//------------------------------//
// 699 - Kill Squad 
// Story: Lateral Movement 
// by Alzrius 
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The entire world had gone mad.

That was all that Thermal Draft could think as she hovered in the air, one hoof pressed to the bloody gash marring her face, as everything descended into chaos around her.

Lex’s sudden announcement that something had tried to attack his mind had caught her completely off-guard, and she’d barely been able to follow up on what was going on as Mystaria had tried to explain that she’d been trying to contact him psychically, but that it wasn’t an attack. That Lex hadn’t accepted that explanation had been far less surprising; Drafty knew him well enough to know that even when he was at his best, Lex wouldn’t approve of other people using magic on him without his say-so, no matter how benign it was.

And Lex had been nowhere near his best for some time now.

Drafty had thought she’d known why that was, with his not knowing what had happened to Sonata and the others, her stupidly selling her soul and then selfishly putting the responsibility for saving it onto him, and his being thrown into several life-or-death battles in rapid succession. 

But when Mystaria had unexpectedly announced that something was wrong with Lex’s ability to recharge his arcane spellcasting, it had become clear that it wasn’t simply recent events that were stressing him out.

In fact, that explained a lot about what had been going on with Lex lately. While Drafty hadn’t been present to witness several of his most impressive feats of magic – it had only been after the fact that she’d collected accounts of his conjuring a huge suit of transparent armor to fight a dragon, or instance, or using multiple orbs of lightning to attack Celestia and Luna – she’d seen more than enough to know that he was a wizard of extraordinary power. For him to struggle so much against a single griffon, even one as devious as Dark Streak, had gone completely against her expectations.

That he hadn’t been fighting at full power had only grown more conspicuous once they’d arrived on Everglow. There had been no giant suit of see-through armor used against Prevarius. No electrical orbs when battling Grisela. It was like he’d been holding back, which made no sense since Lex never held back, especially when he was fighting to protect someone else.

But if he couldn’t cast those spells…

As disturbing as the implications of that were, however, Lex’s reaction to Mystaria’s declaration had been far worse.

Drafty had thought she’d witnessed the full scope of Lex’s emotional range. She’d seen the remorse on his face after he’d brought her back to life. She’d seen his loving tenderness when she’d stolen an intimate moment with him while disguised as Sonata. She’d seen him rage against countless enemies.

But she’d never seen him completely lose it the way he had just now.

With black crystals exploding out of the ground around him, neither Mystaria’s pained screams as she was caught in the jagged eruptions nor her own cries for Lex to stop had seemed to reach him. In fact, nothing seemed to be getting through to him; he had simply stared straight ahead, completely non-responsive as his eyes had glowed more brightly than she’d ever seen. To that end, Drafty had tried to rush in, intent on physically snapping him out of whatever fugue state he’d fallen into.

The result had been her getting face sliced open.

As painful as that was, it had shocked her more than it had hurt. While she’d known for a long time that Lex was a dangerous pony to be around, that was because he had no compunctions about fighting for what he knew was right. She’d never once considered the possibility that he himself would actually hurt her.

Her surprise was even greater when, a moment later, Lex turned and flung his mask – which was a lethal weapon – at the adlet they’d captured yesterday.

Only for Woodheart to jump in front of it.

The sight of the druid hitting the ground had stolen the breath from Drafty’s lungs, horrified by what she’d just witnessed. She hadn’t spoken to Woodheart very much, the druid spending most of the time she’d known her either barking and chittering like an animal or talking to that adlet, Toklo. But she hadn’t deserved to die like that.

And the fact that Lex had killed her was as tragic as it was terrifying. Tragic because she knew it was the sort of accident that he’d never forgive himself for. Terrifying because, with how badly the cut across her face still hurt, Drafty could suddenly see herself in Woodheart’s place if Lex ever lost control of himself like this again.

Fortunately, that didn’t seem to be an immediate concern. Whether it was the sight of what he’d done to Woodheart, Shadow Star’s scream of rage and grief, or for some other reason entirely, Lex had come back to reality then. The black crystals fell away, but he barely had a chance to blink before Shadow Star was on him. A short distance away, Mystaria was fumbling through a healing spell, repairing the damage to her hooves, while Spinner and Valor were racing toward Woodheart.

For a moment Drafty hung in the air, not sure what to do. Half of her wanted to rush to Lex’s side and push him out of the way of Shadow Star’s wild strikes the same way she had back in Vanhoover when Cloudbank had been mind-controlled into trying to strike him down with Severance. But the other half of her wanted to fly over to Woodheart, hoping against hope that maybe, somehow, the druid had surviv-

WHUMP!

The sound of a heavy impact, followed by the sight of Lex arcing through the air before hitting the ground hard and rolling to a stop, brought Drafty’s thoughts to a complete standstill.

In the spot where Lex had been standing a moment before, barely two feet from where Shadow Star was gaping in complete stupefaction, was a two-legged creature clutching a hammer.

Clad in an outfit that was all muted browns and deep greens, its body shape resembled that of Grisela, or even Toklo and the other adlets. But there were numerous differences as well. The newcomer had no tail. Its pale pinkish skin had neither fur nor a coat covering it, completely bare to the elements. Its ears were round, and even weirder, were on the sides of its bald head rather than on the top where they should have been.

Strangest of all was its face. Its muzzle was completely compacted back into its face, sitting flush with the rest of its skull. Only its nose jutted out slightly, sitting above the pale white mustache and goatee that circled its mouth. 

Despite the bizarre appearance, there was a vague sense of familiarity to the thing, and in her dazed state it took Thermal Draft a moment to recall Sonata telling her about how, when she’d been banished to another world entirely before coming to Everglow, the bodies of her and her sisters had been altered to resemble the native creatures of that “Earth” place. The description she’d given of those things was almost a perfect match for what was in front of her now. She’d called them “humans.”

Lex had just been attacked by a human.

But Drafty had barely processed that thought when a sudden roar exploded in her ears. Almost falling out of the air in fright, she reflexively turned her head toward its source, just in time to see a monster nearly three times her size appear out of nowhere as it leaped at Valor and Spinner. Leonine in form, it had large batlike wings and a thick tail with a rounded tip from which multiple spikes jutted. 

Unlike the controlled expression that the human wore, the manticore – Drafty couldn’t help but think of it as a manticore, as it vaguely resembled the creatures she’d read about as a filly – was snarling as it tackled the two ponies. Bloodshot eyes blazed with feral hunger as its bearded jaw fell open, revealing a mouthful of filthy, crooked teeth for a moment before it bit down deeply on Spinner’s neck, one paw coming up to rake across Valor’s flank at the same time.

NO! Panicking as her shock began to wear off, Drafty fumbled with her saddlebags, trying to retrieve the spell-infused gems Lex had given her the other night. I’ll use the fire spell to scare that thing off-, no, I’ll use it on the human to give Lex some breathing room. Then he can summon Solvei-

But before she could even complete that thought, she felt a spell go off.

Having only come into her own magical abilities a few days ago as a result of her contract with Prevarius, the sensation was still a new one to the pegasus. It was like feeling a soft breeze, except with her mind instead of with her coat or feathers. While she knew that experienced spellcasters could develop it to the point of being able to determine what was being cast, that was beyond what Drafty was capable of at the moment, and the feeling passed without giving her any clue what had just happened.

But the fact that Lex, groaning as he tried to pick himself up, suddenly gasped, putting a hoof to his head as his eyes widened, wasn’t lost on her.

“Worked! It worked!” shrieked a grating voice from behind her, and Drafty glanced back over her shoulder…

In time to see the ugliest creature she’d ever beheld in her life.

Grisela – or rather, the puppet she’d crafted in her own image – had been a hideous sight to behold, growing progressively uglier as she’d accumulated enough battle damage to mar her twisted features. But compared to the thing striding toward them now, she’d been a beauty.

Wearing nothing except a ragged fur cloth around her waist and another across her chest, the teal-skinned humanoid loping across the snow was a gnarled, misshapen thing. Its back was hunched, and while it would have towered over the human if it had stood up straight, its crooked spine kept it bent so far over that it was actually slightly shorter than its hammer-wielding counterpart. Its gangly legs were uneven in length, making it move in an irregular lurch rather than a smooth stride. Its spindly arms didn’t seem to bend correctly, its shoulders being misaligned and its elbows folding out rather than inward, causing it to clutch its double-headed battleaxe – each end of which was stained a deep, rusty red – in an awkward carry.

But it was the monster’s face that was the worst. Greasy strands of stringy black hair failed to cover up the asymmetrical shape of its bumpy skull. Its eyes weren’t level with each other, and were sunken so deep in their sockets that they could barely be seen at all, leaving the impression that it had two gaping cavities with nothing inside of them. Its ears were mere holes on the sides of its head, and a crusty opening in the center of its face was all it had for a nose. Its lower jaw protruded well past its upper teeth, giving the thing a pronounced underbite that showcased pointed teeth which were uniformly black and rotted.

“No magic wolf now!” hooted the abomination as it loped toward where a horrified Mystaria was just getting her legs under her, and Drafty felt her blood run cold as she realized that the freak was referring to Solvei.

That’s what it was doing, she realized. That thing was some sort of spellcaster, and Lex had jerked in place because she’d done something to keep him from summoning the winter wolf to his side.

The revelation was enough to tie her stomach in sickening knots. This wasn’t some unfortunate coincidence, like when they’d stumbled into a village that just so happened to be the location Grisela and her yetis had chosen to terrorize. Nor was it a group that was investigating an incursion into their territory like the adlets had been.

This was a kill squad, one that knew exactly who they were up against and had prepared accordingly.

And with Lex having neither his arcane spells nor Solvei to call upon, and half of the rest of them either already down or fighting for their lives, it didn’t look like there was any way of stopping them.