//------------------------------//
// Chapter 11-1 
// Story: Dark Rites 
// by Sporkbacon 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 11-1: Sophie


Sophie dodged the attack, spinning around gracefully as she landed a two-hoofed strike into the chest of the Blood Diamond Dog facing her.  It backed away, spurting blood from it's mouth.  "Stupid pony!" It growled as it raised it's sword, menacingly.  Sophie's teal aura flared as she dodged the next series of the Dog's strikes.  Seeing an opening, Sophie spun on her back hoof, and hit him in a pressure point located in his shoulder, causing minor paralysis in the arm.  The sword that the dog was holding clattered to the ground.  Giggling, Sophie spun backwards in the other direction and disabled his other arm.  "The thing about us Blood Diamond Dogs is that we were made for fighting!" the dog growled.  Under his tongue, the dog had a capsule containing demonic energy.  "Mmmm...yummy." The dog replied, as he gulped it down.
Almost immediately, the capsule took effect, giving the dog use of his arms once more, and giving demonic power and attributes.  Sighing, Sophie took on her fighting stance once more.  She shrugged her shoulders back and flapped her wings to stretch her muscles.  Cartwheeling forward, she put both of her hooves together and struck the demonic dog directly in the chest.  With a sound of shattering bone, she sent a shock wave out of her hooves, which sent the dog flying back into a tree. The dog's spikes had stuck into the tree, making it unable for it to move.  At this, Sophie flapped her wings and flew upwards.  She aimed a hoof at the dog's head and flapped as fast as she could towards her target.  Scared for it's life, the dog started to squirm around before the steel horseshoe went through the skull and into the tree.  Brain matter and chunks of skull were sent flying outwards, and sprayed the ground with gore.
Twisting her foreleg, Sophie unstuck her hoof and turned around to face her next victim.  The dogs standing before her was larger and more experienced than the last ones.  She also noticed that the dogs had already eaten their demon pills.  There were three of the dogs in front of her.  Each one was brandishing a wickedly curved weapon and multitudes of various thrown ammunition.  However, Sophie had fought worse than this in her career as a Demon Hunter.  Focusing, she brought out the second trigger word of her bracelets and the horseshoes morphed into thick metal plates, coating her foreleg up to the joint.  As she called forth her improved weapons, wisps of teal-green came from her eyes.
Sophie took a deep breath and exhaled, opening her eyes.  She flexed her hooves and her wings to ready herself for combat, then taking a battle stance.  She brought back a foreleg behind her head and exhaled deeply.  Suddenly, her leg shot forward at one of the dogs, sending a pulse of energy outwards.  "Ha ha ha!  You look impressive now, but one punch?  What was that supp-?"  Sudden kinetic force slammed into the torso of the dog, cutting off it's sentence.  A massive indent in it's chest caused it to spit up blood and fall to the ground in a heap, groaning with agony.  It's own leather and steel battle armor was caved into dog's body, causing massive internal bleeding and a whimper to escape it's maw.  The red-maned pegasus rolled her head back and started charging another kinetic punch.  
"So, you think you can fight, huh?  Just 'cuz you took a few of us down, you think you can take us all?"  The bigger Blood Dog challenged.  She only smiled and brought a hoof in front of her and waved it in a "bring-it-on" gesture.  Angrily, the two dogs charged at her, weapons flailing.  With the agility and foresight that her second power word brought forth, Sophie anticipated their attacks.  The first dog brought down his sword, which was parried by her left hoof, making it glance off.  Seeing the opening, Sophie side-stepped and brought her other hoof around her body, planting it into the stomach of her enemy, making him spit up blood and crouch forward, holding his abdomen as he backed up.  Leaping, the second dog brought down all the force of his two-handed axe, which was easily countered by the pegasus, who caught the blade and brought it to her side, misdirecting all the force next to her, into the ground.  A quick punch to the dog's face knocked it over.  
It got up, blood oozing from it's forehead wound.  It backed away from the armorer and left it's axe.  In horror, the dogs looked at each other then ran away screaming.  Smirking, Sophie slammed both front hooves into the ground, causing a massive shock wave in the direction of the fleeing canines.  The wave caught up and tripped them.  Just after she hit the ground with her hooves, she flew into the air, to prepare a new attack.  
While the dogs were stunned on the ground, Sophie was charging her hooves again for the final blow.  With all the force she could muster, the pegasus flew at the ground and slammed into the dogs with a concussive force.  Around her hooves was a bloody hole inside of each dog about two inches out from where her hooves were.  She had made a small crater in the ground where the dogs lay.  In vain, some of the skin started to sew itself back together to repair the damage, but stopped after they took their last breaths.  
Slowly, she called her Steel Hooves back into her bracelets and went to help Ivy.  But before she could, the dog whose armor was caved in called to her, "Wait!  I...still..can..."  Staggering, the dog shambled towards her, the sword lazily being swung.  The demon pill was working to an extent, but there was no way it could heal the damage that she had done. "Shhh..." Sophie cooed as she slowly walked to the creature.  His attacks were easy to read, as she almost casually dodged them.  She embraced the dog in her forelegs and snapped it's neck, ending it's pain.  It fell limply against her body, leaking vital fluid from it's mouth.  Sighing, she dropped the dead body to the ground and turned on her hooves to go see how the rest of the battle was going.