//------------------------------// // Tactical Withdrawal // Story: Dying Embers // by MrSpartan //------------------------------// An explosion of harmonic energy expanded to all sides of Ponyville, knocking most off their feet or hooves. The Elements of Harmony lowered to the ground, reverted from their beleaguered conditions back to their usual state. Normally they would have rejoiced at this turn of events but they were all still focused on the current situation. Every living being and one Golem stood still like the ashen shells left behind by the victims of a volcanic disaster. Both pony and humans stared at the settling dust. All eyes widened, some in despair, others in hope. The human leader looked up to the element bearers and Celestia. Illitheous was entirely the same. Illitheous laughed. It was a deep and dark cackle that echoed throughout the town. “It would appear your attempt at my destruction was destined to fail.” “No,” Twilight whimpered. “How does it feel to have the world as you know it crumble around you? To fail at protecting the few things that make our wretched existence tolerable? Does it anger you? Does it injure your all important pride that one as lowly as I have bested you? Well, be ready, for that was only the beginning of your pain. Take comfort in your journey to the next world that we will rebuild. With my guidance, the most deserving of civilizations shall rise again into a NEW GOLDEN AGE OF POWER AND PROSPERITY!” Illitheous spat a molten glob to the side in disgust at what he was about to say. “I will even deign to honor your race’s memory by keeping it alive, despite how you tried erasing ours,” he said while jabbing a bony extremity in the others’ direction. With a pitying look Princess Celestia spoke, “Illitheous, can’t you see what you’re doing? The suffering you’re causing? You can’t bring into being a country founded on hate. Look around us.” Illitheous decided to humor her, this once. He was about to hold high her head as a trophy after all. He looked around. There was, of course, the Princess and her six servants. The mostly unconscious forms of the six crusaders he had believed capable of beating them. Then he saw the burning and destroyed homes of the villagers. The earth was disfigured with craters and arrows. Fires burned in many places unheeded. Rubble lay strewn about, with injured filling the gaps not occupied by warriors. Princess Luna was on top of a clock tower that had managed to keep itself from falling apart. Below her was the Adamantine Golem. She must have been the reason it hadn’t returned to aid him. Its orders (which he himself had given) were to regard any nearby alicorns as its primary victim. This wasn’t the utopia he sought. “Is this what you fight for? A land bled by your own desire for revenge?” asked Celestia. She and the six ponies beside her all looked at with an expression he couldn’t quite distinguish. With only the briefest pause the skeleton responded. “No, this isn’t what I wanted, but I can fix it. Make it better.” “You’re wrong. All your doing is hurting others. Please, let us help you. I know your upset, but if you calm down I know we can work together to make everything right.” Celestia held out her hoof. To Illitheous the scenery seemed to spin nauseatingly. Does she honestly believe we can just forgive and forget? The black and red ring he wore subtly increased its glow on its own. Illitheous’ mind cleared itself of doubts. “No, you’re lying. That’s all your type ever does! No more talking! No more lies! You say everything will work out? Well, where was the happy ending for the other races, huh!?! Where was that happy ending for the dwarves or orcs or my own kin? Where was it for me!?! When disaster arrives your family kicked me and my brethren out rather then help. Without aid we had no choice but to take what others had or perish. They left us to die.” “You know that’s not true! My Mother and Father would NEVER do such a thing. You slowly destroyed yourselves because you couldn’t look past each other’s differences and find a way to live side by side as friends.” The Princess of the Day said with a stomp of protest. “SHUT UP AND DIIIE!!!” Illitheous moved faster then his usual limits allowed. He trampled the dirt, heading straight for Celestia. However, in a twist of fate things didn’t go as it appeared they would...again. Twilight Sparkle focused harder then she ever had before, her horn glowing with a radiance it had only mimicked once while subduing an Ursa Minor. And despite the magic that was supposed to keep teleportation to a minimum in the human’s presence, the seven ponies dematerialized right as Illitheous’ hands reached Celestia’s neck. They now only clutched the empty air. No! Illitheous screamed in his mind. It’s happened again! Revenge had been within his grasp, and then plucked away, AGAIN. No! NO!! NO!!! He immediately turned in the direction of the royal guards, only about 30 now, plus a battered Luna. The moon princess saw what had just transpired, same as everyponyelse. She knew what was about to occur if she didn’t do something fast. She sped right in between the fiery skeleton and the nearest guard he had made a b line for. She used her royal Canterlot voice “COMMANDER ILLITHEOUS! IN THE NAME OF THE ROYAL FORCES OF EQUESTRIA…” She reluctantly bowed before him. “We surrender.” The stallion behind her protested in hushed tone “But Princess Luna, we can still win this.” “Shh don’t be a foal. Besides, we must buy my sister and the Elements time. They’ll be back.” She whispered back a little harsher than she intended. The avatar of rage hadn’t seemed to notice the murmuring, as he was conflicted about the situation before him. He was dimly aware that the princess and guards served him better as prisoners of war, examples to be made of to any Equestrian townsfolk that might get the foolhardy idea to rebel once he captured the capitol. Luna herself would easily be of use as leverage if the need arose. However his boiling rage demanded he break every last bone in their collective bodies and then feed them to the ogres that pulled his siege engine back at the outskirts of town. A multitude of animalistic grunts and sound exited his jaws while he held his divided mind, and the skull that housed it, in his hands. Luna feared that even offered a surrender, he would attack anyway, but the hellish human finally decided they would live for now. He called for Dails Assent and Terran. The two magicians stirred groggily. They were no longer knocked out, but they were anything but in good condition. “Cage. Now.” their leader ordered. The two men struggled to cast the strongest containment wards they could with the help of two magic scrolls produced from the folds of Illitheous’ coat. They managed to stay unincenerated since hellfire generally damages living things only. The magic users fumbled slightly with the scrolls. They were sweating profusely as they did so, and it wasn’t just from the heat given off from their master. None of the dubbed “Crusaders of Fire” had seen him so angry. He looked as if he might literally explode in a fit of anger. The Pony forces were all enclosed within the confines of a clear force field and a lattice work of crystalline material that left them feeling drained and without any substantial amount of magic. “Now,” Illitheous continued, “as for you.” He punched Dailes Assent in the face; leaving a mild burn and a bloody broken nose. Luna’s eyes widened, her lower lids rising in shock. A hoof went up to her muzzle. Such brutality even to his own. The humans’ cruelty continued to astound her. The nechronomancer fell back. He was then roughly hauled back up to his feet by Illitheous. “Why did your ward against teleportation magic fail? Celestia and those others should have been capable of teleporting no more then a few feet at most!” Illitheous demanded to know. “I, I don’t know.” Dailes stammered. A blow to the gut was his reward for such a poor choice of words. “Wrong answer.” Said Illitheous “But the incantation is still in effect. *Cough* The mana reserves required would need to be nearly without limit. I spent weeks on that spell. It isn’t feasible that they or anything here would possess the magic ability to escape by such means,” reasoned the nechronomancer. Illitheous remained unconvinced. “Then where are they now? And how are they so far away that I can’t even sense Celestia’s repulsively bright aura?” He gripped the shorter man’s clothes and pulled his face so close to his that Dails Assents‘s eyelashes were singed off. Dails Assent wriggled, starting to panic despite himself. “Please Sire, I apologize. I won’t disappoint you again.” “It’s due to YOUR incompetence that Celestia escaped! Because of you, my vengeance has been denied further! Now you will SUFFER MY WRATH!!!" thundered Illitheous. Terran tried to calm Illitheous down. “Master please, he couldn’t have foreseen their escape. It’s their fault, not his. We should focus on retaking the capitol and finding them. Our numbers are low enough as it is. If you kill Assent we’ll be one useful man weaker.” “You think I don’t know that, boy? I don’t CARE! This failure deserves death! Someone needs to pay! You should learn to watch your tongue…” he paused, “…but you’re right.” The burning cadaver released the frightened necromancer who promptly and repeatedly bowed and gratefully thanked him for not incinerating him until he was a black smear in the dirt. Illitheous stormed off and away from everyone. Dailes Assent regained a little of his composure as he wiped away most of the blood on his face. “I appreciate the assistance Wizard Terran.” Terran looked back somberly at him as he spoke, “You’re welcome, but I didn’t do it to save you.” Terran gazed back at the direction Illitheous had left. He thought of the stress his master must be feeling and of the noble goal he had, always being ruined…how nothing in the man’s life seemed to ever go as he wanted in the end. And of course, living for so long with nary a single fellow human for countless years must have taken its toll. Not until finding the few small fiefdoms with humanity’s tattered remnants had he not been alone. Terran remembered his “home”, the endless wars whose original purpose none could recall. It had been Illitheous who had showed up and offered all the men and women that followed him the promised land only he had not forgotten. He offered the land, not in its’ death throws, they had been long banished from. Given them a place where they could begin again. Terran had joined, but not to reclaim a lost empire or even to simply find sanctuary from the suffering. The idealic young mage traveled with Illitheous because Terran had seen a damaged man who only wanted his people to live well, enough perhaps to have sacrificed all he was so they could. Illitheous, Terran believed, was perhaps the closest they would ever have to a savior of any kind. It was because of that he had stopped him from killing the rather unpleasant Dailes Assent. It would have torn apart his heart afterward, to realize he had murdered one he had been trying to save. “I did it to save Illitheous.”