//------------------------------//
// Phantasmare 
// Story: Phantasmare 
// by Emperor 
//------------------------------//

Trixie let loose her spell. Her horn emitted a red laser, flying straight and true through the air. 

A magic shield formed in front of Deinos, mostly translucent with a purple haze. The purple alicorn reared up on her hind legs before coming back down, stomping the floor in front of her and shattering the stone under her hooves. It was clear Deinos was back in a fighting mood. “You think you have a chance? The Mœræ granted unto me the form of an alicorn. Even if you have somehow rendered my shadows helpless, I am still more than you foals ever will be!”

Deinos’ counterattack was as quick as a flying pegasus. Trixie had barely blinked before a spider web-like magical net flew through the air, rapidly growing in size as it approached her. She briefly waited, then teleported out just before the net would have ensnared Trixie. Quickly, Trixie looked back at Deinos, only to see the other pony was gone. Looking around, Trixie saw the alicorn flying through the air. Deinos had launched a second net right after her first, aiming it at Iceheart. Iceheart had jumped but failed to dodge entirely, and the net had wrapped around Iceheart’s leg, leaving the Crystal pony unable to flex her fetlock or bend her limb at the knee. It left Iceheart exposed to Deinos, who was on a trajectory to ram right into her.

Stonehenge, who was closest to Iceheart, attempted to intercept Deinos. He was just a little late, as Deinos struck Iceheart with a shoulder check, knocking both of them over. There was a mess of purple limbs as the two hit the ground. Quickly, every other pony moved to try and pull them apart. Trixie gasped as she saw what Deinos was doing. The Pony of Shadows had ignored trying to hit Iceheart with her hooves or her magic, and was instead lunging for Iceheart’s neck, her mouth wide open, baring her fangs. Deinos was close to chomping down, only for Stonehenge to finally make it over.

The grey stallion sent a quick punch at Deinos, but his punch fell on empty air as the alicorn suddenly vanished. Quickly, Stonehenge backed away from Iceheart. He rested his weight onto his front hooves, the easier to buck behind him if Deinos had appeared behind him. With trepidation, he scanned the area around him, relying on Noire and Red Wings in front of him to warn Stonehenge if the madmare was indeed behind him.

“Above you!” Stonehenge suddenly barked, as it was him who instead had to provide the warning.

Red Wings was slightly hovering above the ground at the time Stonehenge yelled. It was enough for the red pegasus to dip his wings and spin over in the air out of the way. Noire wasn’t so lucky. Even though she had jumped to the side, Deinos fell from the air with a wild abandon, and clipped Noire on her withers with a hoof. The bat pony hissed out loud. Deinos turned around, moving to hit Noire again, only to once more teleport.

Deinos reappeared in front of Windspeaker. “Annoying colt with that wind of yours,” Deinos said as her horn lit up. For once, she was curt, not waiting to send her own magical beam at Windspeaker.

The colt in question yelped, and Windspeaker backpedalled, before he too teleported. Windspeaker only moved a short distance, and judged his position incorrectly, finding himself six inches above the ground instead of on the floor proper. He was only in the air briefly before landing, but Windspeaker instinctively took a step forward as he did. He gasped, holding a hoof to his barrel, his heart pounding in his chest. Windspeaker wasn’t as talented as Trixie was at teleportation, only learning it alongside Noire in the hive, and so he had been slow to react to Deinos’ spell. If he had been just a fraction of a second slower, he would have been struck and injured.

Deinos sneered as she turned around, sensing where Windspeaker had gone. She didn’t say a word. Instead, she was gone yet again, leaving behind the slight sound of air rushing in to fill the vacuum where her body had once been. 

Quickly, Deinos reappeared up in the air above Stonehenge. Her wings flapped open as she glided down to the stallion, who had little time to react. Another ball of magic gathered up on her horn, as Deinos intended to skewer the Earth pony. Stonehenge threw his forelimbs up in front of him, hoping to mitigate whatever spell Deinos had in mind. 

However, Deinos never made it to him, as she blipped out of existence once again. Stonehenge swore he had heard the sound of not one but two teleports in rapid sequence. Paranoid, he dashed ahead several feet before looking behind him. There was the same rush of air that indicated a teleportation to Stonehenge’s left, and he looked over, only to see Trixie disappear as soon as he caught sight of her. Turning around, Stonehenge saw Deinos and Trixie facing off against one another.

“Annoying ant, tracking where I’m teleporting,” Deinos said, scowling.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is a mare of many talents,” Trixie said, grooming her mane with a hoof.

“If you say so,” Deinos mocked the other mare, before suddenly disappearing again. Trixie’s form blinked out a split second later, only to reappear back with Deinos, but opposite the positions they were originally in. “So you truly are determined to pursue me. I could just do this until you are tired out, but that would not be fun. How’s about this!” Deinos shouted, and her horn glowed an eerie gold colour.

Trixie yelped as she saw a rock come her way. Instinctively, she teleported out of the way, then mentally kicked herself a second later for not using a shield. Then she looked around, and saw there were several rocks flying towards each of her friends. “Red! Iceheart! Stonehenge!” Trixie shouted, casting shields in front of them to stop the stones and rocks Deinos was launching. Windspeaker and Noire were quick on the ball, and able to use their own magic to stop the projectiles.

It was just enough time for Deinos to set-up for her next attack. The Pony of Shadows hopped into the air, letting her wings spread and gaining height. Deinos cackled. “You foals!” Suddenly, more debris lifted off the ground. Whether it was stones large and small, mortar, brick, or any other material littered around the room from the castle’s thousand year decay, it all suddenly rushed together in front of Deinos.

Then the madmare alicorn flapped her wings, and she sent a tornado from the tips of her feathers.

“What the—” Red Wings backed up, startled. He could create a tornado himself if he wanted to, but he could not have done it so effortlessly as Deinos had. Red Wings had broken up tornadoes most of his life, not made them. What was more terrifying was the tornado picking up all the mass Deinos had telekinetically picked up off the floor. At the quick speeds exerted by the tornado, anything it did a flyby of would be pulled in and severely injured if not outright killed once struck by another object. Even were Red Wings and everypony else to avoid the tornado, it could also spit something out of its vortex at high speeds.

“Shield!” Trixie shouted, her horn alight in a pink glow as a transparent dome formed in front of the six ponies. Given the pervasiveness of the tornado and debris, there was no safe space to teleport to for her or anypony else. Windspeaker joined her, his own horn radiating a vivid blue light as he reinforced the shield barrier. Noire was last to react, having to summon the magic from inside of her body and shape it more carefully, instead of having a handy horn to rely on. Her magical glow was a lilac purple that surrounded her body, and it joined Windspeaker’s power in reinforcing Trixie’s original shield spell.

It was just in time, as the tornado of solid matter smashed into the shield. The two unicorns and one bat pony all reeled as the impact of the tornado on their spell hit them with magical backlash, but the shield held strong. Rocks and stones grinded down to fine dust, and softer matter completely disintegrated, before at last the tornado itself fizzled out against the shield, its eye weakened and tearing up.

Trixie took a deep breath, relieved. It didn’t last long.

Trixie yelped as she spotted a flash of light to her periphery, and there Deinos was, the alicorn having teleported right to Trixie’s side. Deinos launched a spell at Trixie that radiated a mustard-yellow colour, and Trixie responded by teleporting away from the spell, mindful there was nopony behind her who would accidentally get struck.

“Eep!” Windspeaker squeaked, jumping back in fright as Deinos teleported in front of him next. This time, the alicorn attempted to sideswipe her opponent with a straight up punch. Windspeaker leaned back until he nearly fell over backwards to initially avoid the hit, before the stallion suppressed instinct and teleported away.

Noire squawked as she suddenly found herself facing down a magical red blade. Thinking on her hooves, Noire rolled over to her left, and the blade cut the ground where she once stood, letting out a disturbing sizzling sound that left little to the imagination as to how the same blade would have hurt Noire. She had to take a second, being far less practiced than Trixie or even Windspeaker was, but Noire was able to teleport away right before the blade struck her.

“This is—” Windspeaker attempted to say something from his new spot in front of the stairs leading up to the organ, only to teleport yet again as Deinos appeared in front of him.

“Deinos! You—” Trixie teleported in front of Deinos, only to find Deinos was already gone. Trixie blinked, turned her head to visually confirm where her magic sense had told her Deinos had gone, then teleported again.

“Not ag—” Windspeaker was forced to teleport once more as Deinos had stalked him over near the periphery of the crater from the earlier trio of attacks that had been the group’s first serious strike upon her.

Trixie teleported in front of Deinos, only for Deinos to disappear. Trixie wrinkled her nose before her eyes widened, and she teleported six feet to the left, away from the crater, to see Deinos hitting where Trixie had formerly stood. That was close, Trixie thought, having nearly been ambushed by a teleport. Any further thinking on her part was cut short as she teleported again to intercept Deinos’ attack on Noire, only for all three to end up teleporting within a split-second of each other, with Noire moving first to avoid potential death.

To the side, Red Wings, Stonehenge, and Iceheart consolidated their position, being the three ponies there unable to teleport. The two Earth ponies stood back-to-back to cover most potential angles, while Red Wings hovered above the two. Were Deinos to break away from attacking Windspeaker, Noire, or Trixie, and move towards them, she would not be able to ambush the three non-teleporters. Stonehenge, who was facing the action, found himself getting dizzy as he attempted to follow four separate ponies constantly blinking in and out.

Noire attempted a counterattack, being within quick flying distance of Deinos the next time she teleported away from Trixie stalking her. Deinos caught her sneak attack and returned fire with a volley of sharp icicles that would have skewered the bat pony, only for Noire to teleport away in the nick of time. Deinos was forced to teleport again herself as Trixie had taken advantage of Deinos’ distraction to conjure a fireball. Windspeaker stood still and sent a razor-sharp blade right at Deinos once she flickered back into existence, using the Living Wind to quickly track down her position, only to have to immediately teleport again himself as Deinos teleported right in front of his face.

Enough. This is getting ridiculous, Deinos thought to herself. Unfortunately, she had failed to kill any of the three ponies in her first few strikes. It was clear Windspeaker and Noire were rusty and slow to teleport at once, but they were flickering in and out of existence as quickly as Trixie after a few seconds. The fear of death was a large motivation. As an alicorn, Deinos had deep magical reserves. She was certain she could tire the other ponies out if they kept at this game, but Deinos was getting impatient, her bloodlust building up to a crescendo. She had barely even bloodied anypony yet tonight! She had only killed one pony either, and that had been negated in something Deinos still could not fathom.

Deinos quickly resolved herself. She teleported in front of Trixie and feinted an attack. As soon as Trixie had reacted by teleporting away, Deinos teleported into the air in front of Red Wings. Her magic at the ready, Deinos’ conjured blade swung down at the hovering pegasus. Time stood still as Deinos soaked in the frightened, scared look in Red Wings’ eyes, his pupils dilating wide.

Then her sword swung down on Red Wings, and he burst into a bunch of smoke.

“Wh—” Deinos was unable to finish her sound of surprise before a heavy force hammered her in her withers, sending her several feet down into the floor. The sudden impact caused Deinos’ jaw to slam shut, ramming her upper and lower set of teeth together. A brief moment of pain disoriented her, before natural alicorn biology kicked in and the pain was washed away. Deinos grunted, dissatisfied, before teleporting away just before another magic attack would have hit her on the ground.

“Enough,” Deinos snarled as she picked herself off the ground from her new spot. She shook her mane to get some of the dust and plaster out of her hair, before looking over to where the three non-magical ponies had been, and saw the red pegasus moving away. Ah, so that’s how it was. An illusion. And he laid in wait to hit me from above.

Suddenly, Deinos froze. There was a familiar taste of iron in her mouth. She stuck her tongue out, and rolled her eyeballs to look at her tongue.

Blood. There was blood on her tongue. 

A haze washed over Deinos’ vision, as her wrath was provoked. Blood. That pony had drawn her blood! He would pay!

Deinos growled. She didn’t even teleport this time. She instead leapt off the ground and flew right at Red Wings. Red Wings shouted in distress and attempted to dodge, but his effort was futile as Deinos slammed into him with the momentum of a fully-grown pony, sending him soaring back. Deinos pursued Red Wings as he attempted to flap his wings and gain control of his form before he hit a wall, and was quickly upon him. Just as Deinos was about to physically accost Red Wings, however, the pegasus said, “Gotcha,” and wrapped his left wing around her horn, and squeezed.

“Y-you!” Deinos squealed in surprise. How dare this stallion touch my horn! If I could use my shadows I would have already flayed the flesh off his bones. I’ll tear him apart! Deinos was quick to react. Instead of using her magic to knock Red Wings off of her horn, Deinos instead thrust her head up.

“AAAARGH!” Red Wings shouted. Blood sprayed out of his wing from the fleshy area which Deinos had just impaled, in between the radius and ulna bones. Red Wings attempted to pull his wing away from Deinos, but the mare held his wing down, trying to increase the size of the wound she had just inflicted. Deinos quickly licked at the blood, slurping it down. She was excited by the vibrant red blood getting everywhere.

Deinos suddenly jerked, and looked to her right. There, Stonehenge had pounced on her wing, grabbing it near her shoulder where her large humerus bone jutted out. The sensation tore her away from her bloodlust long enough to realise what Stonehenge intended to do.

“Don’t you da—” Deinos warned, only to scream as Stonehenge bent her humerus bone. “GRAAAAAGH!” Deinos bucked her back legs in a mad frenzy, before throwing Red Wings off, his wing sliding off her horn. With one pony out of the way, Deinos crouched and rolled her body around counterclockwise, catching a brief look at Stonehenge’s surprised look when the large stallion was pulled along with her wing, briefly floating in the air above Deinos, before momentum carried Stonehenge away, his grip on her wing loosened by Deinos’ maneuver.

Quickly, Deinos teleported away before another one of her adversaries could reach her, and landed in a spot further back. However, her grasp at temporary respite was thwarted by Trixie teleporting right in beside her.

“STOP IT!” Deinos growled, before teleporting back closer to the rest of the party. Try this on for size, Deinos thought as her horn lit up. This time, Deinos did away with the fancy magical spells she knew, and simply charged up a lot of magic all at once, pushing beyond the barrier that separated unicorn and alicorn powers. A larger fireball sat at the tip of her horn. Deinos flung it, then teleported back up to the organ she had been playing earlier.

The madmare watched as Trixie fell back to put up a magic shield against the fireball, and Deinos gloated as the fireball broke through Trixie’s shield, only to fizzle out on a second barrier Windspeaker had put up. To the ponies’ surprise, the fireball dumped out an enormous amount of heat in its death throes, and everypony still standing fell over as the heat wave radiated out with a push.

“Good, good,” Deinos muttered to herself as her body started to regenerate. The bite to her tongue was healed in an instant. The light fracture from when Red Wings had smashed into her withers was next. The ache around her wing joints where Stonehenge had roughly bent it was just a little longer. Those foals are pushing me too far. If not for that strange ability to vanish my shadows, I would have—wait, what is she doing?

Across the room, Trixie had picked herself up off the floor after being bowled over by the heat wave. She quickly assessed the situation, seeing Deinos licking her wounds far away. Turning around, Trixie grimaced as she spotted Red Wing’s punctured wing. Trixie stepped up to him and whispered a few words of reassurance, then cast her magic.

“What the?!” Deinos squawked as suddenly Red Wings’ wing was as good as new. The wound was completely gone, as if it had never been there. Yet the fresh blood still dripping down Deinos’ horn proved she had indeed impaled his wing. Deinos was briefly puzzled, before she remembered what she knew of the six ponies’ journey before they came to this castle. She healed that wing before! Of course she could do it again! Diomedes damned unicorn!

Any further introspection was cut off as suddenly Noire teleported, and Deinos sensed the bat pony was right behind her. Quickly turning, Deinos saw Noire swooping in at her. Deinos decided to take the hit, and shot out a vicious sharp cut of air that would bisect Noire in mid-air. She then tensed and got ready for the two halves of the bat pony to hit her, only to blink as the air cutter went straight through Noire, and Noire went straight through Deinos.

Another accursed illusion! Deinos thought. Quickly realising she had her back turned around to five other ponies, she turned around, only to swiftly jump out of the way as a lance-shaped projectile forged out of ice came right at her. “GURGH!” Deinos grunted as the lance clipped her on her outstretched wing, throwing her dodging motion off-kilter as she flapped awkwardly with her opposite wing before landing on the ground. Mindful of the fact that she had indeed sensed Noire’s presence behind her, even if it was an illusion that had swooped in at Deinos, the alicorn quickly teleported elsewhere.

“Enough,” Deinos said quietly, before repeating herself at a louder pitch, “ENOUGH! ENOUGH!” Deinos used her magic to grab all five of the ponies in front of her in her telekinetic grip. Looking around, she finally found Noire, stalking around her backside, and grabbed her too, flinging her back into the group. “I should have done this a long time ago, hohoho,” Deinos said, feeling her golden eyes in her socket rotating ever quicker.

The six ponies struggled to break free out of Deinos’ telekinetic grasp, but Deinos was finally showing the prerogative of an alicorn, her magic holding each of them down through pure force. Trixie and Windspeaker tried to use their magic, but Deinos squashed down on them with extra brutality, rendering their horn-casting ineffective. Even the Living Wind was nullified, as Deinos’ might was so great she even stopped the air currents inside the room. She kept her shadows at her side nonetheless, afraid Trixie might somehow break free and vanish them if Deinos were to use them.

“At last, my victory is neigh...nigh,” Deinos corrected herself, as she trotted towards the six ponies. To a one, they were showing expressions of strain on their faces, bones almost popping out of their necks, as they attempted to break free of the telekinesis. Hmm, those necks… “Eeenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe, so many options to choose from,” Deinos said in a singsong voice. “And then there were six...I know, let’s go with you.”

And then Deinos pounced out, her fangs sinking into the nape of Iceheart’s neck.

Iceheart howled and jerked, but was unable to break free under the telekinesis, and Deinos quickly pinned her down under her wings and forelimbs, knocking the two purple ponies down to the floor. Despite her continuing struggles, Iceheart was still unable to move, yet Deinos punctured her fangs further into Iceheart’s skin.

A growing mass of red could be seen around Iceheart’s neck as Deinos retracted her fangs, opting to lick the freely flowing blood instead. Euphoria washed through the alicorn. “Ah, yessss!” Deinos moaned in sweet ecstasy as she licked more blood, her senses heightened by the metallic tang on her tongue. She had briefly sampled from Red Wings’ wing earlier, but it had been brief. “Oh, yessss, so long have I waited to taste pony blood again.”

Opposite from her, Windspeaker felt his stomach flip-flop as he saw the streak of red running down Iceheart’s neck. Though Deinos hadn’t punctured the jugular, Windspeaker was certain that amount of blood leaving wasn’t good. He strained once again to break free of Deinos’ telekinesis, but found his body lacking. Even with six months of beefing up, Windspeaker was still physically the most frail of the group, even next to the mares. The magic that held Windspeaker in place even was pressing down on his horn, rendering his magic inert. He had resorted to the Living Wind, but even that had been quelled by Deinos’ magic stilling the air inside the castle.

But not everywhere, Windspeaker thought. He had laid on a bed for years as his body had gotten progressively weaker, but in turn, Windspeaker had nothing in the world but time to think. Windspeaker was not out of ideas just yet. A storm was coming. A possibility had formed in his mind.

“Ahh!” Iceheart screamed out again as Deinos brought a hoof down on her body, getting a thrill out of causing pain. Windspeaker’s heart lurched, but he focused. Deinos’ telekinetic grip was great, but it was not all-pervasive.

Suddenly, the wind swept through a window near where the fireball attack had hit the ponies earlier. Windspeaker had chosen that area because the air was still hot there, far warmer than other spots of the room. Wind was caused by air differential, and so it was the strongest there. Shaping the air with his control over the Living Wind, Windspeaker created a mass, and pushed.

“Ahhh, yes!” Deinos said with glee, licking the blood around her muzzle. She looked around on Iceheart’s body for another spot to puncture before this pony’s warm body went cold. “Where should I—oof!” Suddenly, Deinos went sprawling as something hit her, followed by a sharp hit to her head. The next couple of seconds were rough-and-tumble for her, but Deinos spotted a lot of white in her vision.

Despite Windspeaker’s ambush and quick punch, Deinos was quick to grapple with him and slam him against the floor. Windspeaker struggled, and used the Living Wind to throw a cut at Deinos, only for a quick shield to block them. Deinos let out an animalistic howl as she socked Windspeaker right in the muzzle.

Windspeaker cried out in pain as his nose started to leak blood, but Deinos wasn’t finished with their scuffle. She quickly yanked Windspeaker’s head around, and then bit down on his ear. Windspeaker recoiled as Deinos teeth sank in, and tried to pull away, only for Deinos’ grip around his lobe to increase. Windspeaker tried to kick at Deinos around her rear next, only for Deinos to suddenly tear his ear right off.

“RAGGH!” Windspeaker spasmed, before the adrenaline that coursed through his body finally allowed him to push Deinos off his body, right into the path of Red Wings, freed from her telekinesis as Deinos had gotten too distracted to keep it up. Windspeaker took the brief respite to look down at his coat. His fur, always pristine white, had been dirtied brown throughout their fight from the rocks and plaster littered across the castle. Now, it was quickly getting stained red from the blood dribbling from his nose and pouring out from the stump of his ear.

Deinos, meanwhile, was unable to keep her battle trophy for long, the white ear in her mouth falling out as Red Wings returned the favour for Windspeaker, bucking the alicorn right in the jaw with his rear hoof. Deinos hung in the air for a second, surprised by the sudden turnabout, before hitting the ground.

Keeping her wits together, Deinos teleported away before anypony else could get her, moving into one of the rafters of the throne room where she hung upside down. There was a feeling of fire in her jaw, and Deinos could feel her jaw swelling. She opened her mouth, and spat out a wad of blood. Though her jaw was beginning to turn numb to sensation, Deinos could still feel pressure, and there was an odd pressure on her tongue. She wiggled her tongue around it, only for one of her fangs to suddenly fall out.

Deinos stared at the fang falling to the ground, quickly becoming a speck in her sight. One of my fangs, she thought. Even as she hung from the rafters, stunned, a new fang regenerated in her mouth, replacing her old one. That didn’t matter. Losing a fang was even more humiliating than merely bleeding. They broke one of my fangs.

Ploys and machinations no longer mattered to Deinos. Instead, her body throbbed with a need to kill.

Quickly, Deinos teleported back into the centre of the room. With a deep, angry breath, Deinos flared all the magic in her body in one fell burst to show off and intimidate the other ponies. Her magical power was so great her horn was incapable of channeling it all. It instead radiated out her skin as a fiery red light, the raw magic actually exerting a buoyancy against the air that even lifted her off the ground. Deinos spread her wings to complete the image. “I should have just done this from the beginning! No more toying with my food! I’m just going to blow this room up! None of you ponies have the regeneration I have. I hope you enjoy your last moments as your burned skin falls off, my little po—”

Deinos suddenly stopped her cruel words, and some of her magic fizzled out. “Eh?” she asked aloud, as she sensed something off. The alicorn tilted her head sideways, confused, until a look of comprehension flickered in her rotating golden eyes. An illusion! I’m underneath another illusion!

She wouldn’t stand for it this time. With a grunt, Deinos zapped the air around her with some lightning magic. Deinos believed she alone in this modern age was able to disrupt an illusion using electricity of all things. Modern magic had evolved in a different direction than the old age in the city-state of Thrace, when the highest patron deity of the ponies was known for his command over the storms, and lightning and thunder were regarded as elements of purification.

However, something unexpected happened. As Deinos tore the illusion apart, the illusion struck back at her. “Ow!” Deinos instinctively said, rubbing her hoof against her horn as she felt the jolt shock her. That must have been a powerful illusion. I’ve never felt a backlash like that before from shorting out a spell. Deinos scrunched her nose as she felt something was off. She attempted to bite her tongue, only to find her jaw had suddenly gone numb. It had been a large enough backlash to even temporarily paralyse Deinos.

Paranoia possessed the madmare. Sluggishly, she turned her head to regard her opponents and see what the illusion had hid. When she saw the six ponies opposite her, if Deinos’ heart had not already been hammering away from the electric jolt, it would have surely sped up in fright.

Trixie and her friends were lined up in a formation. They were lined up in the same formation that they had used to fling the faux-Harmony magic at Deinos earlier. They were casting the magic right now!

“Whurgh? Nuuuu!” Deinos attempted to flee, but the electricity had disrupted the synapses to her limbs as well. No matter how powerful her body was, it was still taking precious seconds to recover, and Deinos could see the magic travelling into the purple pony with the Crystal Heart as her Cutie Mark. To Deinos’ agony, she could feel the magic this time was balanced just a touch more perfectly than the last time.

Suddenly, Deinos felt her wings clear up from their paralysis. Deinos, panicked, flapped her wings to fly, only to find her body unable to clear the ground and move into the air. She flapped even harder, but still the rest of her body would not move. Deinos jerked up, looking back over at the ponies, honing in on the white-furred stallion. He’s stopped all the air currents! The same thing that she had done to him earlier to stop him using the Living Wind, Windspeaker had reversed upon Deinos to stop her from flying away.

Frantically, Deinos tried to move, her head having been able to jerk slightly earlier. But she was barely able to move. Meanwhile, her spinning golden eyes were focused on the sight of the blue-white beam that was emitted from Iceheart. Time slowed, and the resolve Deinos had built in her heart over a thousand years dissolved away as the blue-white energy got bigger and bigger, honing in on her.

There was a flash of black in the periphery of Deinos’ vision. Too late, she realised what it was.

“No!” Deinos cried out. She attempted to tug on her shadows and pull them back, but for the first time a thousand years, the shadows disobeyed her beck and call. The mass of shadows that had lain dormant at Deinos’ side ever since Trixie’s return from the dead moved on their own, forming a black shield in front of Deinos.

The shadows intercepted the blue-white beam. Then there was a high-pitched noise, like the sound of breaking glass. Then the shadows withered away, ground to nothingness under the harmonious aspect of the magic beam that had been cast by the six.

Despite the destruction of the mass of shadows, its sacrifice had not been futile. The blue-white magic beam had been diminished in intensity, and was thrown off-angle. Deinos was still barely able to move, but she avoided a potential fatal injury as the attack deflected off the shadows and sliced her right flank around the midsection before it continued to move on, fizzling out as it hit a stone wall. The spell had been designed to imitate the force of Harmony, being an expression of six ponies’s friendship as they had journeyed around Equestria. It had no practical use against non-organic substances.

Deinos just stood there for a few moments, catatonic. Her dead-eyed gaze was focused on where her shadows had been.

“GRARRGH!” Deinos cried, then finally moved her body, free at last. There was a burning pain in her right side, but she ignored it. The Pony of Shadows could no longer be called such, now that she had lost her companion of a thousand years. Instantly, she teleported.

Trixie squeaked and ducked as Deinos appeared in front of her, the alicorn frantically flinging magic around. Deinos’ attack came in rapidfire, as she summoned three fireballs and a cutting blade at once, thrusting them at Trixie, before teleporting away. Trixie summoned up a barrier to block the attacks, before running over to aid Stonehenge, who had gotten sideswiped with a storm of thorn-like dart projectiles from the alicorn in between teleportations. There wasn’t as much debris for Stonehenge to guard himself with, and so he had thrown his forelegs up to block the darts. Said forelegs were a mess of bloody gashes, with blood dripping through his grey fur everywhere.

It took Trixie a couple of seconds to get herself in the state of mind to cast the illusion that would heal Stonehenge. Once she did, she turned back around, and grimaced at the state of the field. Noire had been knocked back into a wall so hard that she was visibly dazed, holding her head in between her hooves. Iceheart stood guard in front of the bat pony, protecting  her from a follow-up attack. At the same time, Iceheart also had a hoof pressed up against her neck, stanching the bleeding from Deinos' earlier puncturing of the skin. Though Noire had briefly tried to heal the wound, Iceheart had to leave the blood running as the six lined up for a perfect chance at using the Harmony-like beam again.

Deinos was frantically fighting both Windspeaker and Red Wings in what was a messy melee. Deinos would try to summon tornadoes and shoot air blades at the other two, only for them to fade out as Windspeaker used the Living Wind to shut down her mode of attack. Red Wings was leading the return offensive, shooting his own blades at Deinos, and occasionally throwing a tiny rock he had picked up. The mare would occasionally move in at Red Wings, or move in between him and Windspeaker, dodging Red Wings’ attacks so they would become friendly fire aimed at Windspeaker. All three of the ponies were visibly bleeding, with Windspeaker’s torn ear still gushing out blood, the cut to Deinos’ midsection flowing freely, and a dozen cuts and slashes on Red Wings spraying drops of blood into the air every time he jerked around in a sudden flying motion.

Trixie blinked. Wasn’t there something off about that scene? With a jerk, Trixie realised what it was. Her wound! It isn’t healing!

Indeed, it wasn’t. Where all of Deinos’ injuries had before regenerated, now the cut to her midsection was continuing to flow freely, given no chance to clot up as the alicorn was frantically fighting. Trixie took a few seconds to mull it over. It was easy to deduce that the magical beam the six had cast was somehow able to disrupt Deinos’ regeneration. So is it just that one wound that won’t stop bleeding, or will she be unable to heal any further injuries? Trixie wondered.

Trixie found the opportunity to put her budding thesis into action as Deinos suddenly doubled back and slammed into Windspeaker, sending him into the air with a sickening crunch. Trixie slowed Windspeaker’s momentum down gradually using her magic before slowing him down, while Stonehenge entered the fray to assist Red Wings. Trixie looked Windspeaker over for a few moments. The other unicorn’s irises were spaced out and he was briefly foaming at the mouth. Regardless, Windspeaker still seemed to be semi-conscious and aware of the situation he was in, however, and he quickly blinked, his eyes coming back into focus.

“‘m fine,” Windspeaker mumbled, before spitting out a large wad of blood. “No, realllly,” he added, his speech obviously slurred.

“Head over to Iceheart,” Trixie said, pointing him at Iceheart, who was still watching over the disoriented Noire. “I’ll help Red Wings and Stonehenge out again.”

Trixie gave Windspeaker no chance to respond, quickly teleporting away from the white-furred stallion and into the pitch of battle, sending a red-coloured magical spell at Deinos. The alicorn snarled, and summoned a mirror to reflect the attack towards Stonehenge. Stonehenge held his arms up to block the attack, having seen Trixie’s spell in training a hundred times. Unlike Deinos’ dart projectile attacks from earlier, Stonehenge knew Trixie’s spell merely had a bludgeoning effect, and he would rather take the brute force head on than give Deinos an opening for a follow-up strike.

Deinos flew down at Stonehenge, intending to make said follow-up strike, only to be startled as Stonehenge blocked the reflected spell instead. Deinos quickly flapped her wings to back up at the last second, but Stonehenge lashed out and managed to tap her cheek, throwing her backwards momentum off. By now, Stonehenge’s hooves had been cracked in a hundred spots, and the rough, abraded keratin had many sharp spots. A jagged edge of his hoof cut Deinos’ cheek open. Deinos quickly teleported, only to suddenly reappear in front of Stonehenge, suddenly conjuring a lance in front of her and stabbing.

The large stallion hadn’t expected her to fake a retreat, and made an awkward dodge, but still got his side sliced open for his troubles, echoing Deinos’ own earlier injury. Stonehenge attempted to parry Deinos’ next thrust, only for the alicorn to turn around and buck him in the chest with her hind legs, causing him to collapse into the ground. Turning around also allowed Deinos to see Red Wings and Trixie again. Deinos was able to stop Red Wings’ razor blades, but was too late to stop Trixie’s red bludgeoning spell again, and took a strike right to the head.

“Oof,” Deinos said, stumbling backwards, and tumbling over Stonehenge’s form. She shook her head, and quickly teleported again. As soon as Deinos landed, she scolded herself for being so quick on the draw. These ponies are too soft-hearted. There’s no way they would have sent anything close to lethal at me if it meant they might hit their friend.

Quickly, Deinos spun around and executed a fast grapple on Iceheart. The crystal pony had broken away from guarding Noire and Windspeaker and attempted to sneak up on Deinos, only for the madmare to grab her with her forehooves. Deinos in turn threw Iceheart into the air at Red Wings. The pegasus screeched in surprise as he was knocked over by the impact, and scrambled to recover and lower both himself and Iceheart.

Deinos took a step forward, only to take a gasp as she finally felt the sharp pain in her side. Looking over, she gasped as she saw the wound from the magical beam cut still  there, bleeding without pause. Deinos put her hoof up to her cheek, feeling the warm blood oozing from Stonehenge’s cut as well. My wounds aren’t healing, Deinos realised with trepidation. When they destroyed my shadows, they also cut off my ability to heal.

That scared Deinos more than anything else, even more than Trixie’s ability to return from the grave. Deinos’ ability to regenerate wounds wasn’t something that she had because she was an alicorn. It was a trait of her body granted by her direct link to the heavens, and the Mœræ she served. For that magical beam to have cut off Deinos’ divinity was unfathomable. Without it, I can actually die! I’m already dying! My wounds refuse to heal! Deinos had never learned a healing spell, having always relied on her empyrean status to heal automatically, and so long as the battle continued, her body would continue to lose blood. She couldn’t afford a battle of attrition, not when her foes had ponies that could use healing spells.

Deinos decided right there she had to focus on and eliminate their leader, the only pony who could do more than just heal, but also retroactively erase injuries. Even if Trixie had somehow revived herself once, Deinos would kill her again. “Now, where is that pesky mare,” Deinos muttered, before turning around to spot Trixie. Eh? What is she doing?

Trixie just stood there, eyes slightly out of focus. Although Deinos had been deep in thought for only a couple of seconds, it was still a couple of seconds that she was open to attack. Yet Trixie hadn’t moved. It was almost as if she was in a trance. Then it clicked. There was a wild look in Deinos’ eyes, as she at last seemed to understand what Trixie was doing. “Y-you mongrel, you mortal mutt! You dare to attempt your ascension on me, on me?!” The ancient pony seemed frantic, the outrage suddenly injecting one last hint of crazed life in her weakening frame. 

In a panic, Deinos flew straight at Trixie, letting out a screech not unlike a bird of prey’s hunting cry. However, even a bird of prey could be wounded, and Deinos’ own hunting cry revealed hints of weakness. Trixie quickly broke out of her trance, meeting Deinos blow for blow, as the two rapidly traded multiple spells within a split-second before Trixie finally teleported away, causing Deinos to overreach and stumble.

Trixie landed further back, standing next to Red Wings, who had finally gotten up after being bowled over by Iceheart. Their own side had been wounded and savaged, with Noire, Iceheart, Stonehenge, and Windspeaker all in varying states of injury. Red Wings and Trixie both were also lightly hurt, but were in far better shape. Trixie had come to the same conclusion Deinos had: if the battle continued on much longer, the side with six ponies would be the victor.

“Youuuu…” Deinos murmured, standing up and turning around, sheer vitriol infecting her voice. “I am a goddess sent down from the heavens with a mandate to burn everything. And you dare to become an alicorn based off my presence?!”

To Trixie, she could almost understand Deinos’ indignation. To go from being assured victory at the start of the battle, thanks to her status as an alicorn, her magic, and the literal force of destiny behind her side, to beginning to lose and now dying? If immortals were not immune to their pride growing as they aged, then Deinos must have been truly proud.

“DIE!” Deinos shouted, jumping forth at Trixie and Red Wings. Red Wings flapped his wings to send out several sharp blades of air at Deinos before him and Trixie split apart. Deinos, in her unsteady state of mind, disregarded her inability to heal, blocking with her torso and gaining several cuts to the side of her body opposite her originally slashed midsection. Her kamikaze run succeeded, however, as she managed to slam into Red Wings with a full-body strike, stomping the pegasus stallion into the ground and following it up with a vicious projectile, once more crippling Red Wings’ left wing.

Deinos broke out of her frenzy just quickly enough to remember Trixie was still around, mostly uninjured. She wouldn’t try to perform her ascension a second time, would she? Not while I’m maiming her coltfriend and she’s the last of them still healthy. Deinos jerked up, looking around the room to make sure Trixie wasn’t healing anypony else. She didn’t see Trixie healing any of the other four downed ponies, but she didn’t see Trixie either.

Suddenly, Deinos flapped her wings and flew up, as she avoided yet another bludgeoning spell. Looking over, she spotted where Trixie was, self-levitating behind one of the columns that still stood in the great throne room. “Now I’ve got you,” Deinos growled, clenching her fangs together so tight they were even puncturing her gums. Quickly, she flew up to the columns. Trixie panicked at her attack failing and being discovered, and flew away under her magic, only for Deinos to pursue.

Deinos lit a spell up in her horn, and cast it, with Trixie quickly casting a barrier in front of her. However, Deinos cancelled the spell as soon as she conjured it, and quickly accelerated right into Trixie. Magical barriers were usually only good for blocking other magical spells, and Deinos powered right through the protective dome, her horn impaling Trixie in the barrel.

Or at least, she would have impaled Trixie in the barrel, except there was absolutely no resistance to the blue mare’s form whatsoever, and Deinos went right through Trixie’s shape and out the other side.

Another blasted illusion! Deinos cursed herself at being tricked so easily, and quickly zapped the air around her to cancel out the illusion.

The air shifted, only for Deinos to spot a dark yellow beam travelling through the air, aimed at her own chest. Deinos yelped, and moved to dodge. In her sudden hysteria, however, Deinos had a split-second of confusion, and lurched the wrong way, moving down when she should have moved up. The yellow beam striking her in the face was the last thing Deinos would ever see.

Everypony in the room shuddered as the proud Pony of Shadow screeched in sudden pain, with a disturbing spray of blood shooting from her eyes. Her body jerked and her wings flapped in a mad frenzy, but Deinos quickly lost control of herself, finally surrendering to gravity as she hit the floor, making a loud tremor and causing the room to shake one last time.

Trixie landed on the floor, disbelieving what had just occurred. She had aimed for Deinos’ body, only for the alicorn to make a bad dodge and take the strike to her muzzle and eyes instead. Trixie quickly cast anti-illusion cantrips of her own, thinking for a mad second that Deinos had fooled Trixie at her own game and was lurking in the shadows, hiding behind her own illusion. It was not to be, however. The Deinos that was on the floor, dying, was the true Deinos.

“You!” Deinos suddenly flipped herself over on the floor, her body soaked in red.

“Ah!” Trixie jumped back, startled, her heartbeat rate suddenly spiking. Without thinking, Trixie grabbed a nearby rock in her telekinetic grip, and threw it at Deinos, striking the alicorn right in the horn.

The shot to the horn finally did the trick. With her second wind averted, Deinos flopped back onto the floor, muzzle and barrel looking up.

At first, the world was quiet. After a few seconds where nopony dared move or even breathe, there was the sound of hooves clopping against the stone floor of the throne room. Their trot was uneven, as ponies had to walk around or over endless pieces of stone or crevices in the floor. But at last, six ponies had gathered around the dying purple alicorn.

Deinos, Pony of Shadows, second-eldest of the four Mares of Diomedes, had been defeated.





Deinos laid on the floor, thick puddles of red beginning to coagulate around her. "I see it now," she said, her blinded eyes looking towards the heavens. "The six of you were supposed to die here today, as the Mœræ decreed. You didn't just outwit death. No. If your power of illusions is the ability to fool those around you, then you didn't just trick this mortal world of yours. You deceived destiny itself, and we who weave it."

Trixie just stood there, gazing at Deinos. She was willing to let the villain have one last monologue, but at the slightest glimpse of a suicide attack, Trixie would end the Mare of Diomedes forever.

“A pony who usurps her own destiny and lives past her preordained death...the gods will love that. You are a rare specimen. They would rather let this world continue on and let you play out your new life than to burn everything down and start all over again. Haha, even if I die early and fail to complete the several centuries of servitude I still had, they shall let me off this once. To think that this is how I, the Mœræ’s hitmare, will meet my end.”

Deinos chuckled. "Six months. That's when I would have lured those six ponies who wield the Elements of Harmony into this castle. I would have trapped them and sent them to the afterlife to reap their good fortune and karma and improve their standing for their next time in the cycle. Thereafter, I would have left this castle and plunged it into a world of famine, pestilence, war, and death. That will no longer happen, but those six months are important. If you want to trick that other princess into engaging with you, wait six months. She was destined to come here then anyways, regardless of if she meets you or me."

The alicorn then choked, coughing out a fresh glob of blood. The fine crimson spray stained her purple muzzle. "I have...a last request, of a sort."

Trixie frowned. "Do you take me for a fool, even now?"

The dying alicorn laughed softly, seeming to understand the limits of her body as it was fading out. "Not what you think. No. I told you before, didn't I? I was destined to leave this castle after today and bring blood and fire to the entire world. After many years, I would be slain, but not before resetting everything back to the beginning, to when you foals could do naught but bicker with those unlike you. A thousand years from now, the Friendship Castle, the Crystal Empire and Canterlot would be nothing more than ruins that archaeologists would have to do years of research to locate. But ponies would whisper of the boogeymare in the night, like those today mention the Windigos. I would have been given the name of Phantasmare, after my phantasmal power over the fantastic shadows."

Deinos lifted her head, her mutilated eyes still managing to somehow find Trixie. "But the title of ‘Phantasmare’ can be repurposed long before it would have been used. It can refer to a mare who walks in her own shadows, tricking and deceiving even the very heavens in her phantasmal grace, creating an endless phantasia. Take it. Use it as your own."

Trixie gazed at her, disinterested.

"Rejoice, Bellatrix Midsummer, Trixie Lulamoon," Deinos said in response to Trixie’s silence. It was the first time Deinos had called any of them by name. It would be the last. "When tomorrow you wake, it shall be your very first day as the free mare you always envisioned yourself as being. You've slipped the strings we weave, after all." The fallen mare's voice trailed off into a whisper. "Just like you helped me to slip my own. This time my death shall be eternal."

Now that Deinos was laying down, for the first time, Trixie realised the alicorn had a Cutie Mark. It was a spindle of yarn being threaded onto a loom, with the end cut off. 

"Podargos, Lampon, Xanthos, I see you, my sisters."

Deinos' odd golden eyes had continued spinning even as they were blinded. Now, they began to slow down, finally coming to a complete stop. The haunting ethereal glow left Deinos’ eyes, their golden shine becoming a dulled yellow. Her eyelids closed for the very last time, as Deinos took her final breath. Then Deinos the Wondrous passed on, never to be reborn into this world again. The four Mares of Diomedes would at last be reunited.

The six ponies gathered around Deinos stood silent for a minute. Even though she had been a bloodthirsty cannibalistic madmare set on slaughtering them, the fight with Deinos had somehow felt very personal to each of them. It would only behoove them to pay her a last respect.

“Look,” Iceheart said, and the other ponies jumped as three murky silhouettes began to form around Deinos. The silhouettes gained some clarity, enough to identify them as ponies, and the three beings looked down at Deinos. One of the ponies was a brilliant green, so bright as to almost shine. Another was a sky-blue, close in shade to Trixie’s own coat, evoking a feeling of swiftness. The third was a golden-yellow of such a rich shade that none could forget her.

Trixie started as she realised the identities of the three ponies, as Deinos had mentioned them what felt like a long time ago. She was given little cause to worry, however, as the three ponies stretched their hooves out to each touch the late madmare. Deinos’ body began to disappear, until there was nothing left of her but the outline of a pony in the drying pool of blood. With her disappearance, the other three mares also vanished.

Once more, the world was silent. The scene that had just occurred was something that none of those present would discuss to their dying days, not even with one another.

Trixie raised her head.

There were many things to consider for the future. Trixie self-consciously understood she was currently unwell. She was shell-shocked from the battle, her temporary death, and the things that Deinos had revealed to her. Trixie had also just committed deicide after a fashion, as Deinos straddled a thin line between mortal pony and goddess. Trixie would have to work through both the personal ramifications of having killed for the first time and the theological ramifications of her destiny up to now having been foretold. Then she and her friends would have to discuss what to do for the future, now that they had been unyoked from their fates. 

Deinos was correct about one thing. Trixie wasn't Great and Powerful, even as she had boasted about it upon her return from death. She had faked being as such for so long, but it was time to finally shed that label. Trixie would have to achieve greatness on her own.

Trixie caught something in the periphery of her eyes. Wandering over, she found a brown cloak. She remembered it. It was the cloak Deinos had worn when she first revealed herself, being tossing it aside. Was that really only an hour ago that Deinos appeared? That battle, my death, meeting my parents, returning to this world, and then fighting her once more...that was a lifetime ago. Trixie picked the cloak up. When the blood washed out of the room, this cloak would be the last physical remainder of Deinos to ever exist in this world. Folding up the cloak with her magic, Trixie laid the cloak to the side.

A chilly breeze swept through the room. Looking over at a broken window, Trixie looked at the shattered glass on the floor. An ephemeral glow swept through her eyes. Trixie knew the window was whole and had never been shattered, and there was no glass on the floor. A moment later, the window was whole, the first repair in the throne room from the castle’s last great battle.

Trixie looked over to her friends, still huddled around where Deinos’ body had been: Noire; Iceheart; Red Wings; Stonehenge; and Windspeaker. Each of them looked exhausted. Bloodied wounds stained all their coats. Iceheart's neck was still leaking drips of blood, and her hoof never left the skin. Red Wings’ left wing had once more been injured, bent at an odd angle. Windspeaker was the worst of them all. His torn ear and bloodied snout were still dribbling blood, dyeing his white coat a messy, grimy blend of pink, red, and brown. They were undoubtedly suffering the same things she was, yet to a one, they all looked resolute.

So was Trixie. She had not become an alicorn from this battle, but the Changeling Empress Anfang had said it would require fighting an alicorn twice at the most. There was still a chance, one which the madmare had hinted at before she perished. There would be many challenging days ahead, but already, the worst of them had been thrown at her, and Trixie had surpassed it. She would continue to overcome any future endeavors, each of them less difficult than overcoming the heavens themselves.

She was Phantasmare.