"Come on, mate, let get it!" Ed shouted. "We can take this blighter!" With that, he leaped into the air.
Leon didn't know whether they could defeat the dragon, but fighting was their only option. He drew his sword and slashed at the dragon; a thin veil of mist came from the wound before it sealed again.
The beast roared. it lashed out at him with a front claw. He raised his shield, but wasn't fast enough to block the hit to his arm. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" He dropped the shield and grabbed at the injury. However, the pain disappeared almost as quickly as it came.
Get a hold of yourself, man. You'll face worse monsters than this later on. He ducked under a second blow and retrieved the shield before counterattacking. He got a good hit on the claw that had hit him.
The dragon opened its mouth; a stream of water spewed from its mouth, striking him and knocking him to the ground. The water itself scalded him - not with heat, but with freezing cold.
When the stream of water ceased, he got up quickly. As Eddy began to descend from his jump, Leon jabbed the dragon in the throat, hoping that the area he hit would have an effect and end the fight.
No such luck. The dragon struck again, just before the Briton came down, slashing the monster from head to chest. It screamed with rage and pain, and struck Eddy with a blow that knocked him into the cave wall.
"ARRRGH!"!"
"DIE!" Leon yelled, attacking again. The monster saw him coming and shifted, and he missed his target.
"Okay," Eddy said, getting up. "No more being a nice bloke, take that!"
He stabbed at the dragon... which turned to mist seconds before he hit it.
"What the bleedin' fuck?" he said, shocked, as he withdrew the spear. Moments later, a sheet of ice-cold water lashed out from the mist, shoving him several feet backward.
Leon attacked as well, but it as if there was nothing there; his sword met no resistance whatsoever as it went through the fog. A second later, he was blasted off his feet once again.
Damn! Where does this water come from? Its as cold as fire is hot! Colder, even! His armor clattered as he struck the ground. He shivered, but even as he did so, the water vanished.
"Brrrrrr! Damn!"
"How are we supposed to damage it like this?" Eddy asked.
"Hold on. Luna, or whoever it was controlling us earlier, made me do something with my sword. Maybe that's what I'm supposed to do. Let's see..."
Leon took the same stance he had been forced to take earlier. He felt the energy building up within him as he directed his sword toward the mist. With a cry of pain as the energy went forth, he sent the blue wave of power toward the enemy.
It did absolutely nothing, other than impact on the side of the cave opposite them, causing a small explosion. This time, the water that came forth struck both of them, yet again throwing them to the ground. Leon tried to jump over it, but the water hit his legs and he landed awkwardly and painfully on his belly.
"Note to us, and especially to you; don't try that again," Eddy muttered.
"Yeah... not a good idea," Leon agreed.
"How do we hurt this thing as long as its stuck as a bleedin' fog?"
"I think... all we can do," Leon said, out of breath, "is.. wait for it... to revert. Look, its already gathering again!" He pointed.
The mist was indeed coming back into one form. The dragon coalesced from the fog, roaring again in challenge.
"Right then. Lets get his miserable sod." Ed jumped again, while Leon struck the beast with his sword.
The dragoon continued to counterattack, although Leon was able to block a few of its blows and even dodge a couple of them. Eddy landed two more blows with his spear before the dragon transformed back into mist.
"What now?"
"Potions." Leon took one for himself and threw one to Eddy. Leon popped the cover open and drank. The potion tasted like a mix of Pepsi and vanilla ice cream. All too soon it was gone, but he felt himself getting stronger, and when he checked, his health was back to full again.
"Watch it, the bugger's transforming again!" Eddy warned as the dragon became solid once more.
"YAAAAAAA!" Leon slashed at the dragon, hitting it in the belly. To the shock of both of them, the monster turned purple and faded with a sound like that of an 8-bit explosion.
Leon dropped to the ground, as the strain of the battle caught up with him. As he sat down, Eddy leaned again the wall, panting from the effort he had put into the fighting.
"Man, what a fight," Leon said.
"Not a bad way to start the day," Ed agreed. "Hopefully, we don't have to do it again."
After a few moments, Leon said, "Let's get out of this freaking cave before another one of those things comes back."
"Ditto."
They both walked outside. "Ah, that sun feels so good compared to that stinking cave," Leon exclaimed.
"I wonder if the sun ever goes down in this version of the game. Wouldn't be such a good thing for us, but still, realism and all that."
"If you wanted realism, we could have been sucked into something like World at War."
"Yeah, no thanks. I don't want my arms being blown off by an MP40 or a rifle grenade, thank you very much." After a moment, the Englishman added, "This is the other side. Look," he said, pointing. "Those mountains weren't there when we entered. And..." He looked to his right, then to his left. "Ah, there's the Mist Village."
"Good. We can rest there."
"Assuming nothing goes wrong."
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Luna sighed with relief as the dragon died. "You're safe for the moment, my friends." She had been afraid for Leon and Edward during the battle. The dragon had been surprisingly weak, though. No doubt they couldn't tell the difference between major and minor damage, but the beast's attacks hadn't been anywhere near as damaging as she'd expected from a boss battle.
"At least Spike wasn't here to see this," she thought out loud. That could have been bad. He hadn't read the old human legends, but dragons were generally depicted as evil creatures on Earth. Of course, dragons weren't always the kindest or most considerate of people in Equestria, either, not that Spike liked to think about that.
She watched as the two walked into the town without any further incident. "Maybe they can rest after all," she said. However, moments later, she watched in shock at the events that transpired.
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Twilight felt her natural curiosity bloom forth as she examined the papers detailing the spell while the group walked. She was not only impressed with it, but amazed. It was extremely complex, more so than any other spell she had ever seen, with the exception of the ones on the time scrolls, and even those were rivaled by the spell she was looking at. In fact, normally, it would take at least two unicorns to provide the amount of energy required for the magic to take effect, which explained why so few of the games the HEC had made had been produced. It was hardly an efficient spell energy-wise - the amount required would kill a single unicorn working on it - but it clearly worked. Some of the papers were plans for how to modify the spell to make it more efficient and require less energy, but these were unfinished and were mostly theoretical.
If it weren't for the fact that Spike, Leon, and Edward were victims of this spell, I would be all over them about it. As it is...
As it was, she still had trouble keeping her anger in. Her curiosity and amazement over the spell was kept in check.
"How does this spell take effect once it is cast?"
"Don't those papers tell you?" the red unicorn asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It goes over the mechanics of how it works, yes, but the image of how it takes effect escapes me. Its the difference between writing down the algebra used to help construct a building and the building itself."
"Ah, I see. Well, first off, you need to understand, when using it to make one of our comics, the spell is more efficient. For some reason, when we apply to video games, the whole computerization and electronics part of the product, for a reason we have not yet been able to discover, provides a blockage. A single unicorn can work on a comic, though the toll is still somewhat taxing. Its the difference between traffic on a major highway and cluttered mess you find in the middle of a city."
"I understand. Continue."
"The spell required a lot of work. In addition to making an animated world a living entity, provide safety for the user, and create a storyline that the non-user characters will stick to, as well as making them respond to user activity requires a massive amount of attention and energy. That all combined with the whole transference of magic to technology issue, and the effort leaves the unicorns involved exhausted from the effort."
"I see. Any theories on how to take out anypony who is already inside the thing?"
"I've been trying, miss. it's not so easy to think, though, when you're trying to walk through the capital at night, with the threat of jail and permanent nightmares hanging over your head."
"Yes, well, imprisoning the friends of the Princess of the Night in a game with no way out can do that to you."
"Twilight," Rainbow whispered, "how do we make sure these guys don't try to pull something? What if they try to trap us all in the game to keep themselves out of jail?"
"Trap us, the Princesses, my brother, and Cadence?"
"Okay, maybe that's a little far-fetched, but still..."
"Don't worry. I'm already making a contingency plan. Just act normal."
"That I can do."
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"I'd say luck is finally turning our way," Leon said as they walked into the village.
"Yeah. Beat a dragon, no battles on the way here, and we're doing awesome so far. Maybe our luck really has changed."
Suddenly, Leon felt something rise from the backpack.
"What the..."
"It's that thing the King gave Cecil... er, you, back in the palace," Ed remarked. "Its... floating. On its own. Rather queer."
Leon heard a click from the package. The object opened...
...and a horde of red, fiery objects burst forth from it.
"What the hell are those things?" Leon yelled in surprise.
"I don't know, and I don't want to know. But..." Eddy cut off in horror as the things began burning the village. They blew up wherever they could do the most damage, wrecking buildings and throwing people and objects every which way.
"NO!" Leon tried to raise his sword, only to discover that his legs refused to move. He could only watch as the peaceful town was destroyed before his eyes.
"Blimey..."
"Damn it. I should have known that package was something bad," Leon cursed. "The King wouldn't have had us bring it here unless it was bound to do... do... this."
"I don't think either of us could have predicted this."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"Come on!" Leon said, discovering his legs worked again. He ran toward the sound of the voice, turning left on the nearest corner. Eddy was right behind him. They dodged the fires and reached a small clearing, where a girl with green hair was crying over the body of a middle-aged woman.
"The monsters must have got her." Leon watched as the girl continued to cry.
He was proved wrong almost immediately. The girl looked up. "My mom's dragon was defeated, and now..." She resumed sobbing.
For a moment, the true meaning of that meant little. Then, it struck with the force of a train smashing a car. "Oh no..."
"We... we... when we killed that dragon, we didn't just kill it; we got her mum too," Eddy stammered. "Oh, no..."
"Wh... what? No!" the girl yelled.
"What do we do?" Leon pulled a life potion from the backpack. "Here." He knelt and poured the potion down the woman's throat.
Nothing happened. The body didn't breathe, didn't twitch, didn't move at all.
"Damn it..."
"Leo, we have to do something; the town's falling to ruin around us. Now's the time for a decision." A piece of flaming wood fell to the ground just a few feet away, underscoring his words.
Leon tried to think. The guilt over the mother's death was still upon him. Logically, he knew it was part of the game, and that it was most likely a scripted event that he had no control over.
But it all looked real. It all felt real. It almost might as well have been real.
"O... Okay, I think we both saw a town in the desert north of here when we used the Dwarfbread. We go there for the time being."
"Right, and the girl?"
"We... we bring her with us."
At that, the girl took a step back. "No!" she screamed.
"Come on," Eddy said. "You have to. There's nothing left of this blasted place, and what's left is going to burn down - real soon. So-" He took a big step toward her. "Come ON!"
"No! Go away!" The girl took several steps back. "I HATE YOU!" The last two words were loud and almost unearthly. She raised her hands toward the sky.
Even though he wasn't a magic user and had no intention to become one, Leon could feel the energy in the air as the girl began to cast a spell. "She's going to attack us!"
Before Eddy could respond, Leon noticed the air shimmering behind the girl. A giant - the word was inadequate to describe the being's height properly - man's outline appeared, as tall as a mountain. The outline filled itself in, and it was not longer an illusion, but something real.
"Uh oh... Please, don't! I didn't...!"
Leon felt the ground shake underneath him as the earth quaked. Even the mountains behind the giant quavered, and the remaining buildings collapsed.
He fell to the ground, having lost his balance. The earth began to move, with cracks forming and widening as the giant moved his arm.
Leon had time for one last shriek as the earth opened beneath him...
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