps leading down with the gate at the bottom closed shut. However, all that was coupled with the fact that the floor and everything else was at twenty-ish degree angle, as if someone just grabbed the black temple and rammed it into the ground elsewhere.
As his head fully realized the elsewhere part, he finally took a proper look through the space between the pillars. There was no silver, dead, and dessicated desert. Instead, it was… a street… with broken and ruined skyscrapers on the other side.
Heavy’s jaw dropped, but he couldn’t keep the connection open any longer. He was a servant, maybe a steward of this place, but not its master.
When he emerged in the real world again, he couldn’t feel the pocket dimension anymore at all. However, he could feel the Herald’s influence pushing against the world more than he’d ever wanted.
“IT WON’T HARM YOU, PHYSICALLY, I MEAN,” he heard Magnus yell somewhere behind him, “IT WILL OPEN RIFTS FOR SHADOWS. ALICORNS, UNICORNS, WE NEED TO STOP THAT!”
The Herald laughed like a buzzsaw hitting a steel ingot, and a rift bigger than anything anyone but Magnus had seen before opened, letting in a groups of snakelike shadows at once.
Spurred by Magnus’s proclamation, the terrified ranks of barely surviving Guards who had managed to escape the zone of instant draining death around the Herald formed a line against the incoming black horde. Thankfully for them, it looked like everyone who had previously attacked the encampment had fled or died already, so the only enemies were the freshly summoned shadows.
The Herald raised its four hands, and laughed again.
“Ohhhhh crap, this is the big one. If it’s opened, we’re all dead,” announced Magnus, “ALICORN TIME!”
With the Guards in front of them, the three alicorns, one ex-alicorn, and surviving unicorn wizards aimed their horns at the Herald, who simply spread his hands again.
The sky broke, and a rift easily the size of the Canterlot opened across the sky.
“Don’t panic!” called out Magnus, “It just looks big. If it was that powerful, we wouldn’t be here anymore. Just keep using the restoration spell, it should prevent it from spreading. As to how we close it with the Herald alive, that’s the million-bit question.”
Cromach stopped by the alicorns as beams shot out of their horns, connecting the edges of the rift and pushing them together.
“I might help,” he pointed his talons at the sky, and snapped them. One unicorn from the group sending their weaker beams against the quivering rift turned blue. In their concentration, none of the unicorns noticed, only Cromach, “Orrrrr maybe there’s a different way.”
“Cromach!” Heavy rushed to him, “We need to leave, now!”
“I’m pretty sure there’s nowhere to run. If that thing wins, that rift eats the world, and right now it’s a stalemate until that neverending flow of shadows from the smaller rift breaks through our defense perimeter.”
“Leave this to the alicorns! There’s more to this, I’m sure of it, and some of the fleeing guys must know something,” insisted Heavy, “Or do you want to stay here and watch? The small shadows aren’t dangerous, they’re just a distraction, and Cadance’s army will help soon enough. I can sense Spring too, so we’re going to be even in numbers. We need time, and the alicorns are buying it.”
“Alright, who do we chase first then? Silver Sun, or amazons, or dreamlings-”
“The dwarves and changelings,” Heavy shook his head, “I doubt anyone on the front line will know any details. Also, there’s only one place they’ll be running off too. Teleport us to the tunnel, and let’s finally visit Brauheim.”
***
The echoes of panic hit Gem just as she was leaving Brauheim. The dwarf prison had proven a challenge, but it couldn’t hold her for too long. She’d known something was wrong when she’d felt only the minds of drones around, no warriors or infiltrators at all, and now she could feel the horror from mind after mind… although much fewer of those than before.
She picked up death, destruction, images of frost and a massive monster. It didn’t take a genius to understand that the Herald had been summoned after all, and that the dwarves as well as her hive had indeed had their hooves in it. If there was a good part about everything, it was that the world hadn’t ended yet.
Gem wasn’t sure what to do next. Her family was involved, and what was going to happen next was unclear. She also knew she wouldn’t be able to get into the mind of anyone from her hive who would know something relevant. As lost as she was getting, she caught a glimpse she recognized, and that was the survival and escape of the current minotaur warlord Sinew.
Within two hours, she was in Rift, inside the warlord’s mountainside-carved dwelling, filling the place with her pheromones, and waiting. Eventually, it paid off when the tall minotaur in question entered, and started taking his armor off. His involvement in this whole business was proven when Gem noticed the purified istrium bracelets on his arms. Everyone who knew something, even if it was as little as Gem, was wearing those.
The blue, wiry minotaur sat down and immediately felt Gem’s jaws around his neck bite down.
“Why are you involved in this Herald business? What is the herald business? Why did you attack Celestia’s encampment?” she hissed at him.
“I… wil not talk...” Sinew’s willpower was impressive, “It is… Dark Prophet’s… will...”
“You and your stupid religion!” Gem glared into his eyes, the shifting colors of her own melting his mind and resistance, “How did you get involved?”
“Hnnng!” Sinew grunted and went limp, slowly breathing out. Gem knew she broke him as soon as peaceful expression spread over his face, “Dark Prophet appeared before me. He gave me access to hidden cache of ancient istrium armors from the time of founding of Rift.”
“Like that one?” Gem pointed at the armor Sinew had taken off a moment ago. She knew she had seen armor like that before only at a glance during invasion of undead into Equestria. Coincidentially, also from Zebrica.
Sinew nodded.
“And where is your Prophet now?” Gem bared her fangs.
“I haven’t seen him again. All other orders came through a hippogriff mare-”
Gem growled, but not at Sinew this time. Desert Shade was behind everything.
Ah hah!
Some of the drones had caught a glimpse of her when she was leaving Brauheim. She’d taken the surface, so she couldn’t have gotten far.
Gem released Sinew.
“Forget I was here.”
Sinew nodded again, his eyes closing, but he still mumbled:
“Minotaurs repay their debts as long as their bloodline lives, and whole Rift has eternity to repay to the Prophet.”
“She got us in the desert, she took the soulstealer, and she’s dealing with dad,” Gem mumbled to herself as she turned invisble again, “But this time I’ll get that bitch.”
***
“You know, I feel rather cheated,” Heavy looked around the castle plaza of Brauheim, across the wide ravine crossed by the beautiful steel bridge that only dwarves could build, and at the castle, “Though I did have my exposure to Silversmith technology before. This is art and technology put together.”
“I did respect my secrecy treaty, Heavy. Without their help, we wouldn’t be here.”
“Damn right,” Heavy pointed at the dome of the cavern, and made a face Cromach could only call smartass. Too bad his smart face and ass looked so good.
“Alright, that Herald thing aside.”
There were no dwarves around, having cleared the streets after hearing about a pair of weird visitors. Of course, the duo had met guards sent their way, but after Cromach turning the entire squad bright yellow, clean-shaven, and completely naked and thus unarmed, they had considered it a loss and ran away.
Out of nowhere, Cromach’s arm appeared with a crackle of green lightning aimed behind him into the empty air, and grabbed something.
“I told you last time you were cuddly, Two,” he said, and squeezed. A fit of coughing later, green blur appeared between his talons, revealing a changeling mare hanging by the neck, “Now, my friend and I will need some information.”
Green glimmer in front of him revealed One, her foreleg about to punch his head off.
She was faster than Heavy. She was faster than Heavy could even react. She was even faster than Heavy could see.
Her punch ended with Cromach grasping her hoof in front of his face. Heavy was sure that just like before, he hadn’t moved, that he’d simply changed position without doing so. Overpowered chaos noodle, but clearly not overpowered enough.
“And One as well. Good job giving Nightshade her first proper workout, though you’d have lost eventually. Now, as I said before, I need answers!”
“You can’t have them, not those you undoubtedly want,” a third and a fourth changeling appeared, “Not here,” said boss. Three riding on his back jumped down and started poking immensely surprised Heavy who recognized Scream’s runic body immediately.
Without Cromach doing anything, a black dome encased all of them.
“Private enough for you now, beard?” he asked, “Now talk or I’ll snap Two’s neck, and then I’ll start being really nasty. I don’t want this, but there’s a fucking world-eating monster up there, and we’re all betting on how long the alicorns will be able to stall it, because Celestia sure as fuck hasn’t stopped a single real threat in my lifetime, so I’m just a little bit on edge.”
“Hey, you’re being mean for no reason!” Three stopped prodding Heavy and scrunched his muzzle at Cromach whose eye twitched. At that second, Heavy could see the silent prayer in boss’ eyes. There was a difference between violence committed for true greater good, and the murder of someone innocent. To prevent that, he scooped Three under himself.
“No reason?” hissed Cromach, “No rea-”
“Cromach, I don’t know what you think, but none of us would be here if I refused when Desert Shade and Flow first came here with your passwords and orders. In fact, unlike all our previous contacts, I raised an objection, and it nearly got One and me killed. I know… parts of the plan, but I don’t know the ending.”
“The ending is that we might all die because of you!” Cromach dropped both One and Two where the smaller changeling started gasping for breath, “You did the exact opposite of what I needed from you all these years. You risked the whole world to save few of your changelings!”
“I know the answer to my question from centuries ago, Cromach. I know what you wanted, and you’re being a hypocrite. Protecting the world was just your game to pass time. I learned about alicorns. Well, Seven did, and we know that if they die, they might come back under the right circumstances. All this time, you’ve waited for your lover, and I know divinity doesn’t just make you immortal, it reacts to your wishes, your deepest wishes if you can’t control it. The wish to see your lover again was what made you immortal, strong enough to survive anything thrown your way, and imbued you with the desire to gain as much indirect control over the world so that you wouldn’t miss your opportunity. So yell at me again about how I am risking everything for my family.”
“World-eating monster, remember? I wasn’t the one who brought it here.”
“Flow would have found a different wizard if Seven didn’t do it. Celestia would have slaughtered the Zebra army even if Seven didn’t mess with the targeting ritual. Maybe we made it worse because we were powerful but not powerful enough to fight, but we also didn’t cause anything that wouldn’t have happened anyway.”
“Umm, boss?” Three shifted in Heavy’s one-legged hold, “What are they talking about?”
“Oh yes, beardy,” sadistic grin grew on Cromach’s muzzle, “Tell him.”
“If there is any later to speak of, Three, then I will tell you everything later. I promise,” said boss.
Heavy half-expected Three to argue, but the drone just nodded and said:
“Okay, but can we help these guys now? They act like baddies, but really they feel like hurt goodies.”
Heavy looked down at the drone who looked back up at him, beaming widely as if the last five minutes was just a big misunderstanding between best friends that had just gotten resolved.
“I wish we could,” boss looked at Cromach with hope.
“Then talk. How did you get involved in this, and how do we stop it?” the draconequus crossed his arms on his chest.
“Look, someone from your order had us dig the tunnel from here all the way to Pine Hills and then Chrysalis’ old hive. Desert Shade was the regular messenger, and Flow appeared only several times to check up on us. At first, she came with istrium forging methods, an ancient dwarf secret lost ages ago when dwarves fought the Twisted, and wanted us to make her the best armor our technology could make, which turned out to be a bodysuit. She wanted several masks as well, the ones Flow wears. We had mechs at our disposal, so we could easily mine the crystals and reforge them into the refined metal. Then we just built a lot of tech according to Silver Sun specifications. Scanning equipment and so on.”
“Black Ops base blueprints with Silver Sun upgrades,” Cromach and Heavy looked at each other.
Boss shrugged.
“For the dwarves, it wasn’t anything special. Mostly useless anyway, since most of the tech wouldn’t work deep undeground anyway. Too much interference. But we quickly dug the tunnel, changelings are the best diggers, added the raw istrium, and all we had to do next was to keep quiet, make istrium jewels, and anyone involved had to have their minds wiped as well as wear those. We worked around it using the properties of hive mind. Things became strange when Flow needed Seven and Six to build portals between here and… I don’t know,” he raised his hoof immediately, “One-way, leading here. You don’t want to try to enter from this side, trust me. The final order was for Seven to mark places on some magical circle and move several items there in secret, and to help that weird unicorn wizard with a ritual while everyone else was busy fending off an attack we stage.”
“Seven and Mistake summoned the Herald,” Heavy nodded, “I think we should get to the question of what we do now rather than figuring out what happened. Flow got killed, so we can work together-”
“The plan doesn’t end with Flow’s death,” Two said.
“What?” Heavy turned towards her.
“The bracelets, or boss’ secondary armor, we have to wait for an order, or we have to wear them forever. Seven knows something, I couldn’t help his mind bleeding into mine, he’s just that bad at mental skills. They are for everyone’s protection from… something. It’s connected to no one knowing enough of the plan to make a clear picture.”
“I guess that rules out finding this Seven and beating the goo out of him until he talks,” Heavy looked at once again fuming Cromach, “I think we should find Des. If there’s someone who knows the most, it’s her. Can you snap us to her?”
“She was here with the orders to commence the attack,” said boss, “She can’t be too far away.”
Cromach darted towards Heavy, grabbed his mane, and snapped his claws.