Light of Harmony

by GjallarFox

Gordök, the Darksmith

Gordök slammed his hammer down on the ground, a pulse of green fire splashing outwards, forcing the four ponies on the ground to jump in order to avoid being incinerated. A moment later, the Wizards screamed and summoned another wave of Thralls, and threw bolts of arc energy flying at the four.

A pair of Acolytes leapt up onto the anvil where Fluttershy and Twilight stood, firing their shredders to cover their landing. But Fluttershy shrugged off the hits and punched them both right back off again.

Back down on the floor, a new wave of tougher Thrall began running towards the four Guardians. Rainbow shot one in the head, but it didn't crumble to dust like the others had. But she kept shooting, praying to Luna for strength. A scream suddenly erupted from behind her, followed by a harsh explosion. Rainbow saw Applejack go flying forwards towards the quickly approaching wave of Thralls. Rainbow cursed under her breath and threw a grenade at the Thrall, sticking it to the leg of one. The Hive minions stopped and hunched over for cover just before the explosion tore through them and sent a fair number of them flying around as ash.

Applejack, having been thrown by an explosion, picked herself up only to find herself surrounded by Thrall, all screaming and glaring at her with rabid hunger. "Fuck," she cursed, barely dodging a slash from a trio of arc-infused claws. She ducked under a pair of claws attempting to rip her apart, but failed to account for another Thrall bringing both of its claws down in a volleyball spike, slamming her unceremoniously into the ground. She yelped in pain, her breath catching in her chest, and her life flashing before her eyes. Here, she'd failed.

"Not yet, you don't!" a voice screamed from behind the horde of Thrall. With only that much warning, a flurry of bright purple needles shredded through the writhing mass of decaying creatures above her, making some of them dissipate into nothingness. The rest turned their heads and screamed again, forgetting about the prey they'd almost killed and charging towards the source of the void fire.

"Eyes up, Guardian!" Applejack's Ghost called to her through her helmet.

"Thanks for the save, Rares!" the Titan huffed, paying her Ghost no heed and shoving herself to her feet again. Without a moment's hesitation, she switched to her shotgun and looked for the closest enemy, which just so happened to be a Knight sauntering over hefting a cleaver about as tall as her in one hand. With a battle cry, she surged to meet it, sliding between its legs as it tried to chop her in half with an overhanded swing of its sword. She let one blast of her shotgun speak her mind into the back of the Knight's head, sending it staggering forward as it collapsed into dust. But a slam of Gordok's hammer made her remember that though these small enemies were dangerous, the real threat was the giant abomination in the center of the room. She snapped her head back to check for the incoming spikes, but saw only Thrall and a few Knights.

A Wizard screamed and began throwing bolts of arc energy at Applejack specifically. The Titan cartwheeled to the side, still holding her shotgun and far out of range of hitting the enemy. A pair of Thrall slashed their claws at her back, managing to make Applejack grunt in pain just before she turned around and threw a fist crackling with arc energy at one of them and landing it directly in the creature's face. The screaming thing instantly dissipated into nothingness, and a wave of arc energy spread out from where it had been standing, enveloping its partner and killing it too.

As another Wizard shrieked and crumbled into dust, Fluttershy and Twilight turned their attention back to the furnace. Twilight slung her rifle across her back and switched to a hefty looking rocket launcher, quietly talking to herself in the strange language that made Fluttershy wince. The rocket blasted forth from the launcher's barrel, screaming towards the gate placed over the furnace and leaving a trail of smoke that crackled with tiny explosions. She thought for sure that the explosion would be enough to open the furnace's fires up for an attack, but the explosion never came. When she looked up from reloading her launcher, she saw her rocket flying off towards the enemies on the floor, having seemingly bounced off the gate as though it was made of rubber.

"Watch out!" Fluttershy screamed to the others on the ground.

Pinkie looked up just in time to see the rocket heading directly for her face, making her yelp and bounce out of the way. The rocket kept flying, everything in the area ducking out of the way to avoid a very painful end to their existence, eventually hitting a wall and exploding with nothing nearby.

"Something's wrong! Why didn't that work‽" Twilight hissed in frustration, looking down towards the battle on the ground.

J-Ami appeared over Twilight's shoulder and said, "I'll go analyze the gate. Keep me covered!"

They have something you need. Take it from them.

Twilight screamed like a Wizard and leapt down from the anvil, letting loose a hailstorm of bullets from her auto rifle. Her friends all watched her in a perverted sense of awe, almost forgetting to keep firing their own weapons. She targeted a Knight and focused her fire on it, watching as her stream of bullets just kept slamming into its chest. Within moments the Knight roared and put up a shield of blackened and burning crystal. But Twilight didn't care, and tossed a grenade under the shield and watching as the Knight's body flew into the air and disintegrated. She cursed under her breath, and turned her attention to another Knight.

"Only an explosive reaction of dark energy can bust it. Toland said a 'Tomb Husk' should do the trick," Twilight's Ghost reported to the group.

Rainbow switched to her sniper and took aim at a Knight's head, but was promptly slapped by a Thrall. "Damned things! Get off!" She slapped the offending Thrall in the face with the back of her hand and blew it back with a blast of air from a flap of her wings. Without another moment's hesitation, she tossed a grenade at the Thrall, which ducked as soon as it noticed that there was something stuck to its chest. A dull thump echoed from where the enemy had once been, and when she looked back at it, there was nothing there. Confident she could aim in peace, she brought up her rifle's scope to her eye again and scanned the battle for a Knight to kill.

A snap resounded through the forge, and a sigh of relief from Rarity and Applejack followed. Pinkie giggled in her usual Pinkie-ish manner, bouncing over a few Thrall, and brandishing her Golden Gun. The first shot hollered a rallying cry for the Light, and slammed into a Thrall. The round pierced it through-and-through, and as it began burning away into ash, it exploded into a bright ball of fire, engulfing several more nearby Thrall, and setting a Knight on fire. The second shot screamed a vow of vengeance against the Darkness, and tore through the burning Knight as though its armor was nothing more than paper, leaving a smoldering hole in its face. It too exploded and broke the line of Thrall and Acolytes. The third shot cried out that these creatures of Darkness shall be banished back from whence they came. The last shot sliced through a Knight's sword, and sent it flying into a wall where the blade was stuck into the seamless stone wall.

Pinkie bounced back over to her friends just in time to see Twilight tear the swordless Knight to pieces with a flaming blast from her palm. As it disintegrated, a ball of some unknown material dropped to the ground and began rolling away from her. Pinkie rushed for it and successfully grabbed it off the ground. "Twilight! Catch!"

The Warlock in question grabbed the ball of Darkness and felt her hand go numb. Go. Tear away the Darkness' power.

But Gordök was having absolutely none of that. He grabbed his chain in his hand and brought it around like a whip just over the ground in a sweeping motion, making everyone duck to avoid being slapped with the massive chain. Without waiting to see what he'd hit, he swung his immense hammer in an overhead arc, dropping it where he thought Twilight was. The ground trembled and a visible shockwave swept the dust and ash off the floor, forcing it slightly outwards towards the walls.

A maniacal laugh echoed through the forge, almost as wicked sounding as that of the Wizards. Atop the anvil, Twilight stood holding the sphere of dark energy in her hand up above her head triumphantly. She mocked the Darksmith, "Missed me, missed me, now GET ON ONE KNEE!"

With no further hesitation, she threw the Tomb Husk at the gate protecting the furnace, the sphere ignoring gravity and flying straight at its target as though guided by some sort of attraction. As it sailed through the air, the Wizards screamed and tried to fly close enough to catch it in time to protect the gate. But they could not reach it in time. And just for an added note of disrespect to the Hive, Twilight teleported to the Tomb Husk, catching it in her hand slamming it into the gate as though slam-dunking a basketball. The Wizards howled curses and began casting bolts of arc energy in her direction in a futile attempt to kill her for her transgression and tithe her death to their gods. Twilight was not foolish enough to stay in one place for too long, and immediately teleported back onto the anvil, next to Fluttershy.

As expected, Gordök's stance faltered, and he knelt down in a position commonly associated with a squire before they are knighted. The four Guardians on the ground began to focus their fire on the now vulnerable Darksmith. Unless the ground enemies got too close for comfort, they didn't even bother turning their sights down from Gordök's head. Rarity stopped firing only for a few moments, taking the time to lift herself into the air and craft a Nova Bomb in the palm of her hand. She let it fly, watching it soar towards the kneeling Hive entity and explode on contact. It clawed and snarled and tore at Gordök's armor and rotting flesh, warping the shape of his arms and hands and helm and chest.

As soon as the black hole collapsed upon itself once more, Rarity fell back to the ground and went back to firing as many rounds as her scout rifle could dish out. And then Applejack began charging, breaking formation for a few precious moments, her friends covering her approach, knowing what she was planning to do. A few unlucky Thrall and Acolytes dared to play chicken with her, and didn't live to regret their decision. The Titan ignored their existences just as easily as she ended them. She simply ducked in her arms and led her charge with her shoulder, plowing through the scrawny, tangled masses of decaying, ash-coated flesh.

She broke her charge with a flying leap, her insanely strong legs shoving her into the air and propelling her a solid ten meters before she landed back on the ground and slammed her furious fists into it. The familiar shockwave of arc energy erupted like a caldera, slamming into Gordök like pyroclastic flows, a sudden tangible force assaulting the Darksmith's body. The arc energy traveled as an electrical current through the chain embedded into his body, wreaking havoc on everything the thick, bony armor was meant to protect. Gordök couldn't help but roar in pain as the Light bashed him with all its might. As Applejack stood and began to back away from the Darksmith, she could have sworn she saw the thing cough up what looked to be blood.

Up on the anvil, Twilight and Fluttershy worked to keep Wizards away from the open, cold furnace. They couldn't risk another round of Gordök being an active combatant in this fight. One correctly placed hammer-blow, and someone would die, either becoming a bloodstain on the floor or a corpse with a few arm-width holes through them, and Twilight didn't yet have the power to bring them back. A pair of Acolytes leapt up onto the anvil, but were promptly kicked off by Fluttershy as she turned her shotgun's wrath upon a Wizard flying just barely too low, the weapon's pellets shredding the Wizard enough to kill it. As it crumbled and peeled into ash it screamed and tried to slash at Fluttershy's face, only for its claws to dissipate before it could complete the stroke.

Back on the ground, Rainbow unsheathed her blade and holstered her hand cannon, turning her gaze upon the waves of Thrall approaching. She smirked, embracing the challenge and tossed her knife into the air, arc energy snapping as it fell back into her hand, extending her blade and honing its edge beyond surgical precision. She lunged forwards and slashed away at the writhing mass of screaming corpses, their bodies fizzling out into energy as she cut them down, one by one. Knights roared in protest, but she was too nimble for their swords and boomers to be of any use. She cut them down with the same ease as she did Thralls and Acolytes.

A deep roar, definitely not belonging to Gordök, came in fortissimo above the shrill shrieks of Thrall. Off towards the anvil, Rainbow saw a massive abomination rise from the depths hidden by the dark water that coated parts of the floor. It turned its gaze upon her, and unleashed a stream of void bolts at her, making her jump and begin using her wings to avoid taking any hits. Her knife whispered, "You have but precious moments. Cleanse this world of its infection." She smiled and dropped into a suicidal dive, tucking her wings in and taking a free fall in her most aerodynamic position, her blade trailing behind her. A pair of the Ogre's eye blasts hit her, but she dared not let it push her off her course. Without warning, she spread her wings just enough to send her into a tight roll, her blade's light streaking behind her and crackling arc energy across her form.

The spin suddenly intensified and a deadly wave of arc energy sliced through the air around the dive-bombing pegasus, and connected with the festering flesh of the Ogre. It roared in torment as the energy seared its boiled and sickly skin, shearing through it and causing the monstrosity to burst into flames and rot away into ash.

Rainbow then spread her wings out and returned to normal flight, slowing down and banking right towards her friends to rejoin the assault against their main threat.

A familiar snap rang out, and Pinkie bounced out of line just as Rainbow rejoined it. The party mare bounced up and fired one shot into a Knight that wandered too close to Gordök. The solar energy round pierced the Knight's helm with ease, making it explode and sear the Darksmith's face and arms. The second shot flew long past Gordök up towards the anvil, piercing a Wizard that had slipped between the fire of both Twilight and Fluttershy. The shrieking creature exploded in a bright fireball, and became nothing more than ashes to never be scattered. The third shot was placed directly into Gordök's third eye, which drew a spray of blood and a deep roar of pain from the Darksmith. But as much as it wanted to fight back, it could not find the strength to stand. It was too cold for him to fight back.

Suddenly, everyone's visors began to lose resolution, a dense fog beginning to fill the room. The Hive seemed to rally at this, roaring battle cries and pumping their fists into the air victoriously. Applejack felt her heart sink, an almost familiar anxiety gnawing on her stomach. But for all she wanted to turn and run, she knew she had to face this with her friends. "Girls... Something's wrong..." she murmured.

"I feel it too," Rainbow replied.

Up on the anvil, Twilight began screaming bloody murder, collapsing down onto her knees and clutching her head in torment. Fluttershy tried to keep the Wizards at bay, but without the additional fire from Twilight, one managed to slip through and sacrifice itself to stoke the forge.

"Fire is hot! Fire is hot!" Fluttershy called in warning to her friends before turning her attention to Twilight to see if she could do anything to help.

They are Not, and they come to make you Not too.

Dicordant screams filled the room as Gordök lifted himself back onto his feet, his bloodied face enveloped by a dangerous scowl. A sphere of black matter appeared and began rapidly growing, followed by more, all scattered about the room. When they reached critical mass, they exploded and reformed into black creatures that looked almost like Hive, but they had only one glowing white eye. One that looked like a Knight roared and shot streams of fire from its eye, coating the ground in intense flames.

"Fire is hot!" Rainbow yelped, flapping her wings as she jumped back and away from the fires. She raised her hand cannon and put two shots into the thing's head, and watched as its entire body was dragged through a tiny wormhole where its eye had been. "Aim for the head!"

"Kill the Knights! We need to find that Tomb Husk!" Rarity hollered.

"I got it!" Pinkie squealed, bouncing over, already holding the ball of dark energy in her hands.

"Pinkie! Pass!" Rainbow called to her earth pony friend, holding her free hand up in the air. Pinkie threw the sphere towards the pegasus, watching and cheering when she caught it and took to the air again, making a flight path to the furnace's gate.

Gordök brought his hammer down, making a shockwave on the ground. But instead of the spikes extending forwards, they extended in two directions on either side of his hammer. Once they'd reached the edge of the room, more spikes began to pop through the floor as the two lines began to converge on each other in a sort of pincer maneuver. Pinkie warned loudly, "Girls! Hop skip jump!"

Rainbow weaved between bolts of arc magic from the Wizards and screaming boomer fire from Acolytes below, and solar spears fired from these shadows of Wizards. She managed to get close enough to the gate and tucked in her wings, diving down towards the furnace. Much like Twilight, she slammed the ball of dark energy into the gate, the metal protecting the flames ceasing to exist. She kept flying, pulling out her hand cannon and popping a few shots into the Wizards to stagger them and keep them away from the flames. As she passed the anvil on her way back to her friends, she gave a salute to Fluttershy, who was picking Twilight back up and helping her find the strength to keep fighting if only for a little while longer.

As soon as she landed on the ground, she pulled up her rocket launcher and fired both rockets in the tube at the open furnace, watching as the explosive warheads cut through the air and exploded, snuffing the furnace with arc light. Gordök roared and knelt again, hanging onto his hammer for dear life. "Now's our chance to finish him off, girls!"

A shadow of a Knight roared, but was silenced by a sniper shot from Rainbow before it could spew flames towards them. She turned her attention back to Gordök and reloaded her rocket launcher, pushing a pair of rockets into the tube and sealing the chamber. She hefted the weapon back onto her shoulder and aimed carefully at the Darksmith's face, letting one rocket lurch forth before resetting her aim and letting the other go as well. The first rocket connected with the massive enemy, searing its face with arc energy and knocking its head back with the blast's force. As soon as he pulled his head forward again, the second rocket repeated the process, knocking the helm off of his head, revealing his rotting and bleeding scalp.

Applejack brought her machine gun to bear on the new weak point, unleashing a furious and unforgiving storm of arc bullets at the Darksmith, watching them tear through the flesh and send blood spraying everywhere. The weapon kicked in her hands, but she'd been kicked harder. Her shoulder stayed in place as though none of the recoil existed. Her stream of bullets acted as tracers for her team to follow. Pinkie and Rainbow fired their rockets, and Rarity joined in placing as many heavy machine gun bullets into the enemy's exposed head as they could.

With one final roar, Gordök's body erupted into flames and he let go of his hammer. The flames soon engulfed every part of his being, and like every other Hive enemy, his flesh began to rot and peel into ash and dust. All except for one piece of him: a tooth embedded in his skull, which looked to be made of the same dark energy that the Tomb Husks were. All of the smaller enemies willingly tore out their own throats with either claws or some type of knife.

Twilight leapt down from the anvil and walked across the now silent room, the only sound being her footsteps through the odd dark liquid on the floor. Everyone watched as she approached the tooth that remained after the rest of Gordök had crumbled away into ashes. She stopped and knelt down to inspect the tooth, reaching out and picking it up in her hand and turning it over. It was not exactly a tooth. It had been forged to serve as one, but it was something else. It had a strange magic to it that Twilight couldn't understand, but she knew its power. "This is what I need. Let's go."

She stood back up and held the tooth up for her Ghost to store wherever it was their stored items went when the Ghosts took them. As they approached the door, Twilight lifted her hands and her horn began to glow. The doors parted just enough to pass through, and she kept walking without a word.

As they exited the Hive tunnels and resurfaced, they saw the Alicorn Stranger standing on the rim of the crater, clapping slowly, his cloak hanging down and covering over most of his form. Twilight didn't seem to notice the Stranger, or if she did she didn't care in her Discordant state. She kept walking, lifting herself up and over the rim of the crater, moving ever closer to her ship so she could finish the weapon waiting for her in the Tower.

Fluttershy clutched her chest as though in physical pain, but since she was behind everyone else, no one noticed. But as her team moved on, so did she. Her only concern was what would happen if she hurt Twilight when it came her turn, the same way Twilight had hurt her today.

Author's Note:

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Comments

[Mkchief34]

Taken...

[Sirjadan13]

All paths lead to Oryx, the Taken King himself...

[BureYaAkili]

I miss sepiks prime,
And no news will ever experience running a strike at level 8 like the beta testers