Lateral Movement

by Alzrius

819 - Below Absolute Zero

“Aim for the creature’s wings first.”

“Acknowledged,” chorused the astral constructs, all of them sinking into a crouch as they prepared to ambush Hvitdod.

With no further orders to give them, Lex took a moment to glance along the ridge, quickly counting how many automatons were lying in wait for the dragon to emerge. Forty of them, he realized, awestruck. Belligerence was able to copy the spell forty times over, even with how much I augmented it.

It was enough to make him glance at the quill, still grasped in his remaining claw, before directing his gaze back to the army he’d created. Each and every one of them was a vastly-upgraded version of the one he’d used to fight the green dragon that had been manipulating the ponies of Tall Tale. Although its form was – for whatever reason – different than the unicorn he’d designed it as before, its other functions should still be present, albeit enhanced...along with a few alterations that he’d specifically introduced during the spell’s casting.

But that’s presuming that the imbalance I introduced into their design works the way I intended, noted Lex with a flicker of doubt.

Solvei – both in her nature as a winter wolf and as an adlet – was a creature of intrinsic cold. Like the mythical windigos that had driven his ancestors to abandon their ancient home and seek out the land they’d eventually come to call Equestria, she had an enthalpic imbalance whereby she generated a negative heat quotient. It had been fascinating to witness, and for all the frustration and despair that Lex had suffered upon being flung back into Everglow, he hadn’t been able to keep himself from studying his companion’s extraordinary physiology.

The knowledge he’d gained from doing so had been put to good use now, altering the exothermic quality of the astral matter that he’d shaped his constructs with. While he couldn’t replicate any of the magical or biological mechanisms that Solvei had, he had been able to create reasonable facsimiles, granting his creations a self-perpetuating thermodynamic reaction.

In practical terms, he’d made all of his astral constructs into creatures similar to the remorhaz they’d fought just before meeting Yotimo for the first time: beings of intrinsic cold simply because they were continually expelling all of the heat they generated.

Which meant that not only would they be immune to any cold-based powers that Hvitdod had – and Lex felt sure the dragon had to be of an algid nature, both because of what Nenet had said about it only appearing in arctic conditions and because so many other creatures native to this region were naturally gelid – but they’d be able to attack with high-temperature output, which was the natural weakness of intrinsically cold beings.

And if they can damage its wings, that will immediately send it back down into the fissure. Even if it survives the fall, it won’t be able to climb out so easily, giving everyone plenty of time to escape.

It was a decent plan, Lex knew; one that leveraged his available resources to their fullest and made use of all the actionable information at his disposal.

Now it just had to work.

A third roar echoed up from the pit, and this time it was so loud that the ground that Lex felt sure that if he hadn’t been ensconced in his astral armor, it would likely have knocked him over. As it was, the ground heaved as though a struck by a tremor, and he saw several of his constructs grip the terrain tighter, bracing themselves as they stared impassively at the rift in the earth. With the ersatz cognition he’d imbued them with, they could surely tell that the range of the noise wasn’t very far distant, and was likely due to arrive at any-

Then Hvitdod appeared, shooting upward from the vast abyss as his furious scream continued...

And Lex realized that he’d been wrong to compare the dragon he’d fought outside of Tall Tale and the monstrosity in front of him now.

For one thing, that creature had been the size of a building, roughly equal to the astral constructs that he’d made.

Hvitdod could have eaten that dragon in a single gulp.

The saurian head that passed by the edge of the abyss must have been at least a hundred feet from maw to neck, displaying teeth that were twice as long as Belligerence. Covered in lusterless white scales, its titanic body shape was different from the green dragon’s as well. That dragon had possessed a physique that was – save for being reptilian – recognizable as having the same basic construction as a pegasus: a sternum and abdomen, with four legs beneath it, a wing on each side, a head in front, and a tail behind.

Hvitdod, however, looked like a massive serpent, with its neck, body, and tail all being the same thing, stretching for what had to be at least a thousand feet behind it. A long dorsal fin ran from the back of its head down the length of its sinuous form, and it was only belatedly that Lex noticed that it had claws after all, with one pair sprouting – from the sides of its body, rather than under it – nearly a third of the way down its body, and the back legs another third of the way down its length.

But it was what he didn’t see that worried Lex more.

There are no wings to target!

Even as he watched, Hvitdod rose skyward in complete defiance of its lack of propulsion, somehow slithering upward, not needing to displace air in order to facilitate its rise.

Which meant that there’d be no easy way of grounding the thing, let alone sending it plummeting back into its hole.

But the astral constructs didn’t seem to care that they were unable to locate the limbs they’d been told to preferentially attack, instead defaulting to their original orders to destroy the dragon. Each of them angled their heads upward as the dragon came into sight, mouths opening as they released beams of concentrated heat, the thick rays lighting up the area around them as they aimed at where Hvitdod was already undulating through the sky.

The dragon saw the attack coming, snarling as it twisted to face the onslaught, and to Lex’s surprise it made no move to dodge the oncoming horde of beams.

Over three dozen fiery trails of superhot plasma struck it a moment later.

Nearly half of them impacted the creature’s face and head, with the others dispersed along the length of its body. Not one missed their mark, and Lex had to squint as the brilliant lances of thermal devastation struck the creature, knowing that whatever Hvitdod’s inherent toughness, the sheer degree of power thrown at it would have to inflict some level of damage.

But when his eyes cleared a moment later, Lex saw that he was wrong: there wasn’t so much as a scorch mark on Hvitdod’s body to show for his constructs’ assault.

Spell resistance, Lex realized with a sinking feeling, recalling how the dragon he’d fought outside of Tall Tale had similarly shrugged off a large amount of the magic he’d thrown at it. Apparently Hvitdod wasn’t so dissimilar from its green counterpart afterall. But to be able to completely repel that much energy...

Then Hvitdod opened its mouth, unhinging its jaws like the serpent it resembled as it inhaled sharply.

“Scatter!” Lex’s whisper sent the constructs running, his own running parallel to the edge of the pit as it tried to put more distance between itself and the dragon, the others immediately breaking formation and moving back. It was likely that Hvitdod was about to use some sort of cryonic attack, but the last time Lex had presumed to know what a dragon’s breath weapon was like, he’d seriously misjudged its nature. Cold couldn’t hurt his forces, but it was still better to err on the side of caution.

Then Hvitdod breathed out, and the temperature plummeted to a cold that Lex had never imagined possible.

The exhalation was so frigid that it was visible, freezing the air itself in a massive cone that reached out to enfold a half-dozen of the astral constructs. Intellectually, Lex knew that they’d be fine, their design able to handle anything down to absolute zero, the astral matter being a perfect conductor of heat; that was the very reason why he’d been able to unbalance their thermic-

When Hvitdod’s breath weapon ceased a second later, Lex could see that the six constructs the creature had hit were frozen solid, something which should have been impossible. Any loss of heat should have been immediately routed through them, doing nothing except further fueling their exothermic weaponry. But instead...

Lex clenched his teeth as the frozen constructs collapsed in on themselves, destroyed by something they should have easily shrugged off. And the others were out of range, both from his whisper-spell and for reaching the dragon with their teeth and claws, which were the only weapons they had left if their heat-beams couldn’t harm their enemy. We’ll need to make a fighting retreat, Lex decided grimly. Lure the thing away from where Solvei and the others went, and try to keep it occupied long enough to get clear. We can’t hurt it, but we can at least keep its attention on us.

But to Lex’s shock, his constructs had other ideas, as they all turned into shadows and flew upward toward Hvitdod.

His own was the only one that remained corporeal, continuing to put distance between itself and the dragon as Lex watched, open-mouthed, as the astral creatures – now having turned into gigantic shadows with green-and-purple eyes – circled around Hvitdod, the serpentine monster hovering in mid-air as its head twisted back and forth, breathing outward again as it tried to catch its enemies in the cone of sub-absolute zero.

But the constructs-turned-shadows were having none of it, swirling around in complex patterns as they deftly avoided Hvitdod’s retaliation. Nor were they content to simply confound it, and as Lex watched eight of them broke off from the others, closing in on Hvitdod before they suddenly returned to solid form, letting themselves fall onto the dragon from above. Eight sets of eight claws each burst into flame as they dug into the monster’s scales, the constructs howleing wordlessly as they began to rip and tear at the dragon, their artificial voices ringing out with bloodlust that made his inner beast yowl in jealousy even as Lex was once again left dumbfounded.

This shouldn’t be happening! His astral constructs were automatons; their cognition was nothing more than an limited imprint of his own intellect, designed to let them complete simple tasks in accordance with his orders. His spell shouldn’t have imbued them with any sort of tactical knowledge, let alone ferocity!

And it definitely shouldn’t have given them the ability to turn into shadows!

“Stop,” murmured Lex, and to his relief the construct he was ensconced in obeyed immediately, leaving him free to watch as the rest of them continued fighting on their own.

Even as he watched, flaming claws tore scales from Hvitdod’s face, causing the dragon to unleash another angry roar – ceasing to use its breath weapon – as it shook its head back and forth, trying to fling it off. All along its body, the others were doing the same, and Hvitdod curled around as it moved them within range of its claws, slashing one of them hard enough to leave a deep gouge in its torso as another tore long scratches across a second construct. A third wasn’t able to move in time as Hvitdod’s tail wrapped around it, tearing it free and flinging it away...only for it to change into a glowing-eyed patch of darkness and streak back upward.

They’re trying to wear it down, Lex realized as he watched another group of shadows unleash heat beams at Hvitdod’s face, accomplishing nothing except to make it writhe in anger, roaring at them in outrage. A group of them attacks it physically while the others keep it disoriented.

And it was working. Even as Lex watched, the dragon reacted like the beast he’d originally thought all of its kind were, gnashing its jaws as it roared at the surrounding shadows, keeping it from devoting its full attention to the constructs that were clawing at it, flaming talons continuing to tear away at scales and shred the flesh underneath.

That was when Hvitdod’s tactics changed.

Ignoring the shadows fluttering around it, the creature started to circle, flying in a loose spiral pattern as though coiling around something even larger than itself. The positioning brought most of the constructs clinging to it within range of each other, and as Lex watched Hvitdod opened his mouth again, inhaling.

Immediately the other shadows sped up their strafing the creature, firing more useless energy beams, even as the constructs began to run along the dragon’s enormous body, preparing to dodge the incoming blast of freezing air even as they kept clawing at the thing.

But as Hvitdod finished inhaling, he didn’t immediately breathe outward.

Instead, he gave a slow exhale, and Lex could almost see the sub-absolute zero temperature hovering right in front of the creatures mouth, the air itself freezing into a translucent sphere that was faintly blue, held between the dragon’s jaws.

Suddenly, Lex realized what was about to happen. “Fall back!” he yelled, knowing they were too far away for his whisper spell to reach them. “All of you, fall back n-”

Then the sphere of ultra-cooled air exploded outward.

There was no avoiding the explosion of cold of that radiated outward then, an expanding shockwave of supreme frigidity that struck all of the constructs, corporeal and incorporeal alike.

All along Hvitdod’s body, the astral creatures that had been solid were immediately covered in ice, slipping and falling from the dragon’s serpentine form. Worse, even the shadows seemed to freeze in midair. That shouldn’t have been possible, as they possessed no physical substance to chill, and yet as Lex watched their forms turned crystalline, arresting their movement and causing them all to drop away, falling into the abyss below.

In a single instant, Hvitdod had defeated all of his attackers.

For a moment, the dragon simply floated there, and Lex could see that the superficial wounds that his constructs had inflicted on the dragon were already starting to heal, scratches closing as new scales emerged to cover them.

Then Hvitdod’s eyes locked onto his own, and with another roar, the dragon dove straight at him.

Author's Note:

Lex is shocked as his constructs perform far above his expectations, only for Hvitdod to overcome them easily!

With his army shattered, does he have any chance against the enraged dragon?

Comments

[Not so New Brony]

Well crap...guess Hvitdod deserves its reputation and them some though I wonder why the constructs acted beyond what Lex ordered. I'm guessing that it is due to the aurumvorax's own influence at work or the constructs simply interpreted Lex's command differently. Shame that none of their attacks did anything but at the very least, it bought Solvei some time though Lex is now on his own with a very angry dragon staring him down.

[Booster Spice]

Oh Poodles.

This things like a multiplied Gigantimaxed Gyrados with a Sheer Cold version of Hyperbram, at the very least?

It makes Windigioes look about as cold and effective as a soldering blowtorch.

Yet auromvox class physical weapons cause damage?

Currently, the only thing that springs to mind is somthing someone of similar excessive power and ability once said.

Bring me, the Bore Worms.

[Alzrius]

11558423 Lex's constructs were clearly a cut above what he'd intended, likely as a consequence of how much power he imbued them with. It's not the first time we've seen spells that he poured massive amounts of power into acting beyond his expectations, but at least this time it was beneficial...at least, until Hvitdod annihilated them all. Now Lex has to deal with the dragon all by himself; hopefully he'll be able to come up with a new plan fast!

[Alzrius]

11558481 Hvitdod clearly has top-tier physical and magical resistance. The latter operates, in d20 System terms, as an absolute (i.e. if you can't get past its spell resistance, then nothing happens, especially since there's no "you succeed on a natural 20" for caster level checks), whereas physical resistance is a mixture of damage reduction and Armor Class, the latter of which does have automatic successes on a natural 20 even though the damage reduction can bust that down to nothing. In that regard, it's heartening that he astral constructs were able to inflict some damage...albeit superficial, and quickly healed.