Chapter 29
Richard roared in anger as he blindly kept up his volley of attacks, sending them in all directions. He was blind now and beyond furious.
“You’re a mess,” the voice of Lilith said from nearby, causing him to finally stop his rampage as he turned towards the direction the voice came from.
The massive griffon just gurgles at her, as his beak, mouth, and front of his face was just gone, nothing but gore.
“My, that’s some serious damage, probably never live a normal life again,” she giggled, causing him to growl as he sent a few balls of energy towards her. She just teleported behind him, smiling at him. “This is no way to live your life, Richard.”
He knew where she was going with this as he just stood there, body twitching as rage flowed through him.
“Letting your guard down like that, how amateurish of you,” she mocked in a sweet voice.
More energy began to glow around him as he prepared to cast a new attack at her.
“Take the deal,” she said firmly. “Jun and Val have taken it and have far surpassed you. Are you going to let them leave you in the dust?”
Spinning to face her, the glow only getting stronger around his body.
“If you take the deal,” she continues, “it’ll repair all that nasty damage to your face.”
This finally got him to listen as he slowly powered down, the exposed muscles in his face twitching.
“Is that a yes?” she asked in a sinisterly sweet voice.
He hesitated for a moment before giving a single nod.
“Good, Griffon,” Lilith said as her body began to crackle with energy.
ooo000<^>000ooo
Jero gasped out in pain as another tendril slipped through his defenses and stabbed him in the side. With a twist of his sword, he cut the tendril and dodged backwards, blood running from a few puncture wounds around his body.
The Nightmare was clearly just enjoying himself as he kept playing around with them, only hurting them a bit each time he got through their blocks.
This battle was starting to draw out, and Jero had used everything he knew already. All of his Traveler’s tricks had done nothing but amuse the Nightmare. Looks like choosing to focus on his wife and kids had a few drawbacks.
Dude wasn’t fairing any better as he struggled to keep up with the fast movement of the Nightmare in his gorilla form. He seemed to be favoring this form at the moment as he swung his large fist at the young Stallion, laughing in glee as he watched Dude fight for his life, sweat pouring down his battered face.
“Dude, do you have ANYMORE tricks up your sleeves?!” Jero yelled as he tried to push through the tendrils to get to the main body of the Nightmare.
“I’m out of cards!” Dude yelled back as he kept jumping backwards as the Nightmare steadily advanced on him.
“Then make more!” the man yelled with a bit of desperation.
“I can’t while fighting!” Dude exclaimed, causing the Nightmare to stop attacking him.
“Is that so?” the large dark creature asked as he spun around and poured all of his focus on Jero. “Then better hurry before I kill your friend!”
Dude stood there completely stunned as the Nightmare ignored him completely.
“Dude!” Jero yelled, breaking the stallion out of his dumbfounded trance.
“Right!” he yelped as a few blank cards appeared before him. He racked his brain as he tried to think of what abilities to put on the cards. The way his Ego worked, he could make a copy of any ability he’s ever seen, but he honestly hadn’t seen that many at this point!
So he made a few more forcefield cards and a few minor wound healing cards. But this wasn’t enough!
“Uh oh! Your friend is losing!” the Nightmare laughed as he steadily increased his attack rate on Jero.
The stallion's eyes went wide as he realized he had seen one other ability! Quickly, he made a few cards with this new ability. He just hoped it’d work here.
Now ready, he threw a card out, causing a forcefield to appear between Jero and the massive gorilla, blocking all the tendrils and causing the beast to crash into the shield. This gave Jero time to get back.
“This is what you came up with? Boring and unimaginative,” the Nightmare said as he turned to face the young stallion, just in time to see him cast another card.
A crackling red tendril shot from the card and attached to the Nightmare’s body, causing his eyes to go wide.
“Yes!” Dude exclaimed as he made the Nightmare raise a massive fist. “Payback boi!”
All of the Nightmare’s tendrils turned inward and impaled the massive creature's body as he began to slam his own fist into his face.
“Yes yes yes!” Dude yelled as he kept making the Nightmare destroy himself slowly.
“Good work, Dude!” Jero yelled as he dashed in and jammed his Traveler’s blade into the thigh of the beast, digging it in as he began to cast a spell.
As he finished the spell, the entire body of the massive beast began to raise up as he continued attacking himself. A massive silvery ball began to close around the Nightmare, slowly encasing him in a special prison only a Traveler has access to.
Nightmare didn’t say anything as he kept his eyes locked on Jero, seeming to promise him death for this.
Just as the prison was about to fully close, a female unicorn appeared right next to the red tendril coming out of Dude’s card.
“Hey, lady!” Dude yelled, waving for her to move. “Get out of here! It’s not safe!”
“I know,” she said as she raised her hoof and sliced it through the tendril, breaking the connection with Nightmare.
With a deafening explosion the silvery ball shattered, sending shards flying in all directions.
“I’ll be honest,” Nightmare laughed as he lowered himself to the ground. “I did not consider you would use my own ability against me. That mistake will never happen again.”
“What have you done?!” Jero yelled at the unicorn who just smiled sweetly at him as she stood there looking all innocent.
Something snapped onto the back of Jero’s leg, causing his eyes to go wide.
“Can you really afford distractions right now?” Nightmare asked with a smirk as he took control of Jero’s body.
Dude quickly cast a card, sending a forcefield over and severing the tendril, but another was already reaching up and attaching to the man.
“Crap,” Dude muttered as both Nightmare and the mare turned to face him.
“Ah, one of the little ‘Heroes of Equestria’,” the mare said with a tilt of her head. “Trying to live up to that title?”
In response Dude cast all of his possession cards, sending the tendrils flying at both of them. But dark tendrils from Nightmare’s back flew forward and severed all of them before they even got close to making contact.
Nightmare raised a finger and wagged it at him, a massive smile on his face, “bad little pony.”
“Dude, get out of here!” Jero yelled as he fought to regain control of his body.
The mare stepped towards him, her body crackling with red energy. Jero let out a grunt as a ball of the same energy formed around him and began to slowly shrink, causing him to get down into a crouched position.
With a loud pop, the ball of energy seemed to shock him, knocking him unconscious in one go.
“Perfect, another one caught,” the mare said as she raised the ball of energy up and caused it to disappear, taking Jero with it.
Dude had seen enough as he turned and booked it away, using his magic to teleport down the street.
“Go after that one,” she commanded as she began to trot away down the street.
Without a word Nightmare began to sprint down the street, calling after the stallion in a cheerful voice.
ooo000<^>000ooo
“This doesn’t make any sense,” a Starch clone said as it stood next to Summer Breeze as they watched the five other Starch’s attack the raging Jun.
“It doesn’t look like anything you do to him actually affects him,” she said, watching as the wounds they inflicted just healed slowly. Even the missing eye was slowly coming back, stitching itself back together. “Either he has some kind of regenerative ability, or he’s doing something else.”
“My thoughts exactly,” he muttered, watching as Jun sliced through all but one of his clones. “Can you do anything about that?”
She just sighed, shaking her head, “I don’t know. I don’t really understand my Ego yet, so I don’t know if I could counter something like that.”
“Can you try?”
“I have tried,” she said with a frown. “All I can do is open a wound he closes, but he’s faster at healing it than I am at undoing it. So it’s pointless.”
Starch rubbed his chin, thinking to himself as Summer Breeze’s Ego Spirit charged up another attack, diving in and cleaving a large hole in the side of Jun, revealing his pounding heart inside. One of the Starch clones saw this and sprang forward instantly, crashing his hoof right through the ribs and grabbing the heart.
With a slice of his wing, Jun killed the clone, but not before it crushed his heart. Yet, nothing happened as he continued to attack everyone around him just as viciously.
“That makes no sense,” Starch said with a frustrated grunt. “Even regeneration can’t save you from that kind of damage.”
Summer Breeze stood there, deep in thought as she racked her brain for an explanation. She raised her hoof and scratched her head, gritting her teeth in annoyance.
Then, an idea hit her as she looked around the area, looking for anything out of the ordinary. She didn’t see anything, but as she scanned the area she did feel something weird. Like something was holding onto her.
She closed her eyes and focused on that feeling, slowly tracing it to its origin. Her back left hoof.
Glancing back she raised her hoof, seeing nothing abnormal… at first. But as she stared at it she could just barely see a very thin, almost invisible, red thread coming out of the ground and attaching to her hoof.
“Starch,” she said, nodding down to the thread.
He followed her gaze and raised an eyebrow, “that’s his Ego alright. But what’s it doing attached to you?”
“Don’t know,” she said as she looked back at him, “but whatever it is, it probably is the reason he’s shrugging off all our damage.”
This brought a smile to his face as he looked back at the battle.
“I’m going to cut it, and when I do, go all out,” she said, holding up her shield as her Ego Spirit prepared to attack on her command.
“You got it, little lady,” Starch said with a smile as he dashed towards the battle.
She sat down and positioned her shield over the thread, giving Starch time to get ready.
After a few moments she gave a nod to one of his clones as she sliced the thread, breaking whatever connection Jun had to her.
In that same moment every one of his clones launched attacks against the Demonic stallion, distracting him as the Ego Spirit flew forward like a drill. WIth a massive spray of blood the Spirit pierced straight through Jun’s midsection, leaving a large hole in him.
He roared in absolute pain as he finally showed signs of being hurt.
“Now!” a clone yelled as they all jumped forward and began to rip into the new hole in Jun, ripping out organs and bones as the Demonic stallion struggled to fight them off, growing weaker by the second.
Summer Breeze watched intently, ready for this to be over.
“Now that is gruesome,” a voice said from next to her.
Her eyes went wide but before she could turn to see who was there, a massive fist grabbed her by the neck and lifted her up.
A whimper escaped her lips as she found herself being held up by an absolutely massive Demonic Griffon, four sharp and jagged bones sticking out of his shoulder blades, looking like the ends of horrifying blades. The face was twisted into the most gruesome and wide smile she’d ever seen, as it no longer had the face of a griffon, but more of the face of a twisted man.
“Summer!” a clone yelled as it broke from fighting Jun and ran towards her.
“You are way too beautiful,” the Demonic creature said as it raised a claw and placed it right next to her face. “Let’s fix that.”
She let out a scream as he sliced his claw across her face, ruining her snout.
As the clone neared them, a fleshy spider-like appendage with a blade on the end erupted from one of his shoulders and sliced the clone in half effortlessly.
“Are you letting yourself lose to these ponies, Junny boy?” the Demonic Griffon asked as he dragged a claw down the body of Summer Breeze. Her Ego Spirit was trying to get to her, but bony blades kept whipping out from the Griffon’s shoulders and catching it.
“Shut up!” Jun yelled as he struggled to stay standing.
A few tendrils of red Ego flew from the Demonic Griffon and attached to Jun, pumping him full of extra energy. This seemed to bring him back to full strength as his wounds quickly healed themselves.
“Oh, now that’s the stuff!” Jun exclaimed as his muscles began to bulge
“Stop being a disappointment,” the Demonic Griffon growled as he looked at Summer Breeze, raising an eyebrow as he saw her struggling to close her wounds. “Oh, look at that, you have some kind of healing Ego. How cute.”
He began to squeeze her neck, slowly choking the life out of her. His flickering eyes watched her intently, seeming to enjoy the sight of her slowly dying. His fleshy appendages kept killing any clone that ran at him, as well as her Ego Spirit.
The fight slowly left her as her hooves weakly slapped against the fist of the large demon.
A white flash suddenly happened between them, followed by the arm holding Summer Breeze exploding in a bloody mess as she fell backwards, hitting the ground roughly. She rolled over coughing raggedly as the Demonic Griffon roared in agony.
As she looked up to see her savior, a relieved smile appeared on her face.
“What have I missed?” Bronwyn asked as she sheathed her sword, keeping her hand on it as she walked towards them, taking everything in.
“You interfering interloper!” The Demonic Griffon roared as he held up his severed arm, grunting as a whole new limb shot out of the stump.
The woman then saw the little symbol above Summer Breeze, recognizing it as the Mark of the Enforcer. She had questions, but she didn’t have the time to ask them as the Demonic Griffon shot straight for her, moving much faster than one would expect with his size.
She didn’t panic as she fell into a fighting stance and dashed to the side just as he neared her, her blade making a ringing sound as she performed a perfect slice, sending his head flying away.
A sigh escaped her lips as she stood up, looking to Jun as he continued his seemingly never ending battle with the Starch clones.
“Bronwyn!” Summer Breeze yelled as she jumped to her hooves, eyes wide.
Spinning around she saw tendrils shoot up and catch the severed head of the Demonic Griffon, pulling it back down and reattaching it to the body.
“Oh you’re going to be annoying to fight,” she muttered as she watched him turn to face her, a smug look on his face.
“Your speed is quite impressive,” he replied as the spider-like appendages began to rise out of his shoulders, extending themselves out.
She took in the four blades made of bone as they flexed above the large Demonic Griffon, a frown on her face. Looking at Summer Breeze, she saw she was still trying to heal her own wounds, while Starch was busy with Jun. That left just her to deal with this massive beast.
“Alright then,” she said as she squared up with him, lowering into a fighting stance as she returned her sword to its sheath.
Summer Breeze groaned in pain as she watched Bronwyn dash towards the Demonic Griffon, slicing away at his bladed appendages as he stabbed at her. She seemed to be doing just fine, so the mare focused on saving herself.
“Am I going to have to do all the work today?” a mare said as she walked up next to Summer Breeze.
She gave the new arrival a strange look as she continued to heal herself. “Ma’am, I think you should get out of here.”
“Oh, I thought you were another of those ‘Heroes of Equestria’,” the unicorn mare said with a smile as she reached over and placed a hoof on Summer Breeze's face. “Such a shame such a beautiful face has that nasty scar on it now.”
“Lady, you need to get out of here,” Summer Breeze snapped, shoving her hoof away from her face.
The unicorn seemed to consider something before winking at her. “Want to see something interesting?”
“No you need to-” she began to say, but the sight of the woman starting to crackle with the same red energy the two Demonic creatures had caused her to lose her voice.
Without warning all six of Starch’s clones were engulfed in a red ball, causing Jun to roar in anger as he smashed against one of them.
“Stop that, you fool!” she sneered, causing him to stop as the six balls formed together, forcing the clones to disappear and leave only the real Starch.
Summer Breeze, not sure what had just happened, narrowed her eyes as she spun her body and slammed her shield right into the other mare’s face. This seemed to catch her completely off guard as she let out a panicked scream and stumbled to the side. However, the ball of red energy stayed around Starch as it shocked him a few times, knocking him out.
“You nasty little pony!” she sneered, her face looking like it was deforming from the hit as a much older and decrepit mare stared back at her for a moment. Then the flesh shot back up, returning her to the young and beautiful image she wanted to present herself as.
Her Ego Spirit flew into the mare, attempting to attack her, but the moment it touched her it crackled and faded away.
“Kill her,” the mare said coldly as she teleported away, reappearing on a building nearby. The ball of red energy holding Starch disappeared, leaving just a very angry and pissed off Jun.
Bronwyn, who had her hands full with the Griffon before her, growled as she watched the other Demonic creature jump for Summer Breeze. The mare was doing her best to dodge and weave around him, using her shield to save herself, but it was clear her wounds were affecting her.
A bony blade suddenly sliced across her arm, causing her to snap back to the fight at hand. Luckily the injury wasn’t that bad for her as she continued to fight at the same speed as before.
The Demonic Griffon just laughed as he kept up his assault on the woman, ignoring the wounds she inflicted on him as they healed just as quickly as she could land them.
“Now you are a real challenger!” he exclaimed as he suddenly flew backwards, breaking contact with her. “So I think I’ll take you seriously.”
His body began to glow as he seemed to start to transform right before her eyes.
Bronwyn didn’t allow him to just freely do as he pleased as she dashed forward and sliced his front legs off, followed by his head. But he just laughed a bit as his entire body, even the severed limbs, shot into itself, forming a fleshy ball.
Then with a bright red flash it reformed into a much different creature. This one was just a simple, but very muscular, middle-aged man wearing a tuxedo. He chuckled as he reached up and rubbed his chiseled chin, working his jaw.
“Oh to be back in my normal body again!” he exclaimed, effortlessly dodging her attacks now as he seemed to be at his full power now. “Ah, the energy is so much easier to control in this form!”
Bronwyn growled as she upped her speed, trying to get at him, but he was like a completely different opponent now. He seemed to just be playing with her now as he casually used the palm of his hand to move her blade aside each time it swung for him.
“I may have just ruined all the fun,” he said as he smiled at her. “I’m far above you now, so this’ll lose its novelty very soon.”
“Damn it,” she grunted as she heard Summer Breeze scream behind her.
She risked a glance back, seeing that Jun had latched onto her shield and was chomping down on it, his teeth shredding her leg attached to the shield.
That small moment of distraction proved to be a massive mistake as he sprang forward, grabbing both her sword hand and her throat. He smirked as he raised her up into the air, showing off his power as he began to choke the life out of her.
Bronwyn raised her legs and slammed them against his face, trying to push herself away from him, but he just held firm to her, a sadistic look on his face as he slowly applied more pressure.
Taking a risk, she dropped her sword, then using one of her feet she kicked the blade upward. She snatched it out of the air with her left hand and brought the blade down across the arms of the man, causing him to let her go as she severed his appendages.
“Clever girl,” he said with a seductive look on his face.
She ignored him as she landed on the ground and swiped her blade across his legs, dropping him to the ground. Now free, she turned and sprinted towards the other two as Jun now had Summer pinned on the ground, the shield barely saving her as he tried to chomp down on her head.
With a careful slice, she severed the spine at the nape of the neck, causing him to go limp. She then grabbed the mare by a leg and hauled her out from under the large demon as he began to regenerate.
“What do we do now?!” Summer Breeze asked in a panic as she saw the other man was reforming as well.
“We need to run,” Bronwyn said reluctantly. “We can’t kill them as we are.”
The two demons stood up at about the same time, turning to face them.
“Crap, we can’t evade them for long,” Bronwyn observed, readying her blade. Then her eyes went wide as she looked back at the little Mark of the Enforcer that floated above the mare's head. “Wait, do you have an Enforcer's Order Hall Dagger?!”
Summer Breeze blinked at her then gave a nod as she reached up to her shield and took it off, revealing there was a dagger hidden within it.
“Amazing!” Bronwyn said as she took the dagger and sliced the air before them.
The two Demonic beings saw this and rushed for them.
Just as they neared them, Bronwyn grabbed the mare and jumped through the portal. The last thing they heard were the frustrated roars as the portal snapped shut.