//------------------------------// // Chapter 17: Two unstealable hearts // Story: Kingdom in Shadows // by Istaran //------------------------------// "Do you hear that?" The shadowy unicorn asked as she stepped into the throne room, meeting eyes with Princess Cadance and Shining Armor. Their love, amplified by the crystal heart and made manifest in Shining Armor's shield spell, was enough to keep her dark magic at bay. But every step she made closer made the crystal's power grow in intensity around them, and it was starting to make them nervous. "Your poor subjects, betrayed by the very guards who are supposed to protect them," she pointed out. It was meant to be intimidating, but she didn't anticipate the actual effect. null was mine to command, and indeed he was serving as my avatar, the very embodiment of my will. But he answered still to a higher authority, even if that authority was technically imaginary and certainly not present. Istaran didn't have a lot he held sacred. He had few depths he wouldn't stoop to. But he hated betrayal with a cold and brutal passion. The mare barely had time to bring a bladed bracer to bear, turning to block the Sin Eater before it could rip into her flesh. Her taunting speech was set aside as she was driven back, slash after slash deflected by her blades. We were mid fight before I fully caught up with what I was doing. The mare glared at me, then raised her eyebrows in alarms as our eye contact had no effect. Whatever it was meant to do, it obviously didn't work on the undead. Or robotic fake-undead. Or transfer through our digital linkup. I pressed the attack once again, forcing her to turn to mist to dodge out of the corner she had been driven into. But being mist offered no protection from the Sin Eater, and she had already seen the danger for herself before leaving the battlefield. The black crystal heart held to her chest by a steel neckless bounced erratically as she dodged and blocked, finally managing to strike back with telekinetically wielded knives of her own, only to find them magnetically repelled. A simple direct blast of TK knocked me back but couldn't keep me at bay for long. And attempt to lift me up with her magic shattered quickly, and her attempts at a shield were quickly shattered by a mage masher dagger hurled at her horn. She managed to dodge a direct hit from the blade, and block the followup swing from the Sin Eater, but it was still keeping her on the defensive. The screams from below had been replaced by violent clangs, but now they were replaced with song. This had the unicorn a bit worried, but she remained determined in her fight. She managed to snatch the dagger from the air despite my attempts to move it out of her reach, and hurled it at the royal couple. Shining tried to stop it with his telekinesis when it shattered his shield instantly, but that too was useless, while my own electromagnetism was able to pull it off course, bouncing it off the wall behind them before pulling it back toward me. A roar rose up from the mare's throat as she charged, eyes locked on the prize: the crystal heart. But she didn't have time. She was mentally tensed, ready to counter whatever I threw at her. But she wasn't expecting a massive burst of dark telekinesis ripping through the wall on her opposite side, shattering crystal and peppering her with rubble. She shifted to mist quickly, letting the rubble pass through her, but what came in after it, hidden behind the spray did not pass through her so harmlessly. I cut through her with my own Sin Eater. The real me, that is, in my pegasus guise of course. She reformed quickly, hurt but not down, shocked but not stunned as a pair of identical pegasi assaulted her from both sides with the deadly blades. There was blood on my blade. I knew what that meant. The beasts that were naught but shadow didn't bleed. There was a pony underneath it all, or someone who had once been a pony. And she was good. In the sense of being skilled with blade and spell. Even pressed by two assailants she fought impressively well, receiving only glancing blows, devastating as those were to her power. Each nick though fed me power, and I didn't hold onto it for long, smashing her with more telekinetic bursts. I stopped that quickly when she smirked and ringed herself in some dark shell, presumably a counter to the magic I was using. I never gave her a chance to trigger it. She did manage to lock eyes with me for a moment. Thoughts began to slip into my mind, thoughts of violence toward the innocent, toward Cadance and Shining Armor, toward the Heart Crystal. The thoughts barely had time to form before they were replaced by 'Clan is clan,' again and again. She managed to knock my personal sword free with a bladed bracer, bouncing the blade off Shining Armor's reestablished shield, but it gave me and opening. Lunging in, I caught her in a hug, pulling her up onto her hindlegs. I could do something she couldn't do. Something Cadance couldn't do, despite her aspect. I could rewrite my own emotions. At my command, Deus filled me with love for this mare. It was intense. Passionate. Our lips met in a sudden kiss, stunning her more than my sudden entrance had. And all of my love for her, all the love I could drag in from my changelings, all the love my hundreds of followers had managed to gather and concentrate, all of it poured into the mare in that one instant. She was gray now, or perhaps off-white, far from the black fur she had been sporting, and her horn was somehow spiralled now rather than the bladed shape it had held just a moment ago. She wobbled on her hind legs a bit, looking at me almost drunk and certainly defeated. "I surrender..." she said, after a moments thought, a sly smile crossing her lips. "Good... then maybe you can call off all your-" Shining began before gasping in shock. null lunged forward, blade first, driving his Sin Eater through her chest and my own. She gasped, struggling for breath in shock looking at me in disbelief. "I don't accept," I replied, before pulling back off the blade. Shifting his grip, null slashed upward. When the blade contacted the black crystal heart, it shattered and even before he finished splitting her skull, a shockwave of pink light burst forth from the Crystal Heart, sweeping through the city. null stood his ground, unaffected, while the other changelings took flight quickly, clearing the skyline before the blast sent them sailing. Alexander had the good sense to acquire Peach Seed's gatecrasher bracers before it swept through, and removed himself from the city entirely until it passed. The shadow creatures, however, didn't know what hit them. Most dissipated on contact, while dozens of ponies slumped to the ground, purged of the darkness within. "Thank you, null," I said allowed, catching my breath even as my wound swiftly healed. The dead changling nodded silently, as he allowed his disguise to drop. Blood was still dripping from his sword, hers and mine both. "How... how could you?!" Cadance exclaimed, thrusting a hoof at me accusingly. "You... you monster! Demon! Out! Get out of my kingdom! NOW!" I was a bit taken aback, not quite certain which line I had crossed had been the one to set her off, or if they were cumulative. "I saved you," I pointed out. "And all your ponies." "You used love as a weapon!" she accused, poking me in the chest, where I was recently injured. I was dumbstruck. I trembled a moment with rage, glaring her in the eyes before I snorted, and left the room. null stayed behind, wordlessly gathering the discarded weapons before standing guard over the fallen unicorn. "You had something to say," Shining Armor said to my back, speaking loud to be heard over the wind. Looking down from the parapets, we both saw my subjects regrouping, and gathering the few former shadows who had been freed by the heart at the battle's end. "Do you know where we learned to do that from? Where I learned to do that?" I asked. "Do what? Use love as a weapon? I don't think I want to know..." Shining Armor said. "Did you see the cleanup of Canterlot, after the invasion?" I asked him. He was confused a moment, shaking his head. "We were a little busy getting married. It was pretty much cleaned up by the time we left the castle. Why?" "There were a lot of casualties when you set off your little love nuke," I told him. "Many of the changelings were blown free, but some weren't so lucky. It wasn't pretty. I was there... I saw it. My wife was nearly one of your victims, less than an hour after fighting some of the invaders ourselves." We sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the dots move around below. A gasp from below caught Shining's attention. "Caddie!" "She's safe, but alarmed," I pointed out. "Go to her." "How are you still alive?!" Cadance demanded of the unicorn slowly climbing to her hooves, pulling the two halves of her head together. "I'm not, obviously," she replied pressing her skull in from both sides for several seconds before they stuck that way, and she could settle onto all four hooves. "Then how are you moving! And talking!?" the alicorn demanded. "The same way he does," the unicorn replied, nodding to the dead changeling. "My name was Midnight Terror, but I have been renamed 'Warlock' by my new king." "On top of all that, he's a necromancer?!" Princess Cadance exclaimed as her husband rushed into the room. "What?!" Shining added intelligently, as he came to a stop beside his wife, the proof of her claim calmly looking at her with two pairs of lifeless eyes. "His blood has many uses, including animating the dead," Warlock explained. "It got into my wounds from his own, when null finished me off, setting my revival into motion. My king felt it critical to learn all I knew, and that was quite wise. This battle is ended, but the war is not." "That crystal," Shining said. "Are there more of them? Can the other shadows make more?" "An astute question," Warlock replied, with a bit more feeling than null managed. "There are no more now, but it has been proven effective, and the shadow makers will surely make more. They are not quick or easy to make, however. Your kingdom is safe for the time being." "Aside from all the monsters still here..." Cadance groused, angrily. "Caddie..." Shining Armor said quietly, unsure what to say to her. "It's alright, Shining," Warlock said. "We ask that the Prince be allowed to remain as our diplomat, and our fortress remain as our embassy, with minimal staff. The rest of us have somewhere else to be, anyways." Cadance breathed slowly. "Alright. We can agree to that. Where will you go?" Warlock started for the exit, null in tow. "As I said, the war isn't over."