The guards had arrived and pulled her from the debris shortly after the Rubricae had arrived. Now freed from the crushing weight, she had been able to concentrate and mend some of her wounds, and a guard, at her insistence, had been kind enough to reset her hind leg. They now formed a perimeter around her, powering incredibly durable barriers and shielding her mind from anything the daemon might try.
She had watched from that rubble as the Rubricae had taken a killing blow meant for her. She had feared he had sacrificed his unlife to save her.
Instead, he merely pulled himself out of the rubble he had been flung into, the cracked pauldron creaking as he stood, and pulled forth the boxy contraption he had explained to her was a ranged weapon. He had stated that he would not demonstrate its use, as it had a limited supply of ammunition. He had but the one magazine, the curved box under it, left after his arrival.
That weapon had roared so loudly she had wished she could cover her ears. The rounds it fired shrieked and blazed with sorcerous potential, and had blown great, flaming gouges from the flesh of the hideous creature, black ichor pouring from its wounds. The Rubricae had advanced steadily, emptying its supply of inferno bolts into the monstrosity that had invaded Equestria.
Now, the bolter lay discarded twenty paces behind him, and he fought the beast with the keen edge of his mentor’s force sword. The blade did not carry the psychic might of its former owner, but the edge was keener than any mundane blade could hope to match, and it cut into the daemon’s flesh with ease. The daemon slammed great, merciless blows onto the possessed armor, and the damaged pauldron had shattered and fallen away. The crest that adorned his helmet had been warped by the passing of a roiling stream of warpfire, and one gauntlet was missing two fingers. One greave had a subtle crack running down its back, and a solid blow from the monster would destroy that leg. Yet still the Thousand Son fought on, heedless of the damage to his form, focused on one thing and one thing only.
His lord, his mentor, his friend had told him to be free. He had used that freedom to befriend Twilight. He had learned of a place worthy of protecting. So he had made a choice with his newfound freedom to defend his new home and new friend.
Even if that meant his destruction.
So he fought, the daemon mercilessly breaking him piece by piece as he used his unholy endurance and strength to cripple the beast. He knew he could not best it. He was no great sorcerer like his masters or a great mage like Twilight. He had been a line warrior. He won through strength and cunning what sorcerers and mages won with power and wit.
He felt his armored body crumbling with each blow he could not avoid or turn aside. The daemon had a score of wounds, and he reached into one to tear out gory pieces of its flesh. Daemons had little in the way of vital organs or natural anatomy, so he grabbed whatever he could and tore the dripping pieces from within its unnatural body. Shadows seems to pool in the wounds and attempt to knit them back together, the Nightmare attempting to maintain the physical form for the daemon, so the daemon’s sorcery could fuel the Nightmare. Even so, some wounds were too deep, Rubricae’s determination and desperation lending his blows the strength to cut deep.
As the battle had raged, Twilight had been storming ideas to end it before it was too late. She could see the Thousand Son slipping away before her eyes.
++Twilight. You must end this.++
Her eyes snapped to the Rubricae. His sword was embedded in the ground a dozen strides away, knocked from his grasp by a swing of those massive, gnarled claws. He had grasped both of the claws and held the daemon in place, perhaps by will alone, leaving the daemon immobile.
++My life for yours.++
He filled her mind with the knowledge of a complex spell, a spell capable of unmaking warp entities with such violence that even a creature as powerful as this daemon could not survive. But the Rubricae had been bound to his armor by warp magics as well.
He would be unmade with the daemon.
Twilight desperately searched for another answer. Without thinking, she tapped the link for his knowledge, and to her surprise there was no resistance. She blazed through his memory, shrugging through the horrors of his world for the knowledge she sought. Then she found it, and with it, her determination.
The Rubricae turned his head back to her and nodded once.
She charged her horn and the air around her took on a clammy quality, frost slowly expanding outward from her hooves. Her guards looked at her nervously as she drew in warp power and wove it into her magic. Then she unleashed the destruction that only the immaterium could manifest.
The daemon screeched its damnation as the tidal wave of power crashed over it. Onlookers who had observed the phenomenon of the Elements of Harmony would have likened it to a Nightmare Night rendition of the effect, a terrifying rainbow of colors that should not be, that turned the eye, and made observers for miles lose their lunches.
The daemon’s skin peeled away in layers, warpflesh boiling away under the scrutiny of banishment. The Nightmare became a solid shadow extending from its form, slowly fading in the intense un-light of Twilight’s spell. It desperately connected with the shadows of the Everfree and slipped away, leaving the daemon to his curses in tongues long dead as it was burned out of existence.
In the midst of all this, the Rubricae stood resolute, falling to a knee as the damaged greave shattered. Blue paint peeled away, gold filigree ran molten, and the wards woven into the armor were burned away. An eye lens cracked, the other shattered, and the damaged gauntlet crumbled away. The rest of the armor began to fragment, until in a blinding flash, the spell completed.
With an unearthly sigh, the remains of the Rubricae fell into the pile of ashes that had been the daemon, and the light in the remaining lens in the cracked helm faded away.