Mischmasch

by SpiralWriter

A Battle in Canterlot Castle, Part Three

Bang.

Went right over the head. Needed to adjust the aim lower.

Bang.

Why was it so hard to hit something that literally had double the chance to actually be hit?

Bang.

Something was wrong, something magical was playing with him. Alamo Wall grumbled to himself as he reloaded his revolver with the six bullets it needed into the hungry chamber of the gun, closing with a click of his telekinesis. Thus far, he had fired twenty-four rounds and reloaded four times, every bullet missing their target by just a fraction of an inch, Riot or Ruin laughing mockingly as the piece of lead that threatened to end them only whizzed by by a hair's breadth. Now, he knew he was one of the best sharpshooters Equestria had to offer. Even with only one good eye, he could hit the bullseye on any target from any distance. He aimed even better when drunk too, which he was about half the time. So why was shooting these two so challenging?!

They could pop up anywhere in the library at any moment's whim, and all Alamo could do was react. It started out simple enough, they'd throw a book or two at him and he'd shoot at open air, where they had been seconds before. But as their 'game' dragged on, it became more and more dangerous. The rugged appleloosian found himself hauling flank as the giant bookshelves overhead would come tumbling down towards him, threatening to crush him with its great weight.

"Stop movin' 'round so much!" He shouted angrily, perking his ears for any sound.

"Stop being such a bad shot." Ruin giggled from somewhere behind him. Alamo whirled around on his haunches, revolver up and steadied to fire. Nothing was there.

"Ah'm gettin' awfully tired of this game..." He grumbled, mostly to himself.

"Y'know what, old man? So are we." Riot's echoing voice rang through the dusty halls of the library.

"So why don't we make it more interesting?"

"...?"

The increasing sound of rapid hooves moving could be heard until it sounded like a full-blown stampede. Alamo warily looked about, seeing movement beyond the bookshelves of many forms. He double-checked his six-shooter to make sure it was loaded and looked under his poncho to make sure his trusty bullet belt and dynamite stick were there, he had a feeling he would be needing them.

A body sprung from high above, and he shot it down without even look, moving the gun with his levitation, the sound of glass shattering in the air. He arced his head just as the dead body hit the floor, only to see it dissolve into a million shards of glass that gently floated down. Curious, he approached the spot where a dead body should have been, touching one of the glass pieces that sat harmlessly on the ground.

"Cool trick, huh?"

He looked forward, The conjoined body of Riot and Ruin leaning against a shelf with a smug grin upon both faces.

"What're you up to?"

"Ever been in a funhouse before, cowpony?"

"No."

"Consider this a first time experience then."

Their body contorted and seizured for a split second before an exact copy was produced right out of the original, a clone standing beside Riot's side. That clone made a clone, and that one did as well, before Alamo was well staring at about a dozen or so of the twins staring at him with a manic grin and hungry, violent eyes.

"...Buck."

---

"You are very adept with a blade...Decay, wasn't it?"

All Legion had to do was flick his hands up, his hardened claws catching the crystallized sword and rebounding it away from him. Decay swiftly pulled the sword back and stabbed forward, the diamond dog sidestepping the assault easily. For the most part, their battle thus far had only been a ballet around one another, each one avoiding the others attack perfectly, as if in exact synchronization.

"Yep. You're pretty good with those claws."

Legion went out for an overhead strike, rearing his long arms up, claws extended to their full and sharpened peak, then bringing it with a powerful swing downwards, his claws meeting the sword with a small clang that reverberated through the catacombs deep underneath the castle in which they clashed.

"Nature's weapon."

A series of swipes with the sword was narrowly parried and avoided, Decay grunting with each swing of his weapon.The shadowy draconian being was well versed in the ways of the sharpened steel. He carried himself in a stance and poise that belayed professionalism and experience in swordcraft.

"Too bad you haven't landed a single hit on me."

Legion corrected this statement by forcing the crystal sword aside with a mighty push, the strength coming from his upper torso. Decay stumbled momentarily, granting enough time for Legion to deliver several impressive strikes to Decay's face and long scratches with his claws. He bled that mysterious purple blood just as Strife had.

"Neither have you."

Decay took a full step back to regather himself, wiping the blood away with his hand, gritting his fangs and twirling his sword casually.

"...Nice hit."

"It won't be the last one, We assure you."

"I doubt that..." Decay chuckled, dropping the blade to the ground and holding up his hands as if in defeat. Legion looked on curiously, the sharpened eyes catching every detail. Decay's body, bit by bit, melded into the darkness around them until only his skull-white face showed, and even then, that disappeared as well.

"...Reveal yourself at once, follower of the Chaotic One."

From behind him, there was a slight shuffling sound, and Legion now found that he had a long gash running down his back, spoiling the white fur with harsh red.

"...Naw. This is much more easier for me."

"You wish to win through subterfuge and trickery."

"That's a pretty big word for a dog."

"Insults will not win you this battle."

"But they help." Decay cackled as he appeared from nowhere to deliver a sharp punch to Legion's jaw, his fist all too physical despite his ethereal appearance, only to vanish back into the darkness without a trace.

---

Zola had roughly three things running through her mind at the moment. One was to keep hold to her stick with all of her might. That was her stick, and it would definitely be needed for what laid ahead. Two, a harpy had grabbed her. She knew it was a harpy by the shape of the body and the recognizable screech. Zebrafrica had no such creatures, but one does encounter rather strange things when moving to Equestria. And three, she was really high up and she felt like heaving chunks right about now.

The sharp pains in her back was where the harpy's talons dug into her black and white body, and by the depth in which the talons were cutting into, she knew this winged fiend had no intention of letting her go just yet.

She turned her head around as much as she could to catch even a glimpse of what ascended higher and higher with her in tow. A rather elegant, slender form covered in feathers that gradated from red to purple. Definitely a harpy.

"So, why are you taking me so high into the sky?"

The harpy looked down at the rhymed words spoken to her, smirking at the zebra in her clutches. "To drop you, of course. Discord doesn't like party-crashers, so you'll end up crashing to the ground!"

"That sounds most unpleasant. Perhaps I can convince you to do otherwise?"

"Tcht, yeah right."

"Unfortunate, now you'll have to try a fight on for size."

Zola wrenched herself free from the harpy's talon with a squelch of blood, but she ignored the pain. Right before gravity took control of her, she whipped up her forelegs and grabbed onto the harpy's lower body, the winged female screeching like mad at the sudden weight placed on an area she was not prepared for.

The dreadlocked zebra pulled herself up and smacked down heavily with her long, whippet-thin branch, the wooden stick making a sharp crack against the harpy's skull. Her eyes went cross for a brief moment before her entire body went limp, sending the two plummeting to the ground.

---

The bullets relentlessly tore through the advancing army of the two-headed tainted, but yet they persisted towards Alamo with their numbers. And, it seemed, he was finally running out of ammo.

After reloading the last clip he had remaining into the chamber of his revolver, he cursed under his breath, taking aim with his one good eye and firing. The process was incredibly simple, and an art he had perfected over years. Bring the gun up and aim it down the barrel towards what you want dead, take in a breath, pull the trigger with a mental flick, and watch the bullet fly. The cowpony repeated this six times, felling the same number of foes, leaving dozens more to be dealt with.

"What's the matter, old-timer?" One clone mocked with a snigger, guaranteed their victory. It was one old pony against a score of foes that could just make more if they should be dispatched.

Alamo's panicked eye switched between the approaching Riots and Ruins, his brain making one obvious decision: to run.

He bolted through the aisles of books, the sound of mad laughter and following hoofsteps not far behind. He could try his dynamite, but he figured that one stick of the red stuff couldn't take out all of them, not unless they were extremely bunched together. He would need to think of something, and fast. He dashed until he found himself in the center of the Canterlot castle library, signified by the circularity of the area and the small checkout desk with the little 'librarian' tag on it. The auburn appleloosian looked around briefly, his old mind working frantically towards a solution. He cracked a small grin once the light bulb in his head went off.

The small army of Riot & Ruin would run into one another into the center of the library circle, confused to where Alamo had suddenly gone. The small red stick of lit dynamite would go unnoticed as it rolled underneath their hooves. The only signal to this warning would be Alamo peeking over from behind the librarian's desk to the sound of panicked shouts that died alongside the large explosion that shook the entire castle.

Once the smoke had cleared, his looked over to find nothing but ash and raining glass.

The cowpony let out a sigh of relief as he climbed over the desk and towards the exit, looking back at the library behind him, soot covering the floor, bullet holes torn through the walls, and tall bookshelves toppled over, scattering their precious tomes everywhere.

"...Ah really hope Ah won't have to pay for all this."

---

The wounds did not bother Legion, they had learned to ignore pain a long time ago. It was the persistence at which Decay moved about in the shadows that annoyed the diamond dog. With a sigh, Legion padded over to the crystal sword that had been left abandoned on the cave floor just as Decay came about and smacked the many-minded mutt directly in the snout. He stumbled back momentarily, grasping the sword in one paw carefully.

"What, you think that's gonna help you?" Decay's mocking words danced through the caverns.

"Possibly."

All Legion had to do was close his eyes and perk his ears up. He could hear the sound of water dripping far away, the mechanic of rock slowly moving. His nose caught a waft of several different scents at once. The cold, musty air of the cave, his own blood, Decay's scent of, well, decay. It was strong, permeable, and gave him an exact location in the darkness. All he had to do was wait for his foe to strike next.

"It's not going to."

"Do not be so sure, our friend."

A small scuffle. Legion turned slightly.

"...You sound very sure of yourself."

"We are."

Decay growled, tensing his body to spring. Legion could almost hear the strain of muscle ready to leap.

At the exact moment in which Decay sprang from the shadows at him, Legion whirred in his direction, arm outstretched with sword in paw, and the shadowy draconian fell right to his own death. The crystal sword pierced him directly through the chest cavity, the momentum from his jump plunging it right through the dark flesh for the tip to come pointing out of the back.

Legion discarded both blade and body as if it were trash, tossing them aside and casually striding towards what his instincts presumed was the exit.

"...You dropped your weapon too early."

Comments

[Captain_Savage]

How many more parts are there to this battle?

[SpiralWriter]

2049651
One more, then the final chapter.

[Captain_Savage]

2049655
Nnnnneat.

[Anubis Nox]

2049655 NOOOOO, not a final chapter, unless there's a sequel.

Maybe he wants to get back home.

[SpiralWriter]

2049745
There will be a sequel.

[Anubis Nox]

2049808

[Lux Aeterna]

have to say... Legion is (are?) one hell of a badass

[warpd]

Not to bad, but then the final boss is coming.

[Alpha Scorpii]

A new chapter of Mischmasch? And it's full of boss battles? Nice Awesome way to start my day.

And the next one is the battle I've been waiting for!

[Zyrian]

I like this story, I'm only about a few chapters into it at this point, but aside from a few minor errors, there's only a few things I have a gripe with, one of them being "Jabberwocky"

"Jabberwocky" is the name of the poem. The actual being is the Jabberwock.

[SpiralWriter]

2052769, 2052749

I have meant to go back and correct the grammatical errors i made when first writing this, but I'm going to finish it first before all that.

Eh, I usually switch between 'jabberwock' and 'jabberwocky'.

[Xorn]

Excellent! Excellent!!!

[Paladin Redflare]

Dang son, that fool got OWWWWNED!!!