Of Flame and Shadow

by Garuda IV

Chapter 92- War of Equestria: Part I

Lightning flashed brightly in the darkened sky as the rain poured heavily down on the ruined village of Stonewall. With the place in ruins and abandoned, not a soul had any right to be there, save for the two brothers who were now engaged in a dance of death as one tried to kill the other. With each bolt of lightning, their swords flashed with its reflected light as Dark and Light swung at each other. Ignoring the rain having long since soaked their clothes, coats, and manes, the two ran through the puddles and raindrops as they both tried to draw first blood. However, while Light was fully into this fight, Dark's heart wasn't quit in it.

While he did make his choice, Dark still didn't like it that he had to go through with it, but did his best to push that feeling back as he used his Death Reaver sword to block Light's sword slash. Having Light's blade glance off of the flat of his sword, Dark spun his sword and swung hard in a downward slash. While the runes on them did make his sword lighter, Light was naturally faster, causing for Dark to miss and instead hit the ground with his sword, sending up cobblestone and water as his sword impacted the ground and created a pony-sized crater in the ground.

Seeing Light off to his left and in mid-swing, Dark instinctively raised his left claw and casted his Shadow Claw on it to block it. However, when Light's sword made contact with the back of the shadowy claw, Dark winced as he felt a sharp pain in the back of his claw. Pointing his sword, Dark thrusted it at Light, forcing him to flap his wings and disengage away from Dark. With some distance between them, Dark dispelled his Shadow Claw to see that his claw had a shallow cut on it. It didn't hurt too much at first, but when the holy rain started to rain onto it, Dark flexed his claw in pain as it felt like it was starting to burn.

Damn, that hurt, he mentally cursed before frowning at the cut. And I'm not regenerating it either.

It's not just Light's sword, but the rain as well, Nocturne informed him. They're not only weakening your shadow and death magic, but also countering your body's regeneration.

Thanks for letting me know about that little tidbit after the fight began, Nocturne, Dark snarked.

It slipped my mind, so give me a break.

Seeing him distracted, Light flapped his wings and launched himself at Dark. His sword drawn and light shining over it, he approached Dark as the tip of his blade scraped and sparked on the ground below. Once close enough, Light suddenly flew just inches off the ground and took a swing at Dark's legs, but missed when Dark flapped his own wings and used them to hop over his swing.

Having missed, he kicked himself off the ground and turned back for another pass. Using his powers over the light, Light created two illusions of himself and began to fly around one another in an attempt to confuse Dark of which was the real one. Having enough, the three Lights dove at Dark from three different angles with one from the front, and two from behind. However, despite hitting him from three different sides, he still had to be careful as Dark brought his sword back and charged it with dark energy before spinning around and unleashing it like a long whip of darkness at the three of them. He lost one of his illusions, but with the other one helping to distract Dark, and with his nimbleness with his flying, Light managed to get close enough to get a swing off on Dark. However, the slash of his weapon merely glanced off of the chainmail beneath the fabrics.

Noticing the real one had hit him, Dark immediately grabbed hold Light's hoof and sword with his left claw, and yanked him over his head, slamming Light on the cobblestone floor before dragging him across the ground in a circle and flinging him across the town square into an open door of one of the ruined buildings. Dark then lit up his horn with magic and let it charge for a moment before firing a large beam of magic where he threw Light at. Seeing the building explode, Dark kept his eye on it as he waited to see if Light made it out or not. He quickly got his answer when he saw Light flying out of the fires and directly at him. Bringing his sword up, Dark blocked Light's swing before being backed up by Light's speed as his sword became a flurry of light.

"What the buck do you think you're doing?!" Light snapped as me continued his barrage. "I know that you're holding back, Dark, and I will not stand for it! Either you fight me for real, or I'm leaving and going straight for your friends and family!"

This caught Dark's attention as he immediately returned it by unleashing his fire breath at Light. Despite the rain having dampered his flames, Light was close enough that the flames scorched both his trench coat, and his fur coat. Yelping in surprise and pain, Light quickly backed away as Dark's fires died down and looked over his front. Seeing that the front of his white trench coat had been burnt black, and that the exposed fur on his chest had been singed black as well, he touched his chest with a hoof and winced at the stinging pain he felt.

"You're going to pay for that, Dark." he growled.

Flaring his wings, Light illuminated the entire area with his light, blinding Dark and forcing him to shield his eyes. Using this as an opening, Light zoomed forward with his sword pointed out in front of him. But, when he got to where Dark stood, instead of feeling his sword sinking through Dark's body, it instead was stopped abruptly with a echoing clinging sound. Dispelling his wings, Light took a moment for his eyes to adjust from the bright light to the darkness to see that his sword had came into contact with a magical barrier surrounding Dark, while Dark himself was looking at Light with a mixed expression of sadness and anger.

"Why are you doing this?!" Dark shouted, swinging his sword through his barrier and forcing Light away again. "You've never been this bad before, so what changed to make you hate me this much?!"

"Nothing!" Light shouted back, swinging at Dark again as he used his wings to hover around. "I've always hated you, Dark, but was never able to properly express it until now!"

Dark swung back, parrying Light's attack. "But why?! What did I do to deserve this?!"

"You were a born as a unicorn, that's what!"

"What? You hate me because I can use unicorn magic, and you were born a pegasus and couldn't?"

"YES!" Light shouted, his movements becoming quicker and harder with his rising anger. "For years I had to watch you, my brother, as you used your powers to do what I never could! But that's only the beginning of it. Later, I had to watch as you effortlessly killed dozens, if not up to a hundred dragons, each year with those same powers!"

"You mean that you're jealous because I used my magic to protect our village from falling?" That can't be all of it. There has to be more to this than what he's letting on. At least, I hope so.

"Your magic allowed for you to do in seconds what it would take all of our guards to do in ten or fifteen minutes. Thanks to your unicorn magic, you were easily the post powerful pony in our village, and I wanted it!"

Dark blocked another one of Light's sword swings and pushed back hard, sending Light back through the air a few feet before catching himself with his wings.

"You're being too greedy, Light. You already had everything that you could want, and anything that you didn't have that you wanted, anypony in the village would've given to you willingly! If anything, I should've been the one who was jealous."

"What a load of crap."

"Is it?" Dark questioned, his eyes turning red with rage as he glared at Light. "You had the love, respect, and adoration of every single pony in Stonewall. You could easily have had any mare that you wanted, and I'm sure that even a few stallions would've went bi for you if you chose. When you would walk around town, everypony would stop to greet you and bask in your presence, and whenever you would go out somewhere to eat, somepony would always pay for your meal there! Every. Single. Time. And what did you do to deserve it? Nothing!"

Venting his long repressed anger from over the years, Dark shrouded his Death Reaver in darkness and brought it down hard on the spot where Light stood just a moment before. With Light having darted off to the side, Dark missed and hit the ground again, this time creating a dark explosion of shadow and death magic that tore up the nearby area, including a block of buildings. Panting hard, Dark's eyes glowed upon spotting Light while rubble started to fall back down all around him.

"I have sacrificed much to keep you and everypony else in our village safe, Light," Dark growled, bearing his fangs as flames licked the edge of his maw. "I put up with the ridicule and other crap that the ponies of our village gave me, just because I didn't have a cutie mark. And in your case, not only did I have to put up with that, but I even had to go as far as to not use my magic round you to make you feel better and try to get on your good side."

Dark's eyes reverted back to gold and softened a little bit.

"You're my brother, Light, and despite what you've said and done, I still can't help but love you like one. But, don't you ever try to justify your reasons for jealousy to me, especially when you know full well that I've had to deal with much worse than you or anypony here ever did."

Scoffing in annoyance, Light flared his wings and launched himself at Dark. With his sword ready to strike, Light clashed his sword with Dark's.

"I don't know if you've noticed yet, but I don't give a damn about what you feel!" he shouted before swiftly bringing his right rear hoof up and kicking Dark in the jaw.

His head snapping back from being kicked, Dark brought his sword out in front of him to shield himself from Light trying to run him through, while using his wings to keep himself propped up. Leaning back with Light pressing his sword's tip against his own, Dark wrapped his tail tightly around Light's back legs and pulled them out from under him, causing Light to fall on his back. Using his wings to stand himself up, Dark then spun around, dragging Light through the mud before he tossed him over into another water puddle.

Noticing Light not getting up quite as quickly, Dark shrouded his left claw and used his powers to try and create shadowy tendrils from the shadow beneath Light. However, while they did form and bind themselves round Light to restrain him, the holy rain had significantly weakened them, allowing for Light to break out of them with his wings. Not wanting for him to get up, Dark used his unicorn magic on Light, catching him in his magical aura and holding him down in place.

"Your magic won't keep me down for long," Light told him.

Lighting his own horn, Light illuminated his body in light, granting him increased strength and speed while also slowly healing him. Seeing this, Dark frowned and lit his own horn to cast his Healing Flame on himself. With his natural regeneration being nullified by the rain, he needed another source to keep him healthy through a possibly prolonged battle. Even though his spell would be weakened by the water, though, some healing would be better than none.

"So you're using your Healing Flame," Light said with a hint of cockiness. "Well, you're not the only one with a healing spell. Thanks to Aurora's spellbook, I've learned several spells from it, one of which I'm just dying for you to see."

With both brothers having a healing over time spell on them, they charged again with Dark firing bolts of magic from his horn, all of which Light managed to dodge with ease. Now a few yards away from one another, Dark suddenly planted his hooves and immediately stopped his forward movement with his sword ready to strike, causing Light to quickly fly off to the side as his stroke would've missed and left him wide open for Dark otherwise. Banking back around, Light met with Dark's sword once more, their blades clanging loudly across the sky with the thunder of lightning.

---

Up north in the center of Equestria, Inferno wasted no time with negotiations and instead immediately sent his army of salamanders and flaming manticores in to attack. While they were charging in, Inferno kept most of his dragons back, allowing for the salamanders and flaming manticores to do most of the work and wear the ponies and Everfree creatures defending Canterlot Mountain down before sending his dragons in to finish them off. With several thousand salamanders charging on the ground, flaming manticores flying through the air, and a few dragons on both land and air, and the two hellions burrowing beneath the ground off to the side, the war for Equestria had begun.

Retaliating, Celestia ordered her ground forces to hold steady. As she was doing that, Fluttershy, with her eyes glowing with shades of blues, purples, and black, stared at the army of Everfree creatures she brought with her and ordered the cockatrices up front, while the ones standing on the manticores' heads were flown to the front as well.

"Fluttershy?" Twilight called, gaining her attention. "What's going on with your eyes?"

Fluttershy blinked a few times until her eyes were returned to normal. "Oh, it's my chaotic powers."

"Your chaotic- what?!" Twilight glared at Discord. "Did you do this to her?!"

Discord chuckled and scratched the back of his head. "Weeeellllllll, not exactly."

"It was my doing, Twilight," Fluttershy said, gaining everyone's attention.

"What? But how?" she asked.

"Turns out that drinking Discord's blood while as Flutterbat has given me some of his chaotic magic."

"It's true," Discord confirmed, "but it only seems to work with her Stare. Well, for now anyways."

"So then what were you doing just now, Fluttershy?" Rarity asked.

Fluttershy looked back over the army of Everfree creatures. "I was giving them their orders. I can do more with my chaotic magic if I want to, but won't. At least, not right now."

"They won't conflict with our attack plans, will they?" Luna questioned.

"They shouldn't, Princess. I'm just having the cockatrices take up the front for now to make things a little easier for us."

"You're going to have them petrify Inferno's army," Twilight figured.

"Yes. Hopefully it'll work and make things a little easier for our troops."

"Well, it looks like we're about to find out," Cadence said, pointing down below them.

Down on the battlefield, Inferno's army charged forward as each salamander, dragon, and flaming manticore prepared to breathe fire upon the opposing army. However, as soon as they got within range of their flames' reach, every cockatrice began to stare at them with wide eyes. Within seconds, every flaming manticore and salamander began turning into stone with the former falling out of they sky, while the latter tumbled forward with their momentum and broke apart, causing the others behind them to stumble over the stone limbs.

With them disorganized, Shining gave the command, ordering each unicorn to fire blasts of magic while the others fired their crossbows into the oncoming forces. As volleys of magic and bolts rained down on them, more and more salamanders fell and started to create a small obstacle for the others behind them to crawl over. But, while the salamanders were easy targets, the dragons in their armor weren't as easy to take down. While the dragons weren't too worried about the magic and crossbow bolts being fired at them, the cockatrices' petrifying gazes were still a serious danger to them. Even though the petrification process would take longer on them, the possibility of them becoming petrified was still there.

While they were busy down below, Applejack ordered the Applebreaker forward with Pinkie and Pinkie's Hammer following right beside them, but far enough away to prevent any accidental collisions. With the flaming manticores in slight disarray, they saw an opening to counterattack and jumped on it. Within seconds of flying forward, they were finally close enough when Applejack pointed her hoof forward and gave the order.

"OPEN FIRE!!!"

Hearing her order, the rest of the Apples operating the cannons and turrets began to fire at the enemy fleet ahead of them. With the sound of cannons booming across the sky, Pinkie smirked before ordering her airship to do the same. As the four smaller ones began to fire at the flaming manticores that were starting to fly towards them, the BBC soon fired, producing the loudest bang they've ever heard. The massive round that they fired tore through every flaming manticore in its way with ease, including a few unlucky dragons who where in the projectile's path, and didn't stop until it vanished in a trail of smoke down towards the horizon.

As the crew on Pinkie's Hammer began to load the next round, the flaming manticores flew in to attack it and stop it from firing another round. But before they could, Applejack's airship pulled up ahead and provided covering fire for Pinkie's crew to reload. While they were doing that, Spitfire and the Wonderbolts were given the order to engage. Following Celestia's orders, the crew lowered the platforms on the hull of the airship for the pegasi to take off, while the ponies operating the four mounted turrets began to fire at any flaming manticore that they saw. Covering them, Spitfire led the Wonderbolts out of the airship and into the sky to meet Inferno's army head-on, along with Fluttershy's manticores.

"Hey," Soring spoke through his headset, "does anypony else find us fighting alongside these things to be kinda weird?"

"Are you kidding, Soarin?" Fleetfoot questioned over her headset. "This whole thing is weird."

"That's enough jabbing you two," Sptifire scolded. "Now, less talking and more focusing on the enemy."

"Yes, ma'am!"

Putting a bit of extra effort into their wings, Spitfire, Soarin, and Fleetfoot led the Wonderbolts into the flaming manticores like a barrage of bullets and began tackling them. After they collided into them, they started to punch and buck them out of the air until their target was knocked unconscious and sent plummeting to the ground. Of course, not all went so well as several of the Wonderbolts had to start flying back to the Applebreaker after receiving either a bite, gash, or puncture wound from the stinger on the flaming manticores' tail.

While the Wonderbolts were busy there, the Everfree manticores did what they could and fought like the wild beasts they were. Though they were faring rather well, the flaming manticores' fire breath made it difficult for the manticores to do too much. Even the cockatrices on their backs couldn't do much with how much their rides were jerking around, which caused for most of them to fall off and have to flutter down to the ground. As they fell towards the ground, they also landed on the backs and heads of salamanders and a few dragons, which the cockatrices immediately began to begin petrifying. The salamanders were petrified quickly enough, but the dragons took a bit longer to deal with, resulting in those cockatrices to be either eaten or crushed by the dragons.

While all of that was happening, Pinkie and Applejack ordered their respective airships forwards and closer to the battle. The closer they got, the more heat they were getting from the enemy fleet. It wasn't until a dragon flying towards them managed to evade enough cannon fire to land on the Applebreaker's deck that things became dangerous.

Not liking this, Applejack secured her hat, ran up to the dragon, and bucked it in the jaw as it leaned down to eat one of the other Apples. With the strength of her buck, she managed to stagger it just long enough for one of the battery cannons to rotate around and blast the upper-half of it off, leaving the lower-half twitching as it tumbled backwards and off of the railings of the airship, and down onto the unsuspecting armies below.

Seeing what had happened from her airship, Pinkie grinned before she felt a sudden weight on the front of her airship. Turning her attention to it, she saw that she too had been boarded by a dragon. Her grin widening further, she reached into her mane and pulled from it a two-hooved axe with a large single blade head. Standing up on her back legs, Pinkie held her axe in her front hooves and charged at the dragon before leaping up high and moving in slow motion as she brought the axe over her head and burying it in the center of the dragon's chest. With a roar of pain from the dragon, Pinkie dislodged her weapon and leaped back onto the top of her airship's cannon, watching as the dragon she slew toppled lifelessly off of her airship. Laughing one more time, Pinkie pointed her axe forward and ordered her crew to fire the main cannon, shivering in delight as she felt the cannon fire and vibrate beneath her.

"Oooohhhhh, yeeeaaaahhhh. That's the stuff."

---

While they were having their fun up in the air, down on the ground, Shining stood at the front lines as he and several other of his best unicorns casted a long wall of magical shields, while the others behind them continued to bombard them with crossbow bolts and magical spells.

"Hold fast, everypony!" Shining shouted. "Keep them back like this and we can win! Now push!"

Encouraged by Shining's words, the guards cheered and held their ground. As one, they then started to actually push back against the horde salamanders trying to either burn down their shields, or climb over them. As the guards pushed back, the timberwolves and hydras jumped and walked over their wall of shields and started to take the salamanders out from deeper within their ranks.

Moving swiftly, the timberwolves attacked using their fangs and claws, killing the salamanders as quickly as they could before they had a chance to incinerate them with their fire breath. Though they did well for a while, with there being so many salamanders, it was only an amount of time before the timberwolves started losing their numbers due to being burnt to ashes. The hydras, however, didn't have to worry as much about being burnt as they stomped and chomped on the salamanders beneath them. But, while they were easy for them, the dragons were what proved difficult for them.

With no front claws, arms, or wings like the dragons to help them fight, the hydras had to be careful. When they did engage a dragon, they had to quickly move to restraint them with two heads going for the neck, while the other two went for their arms. During that time with the hydra restraining and biting down on the dragon's neck, a number of ponies who were watching took this opportunity and began firing at it's softer underbelly. Though it took them a while, with the ponies and hydra working like that, the dragon was killed and thrown by the four hydra heads against the next dragon coming up to fight.

Seeing another dragon fall to the hydras and his troops, Shining allowed himself to smile for a brief moment before focusing back on the magical shield in front of him. Feeling barely any pressure against his own magical shield, Shining began to charge his horn with a second spell. A few moments later, he moved his shield down and fired a large beam of magic over the top of it, tearing through the ranks salamanders directly in front if him before bringing his shield back up to its proper height. Hearing everypony cheering for him for doing that, they were about to push forward again when they felt the ground beneath their hooves start to rumble. Seconds later, one of the hellions popped up out of the ground, devouring everypony beneath it and tossing others that were too close to it away with the tendrils on its face.

Towering over them, Shining watched in horror as the inside of its mouth began to glow as it inhaled. Knowing what was coming, Shining ordered for all of the unicorns to cast a barrier around everypony as much and fast as they could. However, they weren't fast enough as the hellion unleashed a torrent of flames down in the center of their army, incinerating anything caught within the immediate flames instantly, while others nearby suffered severe burns. Unable to do anything to actually stop it, Shining watched as it began to breath in again. However, just as it looked like it was about to burn them all again, a large stream of water shot down its throat, dousing the flames and leaving it waterlogged.

"I think that that's quiet enough of that."

Knowing the voice, Shining sighed in relief and looked up to see Discord floating above him with a tank of water the size of a two-story house strapped to his back, and a firehose in his claw and paw.

"What took you so long?!" Shining shouted at him.

Discord snapped his paw, causing the water tank and hose to disappear. "Well I didn't think that it would do that much damage. But don't you worry your pretty princely head about it anymore. I got this."

Seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, Discord saw the hellion started burrowing back under ground. Chucking to himself, Discord went after it and followed it down into the hole it had retreated back into. Catching up to it, Discord evaded the tendrils on its face that were trying to capture him. Now laughing at how much fun he was starting to have, Discord grabbed two of the sixteen tendrils and proceeded to drag it back up to the surface. A few minutes later of struggling with it, Discord finally managed to pull it up out of the ground and toss it away from the fighting.

With them now far enough away, Discord teleported himself over to the hellion, no longer having to worry about accidentally hurting anypony.

"You know," he began saying with a smirk, "a unique creature such as yourself would make for an interesting pet. After all, all of my friends have one, and I've been meaning to find myself one of my own. So, what do you say?"

The hellion shrieked and lunged at Discord, but missed as Discord teleported himself out of the way and reappeared up on top of its head.

"Should I take that as a 'no' then?"

Hearing it shriek again, Discord frowned in disappointment and snapped his claws, causing a giant mallet to appear in it before he brought it down on the hellion's head. Knocking it down to the ground and causing the earth to quake, Discord raised his mallet up again and was about to bring it back down, but was stopped when he found something coiling around his arms and mallet. Tilting his head back to take a look, he saw that the second hellion had somehow snuck up behind him and was now restraining his arms with its tendrils.

"Clever girl," he murmured before raising an eyebrow curiously. "You are a girl, right?"

Discord then found himself being tossed through the air by the hellion's tendrils until he was slammed down to the ground, creating a small crater with an imprint of his body in the center of it.

"I'm confused here. Would that be a 'yes' or a 'no'?"

Seeing it shriek, Discord shrugged and was about to get back up to fight it when he saw streak of midnight-blue impact the side of the hellion and knock it over. Sitting up, Discord shook the rubble off of him just as Luna landed in front of him.

"You seem to have gotten sloppy, Discord," she playfully joked.

"I assure you, Lulu, that it looked worse than what it felt," Discord brushed off as he brushed off his shoulder.

"Didn't I tell you not to call me that?"

"You did, but I decided to ignore you."

Smirking at their playful banter, Luna and Discord stopped when they felt the ground starting to tremble and looked up to see both hellions looking down at them.

"You know," Luna began with an amused chuckle, "if somepony told me a thousand years ago that I'd be fighting side-by-side with you against the Dragon Kingdom's army and their hellions, I'd thought them crazy and had banished them to the moon on the spot."

"If somepony told me that a thousand years ago, I would've laughed at them before turning them into a living pastry," Discord half-joked.

Putting their joking aside for now, Discord and Luna flew up out of the crater and towards their targeted hellion. With a burst of speed and their magic, they both rammed into their respective hellion and knocked both of them down in a cloud of dust and debris.

---

The storm continued strong as Dark and Light clashed swords once more. With both of them having their own healing spells, what damage they'd inflicted on each other before had been healed, and was now working on the more fresher wounds they'd received. Over the course of their fighting, Dark had received several broken and/or fractured ribs and a broken left arm, including several cuts along his wings, tail, and the palm of his left claw, which was used to grab Light's sword in exchange for him landing a hit on Light.

Light on the other hoof and been slashed by Dark's sword, some cuts deeper than others, while also receiving some slashes from Dark's claws, puncture wounds from Dark's fangs, and most annoyingly of all, having been burnt. Thanks to Dark's Healing Flame spell, Light found out quickly that if he'd stayed close to him for more than fifteen seconds that his fur and skin would start to burn up, forcing him to rely on quick hit-and-run tactics. It seemed to work to keep him from staying too close for too long, but it didn't help much when Dark would grab him either by his claw or tail and hold him there. He even had to fight dirty when Dark had caught him in a bear hug and head-butted him, breaking Light's muzzle and forcing him to knee Dark in the groin to release him.

Over the course of their fight, Light began to change his tactics. While his speed was superior to Dark's, Dark still overpowered him with strength and magic. Hoping to fix that somewhat, Light lit his horn and began conjuring arrows of light at his sides. Once he had a good few dozen of them, he unleased all of them at Dark, who, having dealt with something similar to this before, conjured six Fire Orbs and brought them out in front of him. Despite the rain having reduced the size and power of his spell, Dark launched his Explosive Fire Needles out of his Fire Orbs, taking out each of Light's arrows while all the others soared to where Light stood.

Seeing them coming for him, Light's eyes widened as he spread his wings and flew up to escape the explosions. Though he managed to escape most of them, as he flew, Dark aimed for him and where he predicted he would fly to. It wasn't until one of the Explosive Fire Needles' explosions had scorched Light's tail that he took cover behind one of the buildings.

"I'm getting really sick and tired of this shit," Light grumbled annoyingly, his eyes turning towards the old mining cave entrance. "I didn't want to do this so soon, but he's pushing me and not giving me time to cast my spell."

Though the rain had dispersed any dust his spell had kicked up, Dark still lost track of Light. Not liking not knowing where he was, Dark casted his Soul Eyes and quickly spotted where Light was hiding. Letting his six Fire Orbs orbit his body, Dark light his horn and began charging. A few seconds later of building up his magic, Dark fired off another large beam at where Light was. Doing his best to keep his focus on the spot, Dark tried to watch as his beam tore through the stone building right where Light was at, but eventually had to close his eyes when he felt some of the rubble starting to hit him in the face near his eyes. Holding it for a few more seconds, Dark then dispelled it while his horn fizzled and opened his eyes. Blinking, he then saw that the spot where Light had previously been was glowing red-hot from his spell. For a moment, Dark though that he'd actually done it and killed Light, but a groan from his side told him different. Looking over to his left, Dark saw Light leaning against one of the buildings with his sword sheathed and his right hoof holding his badly-burnt left foreleg.

"Just stop this now, Light," Dark told him. "You're not going to win."

Light chuckled. "You know what? You're right. I'm not going to win like this."

"So you'll end this and surrender peacefully?"

Light narrowed his eyes at Dark. "Buck no. This just means that I'll have to try something different."

Lighting his horn again, Light casted a spell he'd prepared before Dark showed up. With the spell having been casted, Light waited eagerly for a few seconds before he and Dark felt the ground beneath their hooves tremble.

"Aurora taught me quite a bit during my short time as her apprentice, one of which being how unique life and death magic are compared to the other elements. While they are polar opposites, they share quite a bit with one another. One such example is the power to resurrect the dead."

Dark's eyes slowly widened. "Light... what did you do?"

Light grinned as his eyes glanced to his left. "I just called for some reinforcements. Now then, Dark, I know that you've killed hundreds of dragons over your time defending Stonewall Village, and from what Inferno's told me, you've killed a few hundred more, but I'm curious to see how well you'll do when you have to fight them all at once... as my undead dragon army."

Dark, something's not right here, Nocturne warned him. Even if he was my sister's apprentice for a short time, it would've taken him far longer to get to the level required to cast resurrection spells. Years at least.

Then why am I able to do it after learning from you for less than a year? Dark asked him.

Because I'm apart of you and you have your Living Weapon, both of which Light lacks.

So, what? There's foul play going on here?

Yes, and I fear that it's in more ways than one.

Comments

[Mkchief34]

Oh god. That's bad.

[Crescent Glaive]

7866931 it gets better later on

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

Merciful Emperor... Light.... what have you done....

[ShadowLight96]

Shit just got interesting. MORE!!!!!

[Night_Striker]

now we play the waiting game i love it cause then i can enjoy the next one more!!! and do othere stuff and good chapter lad keep it upp

[a3boy]

Light, what the fuck are you doing? You make the Snotty, High-Hung version of BLUEBLOOD look like a pleb!

[Gastonyu21]

PLOT TWIST!! I think Aurora wants Nocturne dead and is using Light like a puppet! Anypony else agree? Just me? ok.

[Purple kid]

light, I hope you die ye fuck

[King O Fools]

Holy fuck. It took me until now when you first had Light appear with his blue trench coat and katana, up until now, to realize that both Dark and Light are Dante and Vergil respectfully.

Top kek, my good sir. I'm usually quick to find out video game refences in fan fics. You have bested me and my video game knowledge.

[Sidetrack]

"Oooohhhhh, yeeeaaaahhhh. That's the stuff."

did pinkie just orgasm to cannon fire?

[Bluebottle27]

Hands up all those who think that Dark will finish Light and that he and the others will find a black feather in Light's ribcage.