Peatpeat lunged, claws drawn and teeth barred but in her eyes, it still looked like she was playing. Did she know what was happening? Did she have a choice or was she completely under the control of Ahuizotl who was controlled by Terra and did Terra want her dead? Jeopardy didn’t wait to find out sliced open the jaguar’s jugular without a second thought, spraying Daring with the blood of her friend.
Somnambula sped to seize the amulet from Ahuizotl and didn’t know what to do when he swallowed it into one of the tiny compartments in his innards. Welkin screamed as Terra, fully enveloped in red flame, crashed headlong into her shield. She teleported across the glade and fired off a volley of dozens of small homing stun spells which Terra countered with three separate golden shields which he fired at her, deflecting stun spells as they went.
Rasa was at the edge of the glade, trying to lead her kittens away from the fighting with a mother's insistent stronger than Ahuizotl ’s whistle. They had almost made it when one of the little toms turned and ran towards Starkin. Rasa ran after him and her cubs followed her. Somnambula swooped down like a corkscrew, blue fire erupting from the tattoos on her wings and Rasa lived just long enough to see her cubs incinerated before she was burnt alive.
Terra had almost cornered Starkin again with an endless barrage of wide golden shields that deflected her smaller missiles as they launched towards her, combining offense and defense into a single spell, distracting her while Ahuizotl lunged from behind. Somnambula threw herself into the path of Terra’s oncoming storm of magic and absorbed it into a vortex, pivoted and hurled a bolt of lightning into Ahuizotl, causing him to stumble down a ledge.
Jeopardy murdered another one of Daring’s friends as Welkin resumed her attack against Terra giving Somnambula enough of an opening to close in and buck the towering, flaming stallion in the ribs. He keeled over breathless and Somnambula put him in a headlock and threw him down the slope with some kind of judo move. They gave chase, static electricity crackling across Somnambula’s hooves she tasered him again and again until Ahuizotl pounced on them, coiling his tail around Terra’s limbs and clamping his fist over Terra’s horn. His eyes glowing with green light and purple smoke.
“Sombra?” squeaked Somnambula, “Is that you? It’s me, Somnambula.”
“Somnambula?” Ahuizotl whispered. “...My love.” Tears of desperate longing welled up in Somnambula’s eyes in the silliest smile she’d ever given as she hovered in front of him. He stretched out his hand for her to perch on, Somnambula landed and stroked the side of the cracked clay golem, the silliest grin she’d ever had plastered on her face as Ahuizotl acknowledged her, “You found me.”
Jeopardy wavered. If Sombra was controlling Ahuizotl why wasn’t he paying any attention to her? It was as if… Ahuizotl’s hand was wrapped around Terra’s horn in a ball… bigger than his clenched fist… with golden flames glowing between his fingers. “Look out!”
Somnambula was too enamored to hear or care about anything except the attention and credit she thought Sombra was showing on her until Ahuizotl’s massive fist crunched around her, squeezing her into a bloody, screaming ball that he hurled into a nearby oak. Terra fell from Ahuizotl’s grasp, landed softly, reignited, and galloped after the wounded Somnambula as Ahuizotl lunged at Starkin.
Jeopardy streaked to help. She couldn’t carry Somnambula’s entire body away but if she could just get the earrings and headdress then she could leave the rest and they could try this again later. Starlight charged and unleashed almost everything she had left into and in an incredible column of Starkin’s magic, shattering his head and splitting his torso down the middle. If she could just grab Sombra then the four of them could escape and -
A jagged chunk of Ahuizotl’s corpse struck Daring right below the wing, shattering it as she spiraled and crashed onto her back. As Ahuizotl’s shell fell away something else leaped from it, like Ahuizotl, but no bigger than the pharaoh hound he had replaced. Starkin didn’t have time to recover enough magic to stop him. She rolled to the side and Ahuizotl’s fangs closed over Welkin’s Gilmore, and the strap hanging around Starlight’s neck broke.
Where once Daring had seen fear and determination in Starlight’s eyes, now there was only fear. She picked up Ahuizotl in telekinesis and hurled him into the distance. Somnambula’s screams of agony were cut short with a flash of red beyond her field of vision and a fireball came zooming out towards Starlight, leaving only a smoking crater where she’d been standing?
Was she dead?
If not then she had teleported away to safety and she wasn’t coming back. There was nothing left for Daring to do now but escape. She tried to roll onto her hooves and only found shooting pain the moment she tried to move. She looked down to see if she was pinned under anything and found herself looking at a very strange angle of her cutie-mark that shouldn’t be possible.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, but eventually, Terra approached her with Ahuizotl, wounded, exhausted, victorious yet broken inside as he looked at her and she knew that no amount of magic could save her.
“Why?” whimpered Ahuizotl. She wished she knew why. With Jeopardy knocked away Daring finally had clarity of mind. She remembered everything; the blood from Pawn Picker when he tried to take away the phylacteries, the pleading of Pearl as Somnambula had waterboarded her… the things she would have done if she’d succeeded. “Why!? Why!? Why!? Why!? Why!?”
She wished she could explain, apologize if nothing else but no words came. Ahuizotl began choking her to death, demanding answers she could never give and Terra knelt a few yards away, burning with anger, sobbing with despair. Try as she might… Daring couldn’t come up with a way to blame this on Terra even if he was cursed. This was her own mistake. It was her last one.