Chapter 18 - התחיתי
With a deafening crack, a wall of energy rushed out from the center of the arch, sweeping across the room and scattering bodies out of its way. Blade didn’t even have time to yell before it crashed into her, lifting her from her feet and sending her tumbling through the air. She slammed into the wall, her wings splayed out beneath her, her breath rushing from her body. She gasped as she dropped to the ground, her head ringing, her lungs struggling for air. Around her she could see the rest of her team doing the same, as well as the various members of the cult. The only one who appeared unaffected was Sagis, who was standing in front of the portal, his back to her. She didn’t need to see his face to know there was nothing but a look of awe on it.
Another shockwave rippled out from the center of the arch, this one a grey glow that reminded her of fog. She moved to rise as the glowing energy swept over her … and then froze as every muscle in her body locked, every feather on her ruff standing on end as something rippled through her.
Fear. The distant, analytical part of her mind knew what it was. But it was fear like she’d never felt before. Fear beyond the time she’d thought she was going to die during training, fear beyond the time she’d thought her wing was crippled, fear beyond the time she first realized what her last employer had been up to. She was shaking now, recoiling back and trying to curl her body up against the wall, completely unable to control herself as her breath came hard and fast. Images, feelings—all of them were flashing through her mind without control, each more terrible than the last.
And all through it, she knew. Whatever was coming out of the gleaming white wall of energy that stretched between the two sides of the arch, she feared it more than anything she’d ever known in her entire life.
The portal was rippling now, the surface distorting like water as something passed through its lower edges. She wanted to look away, but every instinct in her body was screaming that to look away would mean she would die, or worse. She was a griffon, she had to see it head on. No matter how horrifying it was.
A paw broke through the surface of the portal, followed by a shin and then a leg that looked a bit like the leg of a diamond dog, though longer and rippling with lean muscle under its shiny black coat. It was clad in light but ornate golden armor that gleamed under the light of the portal. It touched against the stone and Blade found herself pushing her back up against the wall, unconsciously trying to push herself away from the being coming through.
A hand passed through next, wrapped around a long, grey, metal staff almost as tall as she was long. It moved forward before settling on the ground some distance ahead of the foot with a dull click. Then it tilted, and the portal trembled as if trying to hold back whatever it was containing. The white energy bulged as its occupant pressed against it … and then with a faint slurp that almost sounded like something passing through water, it stepped out.
The figure looked around the room, a satisfied but grim smile on his face, as if he was mildly amused by the tableau spread out before him. Sagis had taken several steps back in shock, his eyes wide with disbelief as he stared up at the being.
I tried to warn you, some part of Blade’s mind said as she stared at the individual. Her conscious mind was almost gibbering now. It wanted nothing more than to be as far away from this individual as possible.
He was tall, whoever he was, taller than even Barnabas, but lean and trim. The black of his obsidian coat almost gleamed under the lights, his musculature so defined that his body could have been carved from the very stone his color resembled. His chest was bare, a simple white cloth wrapped around his waist and held in place by some golden belt. He was wearing greaves on his arms as well as his legs—the golden armor she’d noticed earlier. Only now she could see that there was more on the back of his hands, and even on the tops of his clawed fingers. And his head … he was wearing some sort of swept-back headdress, something that looked like a hat but widened until it almost looked like a mane-cut. It was made of gold too, though whitened.
Jackal, she realized as she took in the long muzzle, the tall, pointed ears that added almost another foot to his already impressive height, and the thin, angular face. But ordinary jackals didn’t look like this. She’d seen pictures of them. They were smaller than diamond dogs, not taller than them. And definitely not slightly taller than a minotaur. Which meant …
Oh no … She knew who this was. She’d seen him mentioned in history texts. Sagis, you fool. She still couldn’t move towards the figure, do anything but try to move away. Only now her conscious mind agreed with the rest of her. No!
The figure turned his head without speaking, taking in the whole of the room as his smile widened. Thrashing, panicking figures froze one after another as the figure’s gaze panned over them. Then his eyes were on her, his smile widening even further, and she felt her body lock, her mind screaming at her to get away. Run! Run run run run run! But she couldn’t. Her entire body was locked in place, frozen with panicked terror.
“Well,” the figure said after a moment. He had a strange accent, his pronunciation falling on the letters wrong, as if it were the first time he’d spoken the language. He flexed his arms outward, arching his back. “I’ve get to say … No …” He cocked his head to one side, his grin widening as he seemed to contemplate his words. “No, got to say.” His chuckle at the mistake felt the same as his grin—completely devoid of care or interest in anyone around him, like he was laughing only for his own benefit, the joke incomprehensible to everyone around him.
“I’ve got to say,” he said again, rolling his shoulders back, spinning his staff in one hand. “It is good to get out of there.”
“You’re …” Sagis’s voice seemed on the edge of breaking. “You’re not King Sombra.”
“You are right,” the jackal said, pointing one finger at Sagis while still spinning his staff with the other. “Finally figured that one out, did you? Sands, you’re smart. Makes me feel like I wasted my time bothering with all the instructions written everywhere!” He spread his hands, turning as he looked at the rest of the room around him. “I mean, you morons couldn’t even be bothered to read the stuff you did excavate. Nope.” He shook his head, crouching in front of Sagis so that he was almost at head level. “You’re just so hung up on your own superiority, you didn’t even stop to think that maybe, just maybe, some stupid unicorn king who died a thousand years ago wouldn’t be buried in a sealed sub-dimension pocket that’s been closed for almost two-thousand years!” He grabbed Sagis’s horn in one hand as he spoke, twisting the unicorn cult leader’s head down to the stone. “I get myself sealed away, enact this whole plan, and this is what I get to wake me up?”
He shook his head again as he let go of the unicorn, rising once more and turning to look back at the portal as it began to flicker. “But then again,” he said, holding up an empty palm towards the portal. “You did let me out, so, I suppose killing you probably shouldn’t be on the table.” The portal rippled once more, a piece of crystal floating out and into his grasp, a piece that Blade recognized as one identical to the fragment she’d been sent to retrieve.
“There you are.” The jackal turned back towards Sagis, smiling as the fragment floated up behind one of his shoulders before coming to a stop slightly behind and above him. The portal snapped out, the faint hum fading as the whitish-grey light vanished. It was simply a stone arch once more.
“And now the other one …” A second fragment drifted into the air from out of Sagis’s robes, the cult leader’s eyes going wide as it took up a position behind the jackal’s other shoulder. “Good.”
“You …” Sagis said, his voice shaky but gaining confidence. “That is King Sombra’s—”
“Careful, Sagis.” The slightly humorous tone that had been in the figure’s voice earlier had vanished completely, replaced by cold, calculating steel. “You might want to think a bit more before finishing that sentence. I’ve been in your mind. On the top fringes of it, anyway.”
“The scanning?” Sagis said, his eyes widening again.
“Of course,” came the response. “How do you think I know your language? My own little precaution, built into my vault for whenever someone stumbled on my little project.” He smiled, and the sight of it sent a shiver down Blade’s spine. It was not a nice smile. “I’ve been watching you—all of you—every moment you’ve been in here. Poking over your minds, keeping an eye on things while you worked.”
“Who …” Sagis shook his head. “I …”
“You don’t know,” the figure’s shoulder drooped in mock disappointment. “All these weeks digging my vault out of the ice and charging up the key I made …” He shook his head. “I’m just going to stop listing my disappointments with you now, Sagis,” he said, his voice firm once more. “I realize you mortals have short memories, but this is embarrassing. So much for the ‘ruler of the ice’ you kept envisioning yourself as, at the side of your king?” He let out a long, cruel laugh, his eyes looking over the rest of the room. “But I think I can help you out.”
“You know—” Sagis began.
“Stop. Talking.” Sagis went silent.
Blade could feel her limbs now, not in the sense that they’d gone numb, but in the way that they were starting to move under her own command once more. The fear was beginning to fade, her mind moving from gibbering panic to reason. She managed to pull her eyes away from the ancient horror atop the vault as something shifted against the stone, and saw Barnabas struggling to push himself up.
“Ah ah,” The jackal rapped his staff against the stone, and another wall of grey mist rushed out in all directions, slamming everyone in the room back. A few screams echoed across the room, but Blade couldn’t find it in herself to join them as once again her body locked up, every fearful moment she’d ever faced running through her mind.
“This group was close to figuring it out,” the jackal said, waving a hand in her direction. “Then again, judging from what I saw in their minds, they wouldn’t have let me out, which is an amusing bit of irony in and of itself, considering who’s leading them.” He chuckled again and then shrugged.
“Anyway,” he said, looking down at Sagis. “You’ve got a choice now. See, I’ve been watching everything that goes on in here, so I know that your fleet is probably going to lose this battle they’re having right now. They might have already. But you have an airship, a personal one, and I need it. So here’s how it’s going to go.” A long, shimmering, blue, translucent scythe blade grew out of the top of his staff, and the jackal tapped one finger against it idly, a faint ring echoing off of the blade. “You can join me, and get what you’ve always wanted … or I can kill you and see if your second in command is more ameable.”
He snapped forward, moving faster than almost anyone Blade had ever seen save Alchemy. “And don’t lie to me,” he said, the edge of the blade held just up against the unicorn’s throat. “I’ve looked inside your mind, Sagis. And I know you’ve never really cared much for this ‘King Sombra’ of yours.” His head tilted to one side, a cold smile moving across his face. “You care about what really matters: Power. That’s why you rose to the top of the cult. That’s why you wanted to bring back this old, crusty king.” The scythe twitched, Sagis flinching as the blade moved against his neck. “You value power. And you’re in luck, Sagis, because so do I. Because in the end, that’s all that matters.”
“It’s different for you, of course,” he said, smirking as he stepped back, sending the scythe spinning through the air with casual ease. “You’re mortal. Power is short lived. When you’re an immortal? A demigod? Power is all there is. All that matters is the game of taking it from others.” He grinned, baring sharp, long, white teeth. “So, Sagis,” he said, looking down at the unicorn. “Do you want power? Or do you want to die like a worm and be left for some archaeologist to find a thousand years from now?”
‘I … I …”
“Think quickly. I need to be moving soon.” The jackal looked up towards the ceiling of the chamber. “And it would be much quicker if I didn’t need to terrify your airship crew into submission first.”
“They’re not—”
“Last warning. I’ve seen your mind, Sagis. I know you had your personal airship held in reserve and crewed in case you needed to beat a hasty retreat. In fact, one of the only reasons I’m giving you this offer right now is because I value that sort of initiative. Others would call it cowardice, but I call it planning, so I know you do have a brain in there, despite your apparent lack of being able to understand who I am.”
His gaze shifted to Blade, and she felt her body freeze, lock up as his cold, purple eyes met hers. “This one knows,” he said, chuckling. “She was suspicious, and she figured it out. Ironic, like I said, considering that her race built me this place in the first place. But she knows.”
He turned back toward Sagis, running his eyes over the red-coated unicorn and then the gibbering, shivering cultists behind him. “I,” he said, his voice echoing around the room, “am Anubis.”
No. She hadn’t wanted to be right. She’d wanted to be wrong so badly. She had been afraid of being right. Afraid of being wrong, too, thanks to the magic that was gripping her.
“One of the greatest of the immortals,” Anubis continued, offering Sagis a mocking bow. “Ruler of the jackal race—not that they were very useful. But they earned their just reward in the end.” He smirked, as if the devastation of an entire species was something he could be amused by. “And, especially given how my useless charges went out of this world … ” He waved his hand at a pile of bones shoved together in the corner of the room. The bones began to rattle as a grey mist seeped across them, and then they rose, snapping together with rattling clicks, spinning around one another as they joined. A moment later they ceased, and a griffon skeleton rose from the ground, standing at attention with its shoulder straight, misshapen wings outstretched. It was missing a few pieces, but that somehow made it all the more ominous.
“Ruler of the dead,” Anubis finished, waving his hand across the room. More clicks filled the room, three skeletons pulling themselves together and standing at attention.
The fear was fading. Blade could feel it sliding away, becoming less and less oppressive. The flashes of horror were vanishing. It’s only magic! her mind was shouting. Just magic! Resist it!
The four skeletons began to march across the room, the click of their bones hitting the stone adding a macabre percussion to their movements. They formed up behind the jackal, forming an honor guard position.
“So?” Anubis asked, looking down at Sagis. “Do you want power?”
Sagis’s expression had shifted. There was still fear in his eyes, but there was something else, too. Hunger. “Yes,” he said, his voice soft at first, but then louder. “Yes … Lord Anubis.”
“Excellent,” Anubis said, rapping his staff once more against the ground. Blade didn’t even have time to mentally scream before the grey mist splashed over her once more, and she threw her head back, striking it against the stone. Stars erupted across her vision.
Still, the pain distracted from the fear. Maybe it was her body getting used to the assault, or the throbbing in her head … or maybe animating the skeletons had drained the immortal and he was trying to hide it, but the fear wave felt weaker.
“I’ve excluded your minions from my influence,” Anubis said, striding up to the edge of the platform as several of the cultists began to rise. “They’ll be ready to serve you again, and by extension, me, as soon as they can stand.”
“You imposter,” one of the rising mages said. “King Sombra will—”
The scythe flashed, the blade a blue, blurring line as Anubis whipped it through the air and down below the unicorn before snapping it up. The cultist’s body slumped back, the head falling free. Blood pooled on the stone.
“Anyone else?” Anubis asked, his staff still extended. A few of the cultists shook their heads, and the immortal grinned.
“Excellent,” he said, twirling the staff, the blade flickering out of existence. Blade forced her leg to move, feeling coming back into her limbs. There was a shuffling sound on the stone beside her and—
“Don’t,” Anubis said, pointing his staff at Barnabas as the minotaur began to rise. An orb of grey mist spat out of the end, slamming the minotaur in the chest and throwing him back against the stone. He slumped, though Blade could see him shaking.
“I don’t have any particular fight with you five at the moment,’ Anubis said. “Your enemy is defeated … although …” He glanced at the fragment floating behind his shoulder. “I don’t know who hired you,” he said, his eyes locking with hers. “But you should know it’s not worth it. Go home, little griffon. You can’t fight a demigod.”
Anubis turned and strode across the room, his staff ringing against the stone. He came to a stop above the key. “And since I might need this …” He bent down and wrapped one hand around the key’s handle, tugging it free and lifting it into the air. “Hold this,” he said, tossing it towards Sagis. The unicorn caught it with his magic.
Barnabas shifted again. It’s his resistance, Blade thought as the minotaur pushed himself up on one hoof. He’s adapting. She could see his veins standing out.
It wasn’t just him either. Despite her quivering terror, she could move her foreleg now. Just another few moments and …
“Come,” Anubis said, stepping towards the door. “We need to be moving before that fleet breaks through your shield and wrecks everything.” The rest of the cult formed up behind him, Sagis along walking by the immortal’s side. “We’ll pick up any survivors along—”
With a yell, Barnabas lunged forward, his axe coming up as he barreled straight for Sagis, bashing one of the skeletons aside with his shoulder. “For my—”
Anubis moved, a blade snapping to life on each end of his staff as it twirled through the air. Barnabas stumbled as the spinning weapon cut red tracks across his thighs and then his arms, dropping his axe with a strangled gurgle as Anubis’s other hand caught him by the throat.
“I warned you,” Anubis said, shoving the weakened minotaur back and glaring at him as the scythe darted once more, dancing through the air. Blade tried to get up, but her body still wasn’t obeying her commands fully, and she just pushed herself up and then fell to her chest once more.
“But no,” Anubis said, his scythe cutting through Barnabas’s tendons and sending him falling to his hands and knees. “You wouldn’t.” One of Barnabas’s hands slid out, wrapping around the hilt of his greataxe.
“And now you’re going to pay,” Anubis said as Barnabas reared back, lifting the axe up in the air with one hand, a wordless yell echoing through the chamber. The scythe flashed, Barnabas’s yell ending in a strangled croak as the blade cut across his upraised arm, and then, smirking, Anubis spun the weapon around his arm and stepped forward, burying the blade in the minotaur’s chest.
“Nooooo!” Frost’s scream echoed through the chamber, an almost primal cry of pain as Barnabas’s body jerked back, half of the translucent-blue blade poking from his back. The greataxe clattered to the floor as the minotaur’s arms went limp.
“You should have listened,” Anubis said, pulling his scythe free and looking down at Barnabas, the same, faint smirk still on his face. “But you didn’t, and now you’re dead.” He lifted his foot and planted it on the minotaur’s chest, giving him an almost casual shove backwards. Barnabas’s limp body tumbled to the ground.
Rage filled Blade as the immortal turned and motioned for the cultists to move through the doorway, and she pushed against the force that was keeping her body stunned, summoning all her anger into one single drive.
Stop him!
“Sorry,” Anubis said, shrugging as the twin blades of his scythe vanished. “And since I can guess where your minds are all going even without being able to scan them …” He turned and looked towards the four skeletons.
“Kill them all!” he said as he turned and strode out of room. Bones clacked against one another as the four constructs turned towards them and began to stride forward.
Come on! Blade thought, pushing herself up. Her body was still shaking, but it was hers! Come on Blade, you can do this! In a fit of desperations she whipped one of her claws up and pulled it across her chest.
The pain helped, and with a scream, the fear that had gripped her body breaking like a glass cage, she leapt forward as one of the skeletons placed its talons across Barnabas’s throat.
She hit it like a missile, her scream echoing across the room as she bowled it over. Rather than pulling apart, the bones held, and she jerked back as it lashed out at her with talons of its own, dirty and yellowed after a thousand-plus years in the ice. There was a cloying scent about it, like something slimy and damp.
You might have talons, she thought as she slammed her claws into its skull, the brittle, aged bone cracking under the impact. But I have—whoa!
The skeleton jerked its head, tugging her off balance before slamming a fist into her side hard enough to knock her back. She jerked her claws free, wings beating as the other three skeletons bore down on her.
They’re not alive, she thought as she watched the four of them approach. They’re like golems. They won’t react like a regular opponent. Her observation proved itself as an arrow clipped the side of the one of the skeletons, ricocheting away. The skeleton didn’t even flinch as it turned toward Frost, who was already firing again, her eyes brimming with fury.
And they’re also really strong, Blade thought as she wrapped her talons around one limb. The skeleton jerked, tugging her foreleg to one side as she stepped back once more. But they’re old and brittle, and they can’t weigh much...
She darted behind the skeleton, taking to the air and wrapping her talons around the construct’s wings. It reacted almost without hesitation, twisting even as she snapped her wings around, whipping the skeleton around her body in the air. A single claw scraped against her bracers as she let go, and then with a crash the thing slammed into the stone wall, breaking apart and separating as it fell to the ground below. She eyed it, hanging in the air as the pieces came to a stop, and then when they didn’t reform, turned to to help Frost, who was backing away from three of the skeletons, still firing uselessly.
“Freeze them!” Hain called, the older griffon still pushing himself up. If Frost heard him, there was no sign. Her face was almost hollow, like she’d lost part of her soul.
There was a sharp crack as Alchemy hit one of the skeletons, his hoof shattering the weakened skull. He let out a shout of surprise as, a moment later, the skeleton turned on him, slashing its stubby talons across his chest.
“They’re dead!” Blade shouted, descending on another skeleton as the last of the magical fear faded from her body. Now there was a real fear replacing it, that Barnabas was going to die, and his killer would get away. “You have to break them!”
She grabbed another one as she spoke, flipping it through the air and bringing it down hard against the stone. It broke apart, the impact too much for it. Alchemy let out a shout and began pounding his opponent, breaking bone after bone. It crumbled. As they both descended on the last griffon, Frost ran by, dropping her bow as she galloped towards Barnabas.
The last skeleton fell quickly, its bones breaking as both she and Alchemy descended on it. It fought to the end, only breaking apart to rattle across the floor when she and Alchemy had destroyed more than a quarter of its major components. The sound of its pieces rolling across the stone filled the air.
Then there was only silence, broken by a faint sob. “No …”
Alchemy was reaching into his vest as he slid to a stop next to Barnabas, but his hoof slowed as he looked down at the minotaur. Frost was standing over the minotaur’s motionless body, tears painting wet tracks down her cheeks. “No …” she said again, her voice cracking. “No.”
Barnabas’s eyes had glazed over. He was dead.
“Do something.” Frost said, turning to look at the orange earth pony, her breath coming in quick, shaky gasps. “Do something!”
“I … I can’t,” Alchemy said, his face falling. “He’s gone. There’s no potion that can fix that.”
“Do … Something!” Frost said through clenched teeth. “Please!”
“I …” Alchemy shook his head as he looked around at the rest of the group. “Potions don’t … I’m sorry—I … his heart is …”
“Frost,” Blade said, shaking her head as she carefully took her by the shoulder. “He’s gone.”
“No …” Frost said, the feeble sound in her voice heartbreaking as the mare turned once more towards her older brother. “No.” She slugged Barnabas’s shoulder with one hoof. “No!” Her yell filled the room. “Not him too!”
“I’m sorry,” Alchemy said, his ears flat against his head. “There’s nothing we can do.”
Frost’s breaths became more fast and rapid. “No,” she said, gritting her teeth as she looked up. Tears spilled from angry eyes as her horn glowed, a purple glimmer snapping her bow into the air. “No, there’s one thing I can do. I can kill the thrice-cursed bilgesucker son of Tartarus who did this.” Her words came out with an angry hiss, rage contorting her face, and then she bolted, galloping for the exit.
“Frost!” Blade jumped into the air, her wings pumping as she looked down at Alchemy and Hain. The first looked dazed, his eyes wet. Hain just looked like a stone.
“Take care of him,” she said, pointing down at Barnabas’s still form and noticing something. His hand was halfway out of a pouch on his armor, a folded piece of paper clutched in it. She darted down and pulled it the rest of the way out. For Frost, the front read. She grabbed it. “I’m going after Frost.”
She darted down the tunnel, heading for exit and following the distant cadence of hoofsteps. If she was lucky and she caught the mare before she caught up to Anubis, she might be able to get some reason into her. If she didn’t … the immortal would kill her.
Faster! She pumped her wings hard as she darted across the room with the statues. Frost was moving quickly; Blade could hear her hooves ringing against the stone further up. She darted into the stairway chamber just in time to see the ice-blue mare vanish over the top. “Frost!”
She reached the top of the stairs to see Frost standing on the edge of the dig, her bow pointed into the air. She fired as Blade flew out of the vault, her arrow streaking up into the sky.
“Frost!” Blade called again as she landed next to the mare. “What are you—” Another arrow shot skyward, and Blade tracked it, watching as it fell short of a distant airship. As she watched the airship rose further through the sky, its guns firing as two griffon corvettes moved to intercept it. A wave of grey mist spilled out into the sky, sweeping over the two griffon vessels, and both of them made hasty banks, pulling away from the airship as it gained speed.
Frost let out a furious scream, jerking her bow back so hard it snapped. Then, as explosions from the griffon bombardment echoed around them, she sank to the ground, sobbing.
“I’m sorry, Frost,” Blade said, crouching near the sobbing mare as griffon’s began to drop out of the sky around them. “I’m sorry.” Minutes passed as she stood there, one talon on the mare’s shoulders, the distant sounds of combat fading as the fleet took the Island.
“Blade?” It was Kalos, his face smudged, the short sword in his talons wet with blood. “What happened.”
“Kalos,” she said, rising as a flame flickered in her chest. “That airship, the one that broke through a few minutes ago, the fleet needs to chase it down. They need to run it down fast, and blast it into the ice—”
“We can’t do that, Blade,” he said shaking his head.
“Don’t give me that!” she said, shaking her head. “Tell the fleet! They need to run it down. That ship can’t be allowed to land—”
“Blade.”
“There’s an immortal on that ship! A dangerous one!” She was ranting now. She didn’t care. “He’ll kill everyone he comes across—”
“Blade!”
“You need to tell the fleet to—!”
“Blade!”
She froze, her rant stopped by the volume of his tone. Had she been shouting? She hadn’t even realized she was.
“We can’t,” Kalos said, shaking his head. “That was Sagis’s personal airship. It’s built for speed, and faster than anything we’ve got but the Seeker. We can’t catch it.”
“Then we’ll take the Seeker,” she said, shaking her head. “We’ll blow it out of the sky and—”
“The Seeker’s damaged,” Kalos said. “Her magazines are dry. She’s got no weapons, and half her boilers are shot. We can’t, Blade. I’m sorry. We just can’t.”
“You … I …” Blade turned away, clenching her talons into fists and letting out a wordless shriek as the distant dot that was Anubis’s airship continued to fade. Alchemy and Hain climbed out of the dig, both moving with a stunned, overwhelmed slowness as they too stared off into the sky alongside her, watching as the vessel become nothing more than a blip on the horizon before sinking below it. Blade sank to her elbows, shutting her eyes tightly and wishing she could block out the sound of Frost’s sobs. Around her the sounds of violence began to fade, a ragged cheer rising from the griffon air fleet as victory was declared, but she couldn’t find any joy in it, not with Frost crying beside her. She wanted to scream again, shout her anger and her failure out into the night sky.
But there was nothing she could do. Anubis was gone, the fleet in tatters, and Barnabas was dead.
There was nothing she could do.
END OF PART ONE
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Resurrection hu? Interesting title. Being Jewish has it's perks
End of Part One?
Good thing Part Two is not far away.
NOOOOOO!
Barnabas!!! WHY!!!! 
Such a epic & tragic end to the first part of this story. I loved it. Hopefully we'll see the Dusk Guard working with Blade's team in Part Two.
Potential Spoiler Theories: I just realized that some of Blade's team might become new members of the Dusk Guard. Also, I wonder if Steel Song knows of Hain's past?
6255787
i.ytimg.com/vi/2vkjtucDRFo/hqdefault.jpg
6255826 Aw, I won't be alive for that long.
6255693
I think the straight translation, which I and one the alpha readers worked on, means "I Have Revived Myself." That's what it was supposed to be, anyway.
Ah, this is where the Dusk Guard comes in, although I think Blade's group might become the 2nd regiment of the Dusk Guard.
6255853 Well, I never was the best during hebrew studies, I've got a dictionary, I'll check it out to double check.
6255853 Well I don't know how to type hebrew in my computer, but that is not resurrection. However, I have revived myself is a sentence, that's just one word.
6255989
It's the word, revival, but the possessive is singular (I) and with the part that makes it mean "I have." So it's "Revival," but in the sense of "I have done this revival."
Dear good sir or ma'am,
We're having a sale on BasketBallZinc if you order now you can get the super big limited edition, super big limited limited edition SUPER BIG Basket ball for only 666 dollars!
WOW THAT'S A LOW PRICE!!
WOWZO!!!
You actually have to pay 12 seperate fees we had to cancel our order last time from you please don't fucking piss us off or we will fucking slit your throats for fucking with MY company. Fuck you good sir in the ass order NOW OR ELSE
And now I wish I had the Storyglove.
The glove that lets me punch characters in stories.
Hard.
Called it. Darn it, Barnabas. I told you to stop waving that flag around, and now look at you. Now Frost is broken.
Now to see the depth of their character in the face of failure.
Wonder how they're going to handle this problem, or is it going to be fobbed off to Twi or Steely's group.
Also, darn it, Tia. Stop burying things under a rock and hoping it'll turn out ok. Didn't work for your sister, Dissy, or any of the other world-ending villains.
Now to see if Sombrero is under that rock in the sand, or a certain Sobek. Usually don't see one without the other in popular media today, though making him a villain is certainly a twist.
6255868 You'll want a BDB, as it is biblical Hebrew, not modern Hebrew.
Ok...so this powerful immortal, died to the aspect of death god/demigod...buried himself to woken at a later time. Why? Seriously why? This means that there must have either have been a weapon or person 2000 years ago. That's the only reason to pull of a "Lol nope hiding now!" maneuver like that.
Better be a weapon. One that can be unearthed in that city of the dead that is being excavated.
Also, since he intended someone else to unleash him, that implies he left a cult behind himself. He stated quite clearly that the tomb had it written what exactly was being held here. So then...where is the cult of Anubis? Is it dead, grinded down by time? Or are there more badies waiting to be unleashed.
6256171
not Tia's fault, Griffons buried this one.
6256364
And who do you suppose they got the idea from?
When the title's in Hebrew, you know shit's about to get real.
6256411 actually, Anubis said he'd been buried for 2000 years, while Nightmare Moon, Discord and Sombra had been locked away for 1000. I think Celestia must have gotten the idea from the Griffons!
Not that that changes the fact that it's a boneheaded way of dealing with dangerous entities. Come on guys, when you're dealing with shit this bad, you'll be better off just biting the bullet and kinlling the bad guy.
6257698
Or, if you're too squeamish about doing it yourself, just launch them towards a black hole or an ocean trench of you can't reach space).
And maybe leave a few (hundred) land mines blocking the tomb off. Traps never stopped Indy from breaking into tombs. Several tons of explosives might.
6257745 I don't know about land mines... bear in mind that a full one out of three ponies can fly, after all, and another third of the population could, in theory at least, teleport.
6257765
You clearly haven't put enough landmines. Like one in the keyhole.
And another one that causes a chain reaction that drops the tomb into a sinkhole.
Dang. Just... dang.
I knew this was several flavors of "totally gonna happen," but I think that just made it all hurt even more. We knew he was going to die, but not that he'd go down in a painfully futile attempt at heroics. We knew Something Bad was sealed away, but not that it was a full-on demigod. (My guess that it was Griffimhotep wasn't all that far off the mark, but I digress.)
Blade's shriek at the end really sold the anguish your characters were feeling, by the way.
I went from watching the second Little Witch Academia to this...
Good gravy, what a mood whiplash!
6256171
So I hit up wikipedia, and reading about Sobek makes him sound unlikely. On the other hand, Set, god of the desert, storms, disorder, violence, and for some reason foreigners, also sometimes called Anubis' father, seems like a perfect character to be imprisoned in the Turuncu desert...
This was epic. It deserves time to be properly processed and absorbed, so I'm OK without the Friday update, but I REALLY hope Part 2 begins on Tuesday
On another note, this is the second time I've encountered a villain called Anubis in a fimfic, although the two characters have extremely little in common. I won't spoil the other fic by saying who the villain turns out to be, though.
Excerpt of Remembrance - An End and a Beginning
Excerpt of Trust - An Evening of Occurrences Most Unusual
Now the timeline makes sense! The reason the Dusk Guard hasn't shown up yet is because the events of the side stories are taking place currently. I just looked through a couple of the side stories and now I'm noticing some of the references to BtB. There are probably more references, but it was these two that I clearly remembered.
For example, last time Northgait was shown in this story, it certainly didn't look shut down. Anubis would probably be a pretty good reason to need to shut it down. So Trust & Remembrance probably haven't even happened yet.
(Also, Captain Song considers this a schoolyard fight? I suppose it is a lot smaller then a full scale war, but it still feels big.)
Is that who I think it is!!!
YES, I CALLED IT!! I TOTALLY CALLED IT!!!
*Anubis kills Barnabas*
NOOOOOO!!! How could you betray me like that
*Searches frantically through Yu-Gi-Oh deck*
I activate my spell card The Warrior Returning Alive
*Turns to Anubis*
Exodia Obliterate!!!!
-Equinox_
All right, I spent a half hour typing up a lot of responses to everyone's comments, getting ready for tomorrow, and ... page refresh. Someday, I will FIND that engineer at Google who decided that Chrome needed multiple hotkeys for things like "refresh page," hotkeys accessed with "ctrl+shift+normal key" and I will mash his face into the keyboard until he's eaten every one of those keys! What moron thinks the world will benefit from having a "refresh" key that is one freaking key removed from copy-paste!?
Someday, I will make that man and everyone who let Chrome have—what is it ... 6 shortcuts for "view HTML?"—eat his or her freaking keyboard.
Piece. By. Piece.
Now then, back to retyping more than a half-hours worth of individualized responses.
So, first, and as a general response, thanks to everyone who's stuck with Beyond the Borderlands so far. I know for many of you everything thus far has been very unexpected. Perspective character switch. New characters. Some place called "The Ocean of Endless Ice." Twists and turns that few saw coming. And then, last Tuesday, we hit the chapter I'd been waiting to reveal for more than two-and-a-half years to the public. And it won't be the only chapter I've waited to release for that long. I'd hoped it would hit like a truck.
Judging from the comments, I was right.
Tomorrow we start part 2. But before then, I've got comments to reply to!
Chapter 17
6240829
Dun. Dun. Dunn!
6240870
At some point I probably should put an AU tag on there. Everything was fine until season 5 decided to go sideways.
6240890
You've got fun stuff to look forward too.
6241079
Just imagine walking through that vault all on your own, down between those statues ...
6241099
You just might be ...
6241177
You'll find out!
6241234
Funnily enough, originally there was going to be a big, climactic fight, a sort of "fake-out" final boss. But the pacing with it in mind felt off, and the Indiana Jones solution fit much better with things. So much for the leader of the shadows.
6241312
Glad you liked it! What'd you think of that airship battle? I was particularly proud of that.
6241314
But would it be enough? Or too much?
6241356
Discs? Discs? Back in my day, we had a cartridge! And one was all we got, by gum!
6241518
Blizzard does great animations. The fact that my writing made you think of this makes me gleep a bit!
6241747
Boy did you ever!
As far as the Vault goes, if you read through some of the other comments, you'll see how long back this has actually been hinted at. It goes all the way back to Rise. I plan ahead. Glad to know it all still worked!
6241949
Griffimhotep?
6242165
We will see ...
6242432
They do have a spot where Blade has Frost clarify what she'd said. Maybe you're thinking of that. It is a little repetitive, but given everything going on ... I'm not about to call her on it!
6243339
You might be interested in this little tidbit from Alchemy's original design document concerning his abilities: Basically, he’s the Albert Wesker of ponies. But he definitely doesn't come with the personality—thankfully.
I really enjoy writing Alchemy, though. The whole team, obviously. But Alchemy really resonates sometimes. I like him. As for he and Frost, they do have a unique dichotomy going, don't they?
6244536
In Rise, Celestia makes it clear that the Crystal Empire was south of the Crystal Mountains, though. This is happening north.
6245130
If you stop and think about it, the Behemoth is one of the things that makes this story quite dark. That was an earth or pegasus pony. What was done to it? That's straight out of unit 731 (and if you don't know what that is, you might not want to Google it). Which is really messed up.
6245204
Suddenly I'm picturing a little tiara ...
6245907
Excitement gets the better of all of us. Glad you liked that chapter!
6248031
Lovecraftian? I have beheld high praise this day!
In the past, I once said I wanted to give the MLP fanfiction fandom a villain that could rival the Joker for sheer presence, power, and identity. This comment gives me hope that I might do that.
Thanks for the praise! I'm glad everything came together so well!
And as for Frost and Alchemy ... I'd never actually noticed the thing about their coat colors!
6248916
Time to break the chair!
6248962
There's been a lot of discussion about it round chapter nine. But to put it short and sweet, lawless has two definitions in English. You're thinking of one, but the one that the characters are considering is the other, and international politics are a thing.
6249077
Something just got serious.
6251355
What's in the box!?"
Chapter 18
6255787
Or ... so you thought!
6255819
I miss him too. No joke, after I wrote this scene it drained me. I really did feel down for a little while. It even hit me like a truck, and I knew it was coming. Barnabas was a "friend," like all the other characters I write. I miss him.
But now that the plot armor is gone ...
There's a lot to come. Much to come!
6255826
And that is why I finished writing it before posting. People were torn then, asking why I just didn't post it as I wrote it. But now, when it's consistent? Who's glad I didn't?
6255856
We will see.
6256165
Who would you punch, out of curiosity? I'm guessing Anubis, but I'm not positive.
Oh, it's me, isn't it?
6256171
I think you were the only one who really called it in advance (way back, actually). Why did you have to be right?
As for what's coming next and who is to blame, well ... we'll let the cast decide.
6256356
So many questions! I can't answer them, of course. That'd be cheating! Glad you're enjoying this so much, though!
6256364
Darn those griffons.
6256411
Who indeed?
6256587
I was so happy when that worked. And hey, now you know what ancient griffon kind of looks like!
6257698
After all, he seems to have no qualms about killing anyone else ...
6257729
Thanks. I've been waiting a long time to read responses like this one.
6257745
Drop the moon on them!
Oh, wait. Hmmm ...
6258769
Trust in the plot armor ... it's like a trust exercise. Now you've been dropped.
Glad to hear that everything came together so well on this.
6259572
Yikes. From ... well, I don't know what that show is, but to this? Take it easy on your neck, it might be injured.
6268722
So ... can I now claim that my work of fiction is educating readers in non-fiction? Seriously, you guys are doing some cool digging.
6268733
).
Like I mentioned above, even I had to take a break after writing this. It just hit me hard, like I'd been the one to do it in a way (which was kind of true
I have a feeling that the two will diverge pretty readily as the story moves on. And on a side note, I was mortified when an Anubis appeared in the IDW comics some time ago, having already laid this all out and horrified that some might try to connect the two characters.
6270730
And the details start to come together! Nice job pulling all the bits and pieces from the various stories into the cohesive whole! Though ... you're not at 100% of them yet. Still, you've got the gist of it.
Ah, this made me grin like an idiot, that you felt it was so big, and yet ... that's really war, though. I'm glad that came through in the telling.
Now, to be fair, though, Steel served in the Regency Wars. Teardrop Eyrie is one small clan, the Icewing clan. The Empire has dozens of clans, some big, some small. Compared to a lot of the world, the Ocean really is a schoolyard fight. The Regency Wars, on the other claw ... he's seen some sights.
6275630
With difficulty, trust me.
Heh - it just occurred to me that even when the bad guys are a cult dedicated to bringing him back from the dead, Sombra still doesn't get any screen time.
6280964
It's bad enough, the vague image that popped into my mind...
No thank you--under no circumstances do I want to put effort into imagining walking through that vault alone.
And yes, it's always good when you make your readers look up nonfiction xD Still, lots of nonfiction stuff frequently makes its way into fictional stories. It's a cool thing.
And don't worry--your Anubis has nothing in common with the other Anubis I'm thinking of besides the name. And, y'know, a connection of some sort with "death". Really they're nothing alike. Yours is much more evil.
6280964
It was most definitely the first thing I thought of, and I had that playing in my mind when I read it again, and I got the shivers.
Truly beautiful.
No, no. I won't punch you. You're bringing me entertainment!
I'm thinking Anubis, mostly Sagis though.
Part 1?
Geez, how long is this thing going to be?
Not that I'm complaining, mind you. *reaches for popcorn*
Got a great song in mind for this chapter, but I think it'd be too much of a spoiler to post it. Supernatural fans know it, it introduced the man with the white Cadillac.
I plugged it into Google Translate and it said "Subway". So I'm going to assume the ancient avatar of death and destruction really likes sandwiches.
I seriously need to do a better job at picking out my favorite characters.
I remember when I was a kid, I loved playing Call of Duty 2: Big Red One. I must have played that game ten times through, and then numerous other replays of my favorite levels. It was a great game, and my favorite character was a guy named Corporal Bloomfield. He was the snarky, sarcastic guy that you just can't help but love.
And he died in the last mission, right after saying "I think I might actually make it home from this lousy war!" As a kid, I broke down crying when that happened. I still remember that pain in my chest that I felt so strongly all those years ago. It was the first time I really felt it when a character died. There have been other significant character deaths that had some effect on me, but none like that first one.
Well, this chapter came pretty damn close to beating that first death.
Barnabas was probably my favorite character because I see a lot of myself in him. I've always been the glass half-full kind of guy in my family, just like him, and not to mention that I always like the Big Guy characters that have a lot of heart. They've always just appealed to me really strongly.
So believe me when I say that this death hurt, quite a bit more than any fictional deaths I've seen in recent memory. Farewell, Barnabas. You will be missed dearly.
Speaking of missed dearly, I'm really worried about what's going to come of Frost from this. Will she become even colder and more angry now that she has truly lost everything that matters to her? That conversation that Frost and Barnabas had just two chapters ago makes me think that it will have some big impacts on how Frost deals with this loss. Maybe she will finally let go of the pain of losing her siblings.
After all, that's what Barnabas would have wanted.
Great job on everything so far, Viking. It's been an amazing ride to this point, and I am greatly looking forward to the latter half of the book.
I don't know why, but this music came to mind at the end of the chapter. Maybe it was the fact that it was the score during the aftermath of a climactic battle scene.
I was wondering why Barnabas had no theme song of his own.
I guess his death answers that. Still need two more teammates then.
I'm imaging Darth Sidious' Theme as Anubis walks out.