Chapter 6: Saving the Day
Ch.6 Saving the Day
The unmistakable sounds of screams coming from Ponyville set off the alarms in both Applejack's and Vergil's heads. With one glance at each other, they nodded and set forth down the path to Ponyville.
As they ran, the sound of screams only grew louder and more frequent until finally they reached Ponyville and saw the source of everypony’s fear: the town was overrun with timberwolves. Everywhere they turned their eyes to, the wooden creatures ran amok, prowling or dashing after anything resembling prey.
Applejack drew a sharp intake of breathe as she saw Big Macintosh trying in vain to shoo away three of them. She prepared to step in and help her brother, but Vergil was quicker to react: Tricking instantly in front of the red stallion, the half demon drew Yamato and slashed in a wide horizontal arc that left an afterimage much longer than the blade itself. The attacking beasts balked and collapsed simultaneously, a thick sap-like fluid running from the deep gash each had just below their chins.
Quickly bringing the blade down to its scabbard, Vergil wiped the muck off before sliding Yamato back in its rightful place. Applejack didn’t have time to marvel at Vergil’s sword skills, too concerned with running over to her brother’s side. “Big Mac! What’s goin on? Are ya hurt?” she voiced her concerns, already checking him for any sort of injury.
The stallion, in one of his few moments of levity, decided to answer with more than a simple yes or no. ”Ah’m fine, AJ, just a little shook up. Mah leg stings a little, but that was just 'coz ah tripped earlier. Nothin' serious.”
Applejack looked at him with scrutinizing eyes, but accepted the justification when he smiled reassuringly. Instead of dwelling on the issue of her brother, she began thinking about their situation.
The question had been on both Apple family members' minds, but Big Mac was the one to voice it. "What in the hay is goin on around here? Ah ain't never seen timberwolves come into town before!”
Neither Vergil nor Applejack had any idea, the half-devil because the one fight he'd had with the creatures was not enough to go on, and Applejack for the same reason Big Mac had just voiced. The fearful wolf-like plants had never set paws in the middle of the pony settlement, having stayed at the borders of the Everfree at the very most.
“Ah don’t know, Big Mac, but we gotta make sure everypony else is safe first!” the mare urged. With a reassuring nod from both of her companions, she ran off, with Big Mac and Vergil right behind her.
“Where are we going first?” Vergil asked, displaying no emotion whatsoever.
“Twilight’s place is closest, we should check on her first!” Quick to answer his question, Applejack kept running forward without turning to look at him. “Besides, if anypony’ll know what to do in a disaster like this, it’ll sure as sugar be her.”
“Alright, I assumed as much,” he replied.
As the trio advanced through the streets, which were surprisingly devoid of ponies, the few packs of timberwolves that tried to corner them were swiftly and easily dispatched by the biped of the trio while the others galloped ahead with barely a glance back after the first confrontation, in which Vergil ushered them on with the promise of catching up, which he did with no effort. In the end, they reached the library without breaking the overall high-speed stride.
The two ponies and one half devil saw the townsponies being ushered by Twilight and Rarity into the tree-building, which had been covered by a magenta bubble that they had no trouble phasing through. Upon seeing the three, Twilight quickly rushed over while the other unicorn entered with the final batch of rescuees. “Applejack! Big Mac! Vergil! Are you three injured at all?” she asked quickly.
“We're fine,” Applejack blurted out through somewhat labored breathing. “Big Mac twisted his leg, but it's mild. We jus' came here ta make sure everypony else is safe, since Ah reckoned you’d be the one helpin' with the evacuation.”
A sigh of relief came from Twilight as she beckoned the three inside. “It's not so bad: we have almost everypony in here, and everypony's lightly injured at most.”
Glancing around, Vergil attested to the truthfulness of the statement: saying the library was crowded was putting it very mildly, but all the ponies inside seemed fine, if scared out of their wits.
Applejack, in the meantime, caught on to an entirely different part of her friend's line. “Almost everypony?! Who's missin' and where are they?”
“Calm down, Applejack!” Twilight shushed her farmer friend. “I sent Rainbow Dash and a few other pegasi out to have a look already. I've already received reports, and the stranded ponies are okay.”
The earth pony of the duo took the hint to speak more softly, but her worry didn't diminish. “What about mah sis? And the girls?”
“Cheerilee is with them at the schoolhouse,” the unicorn was quick to respond "All the foals she teaches are in there with her.”
“Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy?”
“Pinkie and Rainbow are here with us, and Fluttershy is in her cottage. She's safe.”
A second sigh of relief came, this time from Applejack. “Ah'm mighty sorry, Twi. I didn’t mean to interrogate ya or make it sound like Ah don’t trust you, but… Ah'm worried about everypony.” Even after speaking her mind, Applejack couldn't wipe the expression of worry on her face until a purple hoof landed on her shoulder.
“Well, don’t worry, everypony is accounted for and a team of soldiers from Canterlot are on their way here now,” Twilight said with a kind smile. “This whole nightmare will be over in a couple of hours, before we even know it.”
Throughout this heartwarming scene, Vergil had been eyeing Big Macintosh with scrutinizing eyes, noticing that his back right leg was trembling a bit. As the conversation between the two Element bearers came to a closel, he voiced his observation. “Miss Applejack, take another look at your brother's leg.”
The son of Sparda had seen it. He could tell that there was blood lacing Big Mac’s dirtied red coat, but felt it best to divulge that information once they had a competent doctor or nurse available, given that the injury didn't hinder the pony's running speed enough for it to be a concern.
Big Mac was trying his best to hide it. He just wanted to get to the nurse treating injured ponies in the back of the library without making a fuss. “Big Mac! That ain't no sprained ankle!” Applejack shouted, turning all heads in the library towards them.
He huffed, turning to face his sister. “It aint nothin serious, one a them wolves jus' nipped at mah hoof.”
The farm mare wasn't convinced, craning her neck to look behind him. “Well it's somethin' if yer leg's tremblin' like that! You get your flank over to that nurse and get yerself the proper treatment!”
“That was the original idea,” the red pony deadpanned.
Through all the commotion and talking, Rainbow Dash went downstairs to help Spike clear up the basement. After some more minor bickering, Applejack followed her.
With all that had just happened, Twilight forgot about the half-devil standing behind her until he spoke again. “I’m impressed. Judging from the damage to the town, the wolves have only been here for fifteen minutes or less, and you already organized a safe house. Not only that, but you also manage to guide them all here without a single major injury,” Vergil stated, pacing around in honest admiration. Twilight Sparkle had just earned the Dark Slayer's respect: no matter your nature or powers, doing what she did was not an easy feat by any means.
The unicorn he was praising blushed pink in response. “Well… it pays to plan for these kinds of incidents.”
“Indeed…” the half demon muttered, tapping a hand on his chin theatrically. “The only unplanned factor here is me.”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that you are unplanned for, but…” Twilight's musing was cut off as she saw Vergil approach the library door and hang his coat near it. “W-W-Wait, where are you going?” she stuttered, surprised.
“I’m going to deal with the situation,” he responded coolly.
“... You can’t be serious!” the unicorn shrieked. “There's a reason that an entire squad of the Royal Guard is coming from Canterlot! Besides, there are more than just timberwolves out there; word from the pegasi is that a manticore is roaming the town as well!” She threw herself at Vergil's leg, hugging it as if to prevent him from moving. “If you go out there, you’ll be massacred!”
After a second of giving the pony an incredulous look, the half-devil calmly bent down and unhooked the forelegs from around his leg. After that, he lifted the deeply concerned pony by her barrel and set her back down on all fours. “You think this will be a massacre?” Vergil asked as he contemplated not only her, but the other ponies in the room, all of which had turned at the ruckus and were now eyeing him, before he turned back around and opened the door. “No…this is simply pest control.”
The door closed behind him. Twilight could only stand where she was, numb with shock, even when Rainbow Dash came up to tell everypony that the basement was clear. “Uh… Twilight, you alright?” The pegasus waved a hoof in front of her face, finally bringing the purple pony back to her senses.
“Rainbow Dash, Vergil just left the library!” Twilight said, alarmed. “Fly out there and make sure he gets back here! Drag him back if you have to!”
With a surprised gasp, Rainbow Dash rocketed out the door and into the air. Soaring up in a spiral to gain altitude faster, the brash mare reached the top of the bubble around the library and began to look for any signs of the human, but no matter where she turned her eyes to, she couldn't see a shadow of his presence. She glided back into the library and landed before Twilight, only able to shake her head.
“Oh no no no no no no no!” The constant worry and anxiety made Twilight begin pacing back and forth aimlessly. During one of her laps, she glanced over at Vergil’s coat and got an idea. She turned to Rainbow Dash she asked her, “Get the girls and come to the attic, there shouldn’t be any other ponies up there.”
“Roger!” Rainbow Dash saluted and blazed past the other ponies down to the basement after Applejack. In the meantime, Twilight cantered upstairs, with Vergil’s coat following right behind her, wrapped in a blanket of purple energy. The idea was to use a location spell on Vergil using his coat as a baseline, but the spell had a trigonometric complication that limited its range from ground level. She had to be as high as possible for increased chance of success.
“Please Vergil… please be safe,” she silently pleaded to herself. She did not want to do the search and only find a corpse.
Meanwhile, the half-devil in question had been wandering around the farther reaches of thje town for almost five minutes, and so far he had only come across a single pack of three wolves. The town was oddly quiet, considering the fact that only moments ago he had seen the fracas of both the beasts and the ponies they were chasing.
Turning around the corner of a shop of some sorts, he turned to face the town square, and was not disappointed: numerous timberwolves were scattered about, rummaging through trash bins and scratching on doors. All heads turned to him when they heard the sharp sound of a blade being drawn, and the wolves began to growl and approach the intruder. Looking at the many creatures making their way towards him, Vergil smirked faintly. “This may be fun.”
Immediately, he dashed ahead without giving the first wave of timberwolves a second to attack. Yamato was a blur through the air as its wielder dashed in a straight line right into the center of the flock of Everfree monsters, cutting and slashing air and animated wood alike, too fast and resolute for any successful retaliation to take place. The floor became littered with what could pass easily as forest debris, but the forest creatures weren't intimidated.
Without even thinking, Vergil eased back slightly and grabbed the ever-sheathed daito, his hand charging energy into it. A cone of air in front of the Dark Slayer twisted on his whim into spherical distortions as he sliced through space itself with Judgement Cut, decimating the entire second wave with three back-to-back attacks.
With the decimation of yet another large fraction of the pack, some of the wolves began running back to the forest with their wooden tails between their legs. Not all left, however:
three much bigger timberwolves stayed behind, ready to pounce as they snarled angrily at the half-breed. He knew what they were and what they were doing: they were the alphas, covering the retreat of their minor brethren. “Very noble of you, but the self-sacrifice of scum is worth nothing,” he scoffed, calmly walking towards the creatures. At the bark of one, they charged, and Vergil did the same, but instead of sprinting like they did, he grabbed Yamato's hilt and zipped on the ground, unleashing the blade as he did so. “Die,” he said in a venomous monotone during the Rapid Slash, even as the many dimensional cuts accompanying his movement tore his foes to chunks that flew through the air.
Believing the area to be secure, Vergil turned to leave the desolate town square, but stopped for a moment and looked behind himself. He couldn’t help but feel as if someone was watching him, even though there was no one nearby, what with the few life signatures he could sense being behind barred doors. Putting the sensation in the backburner, the son of Sparda left the town square. He had work to do still; Twilight had mentioned a manticore being among the invaders, and he doubted that, if the creature was correspondent to its myth on Earth, it would leave on its own without carnage.
Meanwhile, the five Elements taking refuge in the library were in the attic, starring slackjawed at the images of the white haired man easily cutting through the whole horde of the invading plant-animals. The original idea was to find the reckless human, teleport in and nab him back into the library as soon as he was found, though that plan was tossed out the window when the projection of the spell formed, already showing him doing battle to the timberwolves.
“He… he took out over thirty timberwolves in forty seconds!” Twilight said with a look of pure astonishment that reflected on her voice.
The long silence that ensued was broken by Applejack. “On our way here, he cut up at least ten of them woodchips.”
This statement surprised the librarian even more. “Rainbow Dash,” she said, turning to the pony in question, “how many timberwolves did you count when you guys were scouting out from the sky?”
Dash shook her head to animate herself from the stupor she'd fallen into. “Uh, I counted around fifty or so.”
Twilight nodded. “I saw at least fourteen wolves run away from Vergil, which means that was all of them... unless we miscounted.”
The room lit up in discussion, though the conversation stopped abruptly when Pinkie Pie pointed to the still-active location spell. “Hey girls, look, it's Fluttershy!”
Upon hearing this statement, all of the girls quickly spun to face the ethereal screen.
A roar set Vergil on the right track a few minutes after he began a sweep of the outskirts, soon after he determined the “urban” zone of Ponyville was clear of any threats. Following the sound brought Vergil to a small indentation on the edge of the Everfree Forest, a clear patch of ground that was home to a small cottage.
The home of the quiet animal lover he had been introduced to was being guarded by what appeared to be a small white rabbit, who stood steadfast in the way of a lion with bat wings and a scorpion tail. Vergil would eat one of Dante's bullets if that wasn't the manticore Twilight had mentioned.
Showing that it was ready to dine, the manticore licked its lips and readied itself to pounce on the morsel before it, but was taken off guard by a phrase Vergil had heard a decent amount in his life. “How dare you!” Fluttershy yelled as she closed in on the manticore, staring at it with a look of pure anger. “We all have an agreement that everyone will leave each other alone here! Do you think you can just come in and gobble up the poor defenseless animals who are just trying to live life safely here? You should be ashamed of yourself!”
Much to the halfling's surprise, the manticore reeled back in shock, a look of guilt plastered on its face, before it dissipated in a flash and the beast turned to look back at Flutershy, this time threateningly.
For Fluttershy this was truly a frightening moment, the first time in her life that ‘the stare’ had not worked. The brave face Fluttershy put on during her rare moments of anger quickly disappeared and, with her wings locked by the fear, she grabbed Angel and threw him on her back, breaking out on a frantic gallop as soon as he was settled. There was no way she could outrun a manticore, but whe wasn't going to make it easy. She had to protect her closest animal friend.
As soon as she began moving, Fluttershy heard a sound from afar, one she could only describe as 'crystalline magic'. She was far too preoccupied with running away from the predator right at her flank for curiosity to goad her into looking. The same sound rang out again, this time much closer, and the clatter of the manticore's paws ceased. She felt a tug on her mane, from Angel no doubt, and that was finally enough to make her stop and turn back.
As she had figured out, the manticore had stopped chasing her. To her surprise, it was staring confusedly at a spinning ring of... were those swords? A slightly squinted look confirmed it: they were swords, seemingly made of crystal, circling it. The manticore sniffed at the air and, growling, turned to one side. She turned to look as well, and her eyes were greeted with the image of a white-haired biped standing calmly, almost relaxed, staring stone-faced at the fearsome monster. “Your move,” Vergil said condescendingly, his voice devoid of emotion.
The provocation triggered the manticore's rage, and it broke out full speed towards the human. As it did, something happened, something that Fluttershy would never forget: the swords stopped circling for a fraction of a second and, simultaneously, thrust themselves into the manticore's body, shattering violently as they came to a stop embedded guard-deep into its flesh.
Now Fluttershy, being the pony whom she was, did the only thing she could in this situation:
She fainted.
This stories been updated?
I am truly sorry about talking so long it appears that the errant cosmos works against me.
To be honest I lost motivation to work on this story for a while, i had assumed it wouldnt take this long to get this chapter out but oh well, better late than never i suppose.
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Seems Twilight is either starting to have a thing for Vergil or just plain worried....
2026265 Ponies being ponies, man. She's just concerned and expressing it like ponies do.
It's 2013 friend. Y live been gone for quite awhile.
Holy shit fucking I pad and auto correct. I meant its 2013 you've been gone for quite awhile.
2032989 Author's notes are right up there.
Vergil is best pony...err...devil....human...nephilim...yeah, we'll go with that.
2075707 He's a Nephilim only in the AU DmC. This is the Vergil from 3, so he's just an "ordinary" human-demon half-breed.
2100200 A real Nephilim is half human half devil, so no, he's still nephilim, just no one calls him that. As much as I love DmC, I have no idea why they did that, and it kinda bothers me.
2100257 In any case, it's a denomination exclusive to the AU, so it doesn't apply here. Don't expect him to refer to himself or be referred to as such.
2100261 Think whatever you want.
2100274 Hey, why so touchy? Jeeze, lighten up.
2100312 Trust me, If I was being touchy I'd resort to petty insults. If you think I was being mean, I'm sorry, I didn't think my comment would be read that way. /)
Why is vergil associating with ponies.
2226942 Vergil is level-headed, he always thinks in chapter 1 he thought it best to earn their trust
when will the next chapter come out?
2100257
Someone didn't do their research.
A Nephilim is the offspring of an Angel and Human.
The REAL Dante and Vergil are Cambions in all technicality.
Cambions being the children of a human mother and demon father.
The More You Know.
Also DmC can go eat shit for failing mythology 101
5261166 Yup, I'm clearly wrong. Guess my sources weren't very good, shoulda double checked em.
5265442
Honest mistake. Didnt mean to come off as mean spirited
Not bad. Not bad at all.
I love et! You need to write moar! MOAR! >:D
863493 I suggest you add this to "game crossovers" you may get more to see this becuse of that. but hey its your choice.
>>Damn IT!! Hate when this happens! Author writes a good story they just disappear! I know alot of them have reasons, but still... Good stories to be abandoned. *sigh*
Foolishness, manticore. Foolishness.
Update please.
Kind of a shame that this story was left hanging.
Was pretty interested in it, especially with seeing what Luna or Spike might do in this scenario with Vergil being there.