{Northern Front Day 4}
...and they marched on. The army encountered little resistance, except for two more scouting units. Neither tried to gank like the previous one did. They army went on for three days unopposed, until they approached a wide field. The other side of the field had a large army of Gryphons, standing side by side on the ground, and others next to each other in the air.
“Halt,” said one, walking out behind the force. He had on decorative armor, and appeared to be a commander.
“Please, we wish to end this conflict without more bloodshed.” said Celestia.
“We will not allow you to pass.” said the officer. “If you try to move on, we shall take it as a threat and treat you as hostiles.”
“In Demacia,” said Jarvan IV, entering an attack stance with his lance. “Ours is but to do and die; if it’s a fight you want, it’s a fight you get.”
“That… is madness.” replied the officer.
“No… this.” stated Jarvan, stabbing the officer through with his lance. The whole gryphon army looked on in shock. Jarvan looked the dying officer dead in the eyes and said “...is Demacian Justice.” He then withdrew the lance, the officer released his dying breath, and slumped to the ground. The whole army remained silent for several minutes. Not a word was spoken, until another commander spoke up.
“We didn’t even want to do this anyway.” he said as threw down his spear.
“That.” said Jarvan, extending his lance to reach the commander. “Is cowardly. Give me a battle of dreams, not a battle of idiocracy.”
“Jarvan, what are you doing!?!?!?” asked Celestia, genuinely angry at the fact he denied the group clearance after surrender.
“Backstabbers.” said Jarvan, turning around and stabbing a gryphon that had somehow cloaked with magic behind him. “Not to mention assholes…”
“GET THEM!!!!” shouted a third commander.
“DEMACIA!!!!!” shouted Jarvan IV, rushing head long with the rest of the army behind him into the fray. And so the field erupted into utter chaos. Gryphons flew down from the sky to bombard the combined army, while the ones who fought on ground caused havoc on the front lines. There were no chances for a gank, so this would be the first sight of a true war to all of the ponies.
A particular note was a moment Graves had let his guard down, focusing on pushing the front part of the fight; with that, a gryphon managed to uncloak behind him, and was about to make the first major casualty of the war…
…*thwack*
The soldier only saw the small orange card lodged in between his armored plates.
*BOOM*
And then the gryphon was gibbed to mother-on-high by a harsh explosion, turning into a shower of colored rain. Their pony summoners looked on in fright and awe.
“Thanks Tobias, didn’t know that motherfucker was there.” said Graves, still shooting down gryphon recruits.
“No problem, Malcolm. Still need my partner on… well whatever the hell this planet this is.” said Twisted Fate with a laugh, throwing enchanted cards at some of the gryphons flying overhead.
“That…was horrible.” said Rarity. “Isn’t there a less… terrifying way of having them die?”
Graves, for the first time in his life, felt pissed off on the battlefield at hearing that statement. A place where he was at his happiest. And so, naturally, he acted on his second instinct, as the irst would have made him shoot his gun. He got right up in her face.
“Listen up lady, if Tobias didn’t toss that card, I’d be six feet under right now.” he said with a look of pure rage. “And I’m not quite ready to die yet. As a result, that is the norm from here on out. War is life right now, and if you don’t help directly as opposed to just fucking sitting there like a prissy bitch, I’m gonna shoot you myself, or maybe shoot myself so I don’t have to deal with your shit about the field not being clean, otherwise you’re just as bad as that asinine noble dickwad Prince Blueballs. So straighten up, and fight right. You got that?”
Rarity was utterly speechless at this. Applejack, however, was pissed off.
“Graves, what the hay are you doing? Rarity’s probably lost her mind-”
“Alright then. Let’s do things your way.” said Rarity, with a look of anger on her face, charging up her horn in energy. Applejack was speechless, and Twisted Fate could think of only one thing to say.
“Wait, the fuck?” asked Twisted Fate.
Meanwhile, towards the middle, a several gryphons had flown too far towards the middle of the army, and this posed a perfect time for Ashe and Ryze to practice their aim. Each of the gryphons fell down to the ground with a thud. Some of them were eaten alive by Shyvana in her wyvern form while they were still falling. This onslaught left most of the aerial assaulters dead, except for one that fell a little too close to Twilight.
“Help… me…” he said, dying slowly, dragging himself with one talon towards her.
Twilight stared in horror and shock at this, entirely unsure of what to do.
“Kill ‘em.” said Ashe.
“Do others, for they would do you.” said Shyvana.
“He’s going to hurt you if he gets close enough.” said Ryze, crossing his arms, with a look of certainty.
“But… he’s still a living being…” she replied, as the gryphon got close enough to touch her.
“DIE TYRANT!!!” he screamed, as he attempted to claw her face. Twilight shot a blast at the gryphon that guaranteed its death, but Ryze, simply for assurance, trapped him in a runic prison. Ashe fired a single arrow, ending his life.
“See what happens when you hesitate, summoner?” he said with a tone of ‘I told you so.’ “It only takes a second to be shot, immolated, stabbed, and slashed. In time of war, you… must…” Ryze wavered as he was interrupted as Twilight started to sob quietly over the gryphon’s body, completely out of place in comparison to the scene around them.
“Ryze, you heartless son of a bitch, remember the first time you had to kill someone?” asked Ashe, firing a few more arrows at aerial troops. “I definitely had remorse the first time I had to kill someone, and murder isn’t the norm here…”
“Ashe, I did feel remorse, it’s just right now is a bad time for tears. Twilight,” he said, kneeling next to her. “He would have killed you if it hadn’t been for our actions…”
“I can’t really die!” she said, screaming with tears rolling down the side of her face. “When Celestia ascended me to an alicorn, it gave me immortality! They can give me pain, but his death could have been prevented!”
He takes her head in his hands, and speak in a dead serious tone. “I talked to your teacher before we left, okay? That ascension doesn’t prevent a physical death. It prevents death by so called ‘natural means.’ Meaning, I still have to protect you, and I can’t help you if you don’t help yourself. The more we push, the faster the war ends. The faster the war ends, the sooner the deaths will stop. If you want that, then you must fight like the rest of us. Do you think we want to kill? Hell no. So we must fight. It’s our only choice…”
“*sniff*...al...right. I’ll try.” she replied.
“Great, no time to lose.” said Ryze, shooting another bolt of magic at a nearby gryphon.
This would become the first real battle of what would become ‘The Equestrian Rune War,’ as that would be what history books would eventually name it. There were heavy casualties on both sides, but the Gryphons took the brunt of the destruction in the battle. It ended when the group discovered a small camp behind the line. The group ultimately killed each gryphon in the camp, including the cloaking gryphons that managed to hide and attempted to cause chaos and panic. The army, on clearing the camp of gryphons, claimed it as their own for supplies. It was a rough day, and as a result time went on slowly. However, a certain shadowed creature floated into the camp after all had fallen asleep. It entered the tent that Twilight, Ryze, and Spike shared, and floated to Twilight. It tore a ‘hole’ into her head, revealing a patch of light with dark sides on the ‘hole.’ It peered inside, seeing a vivid scene, and entered it. Inside, it could see the alicorn screaming on the field next to Ryze, enjoying every second of her fear and panic.
“Darkness…” he said, as the field started to become shadowed. He rushed towards the Alicorn, as her field of vision eventually became limited to just her and him.
“What on earth, what are you?” asked Twilight, seeing the demon before her.
“A figment of one of your ruler’s minds, at least that’s what they believe myself to be… I am Nocturne, the Eternal Nightmare.”
“The eternal n-nightmare? You mean, you’re the embodiment of Nightmare Moon?”
“If that’s what you called the one you refer to Luna before I was expelled from her… yes.”
“But why are you here? Why am I seeing you?”
“Because, the one who befriended me and brought me here told me to enter your mind and end your life.
“No!” she said, trying to run away before tripping over nothing in particular in fright…
“WAKE UP DAMN IT!!!!” shouted Ryze, pushing and shoving the sleeping Twilight, who was semi-cloaked in shadow energy.
“AHHH!!!” she shouted, and flung from the back of her head as she jumped was Nocturne.
“Fuck you mage!” He shouted, rushing at Ryze.
“Not this time,” said Ryze, trapping him in a rune prison. “And you shall not prosper, nightmare.” He finished him with an overloaded magic shot, and Nocturne evaporated into the air. He then rushed over to Twilight.
“Are you alright? Not feeling any insanity, madness, psychosis, or want of death?” he asked in quick succession.
“I’m… okay… but very disturbed by that… thing... “ she said.
“That was Nocturne, a creature we used to have bound to a nexus fragment. Sadly, some idiot, aka Ezreal, nudged it off its platform and he’s been a plague to dreamers everywhere. He’s taken over four thousand victims, turning them into babbling fools bound to their beds for eternity.”
“Well… what he told me didn’t just disturb me, but answered a few questions and brought up more themselves.” she said.
“What did he tell you?” asked Ryze.