Ferix opened his jaw and let loose another torrent of flame, the yellow pegasus galloping out of the way as the surge followed after her. He was laughing, mostly at how all this was almost too easy. The sphinx had already fled, helped out of the arena by an orange mare who had lifted the injured creature out. The deer he had already thrown to the flames. Now all that was left was this yellow pegasus with her singed wing with no help from the griffons above. The sky was choked with smoke. A few crossbow bolts pierced the roiling darkness, impacting the ground around the dragon. One even glanced off of his breastplate, but otherwise none hit their mark, and none of the spear griffons dared to dive in to attack, his occasional random blasts of fire keeping them at bay. Little miss Masquerade down there was on her lonesome, and he was just about done backing her into a corner.
Masquerade stopped when she came to a wall of fire that met the arena wall, her speed doing her little good as the dragon closed in on her. She turned and stomped at the ground in defiance, snorting. Ferix was amused as he stomped towards her, towering over the pony. His head wreathed in smoke and flame, he looked nothing short of demonic. She spread her one good wing wide, the other singed and injured stayed by her side, its wingblade missing.
The dragon was wounded in several places. Between the efforts of herself, Desias, and Whirlwind the stag, they had managed to achieve an appreciable level of bloody tears through the young dragon’s scaly hide. However, it was nowhere near enough to slow the beast down even as the blood trickled down his sides and across his face and neck. She looked for a way to get out of this, to dodge between his legs perhaps. She was much much faster than him; even without her wings, surely she could…
“Do it,” the gravelly voice of the dragon taunted. She looked up to see the amusement in his eyes as he followed where she was looking. “Make it interesting and try it. I want to see how far you get before I pluck those gems from your eyes for a snack.” She took a step back at that. The imagery that summoned in her mind was not pretty.
She spread her hooves wide, thinking. What else could she do now? She couldn’t get the height or momentum to attack him anywhere where it might do some good. The dragon just stood there and watched her before he decided to move. In a flurry of movement, he swung his axe around, and she had the decision made for her. She galloped and extended her wings, wincing at the pain but pushing through it and gliding across the ground at an impossible speed, the air tearing at the fur of her eyelids as she dashed through the air. She felt the flesh-searing heat of the fire the dragon spewed on her, anticipating her movements. She barely passed through his feet before being cooked and crashed on the ground, rolling across the dirt before correcting her momentum and skidding to her hooves. Her tail was ruined and scorched, but she was alive.
The dragon roared in laughter and turned around to face her, his monstrous wings spreading wide, unaffected by the fire that roared around them both. Her breathing was laboured — it was getting hard, and she was feeling drowsy from the smoke and fumes and was clearly not going to be lasting much longer. The dragon stalked forward and opened its jaws wide before—
Ferix suddenly lurched to the side and stumbled, roaring in fury as he flapped his wings to stabilize himself before he tripped over himself. A line of blood splattered across the ground in front of the pony, and she looked up in confusion as a silver warhammer fell to the ground. The dragon turned and roared.
“Where I come from,” a voice spoke, loud and confident. Although... As Masquerade flicked her ears, she could just detect something behind that bravado: a hint of nervousness, “it is traditional in stories for the dragons to be killed with a sword, or perhaps a lance.” Ferix turned to the source of the voice, holding his jaw were several of his fangs were knocked loose and a trickle of blood flowed from his mouth. There was a figure seated on the stands, fidgeting in the darkness of the smoke.
Handy sat there, his shield arm crossing his lap as he worked on something behind it that neither the pony nor the dragon could see. You see, there was a lot for him to be nervous about the situation. Normally he could control himself, but when one tries to suppress a supernaturally motivated yet very rational and instinctive fear of burning to death at the slightest spark, it tended to be a mite bit harder. Therefore, he mitigated it by cannibalising the flags and banners of the arena that had not yet succumbed to the flames, wrapping them around his arm and stuffing them in between the straps of his shield to cover the exposed flesh of his left forearm, as well as trying to cover the gap in his back armour so kindly gifted to him by Ferix.
“Normally I cons—" He didn't get the chance to finish that sentence before being forced to move. It was odd, the effects of thestral blood. It certainly couldn't compare to the level of detail and information he could process under the influence of unicorn blood, but it did allow him to perceive the world in tremendous detail down to the individual scales of the dragon twenty feet away from him. So when Ferix decided to rudely interrupt him by unleashing his full draconic fury upon him, Handy had front row tickets to witnessing the eruption of draconic fire as if the world was moving in slow motion. It possessed a certain infernal beauty, a slowly expanding flower of death racing towards him amidst the dancing flames of the arena which watched on like revellers as the individual streams of smoke billowed and bent above, embers drifting to earth all around them like gentle yet deadly snowfall. Had the circumstances been different, he would have liked nothing more than to take a minute to appreciate the terrible, destructive beauty of it all. As it was, an irresistible feeling welled up inside of him, threatening to seize his heart as his body refused to let him remain where he was.
He was now standing at an entirely different part of the arena, breathing heavily. He blinked rapidly a few times, trying to understand what had just happened. Ferix was facing away from him towards a section of the stand he had just reduced to a bonfire. The pony behind him was crouching, covering her ears. What just happened? What had he done? He didn't remember getting up and running.
"Did you hear him squeal?" Ferix bellowed in triumph, turning back to the pony. "I didn't think anything could scream that loudly!"
Scream? Had he screamed? He was shivering, the same strange feeling gripping his heart, a terrible animalistic fear threatening to consume him. 'That's what happened,' he thought to himself. 'Like that night with the match… that strangled cry I gave when I got burned.' That rationalization helped, if only a bit, as he got a hold of himself. Ferix was still boasting but stopped in his rambling, looking sideways towards Handy's new direction. Handy's mind reeled as the dragon slowly turned to face him once more, clearly unamused. "As I was saying," his mouth ran before his mind caught up with it as so often had happened before. He slowly, cautiously descended the tiered seats of the stand, quickly stepping to the side as one panel gave way under his weight. “Normally I consider myself a traditionalist, but what the hell? I like being creative when it comes to dragon slaying." He jumped into the arena and began walking towards his fallen hammer, all too keenly aware of the nearby flames Ferix had kindly spat everywhere like a diarrhoea-stricken flamethrower.
"How did you get over there so fast?" he accused.
"Fuck you, that's how," the human replied. Ferix immediately replied by striding forward and turning, lashing his long tail out, seeking to strike the human in the torso. Handy saw it coming and simply bent over at the waist as the tail flew over him and returned to his full height in one fluid motion, an action that would have been greatly difficult without his high given his heavy armour, never mind the speed at which he did it. Ferix completed his turn and gawped, surprised that the human was still standing right where he had been. There was a silvery blur and a sickening crunch and Ferix was on his knees, gripping his neck, hacking and wheezing, trying to breathe. With the high he was running on right now, the punch Handy threw at his throat may as well have been a hammer blow. He kicked the dragon's axe away, sending it spinning across the arena floor and into a pile of burning debris.
There was an alarming sound of groaning wood and loud cracks coming from somewhere beyond the cloud of smoke above them. He could also feel the acrid smog invading his lungs. A small rational part of his mind was concerned about him ingesting tiny embers that way which did nothing to ease the animalistic fear that threatened to consume him utterly. He had to calm himself by rationalizing that the embers would be caught in the fabric of his helm visor, a logical defence that was thinner than the enchanted fabric itself but seemed to do the trick in keeping his fear of fire under control. He didn't notice that he was having no trouble breathing at all otherwise.
The same could not be said for Masquerade, who was barely maintaining consciousness through exhaustion and the fumes. She glared at the human with her emerald eyes as he stopped to pick up his hammer. For his part, he spared her a second glance, surprised she was, in fact, still here. "Thou shouldst probably leave. I'll handle Sparky over here."
"Wh-What?" she coughed out.
"Leave, thou art injured."
"Says the human who was dying on the ground not ten minutes ago!"
"I got better."
"How!? And since when could you move that fast!?"
"That would be telling, Masquerade. I have my ways," Handy said, looking around, the light of the fire casting his silver armour in contrasting orange and dark grey hues. He spotted one of the arena entries for participants that had, miraculously, not been set ablaze. "There, thou willst be able to leave that way. I shall cover thee here."
"I'm not going to be running from a fight!" she protested, stamping her hooves down, her good wing fluttering in agitation. Handy looked at the recovering dragon as it got back to its feet as he considered the incredibly unfair advantage he held over the beast.
"This is not a fight," Handy assured her. "It's an execution." There was a tremendous crack, and they both looked up to see the dark clouds of smoke above them boil and warp as something tremendous fell from above. Dark orange flames could be spotted, illuminating the dark smog as whatever it was came closer at an alarming speed.
"Move!" he heard the mare cry. He didn't need to be told twice, disappearing from the impending impact sight in a blur of silvery metal as the burning wreckage of a spectator tower collapsed onto the arena. The construction practically exploded into shreds of wood and cloth as it fell across the stands and hit the center of the arena, the smouldering ruins bursting into an inferno as it hit the ground and provided new fuel to the flames below. Masquerade was now in a seriously bad state, the exertion costing her severely. Handy rolled his eyes at her before gesturing once more to the gate with his hammer.
"Leave! Thou canst barely stand!"
"I can... still figh—" she began, getting back to her hooves once more. Handy just shook his head.
"Impossible bloody pony! Fine, stay here and die then. Not as if—" He was cut off as Ferix roared and a jet of flame rushed out to meet him, consuming the very air of the spot he had stood in not a moment before he dodged the flame, barrelling into the wreckage of the tower behind him. The words he was going to say was utterly lost as his very brain felt electrified in his hurry to get out of the way of the flames. He was now cut off from the pony by another wall of flames. There were all too many of those now for the vampire's comfort, with only a few paths remaining between him and the dragon on the arena floor that were not taken up by the deadly fire. "Alright. I've had just about enough of you," he said, as much to himself as to Ferix. The dragon just glared at Handy in indignant rage, its claws clenching and unclenching as he brought himself to his full height, towering over the human by a good two feet, his wings fully extended, giving the dragon a truly immense appearance.
He had fought larger things before, true. He had shared a room with much more powerful beings, keenly aware of the raw magical power that practically radiated from the pony princess all those months ago. However, there was something truly primal about standing before someone that much bigger and taller than you. He knew that if the dragon in Lepidopolis was anything to go by, Ferix would one day be the size of a football pitch. Now, as the young drake stood on its hind legs in mockery of bipeds and looked down at the human, Handy couldn't help but feel a slight sense of trepidation that was divorced from the more reasonable, potent, and vital fear he had regarding the fact he was fighting a living flame thrower when his skin was practically dried papyrus.
Funny how your mind prioritizes things, isn't it?
"You'll pay for that, human," Ferix growled, stalking closer to him. His approach was more cautious now as he reached to his side and pulled his other axe from an iron hoop in his belt. Handy didn't move, flexing his fingers around the haft of his hammer.
'That’s it. Come closer. No more fire breath. There's a good gecko...' Handy thought to himself. This fight should have been over by now, but with how the fire was everywhere, how his skin crawled, how his nerves practically screamed at him in unreasoning fear, a need to get away from the fire, he felt compelled to be more careful than usual. 'What the hell is wrong with me? I was never like this around fire until I got burned that night. Psychology shouldn't feel this... physical.'
"Where's your big words now?" Ferix taunted. "You were talking up a storm a few days ago." Handy remained silent, his armoured form still and unflinching as the dragon snorted. "I was paid a handsome price to cause you trouble, more if you were still alive by the end of it all, but obviously cutting your spine wasn't an obvious enough sign you should stay down!" The dragon took another clawed step further. The human flinched and he smiled a toothy grin. "Having second thoughts, human? Afraid? You should be; I am going to cook you in that armour, then have myself a nice dinner with your flesh while I take your head as a trophy!"
Handy wasn't paying attention. His thoughts had been derailed as the paranoid fear of fire slowly began overtaking his conscious mind. Colours swirled at the edges of his vision in an unhealthy sign of stress as he battled against himself, trying to impose his will on his unreasoning mind. Unpleasant images were brought to mind: a sheet of paper veritably eaten away microscopic bite by bite by tiny, fiery bugs, millions of them, the paper eaten away in an instant. The paper became flesh, the bugs became ravenous and demonic in appearance, and his skin was torn apart, cracking like wood before being devoured, his muscles and blood vessels coming next with his vital essence drifting away on the air, not entirely unlike the wax inside of a lava lamp before the tiny droplets exploded with a sound like shattering glass. More insects came out of the blood which continued devouring him alive, and he could do nought but silently scream as he watched himself immolate and turn to a pillar of white ash.
He shook himself back to reality with a start and realized he was now sweating coldly and shaking rather violently. Ferix was almost upon him now, laughing at the state the human was in. His wings beat and he took to the air, hovering over the human. "Burn," he said simply and opened his jaw wide.
Fear could be a funny thing. It could handicap you and freeze you in place, endangering you rather than motivating you to get to safety. Alternatively, and equally counterintuitively, it could conspire with adrenaline and push one towards the source of the danger to confront it before it overcame them. Ordinarily, that wouldn't be possible for Handy, but with a blood-high, the human could jump his own height and then some. Therefore, one moment Ferix was looking down at the silver human below him, and in the next, that human was hurtling towards him. He had just enough time to widen his eyes in surprise before his head was sent spinning, seeing nothing but stars in his eyes as the burning ruin of the arena spun in his vision as he fell bodily to the ground, landing in flaming wreckage.
Handy landed on the ground hard, breathing heavily, the head of his hammer stained with blood. He stumbled back to his feet, regaining his balance and turning to face the dragon. Ferix roared in frustration as he clambered out of the fire, kicking and lashing with his tail, sending flaming wood flying in various directions. He glared at the human as he got up, his face a bloody ruin and his lower jaw slack from where Handy had broken it. The dragon let out a strangled noise, halfway between a roar and a yelp of pain as he charged at the human with its axe. Handy blocked his blow with his shield, the axe glancing off of it and the human easily resisting its force. He swung again, and Handy parried it with a lazy, downward swing of his hammer, sending the large axe off course as he jabbed with his shield in his other arm, his vampiric strength lending the blow tremendous force, denting the dragon's cuirass and forcing it back a step.
'Focus. Focus on the fighting. Ignore the fire. Pretend it’s not there. Pretend it’s something else. Acid. Fountains of acid. That's not nearly as bad. Bad. But it’s not fire and that’s really all that matters. Yes, acid is nice. I like acid; I can deal with acid. Acid is not fire.' And so Handy's thoughts went as he continued entertaining this dragon's delusions of participating in a fight it could win just long enough until he could force it to an area of the arena floor that wasn't fifty percent fir— 'Acid! Acid fountains!' Fifty percent acid fountains so Handy's addled mind could better quash his hyperactive phobia and focus at the task at hand. Speaking of...
"ARRRGH!" Ferix screamed as Handy ducked under an axe swing and hooked his hammer around the knee of Ferix and tugged, sending the dragon off balance. He managed to keep from falling by beating his wings and lifting part way off the ground. Handy did not relent. Once both his feet were on the ground again, he swung. There was a horrific, wet-sounding crack, and Ferix's right knee was now pointing in the wrong direction. He fell and Handy brought his hammer down on his axe claw, crushing his claws and breaking the haft of his weapon. The smell of the dragon's blood finally reached his nose now as black droplets of rain pierced the smog above them, streaking down the human's silver armour in dark streaks. The griffons above were evidently moving storm clouds in to put out the fire. Ferix was openly yelling in pain now, gripping his ruined claw as he rolled on the ground. It was a rather pathetic sight, a dragon nearly in tears.
Handy felt no pity, however, as anger slowly reclaimed its rightful place as his fear finally died down. "Where's your big words now?" he asked in mocking repetition of the dragon's own question. A thought came to him, eyeing the splattering of draconic blood on the dirt beneath them and the dragon's own wounds. 'No one can see me here, he's helpless, and he's a dead man anyway after all this.' He licked his lips, the fear forgotten and anger down to a low simmer as an instinct bellowed within him, urging him to indulge it. 'Maybe... just a pint...' He reached up to his helmet. Just as his palm covered the slit of his helm, Ferix acted, turning and spewing a jet of flame that forced Handy's vampiric instincts into action as he fled the flames, covering a dozen feet of distance in an instant as a wailing screech pierced the air. He blinked, breathing heavily as the jet of flame missed him. He knew he was making that noise, but he wasn't doing it consciously. There was something within him that came out and took over, and this was the second time it had happened within the past half hour. The implications of what he truly was left him feeling uneasy, and he wondered what the true nature of the beast he had within him was... and what would happen if he didn't keep it under lock and key like he had been doing.
He didn't have too long to ponder that line of thought, for Ferix was moving. The dragon turned and held himself off of the ground with his good arm and good leg. His wings flared and then thrust downwards, sending the dragon into the air as he flew away on powerful wingbeats, his injured jaw opening and fire bursts flaming outward through the canopy of black smoke as he disappeared behind it. "Oh no you don't," Handy said under his breath. Now recovered and more than a little pissed, he ran. He lunged upwards and landed in the stands, the wood cracking and splintering beneath him as he continued sprinting up the stands, leaping and bounding up the tiered seats until he reached the top, vaguely in the direction where Ferix was flying. Then he leaped.
--=--
Thomin Yellowstone was not having a good day.
Having spent most of it running around the festival, breaking up some drunken brawls, and chasing down one shady shyster hawking illegal goods after another, now he had to contend with an emergency at the arena because a dragon had gone berserk and started spouting fire everywhere.
Also, there was something about a pony shooting lightning, but he didn't know what that was about. He was a bit too concerned with the raging inferno below him and the gigantic pillar of smoke emerging from what was left of the arena and the burning tents and spectating towers around it. What was worse was that there were still griffons down there somewhere, mostly guards who got the stuffing knocked out of them and couldn't be rescued before the dragon started spouting more fire. He fumbled with his crossbow as the rain beat down, the weather teams pulling muscles trying to get more and more storm clouds into place to help fight the blaze. The dragon was still down there. They had stopped firing bolts down a while ago, so it was impossible to tell where exactly he was down there. Therefore, they had elected to wait until he moved as more and more griffons converged. Word was that the Ironcrest guard was being mobilized to help get the panicking crowds under control. They'd need the extra wingpower.
The Gethrenians had arrived not long ago. One of them was arguing with the captain about why there hadn't been an assault yet. Thomin was glad he wasn't involved in that argument. He was a crossbow griffon - his place was standing back and taking pot shots, allowing the spear griffons to go to the ground and fight the dragon. He was content to stay right where he was, where he was safe.
Of course it was right around the time he saw several fireballs erupted from the smoke cover, and he soon found himself hurriedly flying out of the way as the formation he was a part of completely scattered in the wake of the fiery assault. Thomin's eyes went wide, and he almost dropped his crossbow as he dived. The dragon shot out from the cloud of smoke like an arrow loosed from a bow and blew past them. He hurriedly reached to the quiver of bolts by his side when the next big surprise emerged from the smoke.
Thomin tried to comprehend what he was seeing as what appeared to be a suit of armour was flying towards him. Five fingers gripped the belt he wore across his torso as a pair of feet planted on his chest, and all of a sudden the creature placed its full weight on him. Time seemed to slow down, his wings failing to keep balance in the air at the sudden shift in weight. "Sorry, our fella," the human said as he pulled himself closer, knees bent as it sprung from the griffon, kicking away and launching itself upwards after the dragon. Thomin was sent flying downwards after the human effectively used him as a gryphonic springboard.
He regained control of his wings just in time to dramatically slow his descent, but it was not enough before he crashed through a tent ceiling and landed in a large wash basin. He spluttered and flailed as he gripped the wooden side and pulled himself up and stared, cross-eyed, at what appeared to be a large sock suited for a griffon's paw across his beak. Looking around, the tent was criss-crossed with lines with various articles of clothing hung to dry on them. The washbasin he was currently residing in was filled with more clothes, and he groaned at what the dirty water was going to do to his crossbow.
Looking around, he saw a haggard old griffon with a patch over one eye blink at him in surprise, "Well now..." the old lady smiled gently. What looked to be a ragged blanket that she clearly had been intending to wash when he had unceremoniously dropped in for a visit and a bath was in her claws. "And here I was, wondering to the All-Maker what happened to my life and wishing that some young, strapping griffon would come and whisk me away from this dreariness, and lo and behold..." She chuckled good-naturedly, completely oblivious to the sounds of shouting soldier griffons above and the audible inferno going on nearby. "My prayers have been answered!"
Moving swiftly along, Thomin chose to ignore that and asked the obvious question as he pulled himself from the wooden tub. Well, apart from what the claw had kicked him out of the air in the first place. "Ma'am, what are you still doing here?"
"Cleaning," she huffed.
"You do realise there's an emergency, right?"
"When you are my age, dearie, there is always an emergency. It’s nothing to moult over."
"Ma'am, there is a mad dragon on the loose and a huge fire going on nearby. Why haven't you left yet?" He groaned audibly. Of course there would be a few civilians still left near the commotion. Why wouldn't there be? It would simply be too convenient otherwise.
"Because I am not finished!" she said simply, as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world.
"Your life isn't worth some clothes. I am afraid I am going to have to— argh!" Thomin untangled his wings from a bundle of clotheslines, eliciting a tut from the old griffon. "Look, you have to leave. It’s not safe here!"
"Young griffon, I'll have you know that I never stopped work for the blizzard of seventy-eight, and I am not going to stop for some overzealous drake having a temper tantrum because somegriffon took his lollypop," she persisted. Thomin rolled his eyes. He didn't have time for this. He walked out of the tent and looked up, noting that he probably should get back to…
The sight of the dragon practically spasming wildly in the air, spewing jets of flame every-which way, and the cloud of griffons gathering around them to hold them at bay.
'Or you know... I could just escort this civilian out and leave the dragon to everygriffon else. They got this covered… probably.' "Come with me, ma'am," he said, turning to the elderly griffon and lifting her out by her foreleg. "I can't leave you here."
"But what about—!"
"I am sure griffons will weep for their missing socks, ma'am."
"Well, so long as I get to be in the company of a handsome lad such as yourself, I suppose I can forgive you~" she cooed at him, and he suppressed a groan. Later, it would transpire that the griffon's employer would indeed complain about the missing clothes, which it turned out belonged to a minor noble family. The city guard was subsequently charged for their loss, having been deliberately abandoned by a guard who had interrupted a servant's duties, thereby being directly responsible for their loss. What was worse, he was personally saddled with the cost as well as a grilling as to exactly what he had been doing on the ground when he was supposed to be in the air fighting the dragon.
Thomin Yellowstone had a bad day.
--=--
Ferix, meanwhile, had someone who wouldn't get off his back.
"GET OFF OF ME!" he roared, his voice slightly slurred as his tongue lolled over his broken jaw. He really shouldn't be shouting with that injury. Handy didn't reply, simply clinging for dear life onto the bountiful spines of the dragon's back which conveniently poked out through the back of its cuirass, having made a desperate lunge for the dragon after, regrettably, using some random griffon as a stepping stone to reach. There was nothing quite like the exhilarating rush one got when one slowly realized what he was doing was balls out insane and that he could end up killing himself because he misjudged a jump. However, it turned out that thestral blood made Handy take stupid risks. It worked, but that didn’t mean he should encourage himself.
Ferix twisted and turned, spewing fire, lashing his tail, and flapping his wings, trying to dislodge the human, whose vampiric strength only ensured he gripped all the tighter. It did mean he couldn't bring his hammer to bear. "You're not getting away from me!" Handy roared over the rush of the wind and the dragon's shouting. He just needed to get a little leverage and... "You're going to fucking pay for what you did!" He grabbed his wing and yanked on it, causing the dragon to flail as he tried desperately to stay in the air, failing and began falling to the earth. "There's nothing you can do!" he shouted, not relenting his grip on the wing. "You're going down and I'm going to—"
With a snarl, Ferix's free wing snapped shut, and he grabbed his captive wing with his free claw, pulling it closed over him, robbing them of all their flight as he turned, his back facing the ground as the pair began plummeting to the earth. Handy turned his head, just spotting out the side of his helmet slit the ground rushing up to embrace them both with its cold, unfeeling, hateful, and unyielding surface. With him as first in line for huggles from Mother Earth. "…Oh."
There was little that compared to the feeling of crashing into solid ground from a tremendous height at hurtling speeds and living long enough to regret the experience. The hardest knock Handy had yet suffered had been when the elemental had punched him through a train's roof and upper floor. Somehow, that wasn't anywhere near as bad as this. He was pretty sure large sections of his armour had deformed under the force, and he felt the need to lie there to recover as the dragon rolled off from on top of him. The dragon was coughing and spitting up blood — the fall had taken a lot out of him too. Handy was merely winded. Score a point for vampiric resilience. He pushed himself up from the mud and broken stone of the ground they had landed on, which looked to be some kind of patio of a more permanent wooden structure than all the tents surrounding them.
He grunted as he got to his feet. "Fuck it," he breathed, seeing his hammer lying some distance away and drawing the blade from his broken glaive. "Guess I'll do it the traditional way," he said, walking over to the crawling dragon. He kicked him in the side and pushed him onto his back. Ferix glared up at him and opened his snout as if to breathe fire again, but all that came up was a spurt of phlegm and blood. He tried slashing with his claw, but a casual swipe of the glaive blade knocked his arm away and elicited a cry of pain as he opened up a gash on the dragon's palm.
"You damn bastard," Ferix swore.
"Ohhh, language, what would your mother say?" Handy asked, feeling his anger boil and the red mist descend across his vision. The dragon lashed his tail, and Handy stood on it, clamping it to the ground and causing another shout of pain. "How much were you paid, by the way?"
"I'd have killed you for free!"
"How much were you paid?" Handy squeezed the tail harder. The dragon gritted its fangs and refused to let out another yelp of pain. "And by who? Who was that clown of a pony with the magic lightning?"
"What does it matter?"
"It matters to me," Handy said. Ferix tried to flex his wing, but Handy slashed down, cutting a gash through the thick, leathery membrane of the wing. Ferix certainly roared at that. "Who is he? Where is he going? Speak, damn it!" The dragon ceased his pained cries in favour of screwing its eyes shut for a time before opening them again and giving a hate-filled stare at Handy.
"No."
"A lot of loyalty for hired muscle..."
"I do not care. I just won't give you the satisfaction of knowing!"
"So you really have nothing more to say then, dragon?" Handy asked calmly, the blade at his side as the rain beat down all the harder, the crack of thunder in the distance as several bolts of lightning struck. Strange; they were green in colour. The dragon spat, the filth washing down the human's armour in the rain.
"Go to hell," Ferix growled.
"You first." Handy plunged the blade deep into Ferix's chest. The armour split open as the glaive bit deep, piercing the young dragon's scales. The force behind it was unnecessary, and the human felt the blade snap, leaving a piece stuck within Ferix's chest. He pulled it out suddenly as flames burst into life around the edges of the wound. He blinked in surprise at the tiny tongues of flame poking between the dragon's claws as Ferix grabbed at his chest, draconic blood flowing out of the wound. He was about to say something else but stopped and stared as his eyes met Ferix's and saw how the fierce pride and arrogance gave way to genuine fear and desperation. Eventually he stopped struggling, and his body lay still and unmoving in the downpour, the small flames in his chest dying under the onslaught of the heavens.
He wasn't sure how long he stood there, looking down at him. Thinking.
"Handy!" He didn't turn at the name, still looking at Ferix.
"What are you doing here, Joachim?" he asked as the griffon alighted, the clink of armour suggested guards in tow.
"Helping get griffons out. What's going on? Is that..."
"The dragon, yes. He won't be any trouble anymore," he said, turning and wiping the glaive clean in the ruin of a tent's cloth. He regarded the young king. "You should leave; there's still danger about."
"I couldn't just leave. I had to make sure you were okay. Did the others find you?" Joachim asked. He seemed relieved to see the human up and about, but he paused in mid-stride, seemingly perturbed by something.
"No," Handy replied, replacing his now broken glaive at his waist and picking up his hammer again, hooking it by his waist as he inspected his now thoroughly dented armour. He was not looking at the griffon.
"Are you... alright?" Joachim asked, noticing the strange posturing and fidgeting the human was doing with his gauntlets and shield. The human always had an odd body language, at once too fluid and yet too stiff, seemingly strange and otherworldly to creatures such as he who were used to more exaggerated expressions in all but the most reserved and disciplined of creatures, which Handy certainly was not. As a result, one would have to know him for a while to notice it, but there was something distinctly off about the way the human was acting. You know, the fact that he was moving with an afterimage aside.
"Yes, why?" Handy responded all too quickly. He looked up at the sky to find that none of the griffons from before were overhead. Where had they gone?
"It’s just that you seem off. How did you recover from the axe wound?" he asked. Handy merely looked at the griffon in silence, and Joachim's heart sank.
"Handy, you didn't..."
"I was dying, Joachim. And she offered," he protested. Joachim didn't say anything more on that. He was torn between his revulsion at what Handy had done and how grateful he felt that his friend hadn’t died. He shook his head and put it to the back of his mind. There would be a time and a place to discuss this, but it wasn't here.
"Fine, never mind then. Just—" He was interrupted by a tremendous echoing boom as the sky above the tent tops flashed green. The silhouettes of griffons briefly flashed on the clouds above. Well, that answered Handy's question of where the other griffons had gone. "What in blazes?"
"You should go, Joachim. Now."
"What?" the griffon asked, turning back, but all he saw was a blur of silver and a tunnel of disturbed rainfall in the human's wake as he ran off. The guards he had borrowed from Goldtooth gave startled cries after witnessing the human's sudden departure. He spared a glance at the corpse of the dragon on the ground for a moment, not really listening to the insistence of his accompanying guards that they should leave. It had been a dead drake walking anyway, for there was no way it was going to get out of the kingdom alive after what it had done here. If he knew the human, him killing the dragon had been a foregone conclusion. So why did Handy seem so weirded out when Joachim found him?
'No,' Joachim resolved to himself, taking flight. 'The last time I left Handy on his own when he was in trouble, he almost died and was kidnapped by changelings. I'm not going to fail him again.'
--=--
"Where ARE they?" the easy-sounding baritone of Thunder gave way to a frustrated groan. Another accursed mutter of something foul and spectral claws emerged into existence from the very air itself and attacked more of the griffons above him. A twang of a drawn crossbow being released was sounded, and another bolt or two hit his shield and disintegrated, turning to dust that washed over him and ruined his dapper clothing. "Chopper should be here by now. Where are his dogs?"
His eyes glowed whitish-green, and a strange mist of the same colour flowed from his tear ducts as he indulged in the old power. The storm clouds above reacted and began churning, eventually turning and spinning. Nearby griffons saw the movement and began putting distance between themselves and the emerging tempest. It was too late for some, who were zapped by one of over a dozen bolts of lightning that struck out, knocking the birds from the air. It wasn't enough to kill them, sadly. Thunder was holding back. If his erstwhile ally did not show up to allow him an easily covered escape, he'd need the majority of his power for a quicker but much dirtier getaway.
He grimaced as the rain continued to beat down on him. Such bother. Turning to face his captive, Crimson was still wrapped up nice and tightly in the ethereal cocoon, only her head and part of her mane visible as she lay unconscious, suspended in the air. Mistress would punish him for this mess, punish him more if he wasted so much old magic in such a blatant display of wyrmhole transportation, but if he made it there with her acolyte and the crown in tow, he'd live at least. Where the Tartarus was Chopper? He was supposed to provide the distraction.
Another griffon swooped down at him, this one heavily armoured and bearing purple insignias. Thunder tsked and shouted another abomination. Crawling designs beneath the fur of his face burned green, and he opened his muzzle wide, multiple blasts of aetheric light shooting out at impossible speeds. The griffon knight was knocked out of the sky, having caught several of the blasts directly, and crashed hard on the ground, skidding and coming to a halt when it crashed into a tent. This was beginning to be troublesome. Thunder raised his right hoof, and the appendage glowed with sorcerous light along spiralling patterns as he muttered an incantation. The hoof glided over the ground beneath him, barely touching the mud with its hoof and leaving ghostly afterimages with its movements as it carved an intricate ward in the ground no larger than the circumference of a barrel and littered it with strange runes. The wind immediately picked up and focused around him and the symbol, creating a vortex and bringing the storm clouds themselves down on his location, funnelling towards the ground with raw magical power and forcing the griffons to speed away lest they be drawn into the vortex as well.
The clouds flowed and crashed against Thunder's body, washing over him and spreading throughout the festival grounds. All the while, the rain did not stop. Droplets of errant water sprayed him and the grounds, soaking tents and slowly flooding the place as Thunder literally brought the sky down on everypony's heads. The thick cumulous would provide him the cover he needed to get away. His sorcerous sight pierced the thick clouds as he made his way, distancing himself from the sounds of the griffons searching for him. It was a tad excessive, but it would hide him from the reinforcements that were doubtlessly heading his way. Killing them all would just waste more power.
He stalked among the tents, his hooves splashing down in the puddles as the damp clouds around continued spilling their contents. Occasionally, he came across some random griffon or pony that was utterly lost and confused. Once or twice he came upon a soldier searching fruitlessly for him, some using their wings to try to disperse the clouds, a process that would take hours after what he did to them. A few more brief words,t he air crystallising as he exhaled and ghostly apparitions of Thunder’s form materialised within the clouds, galloping and creating non-sounds and false lights that attracted the attention of the guards as they took off after the false Thunders. He continued his journey, trotting along at a steady pace through ruined tents, overturned stalls, and the innumerable detritus of a festival gone to ruin. This situation was salvageable at least. Chopper or no Chopper, he'd make it back with the crown and the acolyte to assuage the mistress' wrath and maybe get a little extra on the side if she was feeling generous.
"Halt, ne'er do well!"
Of course it couldn't be that easy.
He raised the wards of his shield. What was invisible in the open air shone in the damp clouds. A thin, translucent, colourless shell that was nonetheless visible surrounded the stallion. He turned, searching for the source of the voice. How did—?
He just barely got out of the way as over a dozen sharp, bladed horns pierced his shield to his right, the magical aegis shattering under their assault. The stag stood proudly before the stallion, who was sent to his haunches, looking up at Whirlwind, the patterns of his antlers glowing brightly in the mist. Thunder's eyes went wide. Deer were not supposed to be able to do magic outside of their forests. The stag opened his mouth to say something. Thunder immediately let out a yell, and the earth itself shifted beneath them. The mud and water shifted and shot upwards like a jet, sending Whirlwind flying backwards ten feet. 'Accursed deer!' Thunder was growing increasingly impatient. He would not be denied his prize by an upstart fawn.
"I don't know how you found me, but I'm going to be rid of you," he swore, his voice trembling as he struggled to retain his composure. Whirlwind struggled to get to his hooves in the slippery mud. "Now die!" Thunder reared, magic coalescing in his forehooves which he swung in Whirlwind's direction, sending fiery balls of raw energy at the stag. Whirlwind braced himself, but the attack was halted. The magic dissipated a foot away from the stag as two thin arcane bolts or red magic intercepted them, causing the magic to explode into shards of fire that dissipated in the damp clouds around them.
"Monsieur, I am afraid I cannot let you do that." The frown on Thunder’s face parted as he bared his teeth slightly. Of course that bodyguard of his would be nearby. He could see the gentle glow of his horn as his shadowy form materialised from somewhere amidst the ground level clouds. “I am su—” Thunder cut him off with a gesture, kicking up his hoof from the ground and flinging mud at the stallion which turned black and acidic, burning through the condensation as it flew towards its target. Jacques dodged deftly to the right-
-and straight into the bolt of arcane might the sorcerer fired at him. In a motion almost too quick to see, Jacques reached for his belt, hooked his hoof into the grip of his rapier, and drew it forth. It was an upwards swipe, Jacques rearing on his rear hooves with the motion. The blade caught the arrow of magic dead on, which should’ve cut through the metal and into its target. The sword sparked with furious intensity, and the arrow was guided up along its length, being flung upwards into the air and safely away. Thunder narrowed his eyes at the sparking sword, noting tiny, almost imperceptible runic markings along not the flat of the blade, but the edge itself. Now how on earth could a simple sell sword have the coin necessary for that level of enchantment?
‘Fool, now he is easier to knock off balance,’ Thunder thought, noting that the stallion remained on his hind hooves, with that sword latched to his right forehoof. The earth pony stamped the earth and snorted. The unicorn would seek to deflect anything he sent his way. Fine then. The stallion closed his eyes, muttering something foul, and the cloud around his muzzle parted and retreated in face of the foul noises that emerged from its spoken tongue. Thunder's ear twitched as he heard hoofsteps, the deer evidently taking advantage of this to try to take him down. How adorable. His eyelids snapped open as a piercing wail split the air, and his eyes blazed with an incandescent light that pierced the clouds around them, eradicating the water vapour and blinding both the stag and the unicorn, who collapsed to the ground as they scratched at their eyes and ears and yelped in pain and disorientation. That would attract attention, unfortunately, so it was time to go. He willed his captive red unicorn into the air beside him as he trotted through the temporary clearing, passing the fumbling body of the blinded and deafened stag towards the nearest cloud cover.
Until he sensed something.
His ear twitched and he turned, the witch sight granted to him by the old magic allowing him to pierce the veil of the clouds to see a shape approaching at high speed. A rather tall shape. Interesting. He raised his right forehoof just a bit as he waited for the creature to reach him.
He promptly brought it down, creating a splash in the flooded ground. A spire of rock shot out of the earth directly in front of the pony. Not a fraction of a second later, he heard the sound of rock cracking and a silver war hammer lodged in the rock. He resisted the urge to blink in surprise when he realised the thing wielding the hammer was the armoured human. Handy withdrew his hammer from the small spire of rock, causing parts of it to crack and break off, and stepped into the rapidly shrinking clearing. The sorcerer took a few steps back from the human, frowning up at him as if mildly annoyed by his presence. However, the exact expression was lost as his eyes continued to glow an unearthly sickly green, hiding his irises and strange mist of the same colour that seemed to flow from his tear ducts.
Handy just stood there briefly, taking in the scene. There was Whirlwind and the pony, Jacques, writhing on the ground amidst the mud and water. There was that utter clown of an earth pony, still wearing that ridiculous fedora and god-awful cloak, and there was... well, he wasn't exactly sure who it was the sorcerer had wrapped up in a magical cocoon, but it wasn't his pet mage. She smelled wrong. That caused him to pause as he considered the implications: the sudden difference in attitude, the evasiveness, and the sudden desire to leave Skymount with him. Probably the biggest sign was her assertiveness in his presence. He had been so willing to believe she got over her slavishness at last that he didn't question the rest. Now here he was with this doppelganger that was suspended in the air by what was undoubtedly one of the Mistress' lackeys. So many goddamn questions...
"I must admit," Thunder began, sitting on his haunches and idly playing with his cravat with one hoof, fixing its position, "I am pleased you survived your little kerfuffle with Ferix, bothersome brute though he is. Surprised, but happily so. Last I saw, you were dying, were you not?"
"I have my ways," Handy decided to answer. "Ferix paid for his mistake."
"And so fast," Thunder noted, raising an eyebrow and cocking his head to glance at the broken spire of rock he had summoned out of the ground. "Why couldn't you have used that strength in the fights? I've been watching you, you know, hm? Something holding you back?" Handy didn't reply, turning his hammer over in his right hand. Thunder smiled lightly. "Unless you couldn't. Unless this is temporary. Is this how you thwarted us so long ago? Tell me, what's your secret?"
"Just give me Crimson," Handy said, gesturing to the captive pony with his hammer, "and I'll let you leave here alive." In truth, he knew he should probably just brain this smarmy bastard there and then and just take her back. However... his heart, one could say, was not exactly in the right place for it at the moment. Thunder's ear flicked, his smile remaining and his sights still set on the human, his mouth moving as if he was singing a little ditty to himself, but the human couldn't hear it even with his enhanced hearing.
"I am afraid I can't really let you have this... thing. Property of the mistress you see, as I am sure you are well aware by now."
"Look... just give her here. Be reasonable. You aren't getting out of this place in one piece otherwise, least of all if you provoke me now. I am seriously giving you a chance here."
"It’s adorable really..." Thunder continued, tapping the base of his muzzle with his forehoof. "To think you can intimidate me more than the mistress. Know your place, human. You're as much her property as this thing is," he said, shaking 'Crimson' lightly, eliciting a slight whimper from her unconscious form. The human in question gritted his teeth. Needless to say, Handy did not much care for being told that he was 'owned'.
"Listen—"
"No," he said, chuckling. Handy immediately decided he was dealing with a very stupid pony. Hi, you're standing across from a guy who killed dragons and who shattered a spire of solid rock just getting to you. He offered you a chance to get out of Dodge so long as you handed him the equivalent of your ill-gotten lunch money. What was that? Why of course you laugh in his face! That was just entirely reasonable! Arrogant warlock.
"You blithering clown!" Handy shouted, getting angrier with this pony than he wanted. "Just—" He made to move, intending to reach the pony before he could blink, only to find he couldn't move his feet. He tripped over awkwardly, his ankles unable to move, and he sort of leaned sideways as he fell, his armour propping up his legs as his body twisted. He scrambled to catch himself before he hit the ground face first. Had he been unarmoured, it would have been uncomfortable but possible to twist his body so as to at least not injure himself. Alas, he was in plate, and the agony that shot through him as the plates dug into his sides as he twisted was exactly as painful as it sounded.
He managed to stabilize himself to look at his legs. His feet and lower legs were completely encased in what appeared to be rock. The pony had been keeping him talking long enough to root him in place, using the mud and his magic to trap the human. "Hm," the pony mused. Handy turned to look at him. "No, still a bit too close for my liking." A shimmering wave of force hit Handy with the force of a small truck. His armour shone brilliantly in reaction to the magic, but the force was enough. Handy was flung backwards like a ragdoll and landed hard on his back, his feet still trapped in the stone. He got to his elbows and began pushing himself up. "No," Thunder said, a bit more forcefully. A lance of magical energy struck Handy in the helmet. He was dazed and blinked away the blindness, but his helmet protected him from the magic's effects, even if his head was jerked violently backwards. Thunder raised an eyebrow at that.
He really should have been paying attention.
He yelped in pain as his shield shattered like glass, Jacques’ rapier sparking furiously as it broke through the magical barrier and cut a gash in Thunder’s flank. The earth pony jumped to the side and rounded on Jacques, snorting furiously. “Y-you, dare!?”
"Ah, but I am only beginning with y—" Once again, he was not allowed to finish his retort. Jacques fell backwards as thin, black, razor-sharp spikes erupted from the ground in front of him, evidently aiming to pierce his exposed underside. He rolled back to his hooves, ripping his sword off of his hoof with his teeth and holding it in his mouth as he tried to outrun the series of spikes emerging from the earth in his wake. Handy swung his hammer at the ground, breaking up the rock in seconds. He shook the loose stone from his feet as he winced at how his legs now ached from the abuse. Thunder looked at him, snorting in agitation. Handy didn't speak and just acted.
In a blur of motion, he charged at the sorcerer and swung his hammer, only for it to rebound harmlessly off of a shimmering magical shield, a loud clanging noise resounding through the camp as the clouds began covering the ground again. Handy blinked, then swung again. And again and again and again with increasing speed and ferocity to no effect. The pony spoke, and concentrated gusts of air slashed across the human's torso, a thin strip of his armour lighting up as the magic hit him and forced him back a step from the force. "Hmmm," Thunder hummed. "Your armour is resilient."
"Perceptive, aren't we?" Handy mocked, now gauging his options. It was amazing how many of his plans resorted to 'hit it with ye hammer' with no real discernable fall back options should that ever be woefully insufficient. 'Okay, Handy, think. Shield is impervious to physical attack, but the pony's sword clearly managed to cut him. Enchanted perhaps? The witch... She did something to the hammer...' He quickly looked at the head of his hammer, at the intricate designs on the silvered steel. The many grooves appeared as they always had — nothing special about them. The witch clearly did something to it, but he had no idea what and was just wasting time gawking at it. 'Okay, new plan—'
"URK!" Handy choked, grabbing his throat. An incredible pressure was squeezing his neck at all angles, like a noose continuously tightening around it. Thunder's eyes narrowed at him.
"But your armour doesn't cover everything," he said. It was one thing to see Darth Vader choke a bitch on screen. One could even say it was cool. How many of you wished you could do that? If the answer was anything less than 'all of you', then you were a goddamn liar and you should feel bad. See a motherfucker whose lack of faith disturbed you? Crush his larynx! Awesome. Let Handy tell you, however, it was not fun to be on the receiving end of that chokehold. He was forced to his knees, struggling to breath, his vision failing as he saw darkness cloud at the edges.
"You're lucky, you know? She wants you alive. With just a flick of my fetlock, I could break your neck." Handy could well believe him. Currently, the only thing keeping him conscious, or at least he assumed, was the vampiric power trip he was on. If it could filter smoke and allow him to break rocks, it sure as shit could help him survive strangulation for longer than normal. Turned out vampires needed to breathe, and they objected quite strongly to being denied their favourite combustible fuel source for the purposes of respiration. Who knew?
With an almost shocking quickness, the pressure on his throat disappeared, and Handy pitched forward on his hands and knees, coughing and gasping for air. Thunder was distracted as his shield was penetrated once more, and he turned just in time to see the glowing antlers of the stag rip his shield asunder, barely visible shards falling to the earth and disintegrating. Whirlwind wasted no time as he landed on his forehooves, turning, he curled up his hind hooves, and bucked the earth pony stallion in the flank. It wasn't enough however; after all a stag, even a large one, couldn’t really compete with earth pony strength, but it was enough to knock the stallion off balance and gave Whirlwind time to bundle up the captive red unicorn in his antlers, the magical cocoon dissipating in reaction to the magic of his own horns, leaving the pony sprawled over the individual points of the antlers. Like resting on a wall of spikes, or so Handy thought when he glanced up at it. Whirlwind, however, was an expert in using his antlers and ensured no harm came to the pony as he bounded off.
Handy didn't look a gift horse in the mouth and moved. He swung his hammer as he got to his feet, catching the distracted sorcerer on the side of the head. There was a brief flash of green light, and spiralling patterns appeared on the side of the pony's head as he was sent flying across the distance and into a tent. He emerged, absolutely furious, his eyes wide and incandescent with white-green light as he tore the ruined fabric of the tent apart to crawl out. His lime and yellow fedora was gone, and the white-blue fur around his muzzle was matted with blood which dripped down onto his teal cravat. For all that though, he was standing up remarkably well from a hammer blow from Handy on steroids.
Whatever he was about to do next was interrupted as bolts of red magic crashed into his side, forcing him back to the ground. Yet again Handy spied flashes of green energy and spiral patterns light up on the stallion's fur. He had some kind of magical protection beyond his shield. Jacques, it seemed, had outlasted the spikes Thunder had sent after him, though if the cuts along his sides and belly were any indication, it was an all too close race. His rapier was now levitated at his side, and he had a vicious cut to his expression as he glared daggers at the earth pony. Thunder was now breathing heavily through clenched teeth. He turned, looking in the direction the stag had made off to, to see Whirlwind had placed Crimson atop a long crate, to keep her off of the water and mud. The clouds had now fully encompassed them all once again, but they were close enough to be able to see each other.
Thunder stomped the ground, nickering, digging deep grooves in the pliable, soaking, wet mud. His ears flicking erratically as his wide, furious eyes flitted from one to the next. Handy, learning from his mistakes, kept a close eye on where he moved his feet. He wasn't going to be caught out again. His ear flicked and his eyes darted to the left, spotting Whirlwind through a brief parting of the clouds, setting the unconscious form of Crimson atop a large crate to keep her off the mud and water.
Thunder immediately leapt towards them, kicking up mud as he sped off towards them. Handy was in his path within an instant, swinging his hammer, connecting with his head and forcing it to the side violently as he hit the ground, sliding in the mud.
Thunder shook it off, his face barely visible beneath the all-encompassing lines and patterns of glowing green magic shining beneath his fur. Handy grit his teeth. He had thrown everything into that swing and he just shrugged it off. He hadn’t long to consider that before a blast of magical energy ripped up the ground beneath him, sending the human backwards as bolts of light struck him full in the armour. Thunder was upon him in an instant, about to bring down his forehooves to crush his chest, magical energy gathering down along his fetlocks. Jacques intervened, a swipe of his sword forcing Thunder to stagger back on his rear hooves and a blast of magic knocking him from his feet as the swordspony advanced on him. Thunder reacted instantly, on his feet in moments, the air around him shimmering as the clouds parted suddenly. He opened his mouth and a blinding white light struck out. Shockwaves tore surrounding tents to ribbons, wood cracked and splintered, metal crumpled and buckled. But no sound was heard, and the world seemed to grow dimmer as if the sorcerer sucked all light from their surroundings and focused it into a pure beam of magic at Jacques.
Handy pulled himself up from the ground. The pony was in front of him, his cloak whipping furiously in the ethereal winds his distinctive hat had since been blown away. Jacques was struggling, his face a mask of fear and desperation as his horn was practically exploding with magical force. His sword held before him sparked furiously, and Handy could not see past the bright wall of light he was trying to defend them both against. The world around them was dull and darkened, and he tried to speak but couldn’t hear his own words.
And just as suddenly, the world snapped back to normality, the magical attack ceased, and the world brightened. Jacques stumbled forward on his knees, dropping his sword, panting in exhaustion. Thunder had been hit in the side by the antlers of Whirlwind who was now proceeding to dance, for Handy did not know what else to call it, around the earth pony with speed and grace, lashing out with his antlers and hooves at the stallion who responded in kind with kicks of his own. Handy didn't waste the opportunity and waded in, almost getting another blow in before his hammer rebounded off of air as it hit another shield Thunder had summoned just in time, in turn shattered by the magic of Whirlwind. Thunder rebuked both of them with blasts of magic the blew the stag away but only served to make Handy flash like a strobe light as he laid into the pony with his shield and hammer. It frustratingly did little in the way of damage because that damn spell he was protecting himself with. The only thing preventing him from getting to Handy's weak points in his armour like before was because he was too distracted to focus on it.
Eventually the téte-a-téte ground away in the earth pony's favour, reacting to the human's speed and strength with counters and shields, and blasting the stag to keep it at bay, switching up his game with spells and explosive magical blasts that tore up the very ground they fought upon. It looked like he was going to get the upper hand upon both of them after an exceptionally powerful buck from the sorcerer caused Handy's shield to buckle, forcing him to tear it off of his arm. Jacques got his second wind, however, and rejoined the fray, alternating between firing arrows of magic and swiping with his rapier clasped across his forehoof. Thunder roared in frustration and stomped on the ground, ripping up the earth in shockwaves, sending the three of them rolling across the ground. The surrounding tents were an absolute mess as the devastation of the spellcasting tore swathes through them, leaving blackened trawls and gouged, muddy ground and small burning fires struggling against the damp of the ever-present ground levels clouds.
Handy hurried back to his feet, rattled but determined to not let this bastard defeat him, and ran back to the sorcerer. For all his speed, Thunder was ready for it, expecting it. He had used the precious few seconds his last attack bought him time to prepare a glyph, a quick and dirty trick. He could feel the power coursing through his veins and into his limbs and smiled as the world seemed to slow down for him. He could see the human charging at him and would be more than able to react in time.
Whirlwind shook his head, pushing the groaning body of Jacques off of him. He called to him, only to be met with no response. There was a gash on his forehead, just below the horn, and Whirlwind winced sympathetically. Jacques was in no condition to even walk straight if he had hit his horn that badly. He staggered back to his hooves and nearly tripped over something. The red mare that the earth pony had tried to steal had been knocked off of her crate and was now floating in mud, her saddle bag torn open and its contents spilled forth.
Whirlwind froze when he saw a clear crystal with a small golden cylinder at its centre. "...That's not possible. How did she get that...?” He scrambled in the mud, hooves desperately trying to fish it out of the mud before it sank, managing to snag it in a cloven hoof. He brought it up to his face. A concerned expression graced his features as his eyes darted across its surface, not sure if he believed what he was seeing. What would the human's servant be doing with this in its packs? Then a thought struck him. "The human..." he whispered before jerking in shock, feeling a burst of static wash through the air, causing his fur to stand on end.
He leaped out of the way, turning just in time to see the bright, flashing form of the human tumble through the air and land hard on the ground, sliding in the mud and crashing into a crate as his armour dulled and ceased shining. He wasn’t moving. The air around Thunder hummed with barely controlled power, arcs of magical energy dancing about his body.
Whirlwind’s ears splayed against his head. Jacques was down, the human was down, and now the earth pony with ghostly fire in his eyes was advancing on him. He looked down at the crystal, a priceless relic that had no business being outside of the forest ruins which he would’ve been literally tackled in the streets for if he had it back home. And now he was contemplating breaking it.
He looked up. The stallion was taking his time approaching, a toothy smile plastered on his muzzle. Had his eyes not been possessed of blinding lights, he could very well imagine a manic grin. He looked between him and the crystal and then to the surrounding unconscious forms around him. The clouds were growing thick, and no help was coming. His eyes were wide as he stared back at the crystal.
His hoof disappeared in a rapidly expanding ball of golden light that enveloped him after he shattered the crystal with a stomp. Thunder saw his quarries disappear in an expanding flash of energy and rapidly backpedalled, galloping away from the unknown force. The air was filled with the sound of metal rasping over hot coals, magnified to deafening levels. He managed to get out of its expanding range just in time to see the strange wall of light slow its advance and transform into a golden tinged mist as the noise died away, the mist itself slowing fading and mixing with the surrounding clouds, diluting its colour. Almost everything in a ten foot radius of where the light originated from was missing, leaving a shallow, circular indentation in the mud as parts of tents and equipment seemed to have been severed from existence.
They were gone.
Thunder stood looking at the pot where his opponent had been for a long time, his mind churning, trying to rationalize what had just happened. ‘The deer couldn’t possibly have done that… could he?’ he thought to himself. Sitting there, genuinely curious at the implications of the magic he just witnessed, trying to unravel its mystery. That was until, very slowly, the realization came upon him that the one saving grace he had at avoiding the Mistress’ fury had not only slipped out of his hooves, but may have been vaporized in a magical explosion.
Thunder’s magic slowly ebbed away, as did every feeling in his body, with the exception of cold, deep-rooted dread. He quickly made himself scarce, his heart pounding in his barrel as he started mouthing incantations for his escape. There were shouts of alarm as a tremendous flash of green light, accompanied by the sound of lightning striking the waves of the ocean, filled the air. Thunder was no more. The festival ground was little more than sodden, burnt, desolation in the wake of the crisis. Nothing remained of the confrontation between the sorcerer and the human, bar a hat with a golden clasp on its interior band depicting a unicorn horn over a clover.
And a cracked, sundered, silver shield bearing the image of a hammer, intertwined in knotted designs, half-buried in the mud and water.