Lateral Movement

by Alzrius

755 - Blunt Instrument

Lex hadn’t wanted things to come down to a fight. Not when the Rite had made it clear that immediately using force in response to defiance was a futile measure. That the Night Mare would doubtlessly disapprove of his slaying her faithful only made that lesson more germane. There were other ways to exert power over others.

But right now, those other ways had failed.

His attempts to gain entrance into Eigengrau on the strength of his reputation and his accomplishments had been rebuffed. By itself, that wasn’t necessarily the limit of his options; bribery, as loathsome as Lex found the practice, could conceivably still have worked, for instance. But White Wraith had taken that option, and indeed all other options, off of the metaphorical table when he’d publicly insulted them in front of his troops.

From a rational standpoint, Lex knew that it made little sense to take umbrage at White Wraith’s blatant show of disrespect. While going through Eigengrau might have been the fastest and safest way to get to where his and Akna’s lifelines were pointing, it wasn’t the only option available to them. And of course, he still hadn’t made up his mind about retaking his body; he was pursuing that option now simply because Solvei had seemed intent on it, and his relief at her unexpected return had put him in a mood to indulge her. By that logic, he should have simply backed down from White Wraith’s unsubtle threats and looked for a way to circumvent the town.

And yet he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Although he knew that his dispassionate analysis of the situation was correct, and that in the face of so many losses – having been driven temporarily mad with grief over losing Solvei, then being shown that all of the pain and suffering he’d been through was for nothing, and subsequently losing his chance to grasp the power needed to save Thermal Draft and defeat his enemies – taking on an unnecessary risk bordered on madness, Lex had been surprised to find that after everything he’d been through, he still had enough pride to bristle at being looked down on.

No matter that it was a minor offense, bordering on being an inconvenience more than an actual transgression; for making his life that much harder, White Wraith would pay dearly.

Besides, putting that smug bastard in his place would feel incredibly good.

And with so little else to live for, feeling good was a surprisingly attractive prospect to Lex at that moment.

It took only a moment to feed Solvei telepathic instructions, ordering her to prepare to leap so that he could teleport her behind White Wraith in mid-jump.

A mirthless chuckle escaped Lex’s lips as he found himself genuinely looking forward to crushing the enemy in front of him. “Prepare for the end of your tenure, captain.”

Even as the words left his lips, Solvei leapt, and with a thought Lex teleported her behind the wispy stallion.

Or at least, that’s what should have happened.

Instead, White Wraith gave a sudden stomp with one of his back legs, and Lex registered an immediate sense of abeyance, as though he’d been moving at a tremendous speed only to come to an abrupt stop in complete defiance of inertia. But the unusual sensation mattered less than the fact that Solvei hadn’t appeared behind the stallion, and even if he hadn’t been able to sense her location, he could still hear her confused yelp as she awkwardly landed a short distance away, exactly where her leap would have carried her if he hadn’t tried to magically change her location.

Somehow, White Wraith had cancelled Solvei’s teleportation as it had happened.

Even as Lex registered that, however, the guard captain was already going on the attack. Breakdown rose into the air as the lanky stallion reared up on his hind legs, his free foreleg cutting a sharp pattern in the air as he chanted an arcane syllable in clipped tones. Immediately, Breakdown’s head was clad in crackling electricity, and even as Lex shifted his weight backwards in an attempt to avoid the incoming blow, White Wraith swung the hammer around in a wide arc, the weapon moving faster than anything its size had a right to.

It was only because the defensive magic items that he’d been wearing when he’d undergone the Rite were still on him now that Lex avoided the worst of the blow, managing to turn in place enough to brace himself before the hit landed. But that small victory meant little as the hammer struck him with the force of an oncoming train, lifting him off of his hooves and tossing him through the air as though he weighed nothing at all.

Dimly registering that he’d just taken severe damage, Lex fought to stay conscious as he hit the ground a second later, the electricity coursing through him causing his muscles to seize up and preventing him from rolling with the impact. It was only belatedly that he recognized, as he landed near where Solvei had just managed to regain her balance, that he couldn’t feel his left foreleg...and when he glanced at it a second later, it was easy to see why.

The limb, which had taken the brunt of the blow, had been completely pulped by the hit. Shards of bone were protruding from it in nearly a half-dozen places, and it was bent at the wrong angle. If it hadn’t been held together by the barbed wire that the Night Mare had given him, it was easy to imagine that his leg would have been completely pulverized, and it took Lex a moment to realize that he’d used the last of his dark magic to dull his tactile nerves, muting what would otherwise have been crippling waves of agony from what had just happened.

“MASTER!” Solvei’s cry was drowned out by the cheer going up from the guards along the wall, the armored ponies hooting and stomping their hooves as their captain landed the first blow. Sparing them the briefest glare, Solvei interposed herself between Lex and White Wraith, growing in size even as her eyes flared green and purple, black crystal armor materializing over her body.

Master, let me take point! she begged telepathically, not taking her gaze off of the enemy in front of her, growling at the wispy pony in anger. I’ll keep him busy while you treat your injury!

But White Wraith was already moving in before Lex could answer her, darting forward as he brought Breakdown around in another wide swing.

Solvei rushed forward to meet him. From his vantage point, Lex could see White Wraith’s eyes widen slightly at how rapidly the winter wolf closed the distance between them, realizing he wasn’t going to be able to avoid her jaws. Instead, he aborted his swing midway through, pressing Breakdown’s head against the ground and using the weapon as a fulcrum – despite holding onto the weapon with a single hoof, which was still only near the haft of the hammer rather than actually touching it – to divert his headlong rush ever so slightly.

The result was that, rather than closing her jaws around his throat, Solvei’s teeth only managed to scrape along his breastplate, a metallic screech filling the air as her teeth left deep scratches in the armor, but not penetrating deep enough to cause a wound.

Solvei spun in place, determined to follow up on her failed attack, but White Wraith was faster. Planting his hooves solidly in the dirt, he brought Breakdown around in a backhoof swing. Even as he picked himself up, Lex could see that the strike was an awkward one, not delivered with the stallion’s full weight behind it.

But when the hammer struck Solvei a moment later, it hit with devastating force.

Connecting just beneath her ribs, Breakdown’s impact shattered the black crystal armor surrounding Solvei, the material – many times stronger than steel – turning into shards as the winter wolf was sent skidding through the dirt. But despite the pained cry that escaped Solvei’s lips, she kept her paws under her, and when she came to a stop inhaled sharply, blue light emanating from her mouth as she opened her maw and roared, unleashing a torrent of supernatural cold at White Wraith.

The stallion did his best to dodge the massive beam of magical frigidity that rocketed toward him then, but Solvei’s attack was too fast for him to completely avoid. Instead, he crouched into a huddle as the extreme algidity washed over him, and for a moment he was lost to sight as the azure radiance enveloped him, causing the guards on the wall to fall silent in shocked worry.

A moment later, though, their voices rose in another rousing cry.

“Did you really think,” scoffed White Wraith as he stood up, contemptuously brushing a thin layer of ice from his side, revealing that he’d taken only mild frostbite from Solvei’s attack rather than any serious wounds, “that I wouldn’t ward myself against the cold when a winter wolf and an adlet show up right outside the gates?”

“Did you really think,” echoed Akna a second later, causing White Wraith to look at the adlet, who hadn’t moved since the fighting had started, “that your little ward would save you?”

White Wraith frowned, but didn’t have a chance to figure out what she meant before a sudden chill emanated from right behind him. Turning in place, he had just enough time to catch a glimpse of the ice elemental that Akna had summoned – nearly twenty feet tall and humanoid in shape – before it brought first one, then another fist down on his head.

The impacts would have immediately reduced any normal pony to a smear on the ground.

White Wraith was knocked onto his knees, grunting in irritation as much as in pain.

Nor did he even seem to notice a moment later when Akna – closing her eyes as she raised one hand to the dark sky, a look of concentration on her face – hit him with a hailstorm a moment later. Even as Lex watched, a trio of ice chunks the size of apples struck White Wraith directly in the face, doing nothing except making him blink as he rose up and turned to face the animate hunk of ice looming over him.

But that was enough to give Lex an idea.

“Akna,” he whispered, letting the spell he’d cast back in the forest carry his words to her ears. “Create an area of more diffuse precipitation!”

“Huh?”

“Fog or sleet,” growled Lex irritably. “Anything that will make it hard for him to see!”

“But we won’t be able to see him either!”

“Just do it!”

Lex didn’t wait for her to reply before casting his next spell. This was going to take some time to set up, and he needed to get started immediately.

He hadn’t been idle during the rapid exchange of attacks between Solvei and White Wraith. Rather, he’d used the reprieve to cast his endurance-augmenting spell – the one he’d invented what felt like a lifetime ago now, back in the warehouse in Vanhoover – on himself. Despite his physical body being back in the Shrine of the Starless Sky, his incarnation here was a close enough likeness that the spell worked as intended, giving Lex a rush of vigor despite his mangled leg.

But that wasn’t the main reason Lex had elected to cast that particular bit of magic.

He’d already expended all of his fortitude back before he’d undergone the Rite, and while his spiritual self didn’t feel the pains he’d inflicted on his body prior to his arriving in Darkest Night, that hadn’t actually restored any of his stamina. Which meant that he couldn’t force additional magical energy through his body – or his current facsimile thereof – in order to augment his magic.

Except now, with this spell increasing his physical resilience, he could pull off that feat again. Not very much – in his estimation he had two further uses of that particular technique at most – and utilizing that would leave him even further depleted when it wore off...quite possibly enough to put his body in serious jeopardy if and when he returned to it. But for right now, it was a boost that would see his current plan through.

Fortunately, he had magic to spare in that regard.

The Rite of Sublimation had been an ordeal beyond anything Lex had imagined, but there had been one way in which it hadn’t been as punishing as he’d expected. The nature of the Rite’s illusion had extended not only to what he’d seen and heard, but also to what he’d done. The altogether minor wounds he’d taken during his fight with the alicorns and their guards hadn’t translated to his current state here in Darkest Night, nor had he felt winded in the slightest despite his exertion.

And all of the spells he’d expended during the battle were still in his mental catalogue as well.

Which meant that he had everything he needed in order to take White Wraith down.

Author's Note:

Despite being dealt a devastating blow by White Wraith, Lex remains confident that victory can be achieved!

Is he right, or does the unusual stallion have more tricks at the ready?

Comments

[Not so New Brony]

So Lex has more to work with in this fight against White Wraith who has proven more formidable than I had thought. Still. I was right that getting hit by Breakdown was bad but somehow, I doubt that it's going to be the extent of the Umbral Regalia's capability. Especially given what I recall of Severance's own power.

On a side note, I wonder if the injury Lex just sustained counts as the one from Spinner's vision. Granted, it's more spiritual than physical but given Thermal Draft's own condition with her soul, I wouldn't be surprised if it will affect Lex's own body if and when he returns to it though I suppose it depends on whether or not Lex can heal himself in the aftermath of this fight.

[Booster Spice]

Bearers of Umbral Regalia tend to be somewhat more capable than the average Boss?

[Alzrius]

11363677 White Wraith has quite clearly earned his position as captain of this place's guard, and that's without taking into account that he's using Breakdown as his weapon of choice. It's good that Lex seems confident of victory, but I doubt we've seen all of what the other stallion can do.

[Alzrius]

11363625 It seems safe to say that we haven't seen the full extent of Breakdown's power, which is fairly worrisome to consider; a single hit was enough to almost totally destroy one of Lex's legs, and that was for a hit that he was able to guard against. It's fortunate that Solvei was able to take his attention off of Lex, with Akna backing her up, but the fact that Breakdown can shatter her armor so easily is not a good sign.

Hopefully whatever plan Lex has come up with will go off without any serious reversals of fortune. It's good that he's not incapacitated by what happened to his leg, and that he has most of his thaumaturgical spells left, which he can now enhance if necessary...but that seems like the bare minimum for his being able to continue fighting rather than a path to certain victory. The fact that White Wraith was able to shut down his teleporting Solvei is likewise disturbing; that didn't even seem to be a spell.

[harts fire]

it is going to be a fight but White Wraith is going to be a smear on the ground shortly.

[Alzrius]

11366784 Hopefully so! Because if things don't go how Lex is planning (whatever that plan is), then this has the potential to go bad in a hurry!