Lateral Movement

by Alzrius

883 - Ice and Fire

Everything unnecessary had fallen away.

Lex knew that the sudden clarity he was experiencing had to be a symptom of what had happened to him, that whatever it was that had enabled him to survive Kryonex’s attack had altered his mind as well as his body. But he couldn’t bring himself to care, pushing all such concerns to the side to be considered at a later date.

He did the same with all of the other anxieties that had been weighing him down. So many sources of worry and frustration – what had happened to Sonata and Aria, the degradation of Thermal Draft’s soul, the unnecessary slaughter of Kryonex’s hapless minions, how Solvei and Nenet were unconscious and only barely clinging to life – all ceased to bother him then. They were still problems, but problems that he’d solve in due time.

Right now his only concern was the enemy right in front of him.

Normally, that thought would have provoked a growl of agreement from the beast within him. But even that artificial distinction had ceased to be. No more was there an uneasy fusion of pony and monster, intellect battling instinct for supremacy. Even his tulpa no longer existed as a separate fragment of himself, reunited with his greater self.

This was the new Lex, whole and unburdened at last.

It was in celebration of that, as much as the hit he’d scored on his foe, that made him roar in triumph as he twisted Belligerence where he’d sunk it into Kryonex’s body.

But before he could exacerbate the wound any further, the demigod counterattacked, undaunted by pain or injury as he slammed three legs into Lex – uncaring that the writhing wires immediately began to abrade his exoskeleton – and released blasts of gelid energy directly into him.

The impact sent Lex flying, pulling Belligerence from Kryonex’s body as he refused to relinquish his grasp on it. But he was less cognizant of that than the fact that the massive blue beams hadn’t felt nearly as painful as they should have, even with his wards having been smashed.

Laughing wickedly at this latest revelation, Lex didn’t bother questioning it as he landed upright, charging the quill again as he brandished it at the wounded demigod.

It didn’t escape his notice that a trickle of pale blue fluid – godsblood, just like what Adagio had stolen – was dripping from where he’d struck Kryonex, confirming that last hit hadn’t been a shallow wound like the ones before it. That time, he’d done some actual damage to his enemy.

For the briefest instant, he considered ingesting the stuff, taking whatever fragment of divinity it possessed and adding it to what he already had in store, but he discarded the notion immediately. It had taken the Night Mare herself to arrange the divinity he’d taken before into a format where it had been empowering rather than overwhelming, and the middle of a fight was the worst possible time to see if he’d gained the ability to do that on his own.

There’d be plenty of time to feast on his enemy’s corpse after he had killed him.

But his foe seemed to have the same idea as Kryonex’s eyes flashed, and Lex felt the demigod’s will slam into him for a second time, again trying to annul his existence.

Just like before, his resistance was only able to hold it back for a moment. Then the lights that made up his eyes winked out as his thoughts collapsed, Belligerence falling to the snowy ground as his body dissolving into a tangle of wires that whipped back and forth in every direction. Again, he felt his very being starting to fray...

...only to suddenly find new strength surging up from within, throwing off Kryonex’s will and reconstituting himself, the barbed wire again assuming the shape of his body as his thoughts restored themselves, his eyes lighting back up. Telekinetically returning Belligerence to his grasp, Lex started forward-

Kryonex tried again, once more willing him to cease existing.

Again, Lex collapsed under the onslaught.

But this time he restored himself even faster, pulling himself together in time to catch Belligerence before it even hit the ground.

No fourth attempt was made, Kryonex’s eyes darkening as his pedipalps clacked. Then he fell back, giving ground as he strengthened the storm around him into another furious vortex of microscopic shards, the blizzard expanding outward as the wind whirled faster, worsening visibility in the area.

Lex plunged into the tempest without hesitation, his new body immediately being battered by innumerable fragments of unnaturally-resilient ice, each of them moving fast enough to cause miniature sonic booms in their wake, turning the snowstorm into a thundering cacophony of destruction as he was struck myriad times over. But the damage from each strike was only superficial, the writhing mass of wires that was his body shattering each shard as they slammed into him.

Even so, the onslaught was enough to slow him down, battering him into near-immobility even when he concentrated on defense, battering the frozen projectiles away as fast as he could.

So instead, Lex changed tactics, and began casting one of the new spells that he’d developed.

It was one that he’d made the previous day, while the adlets had been celebrating their resurrection. Whereas his mortal self had needed time, tools, and testing to design new spells – requiring great effort even when making variations of ones that he’d already known – he no longer required such things as a titan. With his intellect enhanced and his senses expanded in ways he’d never imagined, developing entirely new spells from pure theory was now easily accomplished, and in conjunction with Nenet telling him all of the spells she’d learned, he’d been able to fill his thaumaturgical catalogue with a vast array of magic far in excess of anything he’d had before.

Such as the spell he was casting now, which was designed to alter the local environment.

By itself, it was already a spell whose power would have boggled the mind of any Equestrian wizard, allowing for both the terrain and the climate to be manipulated, though only to a certain degree so as to not completely destroy the local ecosystem. Even with that safeguard, the sheer amount of energy it unleashed meant that the spell required a full hour to cast, a massive expenditure of precious gems to act as catalysts, and the investment of a great deal of personal power.

It was, in other words, not a spell that a mortal could have cast.

But for Lex, disregarding those cautionary procedures was easily done. He’d built them, after all, and he knew how to overcome them.

With a thought, the necessary crystals appeared before him, held in his telekinesis as he plucked them from the dream realm. Nenet’s metamagic was enough to easily bypass the lengthy casting time, accomplishing an hour’s worth of concentration in less than a second. And the power required was something he could not only easily supply, but surpassed altogether, overloading the spell enough so that its alterations would be far stronger than the gentle changes he’d originally made it for.

Then he slammed one foreleg down, claws plunging into the earth as he discharged the spell’s power.

And the ground shook as the world bent to his command.

The western mountain that bordered the valley where they were fighting had already been split in half earlier, bisected by the enormous wall of black crystals he’d raised to try and pen Kryonex in. He’d let the barrier dissolve since, its purpose served, but the massive rent in the earth it had left behind was still there. And it heralded the change he’d made now, as a massive tidal wave of magma surged upward from it, spilling over the mountainside in an eruption whose roar overshadowed the sonic booms of the demigod’s storm even as superheated ash and pyroclastic fragments began to bombard the area, all of it magically augmented to be hotter, stronger, and more destructive than an ordinary volcano could have produced.

It was enough to impede the storm surrounding Kryonex, leaving the demigod’s blizzard struggling to maintain itself against the sudden onslaught of fire and lava.

But none of it came near Kryonex himself. The magma cooled when it approached him, the ash swirled away, and even the pyroclastic fragments falling from the sky seemed to be miss his location, as though the flames couldn’t bear to be near the demigod’s presence.

Lex himself had no such trouble, springing toward his enemy with another deafening roar.

Kryonex was already moving, trying to keep him at a distance while firing more blasts of cold energy at him, but Lex had seen those attacks before, easily outpacing them as he lessened the gap between them.

Then he was within range, and the wire that made up his body now churning faster as he moved in for another strike, aiming right for Kryonex’s face.

But this time Belligerence didn’t strike true, instead getting caught in a layer of ice that had appeared around the demigod, coating his entire body in an instant. Lex immediately recognized the same technique that Solvei used, shaping a substance into armor, but the ice surrounding Kryonex was not only supernaturally tough, but also more than twice the thickness of Belligerence itself!

Snarling, Lex started to drive the quill deeper, intent on piercing the demigod’s new defense no matter how tick it was, but he didn’t have a chance as Kryonex suddenly surged forward, driving them both directly into a nearby pool of lava that was already gathering at the base of the mountain.

The heated plunge did nothing to damage either of them, the substance cooling immediately, and Lex snarled as he found himself momentarily pinned between the solidified rock and his enemy. But he ignored the disadvantageous position, intent on augmenting his attack, a quick spell causing Belligerence to vibrate at a high frequency, making the ice armor around Kryonex to crack, fractures running through it as he pushed the quill deeper...

Only for the demigod to simultaneously go on the offensive, bringing all of his legs around to hit him with seven blasts of cold energy at once.

And Lex learned that even with whatever transformation he’d undergone, he could still take serious – and painful – injuries.

But he didn’t let that deter him, a howl of defiance coming from him as he pushed the quill deeper, Kryonex’s ice armor falling off in chunks now. Just a little further...just a little further and he’d be able to sink it directly into his enemy’s face!

Then his trans-temporal sense screamed a warning at him, one that was impossible to ignore.

Kryonex must have detected it too, because all of a sudden the demigod was gone from atop him, having moved halfway across the valley in an instant. But there was no time to capitalize on that, as Lex hurriedly dove to the side, righting himself an equal distance away, turning back in time to see what he already knew was about to happen.

Sure enough, a featureless black orb was rising up from the ground, exactly where he and Kryonex had both been.

Nor was Lex surprised when a melodious voice cut through the din a moment later, having already foreseen Adagio’s return to the battlefield.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t able to appreciate the sight of her as she strutted out of the cave entrance, hips swaying and hair bouncing as she put one hand on her hip, looking the two of them over. A moment later, the black orb – which his mystical senses were telling him was some sort of incarnate nothingness, able to break down anything it touched – floated toward her, coming to a stop barely two dozen feet from her position, clearly moving according to her will.

A crooked smirk crossed her face then, seemingly unconcerned by the sight of the two of them, or what had happened to the valley itself.

“Is this a boys only event?” she cooed, her voice sweet despite the malevolent look on her face. “Or can girls play too?”

Author's Note:

The battle between Kryonex and Lex heats up, literally, as Adagio joins the fray!

With the fight having turned into a three-way clash, who will be the first to fall?

Comments

[Booster Spice]

I was thinking music, Walk This Way, but then realised with the Wire Lex, a closer match bight be Poison by Alice Cooper?

Because of the temporal sense though with Lex and whatever Kryonex equivalent is, theyre going to be playing Dodgeball, each trying to get the other to be intersection with it?

If it doesnt cause problem with planar intersection, what happens to Portals if theyre already holes in reality? It should just move through from one location to another if it doesnt impact the portal edge itself?

[Alzrius]

11738622 Don't ask me about soundtracks; there's a reason I work in an entirely-textual medium!

As it stands, it's likely that Adagio will have her work cut out for her where hitting Lex or Kryonex with the sphere goes, simply because they both seem to realize how deadly it is, and will make sure to keep track of it and stay away from it. The kicker is that they'll also probably try to maneuver each other into it, so if Adagio is smart she might be able to use that to her advantage. That and, unlike Kryonex, Lex doesn't want her dead.

As far as portals go, they're a non-issue at the moment, since Lex shut down planar travel in the area. Though with this much power being thrown around, I suppose almost anything's possible at this point.

[Not so New Brony]

Leave it to Adagio to make an entrance like that even after she failed her surprise attack though I wonder how much of a threat she'll actually be here. I mean, Kyronex has the ability to erase others. Then again, the orb can destroy even the divine so it can likely protect her against such an attack though this would force her to keep it close and use it defensively. Though I'm more than certain that Kyronex has plenty of methods to attack from afar so Adagio isn't completely safe.

As for Lex, it's hard to tell how he'll react to Adagio. Will he treat her as a threat and deal with her accordingly? Or will he try to keep his promise to Sonata and Aria to save and protect Adagio even though she's undoubtedly hostile towards him? Granted, Aria was the same in their encounter in Vanhoover, but the consequences here are much more dire for him.

[Alzrius]

11738955 In terms of personal power, it's hard to argue that Adagio isn't the weakest individual on the field right now, especially since she doesn't even have aristeia anymore. She's apparently confident that the sphere of annihilation will help her bridge the gap; whether she's right or simply overconfident remains to be seen.

Still, the issue of how Lex and Kryonex might have different responses is notable. There's no indication that the demigod wants Adagio alive, but Lex might, though his current state of mind makes that less than certain. Still, it seems probable that he won't try to kill her, and quite possibly will take exception to any attempt to do so on Kryonex's part, something I doubt Adagio will fail to use to her advantage.