The flying troll and the wooden golem tumbled through the air. The two punched, kicked, and clawed each other, paying little heed to where they were falling. The duo came to a violent rest when they crashed through the roof of a nearby single-story admin building. Wiping debris from his eyes, Rotnart got to his knees and took in his surroundings. Five trolls and three Equestrians were staring at him and the dazed flier that was still on the floor. Rotnart recovered first. The former king roared and took a step forward, driving his massive fist under the chin of a magic-using troll in a vicious uppercut. The attack snapped every other troll and pony out of their confusion, and both sides got back to the business of warfare.
While the fighting was going on, a worrying thought struck the wood golem. Worrell’s contraption was still in his fist. Since the very clothes he had been wearing were now a part of his wooden body, he had no place to store the cube. So he had kept the computer-box thing in his hand ever since he had picked it up. The problem was he had thrown several brutal punches with his wooden fist into tough troll hide. And he had no idea how durable the metal was that contained Willie’s robot spirit.
His overactive mind had drifted far enough that he didn’t have time to dodge out of the way of a full plate armored troll’s slashing sword. Rotnart grunted in pain as the sword struck off the majority of his protruding right ear. Luckily ever since he had been turned to wood he could not feel sensations like pain as he used to. Even so, that had still hurt like a S.O.B. Another troll clad in birch armor capitalized on his ally’s attack and swung a heavy iron maul into Rotnart’s chest. The golem’s eyes widened in shock as he felt something break in his chest. Rotnart knew that his body had taken a lot of damage defending Fort Botswana. If he had still been a troll, none of his wounds would have been life threatening. But that was the problem; he wasn’t really a troll anymore. Each attack his body had taken, each ax bite, bolt shot, or mace blow he had absorbed had left a fissure in his chest. This last hammer blow had connected each of these fissures into an enormous fatal wound. The attack had sounded like a lumberjack’s ax cutting through a knot in hedgewood. This fact was not lost on Rotnart as he went flying through the air until his back hit the wall across the room.
The former king’s vision swam for a moment as he took in the carnage he had partaken in. Half of the trolls in the building were steaming piles of goo. But the ponies had suffered too. A white guardian pegasi had managed to get turned into a doll. Meanwhile a purple unicorn with a blue mane and a broken hoof was lying slumped against an upturned table. She tried to rise with the help of her magic, but before she could, the troll in plate armor was upon her. Her cries were mercifully cut short when she too was turned to wood.
Rotnart bit back a curse as he desperately looked around the room for anything that could bring down two prime troll specimens. He was about to lose hope until he found a tiny water pistol a few inches away from his foot. Rotnart averted his eyes and focused on the one earth pony left with a small empty milk carton that should have been part of a kid’s meal somewhere. The scared pony was on the floor scrambling to get away from that flying bat-troll he had forcibly grounded. The lanky monster was smiling and laughing as he slowly crept forward towards the terrified pony.
Rotnart slowly heaved himself up to a sitting position. The wood golem bit back his screams from the agony coming from his ruined core. He heard mocking laughter from the two armed behemoths just in front of him. The one wielding a sword spoke first in a mocking voice in his native troll tongue, “Hail, Oh king of the trolls."
The ironclad behemoth spat on Rotnart’s face. The corrosive drool etched a deep groove down the former king’s face. But Rotnart barely felt his burning cheek. It was nothing compared to the throbbing pain in his chest.
“I shall take your head to Lord Iarumas, and I shall become the new King.” The troll paused and thought for a moment. “King Walc does have a nice ring to it.”
The maul wielding crony nodded. “Yes it does, my King.”
“Hail King Walc,” yelled the bat troll from behind the two other trolls.
The maniacal troll turned to the cowering pony and said in the common language, “Say it, possum. Say, ‘hail King Walc.’”
The earth pony with tears streaming down her cheeks sputtered, “Ha--, H, Hail, K---, K---,King, W . . .”
The petrified pony never got to finish the sentence. With a dry thud and a scream of pain, Rotnart lunged for the water gun. As soon as his awkward wooden hands grasped the small plastic toy, he leveled it at the maul wielder and shot him in the face.
The crony was dead before anyone else in the room could blink. With a snarl of rage General Walc advanced on the prone form of Rotnart with his sword raised high over his head. The wooden troll panicked as several of his shots hit the General’s breast plate, pauldrons, and some of the armor joints around his elbow. None of the milk had struck skin, so Rotnart did the only thing he could do. He blocked the sword with the hand that was still holding Willie’s Cube.
Rotnart felt the sword bite through the wooden knuckles of his hand until the weapon connected with something that was just as hard as it. General Walc smiled at the suffering form of his wooden cousin and made to strike Rotnart a second blow. But before he could, his sword clattered to the ground falling from his limp fingers. He stopped and looked at his right arm. It was melting. He was melting. No sooner had Walc come to this revelation and he was gone.
Rotnart didn’t have time to savor his victory. He was exhausted and strangely enough he felt something wet and syrupy covering the lower half of his body. His eyes darted around the room for the last troll, but he couldn’t see any more enemies. Only the scared looking earth pony remained. The Equestrian had a purple mane and a light orange coat. She was staring at him with fear and concern.
“Run!” Rotnart yelled at the pony.
The pony turned to do just that. But instead she hesitated for a moment and quickly came over to the wooden troll’s side. As gently as she could she rolled the wooden creature over and took a good look at its injuries. “Oh my sweet merciful Celestia. I . . . I don’t know what to do with this. With any of this.”
The troll took a deep breath and winced. Even breathing was starting to hurt now. “How bad?”
“You’re covered in bl--- . . . I mean tree sap . . . I think. It’s coming from a huge hole in your chest. I, I can see your heart beating. Oh Celestia your heart is cracked in half . . . if that is your heart. And your left hand is split in . . .”
“I know, I know,” Rotnart growled at the poor pony. “Is the cube still there?”
The pony frowned and looked. A few seconds later Rotnart felt something leave the palm of his ruined hand.
The pony wiped off as much of the tree sap as she could before holding it in front of Rotnart’s face “This?” she asked.
Rotnart turned his neck and his broken heart sank. The cube had been pulverized with dents, and there was a deep cut running the length of the black box. The cube flashed and sparked in the pony’s hooves which caused the scared Equestrian to yelp, but she did not drop it.
“Well f*#k,” Rotnart muttered.
The pony sat the cube down and frantically began looking around the office building. “Maybe I can find some wood glue. Yeah, that should help stop the bleeding. I mean it’s the least I could do. I . . .”
“You want to help me?” asked Rotnart.
The pony nodded eagerly.
“Then take your friends and leave. My cousins will probably be back any second now.” The wooden troll gestured with his head to the two dolls still on the floor. “They’re not gone. They’re just imprisoned. If you can get them to the Tree of Harmony when Iarumas is dead, then they can be brought back.”
The pony didn’t move at first but when she did, she did what was asked of her and gathered the dolls to her chest. “I’ll send for help. I know where you are and we’ll come get you later.” Before leaving she said “And thank you. I’ll remember this. My name is Su---"
“I don’t care. Just go,” Rotnart interrupted.
The earthpony took one last look at the wounded creature before galloping out of a troll-sized hole in the wall.
When he was finally alone, Rotnart winced in pain as he raised his good arm to grab the ruined cube. He squinted at the artifact and sighed. He didn’t know why he was bothering with the computer thing. Surely Ernest could make another Willie if he lived.
“If he lived,” Rotnart muttered. The wood troll lifted his mauled hand that was covering the enormous wound in his chest and grimaced. The pony was right, he could actually see his ruined heart beating, and it was slowing with each passing breath. The pain was fading as more and more of what passed for blood left his ruined breast and slowly ran down his stomach. He did not have long.
Rotnart thought about hurling the cube out the window or underneath a piece of furniture, but it was just as likely to be found by trolls as by ponies. In desperation he looked through his father’s memories. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He doubted Trantor would have any information on how to help a dying traitor and a damaged artificial intelligence. Fighting through a rising tide of fatigue, Rotnart found something that was as interesting as it was disturbing. Back a thousand years ago when trolls received Sombra’s wood curse, the afflicted were imprisoned below the ground. After a month, a cursed tree would sprout from the earth, and after six months, the tree would be ready to house the wooden dolls harvested by his kin. Rotnart shuttered at the revelation. And if the tribe had needed many trees and none were available, the trolls would dismember the cursed. Sombra had seeded the frozen north with arms, legs, heads, torsos, toes, and fingers. Granted the trees were much smaller and took a lot longer to grow but the results were the same. The trolls had grown entire forests this way. In one of his father’s memories, he had seen his people disembowel a troll with the wood curse. Behind the heart was a tiny chamber with small cavities. The chamber was dormant until the wood troll was planted in the ground. When the troll became a tree, the chamber would grow and be the incubator where the dolls would be placed. It was the dolls that made it so the tree would grow more trolls. But in this case Willie would tap into the magic still in the enchanted wood. This was the best case scenario, assuming Willie hadn’t been destroyed in the cube. Rotnart paused to weigh his options. He had no idea how Willie worked nor did he know much about Sombra’s curse other than the fact that he wished he didn’t have it. He also didn’t know much about electricity, but he did know a thing or two about magic, and his body was rife with it. In fact an argument could be made that his body was nothing but magic since he brought down the wood curse upon himself. How else could Sombra grow his evil forests without magic? He knew that this might be one hell of a stretch, but weren’t magic and electricity kind of similar? He had also seen Worrell plug this cube into a very jerry-rigged socket made out of some awfully sketchy metals and wire. And if Willie could run in those conditions why not in the husk of a magical wood monster? Rotnart smiled crookedly, coming to his decision. He whispered, “Maybe I can save one of us.” With a last burst of effort, Rotnart pushed aside his split heart to reveal the hidden chamber. With great care Rotnart pushed the cube into one of the five tiny cavities. Surprisingly the cube lit up with a green pulsating light as soon as it touched the bottom of the indentation. Rotnart felt an electric warmth enveloping his ruined body. He smiled and whispered, “By Trantor’s nuts, I think this is going to work. Give 'em hell, kid.” After speaking those words Rotnart’s heart stopped beating.
**************************
Willie’s eyes snapped open in agony like he had never known. With a swift command of ones and zeroes, he silenced the pain receptors in his new body his dad had built him. That was odd. Why had Da given him the ability to feel such torment? What was going on? With another command he opened the files contained in the cube. In an instant he read the history contained within the data packets. Willie frowned and referenced the built in chronometer in the cube. Had it only been three minutes since his Da had executed the decoupling commands from the railgun? After that bit of news there was not much data to go off of. There had apparently been a catastrophic malfunction with the cube. In short, the cube that contained his essence had 76% of its outer shell and internals damaged in some way. Fortunately, his father had overbuilt the cube to withstand physical trauma with multiple data point receptors and redundant backup nano drives. So if even a tenth of the cube survived, that would be enough to rebuild himself. However, none of the data he was sifting through explained what had happened during those three minutes he was dormant. It was time to test out this strange new body.
The A.I. blinked and his new body stirred. He sat up and looked down at himself. What he saw made his curiosity turn to horror. “Oh my God,” Willie said with Rotnart’s voice. So obscene was the site before him he shut off his eyes. But it was too late; his logic engines were unable to cope with the influx of illogical data. He was asking a million questions at the same time with no answers. With his internal processors on the verge of overheating, he rebooted himself. This did not solve the problem. He was still in Rotnart’s body when he came back online. Adapting to this new reality, he dialed back his logic engines to a more primitive setting and slowly began to think.
“How am I doing this? How am I controlling him? Rotnart isn’t a robot; he’s made of wood, an insulator. This bloody well isn’t happening through electricity, so what does that leave? Magic?” And that’s when it dawned on Willie. “Rotnart, you genius, you king, you utter bastard. How did you know that this would work? I sure as hell didn’t. How did you know that ones and zeroes could be sent through magic?” And then another sobering thought struck WIllie. “What happened to you, lad?”
With a thought Willie sent another data query from his battered cube lodged behind the heart of Rotnart. The command of ones and zeroes flowed through the golem’s body unimpeded despite being made of wood. In spite of the situation, Rotnart’s/Willie’s lips quirked upwards. It didn’t matter that wood was an insulator of electricity. This body was for all intents and purposes made of magic and he could send his commands unimpeded. In milliseconds the data query reached Rotnart’s brain. It was ironic. Not that long ago Willie had been probing this very troll’s brain for information. Now this same troll had sacrificed himself to save an A.I. built by the man he had wanted to kill. Life was very strange sometimes.
In an instant Willie watched through Rotnart’s eyes those three minutes he had missed. He watched how Rotnart had pulled Ernest out of the way of a falling troll carcass before it had landed on him. His Da probably would have been just fine but Rotnart had saved him a bit of pain there. He then witnessed his father get captured by a flying troll and how the cube had clattered to the floor of Fort Botswana. Rotnart had not hesitated when he picked it up. And at the last Willie watched Rotnart come to his final decision to try and save Willie by merging his body with the cube’s interface. “Maybe I can save one of us,” he had said. “By Trantor’s nuts, I think this is going to work. Give 'em hell, kid.”
So moved by what his former enemy had done, Willie’s emotion receptors started to overtax their heatsinks. In his own way Willie was crying in gratitude. “I will, mate. I will,” promised the A.I.
Stealing himself, Willie took stock of his new body. The magic in the wood was what was powering the cube. “Which is how I was able to come out of sleep mode.” Willie murmured to himself. And at the cube’s current consumption, he had enough battery to keep going for several hours. Eventually he would convert all the magic in Rotnart’s body to heat, and he would be left with dry wood. But that was a worry for another time. His most pressing concern was the battles going on beyond this room. In fact Willie thought he heard the telltale sounds of a bat-winged troll just beyond the four walls that separated the A.I. from the rest of the world. Willie calculated the best possible course of action. The A.I. smiled wickedly as a plan formed in his head. He settled on laying back down in the exact position the last occupant of this body had left it and waited.
**************************
Hsarc watched from the shadows as the orange pony carried away the two dolls. He considered finishing what he started and ambushing the opossum. But decided not to. What he should do is contact his lieutenants and see how the battle above City Hall was going. He gave a sideways glance to the north and saw that the struggle was not yet over. The troll sucked on his teeth until he came to a decision. Since General Walc was dead, was he now in charge? If so, Rotnart’s head would make a great trophy and cement his position as the new king. The flier shuttered. Just the thought of that wooden abomination sent shivers down his spine. He still had large splinters in his back and wings where Rotnart had drug him down to earth into that death pit of a house. He made the right decision to leave as soon as that tree thing killed the General. But surely the traitor was dead by now. Hsarc had seen the great chasm in the abomination’s chest and all that tree sap he was bleeding on the ground.
Still keeping to the shadows, Hsarc dodged and avoided troll and pony alike as he made his way back to where Rotnart’s corpse must be. Stepping quietly around the pools of steaming troll remains Hsarc grinned as he beheld his prize. Rotnart was lying in the middle of a huge pool of tree sap. Both his hands clasped over the grizzly wound in his breast. Hsarc puzzled over how to separate the traitor’s head from his shoulders. The flier had some wicked knives on his belt, but he doubted that they would be able to do the deed in a timely manner. And then his eyes settled on the putrid pile that was all that was left of General Walc, his notched and rusted sword nearby. Hsarc sketched a mock salute to the remnants and asked, “Mind if I borrow this for a minute, General?” The flier struggled to pick up the enormous sword. It was a lot heavier than he thought it was, but it should do the job. Hsarc dragged the sword over to where the dead traitor lay, rending the carpeted floor as he moved. The flier stopped and blinked. He thought he saw something flickering in the troll’s chest, behind Rotnart’s clasped hands.
He shook his head. It didn’t matter what it was. All he had to do was bring down this sword across the traitor’s throat and the deed was done. And that was when his head started hurting. “Oh, for Trantor’s sake,” Hsarc said in exasperation. Dropping the sword the Commander of all winged trolls in Ponyville produced the small mirror he used to commune with his superiors and subordinates. The troll on the other mirror was his subordinate, Mar. “What is it? I’m a bit busy,” snarled Hsarc.
The other flier was nonplussed. “Sorry, boss. But what are your orders? We’ve taken over the skies above City Hall, and the flying opossums are retreating to the hospital. Should we pursue or should we provide ground support for Avatar Iarumas? Also you’re the only Commander any troll is able to get a hold of. According to the ground pounders, General Walc isn’t answering his mirror and General Erif Retihs of the Mages is dead. And since the Lord Avatar is still fighting the Night Possum in the dream realm, I think that means you’re in charge of everyone, sir. At least until General Walc is found. The Spell Slingers and the Ground Pounders are looking to you for orders as well until they can figure out who is in charge.”
Just like before when the late General Walc had said he was in charge of all the bat trolls in Ponyville, he had been shocked. And now here he was being told that he was in charge of all the trolls in Ponyville because everyone else was either dead or asleep. Thinking about being the leader and actually being it were two very different things. Turning his attention back to Mar he said, “Stand-by,” and abruptly closed the hand mirror. He had to think. He had to plan. First, now that the trolls had aerial superiority over the town, the ponies on the ground were sitting ducks. He should send a small detachment under Mar to keep an eye on the enemy fliers. As for the trolls on the ground all they had to do was surround the Lord Avatar and wait for him to explode in demonic fire. And then that should be that. Hsarc smiled a toothy grin. This was too easy. And he was worried he couldn’t do it. Hah. He should have more confidence in himself.
He was about to reopen the mirror to give his orders to his Lieutenant when he felt something push hard into his back. “Make one wrong move and you’re dead, boyo.”
Hsarc froze as the object was retracted from his back.
“That was a milk gun that just caressed your bloody hide, and if you don’t do what I say, you’ll be joining your boss in troll Hell.”
Hsarc swallowed audibly. He thought about taking his knives out of his belt and going mono y mono with his unseen assailant but knew that he might not be quick enough. If the pony had kept the weapon pinned up against his back he would have tried it. But now he was not sure how far behind him this horse was. Not for the first time he wished he had not lost his crossbow earlier in the fighting.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to call back your mate, and you’re going to tell him to pull back the army. I don’t care how you do it, but you are going to order every troll in Ponyville to withdraw to the Apple Orchards west of town and wait for further instructions. You have three seconds to comply before I turn you into sludge. Three . . . Two . . .”
“Okay, okay. I’ll do it,” said Hsarc. The bat troll brought up the mirror and unclasped it. “Mar.” He said into the mirror. A few seconds later his subordinate’s face was staring back at him. “Mar, I have received a vision from the Lord Avatar. He says to redeploy the entire army to the apple orchards west of town and to prepare for a counter attack by opossums from that direction.”
Mar frowned back at his superior. He had not been expecting those orders. Hsarc could hear the distorted voices of other trolls from his subordinate’s side of the two-way conversation. “Sir, begging your pardon. But are you sure you're interpreting the Lord Avatar’s vision accurately?”
Hsarc could feel nervous acrid sweat pour down his back. Again he thought about taking on this strange talking assassin that was right behind him. He didn’t want to betray his people like the arch traitor Rotnart had done, but he also really did not want to die. “Are you questioning the Lord Avatar’s orders, Mar? He said to redeploy, and by Trantor, that is what you’ll do or you will answer to me, and then you’ll answer to Lord Iarumas. We are about to be surrounded by these filthy hooved vermin if we stay here in the town.”
The other bat troll shook his head vigorously in contrition. “No sir, of course we will comply with the order. But if we leave the great one undefended and the opossums give him love . . .” Mar’s voice trailed off.
Hsarc cleared his throat preparing to deliver another huge lie. “I wouldn’t worry about that. Ernest P. Worrell is dead. General Walc took his head in single combat just before a pony killed him with a cowardly milk weapon.”
Mar’s jaw dropped in shock while several other troll voices exclaimed in shock who were listening in on the conversation. “The Great Redneck Hope is dead? This is great news, sir.”
Hsarc nodded, ”Yes, and the opossums don’t have anyone capable of loving the Lord Avatar now. So we can safely redeploy the army to meet the new Equestrian threat.”
The other bat troll went silent for a moment while the other trolls on Mar’s end conversed. At last Mar said enthusiastically, “Alright sir, we’ll move the army.”
The new troll leader smiled. “Trust me, Mar. Victory is nearly upon us.”
Hsarc closed the mirror and the voice returned. “Very good.”
Hsarc felt his bowels turn to water. The voice was different from the one that he had heard moments ago. If he hadn’t known any better he would have sworn that it was . . .
“Turn and face me,” said the now achingly familiar voice.
Slowly, the terrified bat troll obeyed. There in front of him was Rotnart. The golem was a horrifying wreck of splintered wood and dried tree sap. Hsarc could see the traitor’s split heart oozing treesap out of Rotnart’s chest.
“But . . . Bu- -,” the bat troll stammered. “But, you’re dead.”
Rotnart smiled an unpleasant ugly grin. “Funny, I was about to say the same thing about you.”
Before the bat troll could react, Rotnart/Willie was moving. And the last thing Hsarc saw before his world turned black was an enormous wooden fist smashing painfully into his face.