Loric
Chapter 9
With a frustrated grunt, Champion scanned the area below with both his eyes and ears, looking for any sign of the man. But he seemed to have disappeared off the face of Equestria, which is possible since he could travel between dimensions.
Below he saw a group of ponies laughing at a restaurant, so he banked towards them and slammed into the ground right next to them.
“It’s Champion!” Someone screamed, followed by everyone jumping up and trotting towards him.
“Did you get the villain?” One asked excitedly.
He looked at them, frowning.
They all recoiled at the sight of his burned face.
“You got hurt defending us?!” A mare called out, turning the looks of shock into looks of envy.
“I did,” he announced in his Hero voice, “but he escaped. Have any of you seen him?”
The crowd all replied no, causing his eye to twitch.
“Then return to your food, citizens,” he said turning to take off but seeing someone that brought a smile to his face.
With a boom, he zoomed straight towards them, coming to a stop leaning on a market stall right next to them.
“Hey, Moon, seen a villain about?” He asked in as smooth of a tone as he could manage.
Azure Moon sighed and turned to face him, “no, I have no-“ Her eyes went wide at the sight of him, battle damaged and burned.
He smirked at her, flexing his muscles, “yeah, I got a bit roughed up. My foe seems to be just as strong as me, but nothing I can’t handle.”
She blinked at him, then frowned, “well to answer your question; no I haven’t seen any villains.” She then turned back to rearranging the items at her stall, making it clear she was ignoring him now.
Champion smiled brightly at her as he stood up tall, “that is okay. Any plans tonight?”
A deep sigh escaped lips as she shook her head slowly and looked at him, “I do. My Brother and I are taking our Mom out for dinner.”
“I can come,” he insisted, his smile only growing bigger.
“It’s family only,” she deadpanned.
“I’m basically family,” he pressed, winking at her.
“Immediate family only,” she replied, annoyance in her voice.
“Then I’ll be there,” he laughed, flexing again.
“You stay away from my family dinner tonight!” She suddenly snapped, losing her patience with him.
He just stared back at her, his smile wavering on his face. “Having a bad day? Yeah me too, I’ll see you later,” he said in a chillingly calm voice as he gave a bow and shot into the sky.
She growled and turned back to her shop, no longer in a good mood.
Champion flew away from the town and flew far out into the forest. He kept flying till he was far enough away from any city.
Coming to a stop, he hovered there in the air, his breathing getting heavier and more ragged the longer he floated there. Then with a massive roar, his eyes blared to life, followed by a purple beam exploding from his eyes and destroying the forest below him.
He didn’t stop as he began to throw a super powered tantrum, destroying both the forest and the mountains around him.
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“You’re dying?” I asked, looking him over. “Sure you’re bleeding, but you’re acting like you're fine.”
Loric just chuckled, “that would be thanks to my Ego. I’m keeping myself alive right now by manually regulating my body. But that won’t keep me alive for long.”
“That’s pretty cool,” Nightstreak muttered from behind me.
“Can we help you?” I asked, a sullen look on my face.
“Unless you have someone with an overpowered healing Ego, then probably not,” he said back, coughing again.
“We have Doc, he doesn’t have an Ego, but he has a healing ability that-“
“It has to be an Ego based one for a wound like this,” he interrupted, giving me a thumbs up. “But thank you.”
“But we can’t just let you die!” Flippy Dew exclaimed.
He just shrugged, “people die, it happens.” He began to cough again, this time worse than the times before. Once he finished, he sat back, looking grim. “There is something you can do for me.”
“We can do it,” Flippy Dew said firmly.
This brought a smile to his face, “you little horses are way too nice.” He grunted as he shifted and waved his hand in front of himself. A little pocket dimension tried to open, but it kept fizzling away. “I’m too injured to form a connection with my pocket dimension, so I can’t retrieve my dimensional key. So I need one of you to lend me some of your soul so I can open it.”
“Okay!” Flippy Dew said as she held out her hoof to him.
“No,” I said simply as I reached out and put her hoof down. “I’ll do it.”
She frowned at me as I raised my leg and placed my hand on his.
“Thank you,” he said as he took my hand and began to focus.
I felt a chill run through my body, like something was being pulled from me.
Loric raised his hand and swiped a finger, causing the pocket dimension to appear before him. Carefully, he reached in and pulled out a decorative dagger, with roses etched into its blade and handle. The red of the roses really popped against the metal of the blade.
“That’s a dimensional key?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. Jero’s Traveler Key was just a simple key, so this one being a knife was strange.
“Yep, this one is a special one only given to Enforcers,” he said, letting go of my hand.
“You’re an Enforcer?” I asked, causing him to raise an eyebrow and nod. “My parents are friends with an Enforcer.”
“Who?!” He asked, looking a bit excited and shocked.
“Bronwyn Pendragon,” I answered, causing him to smile.
“She’s still alive, amazing,” he said, starting to look more relaxed despite the situation. “Well that changes things.”
I cocked my head at him, “changes things how?”
He placed a hand on his chest, smiling weakly at us, “I need you to give my Ego to Bronwyn.”
“Give it to her?” Roxxy asked from behind us.
“Yes, give it to her. I have what’s called a Wandering Ego, and it can be passed between hosts.” He coughed again, covering his chest and hand in blood. “Mine is very particular about who it attaches to, and is an original Ego. It has not been fused with any others, which has caused it to remain pure.”
“Okay, but how do we save you?” I ask, my usually hard expression slowly filling with worry.
“There is no helping me, kid,” he said with a weak chuckle. “That horse guy hit me with an attack while my Ego was down, so he’s damaged both my body and soul. I’m done for.”
“There has to be something we can do!” Flippy Dew whined, but he just gave her a thumbs up.
“I appreciate it, but we don’t have time to be wishful. I’m going to remove my Ego and give it to you guys. I’m trusting you to get it to Bronwyn. Do not let anyone else get their hands on it, especially the guy I was fighting.”
“You can count on us,” I said firmly.
“Good,” he coughed, raising a hand. “Once I remove this, I’ll be on a death clock. Won’t have long to live,” he said as he raised the dagger with his other hand. “I’m going to go to a special dimension, to die in peace. You guys don’t need to see me die.”
Flippy Dew sniffled a bit.
I just gave a solemn nod in response.
He gritted his teeth as he held his hand up, grunting as a small item began to slowly form in his hand. Cyan flashes could be seen as it grew in size till it was the size of a baseball, covered in images of roses.
“Oh, I’d forgotten what real pain felt like,” he grunted out, his hand shaking as he held it towards us.
Flippy Dew took it and held it close.
“I believe in you, guys,” he coughed, raising the dagger.
I reached over and took the little cyan colored ball from Flippy Dew, “we won’t let yo-“
The ball suddenly started to glow and sank into my hand. A very warm feeling washed over my body as I felt light headed for a moment.
“What just happened?” I asked in shock.
Loric just stared at me with wide eyes, “that’s… very unexpected.”
I flexed my hand, but felt nothing really different about myself other than a comforting warmth that enveloped my entire body.
“Well, no peaceful death while laying by my friends graves for me,” he said, forcing a smile. “Looks like my picky Ego has chosen you. So that changes things, again.”
I wasn’t sure how to feel about any of this as I was still trying to process what just happened. “I have an Ego?”
“Mhm,” he groaned, “Soul Enhancement. For me it let me change and manipulate my body and soul, so it’ll probably be the same for you. I wish I had time to go over all this.” He began to cough violently, blood now leaking through his bandages, “but I don’t have time. It takes a long time for it to be very useful to you, because you’ll need to master it piece by piece.”
All I could do was nod dumbly, trying to take in everything he was saying.
“Now I need to get you six into the Enforcer’s Order Hall,” he said as he fumbled with the dagger, laying it down next to himself. “But it’s only accessible to Enforcer’s, so I need your help again.”
He held his hand out to me. Reaching out and taking it, I found he was now ice cold. His tan skin was also slowly losing its color, making him look very sickly.
I felt another pull, but this one was much weaker than the first time. Slowly, he opened his pocket dimension and reached in, this time pulling out two items; another dagger, this one royal blue with Cyan lines covering it, and a decently sized crescent shaped object. It was a brilliant orange with purple cloth hanging off of it, making it look very ritualistic.
“Okay, I’m going to bestow the title of Enforcer upon you six,” he announced, coughing up a bit more blood.
“Wait, we’re becoming Enforcer’s?!” I asked in amazement.
“First we become the new Bearers of the Elements, now this?” Nightstreak said from behind me, clearly not sure how to feel about any of this.
“It’s not as impressive as it once was,” Loric said weakly. “You’ll have access to everything an Enforcer would, which is not a lot nowadays since the UAD took away the Central Dimension.” He raised the crescent shaped object and waved for us to get closer.
I stepped forward willingly, but the others were a bit more reluctant. But seeing me waiting, they all slowly got up around me.
With a wheezing voice, Loric began to speak in a language that did not sound natural at all. As he spoke the object began to glow, casting a beam of light down on all six of us.
The light got brighter as I felt my skin begin to tingle, followed by a feeling of release inside my head. Like something had been added and opened up.
The light snapped away as he fell on his back, breathing harder.
I looked myself over, but nothing had changed. At least as far as I could tell. But when I looked at Loric, I saw a little symbol floating above him.
“Whoa! What are those things above your head?” Dude asked, then looked at all of us. “Oh we all got them!”
“Mark of the Enforcer,” he groaned out. “If you’re an Enforcer, you can identify others by the mark floating above them.”
I looked closer, seeing that the symbol was a triangle with a fist holding a snake by the neck in the middle of it. The snake itself was wrapped around the wrist of the fist.
“I’m running out of time here,” he mumbled, holding the new dagger up. “The Enforcer Order Hall is a personal dimension for us Enforcers. It has everything we need, and even personal living spaces for anyone with the Mark of the Enforcer. Sadly, I’ve been the only one with access to it since the UAD returned, so I haven’t been able to use it to regroup wit-“
He suddenly stopped speaking and went limp.
“Oh fuck!” Dude yelped, jumping back.
Not knowing what to do, I just jumped forward and placed both of my hands on his chest, shaking him hard.
“Come on, bro, you can’t die yet! We still don’t know anything!” I yelled, shaking him, but it seemed to have no effect.
“Gah!” He gasped out as he came to, eyes wide in panic.
“Oh thank all that is good,” Flippy Dew said in a shaky voice.
“We’re on borrowed time here,” he said in a broken voice. With a look of complete agony, he raised the dagger and made a stabbing motion, hitting nothing but air and dragging it downward.
As he did so, a portal began to open where he stabbed. Once he finished, a large portal lay open right next to him. Beyond it was what appeared to be a large room with a table close to the portal entrance.
“Help please,” he gasped, holding a hand out to us.
Flippy Dew and I moved forward and got under his shoulders, lifting him up gently and hovered through the portal, our wings fluttering hard to keep his limp body up.
Once inside, he pointed to a couch covered in clothes and blankets. “Lay me there.”
Complying, we carried him over to the couch and laid him on it. Flippy Dew went the extra mile and made sure he was comfortable.
“Okay,” he muttered, reaching into a pile of clothing and pulled out a small remote controller. “I don’t have it in me to explain everything,” he pressed a button on the controller, causing a bell to ring somewhere in the distance.
The sounds of running could be heard from one of the passages. “What do ye require, sir Loric?!” a voice with a heavy accent called out as a stout man ran into the room wearing a butler like outfit. He was short and very muscular, with a large braided beard. When he saw all of us, he seemed to jump with joy and began to sprint even faster towards us.
He jumped into the air and landed on his knees, sliding towards us and falling into a low bow as he came to a stop in front of our group. “By tha God's! I never thought we wou' get more Enforcer's!”
“Uh…” I said, looking between the prostrating man and Loric.
“He is Luzzumi Broadfury, the keeper of the Enforcer’s Order Hall, and a trusted friend of all Enforcer’s,” Loric said, a touch of sadness in his voice.
Luz raised himself, standing up before us, a wide smile on his face. Then he saw Loric and his face dropped into a panicked state as he rushed through us and started looking him over, “Loric! What happened ta ye?!”
“Bad fight,” he said with a forced chuckle. Then he pointed at me, “she’s now the host of my Ego.” He then reached up and put a hand on Luzzumi’s shoulder, “Bronwyn is confirmed alive.”
“Tha lass be alive? That means tha others cou' be alive too!” the short bearded man exclaimed, squeezing Loric’s hand.
“My thoughts exac-” he was interrupted by a fit of coughing. As he finished, he looked worse than before. “I’m out of time. Luz, you have to-”
“I will take care o' them, me friend,” Luzzumi said as he wiped a tear from his face. He stood up and bowed to Loric, more tears falling from his face, “It was me pleasure ta serve ye all these resets, Loric. Ta tha end an' back, I will see ye in tha after."
“To the end and back,” Loric muttered, giving him a thumbs up. “Good life forward, my friend.”
Luzzumi stood up and slammed a fist into his chest, then spun around and stalked away dutifully. “Come along, new enforcer's! We have much ta discuss!”
“What about, Loric?” Flippy Dew asked, looking conflicted.
“I’m choosing to die here, on my couch,” Loric groaned, waving us away.
“Go on guys, follow Luzzumi, I’ll catch up,” I said, waving for them to go.
They started to protest, but I gave them a serious look, causing them to nod and follow after the short man.
“You don’t want to see me die,” he muttered, no longer able to move.
“Where do you want to go,” I said, taking his Dimensional Dagger from where it lay next to him.
“What?” he asked, his eyes clenched shut in pain.
“You mentioned you wanted to die on your friends graves, how do I take you there?”
He laughed, which only caused him to cough violently, “You don’t-”
“Shut up,” I said, taking his hand and placing the dagger in his hand, using my hand to keep his fist closed around it. “How do I do this?”
Loric opened his eyes and stared at me for a long moment before letting out a ragged sigh, “raise my hand and make a stabbing motion, then drag it down. I’ll do the mental part.”
Doing as he said, I raise his hand and stab the dagger forward. As I dragged it down, a portal began to open, revealing the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen in my life.
“Alright then,” I said as I let go of his hand and stood up on my hindlegs. Bending down I picked him up with my front legs, cradling him the best I could. Carefully, I walked through the portal, afraid it’d close behind me. But it remained open as I walked forward into the beautiful mountainside.
All around us were flowers of all kinds, blooming at their fullest. We stood on what appeared to be the side of a mountain, with fields of flowers all around us. Not too far from us was a single tree, with what looked to be twelve graves in front of it.
Walking forward, the mountains around us seemed to shine in the sunlight, making everything look like a fantasy world. To be honest, this might just be a fantasy world. It was perfect in all senses of the word.
“Lay me on that grave,” he said, weakly raising his hand to point to one in the middle.
I stepped over to it and laid him down gently on it, laying him so he was resting up against the headstone.
Once he was situated I sat down next to him, staring out at the mountain range before us.
“What a place to die in,” I muttered, getting a light grunt from him.
“Thank you,” he said in a soft voice.
I wasn’t sure how to respond, as all this emotional crap wasn’t my strong suit. “Of course.”
“These are all my friends,” he muttered, patting the dirt of the grave he sat on. “This one, she was special to me. Taken by a monster of man.”
“I’m sorry,” I said lamely back to him as he looked to be at peace.
He forced himself to raise his hand, pointing to the sky, “there are three other Enforcer’s alive, as far as I know. Please, find them…”
“I will try,” I promised him, putting my hand on his.
“Bronwyn, Kayliee, and Wyntir. Please, tell them I died here, with our friends,” he pleaded, his hand falling to his side.
“I will,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze.
“You’re a good person,” he grumbled quietly. “I see why my Ego chose you… you’re just like me when I was younger…”
“What? Cool and badass?” I asked, trying to inject humor into the situation.
“Cocky and arrogant,” he said with a laugh that devolved into a harsh coughing fit.
I couldn’t help but laugh, a few tears actually starting to threaten to fall from my eyes. A quick swipe of my hand pushed them back.
“What’s your name?” he asked suddenly, making me realize none of us ever officially greeted each other.
“Shayla Beltosh,” I answered, bringing a smile to his face.
“Shayla, I want you to have my key,” he said, nodding to his Dimensional Dagger covered in etched images of roses. “Luzzumi will tell you all how it works…”
“Thank you, Loric,” I said in a quivering voice as it threatened to break. But I forced myself to hold it together.
“And my room, the password is…” he began, patting the grave below him. “Rosmarinus.”
I could only nod in response, squeezing his hand again.
“You can have anything in there,” he said, his body slumping further as he kept his eyes on the scenery before us.
Slowly, I started to stand up. But his hand gripped mine suddenly.
“Please… I know it’s a lot to ask of you, but could you stay with me? Till the end?” he asked very weakly, his breathing starting to become steady and calm.
I bit my lip, but gave a nod as I sat back down and leaned against him, both of us staring out at the mountain range before us.
“Thank you… Shayla Beltosh…”