Kingdom in Shadows

by Istaran

Chapter 15: Within The Giant

Sky Ranger began to drag herself out from under the skull of the behemoth she had slain, inch by inch. She took her time, not wanting to draw attention to herself before she was ready to rejoin the fray, but it was all for naught. Before her eyes had even cleared the obstruction, a powerful jaw clamped around her left forehoof, and ripped her free, only to slam her back into the ground a moment later.

The world was pain for a few brief moments before she thought to suppress it, letting the Kingsblood cut off her physical sensations for the moment. The behemoth was still slamming her back and forth when she managed to punch it with her right hoof. It wasn't hard enough to do real damage, but it did, surprisingly, get the monster to drop her for the moment.

"You're not afraid," the beast said. It could speak? It toward over her prone form, glowering at her with clear menace in its eyes, backed by about 2 tons of rippling black furred muscle, sharp blood soaked teeth, and claws like swords. "You should be."

"Of what? You? You've already lost. Your only hope now is to beg forgiveness and swear your loyalty to my king," Sky spat back. She had to act fast to dodge another oncoming behemoth, this one more elephantine in appearance, and less interested in a mere pegasus on the battlefield.

The behemoth laughed, a jackal-like hysteria that slowly faded into more normal laughter, if unreasonably deep and loud. "Such bravado, there may be a place for you among us. If you can survive the journey!"

The beast snapped at her, but injured though she was, Sky was still nimble enough to lurch out of the way. Bite after bite failed to connect, but the mare was barely keeping pace, losing fur as teeth grazed through her pelt time and time again. She should have been scared. It was pissing him off, making him careless, but there wasn't much he had to be careful about at the moment. Her friends didn't even bother trying to save her!

[You're sure?] Bardrick asked again, mentally, eyeing the beast even as he brought his spear to bear against another, one that had smashed into the crystal walls, sending cracks through its structure with the impact. It wasn't the first to reach the walls... the first head died from massive head trauma from slamming into the walls at full speed, leaving the tiniest trace of a crack behind, while the black mists that were its remains had seeped out, only to be absorbed by the next in line, making it bigger and even more of a problem.

Top Flight was doing his best with one of the Sin Eaters, ripping into the biggest, scariest behemoths with the blade that shredded their very essence, leaving less and less behind with each blow, but he had to switch from target to target to leave any one of the growing points of vulnerability from becoming an all out breach, and it was becoming woefully inadequate.

[I've got this,] Sky Ranger confirmed. [You can't spare the time.] Refocusing on the behemoth, she gave a vicious grin. "I can take anything you can throw at me, but you? I could kill you just by bleeding on you," she said, waving her mangled stump at him to emphasize her point. "Now why don't you just sit here and think about what you've done?" A few more dodges and she had managed to get clear enough to take flight.

Or at least attempt it. The behemoth caught her hind hooves and brought her back down in a brutal belly-flop. Before she could try again he had her pinned under his clawed paw.

Looking up at him, she mocked. "Well if you want me that bad, it's twenty bits an hour. And yes you pay for the whole hour even if you finish in a minute," she said, wiggling her rump as much as she could under the circumstances.

The behemoth paused, mind reeling a bit at the sudden shift of conversation. Even if he weren't quite obviously her mortal enemy, wouldn't the size difference alone make anything impossible? However, it didn't hold him for long, and soon he was taking the time to snap the bones in each wing with his powerful jaws, ensuring there would be no repeat of her last escape.

He turned her onto her back then, pinning her again, and leaning in like he was going to kiss her. Black mist began pouring from his mouth, making Sky more than a little concerned, before he passed out on top of her, leaving her to hold her breath tightly as the mist washed over her face. "Just like a stallion..." she said derisively when the air was clear enough to speak.

---

Zero Waste looked around the dark shadowy roiling void with concern. The crystal earth pony was rather disoriented, his memories, all but gone. That void... that roiling shadow. It had eaten them, he thought. All but the most recent... those were its memories in the first place, not his own. He struggled to remember any of them, but only got a vague impression of power, strength, and confidence. He had been so confident just a second ago, it felt.

Then came the writing. Green glowing sigils in an unfamiliar script, flowing down through the air in ever shifting non-patterns. They worried him, but they were so much closer and less daunting than the roiling darkness, he dared to reach out a hoof to try to touch one.

Doing so flooded him with knowledge. He now knew an awful lot about agriculture he hadn't imagined. Oddly, nothing about crystal berries, or other produce native to his homeland. More about the softer, rounder fair found in Equestria to the south. Pulling his hoof away, he lost the feeling of it being pushed into the forefront of his mind, but he didn't forget what he had just learned.

It hadn't hurt, so he tried it a few more times, learning not only various facts of dubious relevance, but also witnessing a few scenes from somepony's life. Each scene was viewed at once from several perspectives, so that it took a few tries to figure out which was the central figure in it. It was the whore, he realized. Former whore by the later scenes. He learned of her painful past, and her new beginnings. As he saw her induction into the Itinerant Kingdom, he became aware of the Kingsblood, and it's nature, a web of information that was overwhelming to think about, as each thought brought more knowledge with it.

He backed off, resting his mind a moment in the strange environment he found himself in. The fever dream. He was being inducted himself? How? Why?

A massive pillar of green sigils floated down from the darkness. His answer, no doubt. He needed some time to steel himself before he could dare to touch it. But in the end, he had to know.

This scene had only one view. It was looking down from on high, toward a pair of hooves struggling to pull their owner out from under a massive beast's crushed skull. As he watched himself wreak unspeakable violence on the mare before him, the one he had come to know, at least a little, from the offered memories, he collapsed, wretching. He deserved to die, after what he had done. He would do it himself, if he could figure out how.

"We've all been touched by darkness. Most done things we wish weren't part of our stories," the mare said from behind him. When Zero turned to her, he gasped, shocked to see her whole, much less approaching with a welcoming smile. "Join us. You haven't been devoured by the shadow entirely yet. You can still speak. You can still think. And you can still become one of the Itinerant Kingdom."

"You could forgive me, that easily, Apple Core?" he said with shock. "I don't... I don't deserve it."

"That's what grace is for. And it's 'Sky Ranger' now. I'm not a weak defenseless whore anymore. And you don't have to be a ruthless, savage monster anymore. Join us!"

"NO!" the darkness yelled, rocking the false reality around them, and shattering the little green sigils.

Zero cringed, then made up his mind. "I'll do it," he declared, glaring up at the darkness in defiance rather than looking at Sky. "What do I have to do?"

"Well, it'd be great if you could..." Sky began, before realizing the enormity of the problem and shaking her head. "No, you can't overcome the shadow within you that easily. But we can help. Just... just sleep for now. I've got to get back into the fight. It's enough that you're out of it."

"I... alright, but I..." Zero uttered, looking at the malevolent darkness, and the green sigils that were beginning to reappear. "Must I be alone though?"

"I'll keep you company," said a third voice, as a filly faded into view. Despite her apparent youth, she carried herself with more confidence than a Princess, and bore a cutie mark depicting a pair of overlapping crescent moons. "I can spare the thought to walk you through this, even with the battle going on. My new name is Nightmare Core, but don't worry, it's mostly ironic. I'll keep you thoughts safe and nightmare free. But first let's figure out what your new name should be."

Comments

[Dravkwn]

Core version of best Princess of the Night(May she fill all our dreams with pony related fun and keep our nightmares on the run)

[Istaran]

7073439

Your comment made me go back and realize Scattered Seeds was missing a chapter on Nightmare Core. Written! And tied in with Friends Like These.