Revival

by mild hotsauce

Ch8: end

Ch8: End

The square was quiet before Dagon shouted his command. Buildings lay ruined on either side, and the fountain was completely destroyed. There was only about seven yards separating the two opposing forces, but would quickly diminish.

The deadra rushed forward, brandishing weapons, claws, and spells that would make mere men cower in fear. Lance didn’t even signal for his own retaliation, he himself ran forward, shield up and sword at the ready, with a sort of orcish tactic in mind.

Bringing his shield up, and using the knowledge he gained from the amulet, he prepared for his own attack, “WULD-NAH-KEST!” the shout launched him forward, and using himself as a battering ram, he bolted through the lines of the deadra, and when his speed started to decrease, he jumped on a deadroth’s head, and used it as a spring to get even closer to his intended target, the Prince of Destruction.

He planted both feet on Dragon’s chest, and kicked upwards, catching the deadra in the chin and knocking him backwards. Lance flipped, and landed on the back of a spider deadra, he stabbed it through the back, and turned his attention back to Dagon, who just got back up, with a menacing scowl on his face. He lifted his four axes, and ran at Lance, ready to chop his head off.

Lance saw this coming, and used it to his advantage. He ran and slid under Dagon’s swing, and came up behind him. He then proceeded to jump onto Dagon’s back, and then stab his madness sword through down the deadra’s spine. Dagon growled in pain, but then dropped an axe, grabbed lance by the head, and slammed him into the ground, making a small crater.

Dagon backed up with a smile on his face, only to see Lance get back up. He scowled again, if he kept it up, he would look like Jyggalag on a good day. He picked up his axe and decided to end it there, bringing all four down on Lances head, but the blow didn’t connect with the target.

A thunderous roar echoed across the square, “FUS-RO-DAH!” and Dagon was sent flying towards the castle, making a hole in one of the walls. ‘Now time to go after him, or try to at least.’ He thought to himself. He blocked a strike from an incoming churl with his shield, and stabbed it in the chest. Celestia ran up to him, blood staining her fur, and with a black eye that could only have come from a really bad face-hoof.

“Now may be a bad time to mention this, but I just remembered that I could teleport us into the castle.” She said with a blush. Lance stabbed a scamp in the face with his sword, and threw it towards a group of incoming churl.

‘For the love of Talos’ he cursed to himself. “Well then, let’s get going. Celestia nodded and they were enveloped in a white light. They appeared just in the castle courtyard, with all the statues. The only problem with the scene was that the statues were gone, and the only things in sight were his tied up friends, Dagon, Sithis, and a pedestal with the Grand Black Soul Gem on it.

Sithis gave a small smile, which is the only thing that the rotting dragon priests body could do with its face. “Glad you could join us, now it’s time to eliminate the only threat to our campaign. Dagon, if you would.” The Deadra nodded, put one of his hands on the gem, and drew power from it. Lance could have sworn he heard pained howls from somewhere. Dagon slowly walked towards Lance and Celestia, axes raised, and a big grin plastered on his face.

“Celestia, I’ll take care of these two, you free the others.”

Celestia nodded and teleported next to her sister and the others. Lance and Dagon squared off, only did Lance move when a bolt of magic struck the ground he was at, the Dread Father is also getting into the fight. Dagon charged towards Lance and started swinging his axes, while Sithis fired bolts of shock magic to help suppress him. Lance couldn’t get any swings out, he was just blocking everything, there had to be a way to make this easier…

Then it hit him, literally. He was thrown by a magic explosion and he landed at the foot of the pedestal, and he decided to put a stupid plan into action. He stood up and turned around, just when Dagon was bringing down his four axes. Lance dove to the right, and the axes connected with the soul gem, which shattered. This surprised Lance, not only did his idea work, but the Grand Black Soul Gem, which is supposed to be indestructible when filled, shattered when it was hit by Dagon’s axes. What happened next nearly killed him, again. The gem exploded in a fury of dark magic, sending Sithis into a wall, and Dagon to the floor a few feet away, it also tore metal plates off of Lance, and sent his shield and sword to the other side of the room.

Lance stood up, he lost most of his armor in the blast. His plate body was now a pitch black leather jerkin, his gauntlets were cracked in places, squares of metal and the knee guards were missing from his greaves, and his boots were seriously damaged. He also noted the complete lack of an amulet, shield, and sword on him, though he still had his custom steel dagger.

He turned to face Dagon and Sithis, only to find Dagon getting sucked into an oblivion gate. “Help me you infernal shade!” he shouted.

“I told you this would happen, but you just had to go and ignore my warning. No, I won’t help, off to oblivion with you and your deadra.” Was the reply, Sithis then kicked Dagon into the gate, and it closed.

Lance looked back at his friends, and found that the princesses protected them from the blast with some sort of shield, which was thrown down when Sithis summoned shadow chains around them. “Now now, we don’t want the fight to get too one sided, don’t you think?”

“How bout this, you go back to the Void quietly, and I don’t kick your undead ass into the next Era.” Lance brought out his dagger, he would need to get really close to use it, something Sithis wasn’t keen on letting happen.

All he got as a response was the same grin from before, a bit of rotted flesh from his form slowly peeling away. An unheard signal announced the start of the fight, Sithis summoned a blade in his right hand while volleying shock spells with his left while Lance was left to dodge the attacks and occasionally block a stray spell with a ward. “Quite moving.” Sithis growled, his frustration only increasing.

Lance was able to dodge enough attacks to get close enough to Sithis to use the only shout he knew how to do. “WULD!” he shouted and launched himself towards the dread father, unfortunately, he forgot about the sword Sithis still held in his hand, which was thrust forward when Lance used the shout.

The sword handle was sticking through Lance’s chest, but he showed no signs of pain. In fact, he was smirking; his own dagger was lodged into the Dread Father’s throat. Sithis then threw Lance off his sword, and ripped the dagger out of his neck, ash falling from the cut, it would kill a normal person, but Sithis wasn’t at all mortal. “What was that supposed to do?” he asked, and then the Lance he was facing turned to dust. “A clone, where are you mortal?”

He looked behind him just in time to see a beam of lightning heading for him. Too late to dodge or counter, he took the blast, which stopped after a few seconds. Sithis’ physical form was now missing several bits of rotted flesh, and his robes and bits of plate metal protection were singed. He steadily got up, using some sort of stone surface for balance. Without warning, a dagger came down and embedded his hand into the surface of the… pedestal… which was glowing slightly.

“Well, looks like this will be the last we see of each other.” Lance said smugly.

“Yes it will.” Sithis replied, and with his other hand, stabbed Lance in the chest, ripped out his heart stone, and dropped it on the floor, grinning as wide as his physical form would allow.

Not many thoughts passed through the Argonians mind. Nothing but the thought of completing the spell, and the realization that he may have just fucked himself over. He cursed the dread father for this, and devoted half of his magica to literally hold his body together, and the other half to a conjuration spell that would forever bind Sithis to the void.
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Swift couldn’t believe what she was seeing, her brother couldn’t have hit his head that hard, could he? If he was thinking straight then he would have pinned both of Sithis’ hands, and then finish him, but then again, she did barrow that stack of papers from Pinkie before.

The nine of them watched with shocked expressions as the very thing that kept Lance alive fell to the floor. she could see the look in her brothers eyes, not that it portrayed anything, it’s just that they glowed a bright gold color, while his right hand slammed a purple flame into the head of the Dread Father, a rune glowed for a second, before a purple light expanded from it and then imploded on itself. It reminded her of what happened when you summon something, but reversed. She saw the light in his eyes slowly fade, and the hole in his chest started glowing, as he started fading away.

Their bindings were gone, but they were all stuck in place, not turning away from the sight. This was odd for Swift, usually when the host is separated from its heart stone, parts of their body fall off and turn to ash before they finally pass into Oblivion to be claimed by Sithis and brought to the void. She couldn’t see why this was different, maybe he was given the chance to put the stone back into his chest, no, that’s not what he was doing. He placed it onto the pedestal, and it started glowing a bright gold instead of a shadowy dark purple. He placed his hands on it, and funneled his magic into it, she got up and started walking over to him, then she him humming a tune that originated in Morrowind. Seconds felt like an eternity when she slowly walked to her brother, completely unaware that the others were doing the same.

He stopped funneling magica into the onyx, which turned from black to a bright gold, and turned around, facing the nine of them. He leaned against the pedestal and said his last words. “Well, my time is up, it was quite a ride up till now, and I think that this little spell will be a great ‘thank you’ gift.” With that, he faded away. Something told her he was in Aetherius now, she never showed it, but she was close to her brother, and seeing him finally fade into the afterlife broke her, for the first time in Swifts life, she shed a tear.
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Celestia didn’t know what to say. She thanked the stars above that this crisis was over, but she heartbroken to see such a thing as to the death of Fire-Lance. The only thing that stopped her from tearing up like the others, was the strong amount of magic she felt coming from the stone on the pedestal. She reached out with her magic to pick it up, but was shocked to see it drain a bit of her magic before floating into the air on its own.

She finally found out what his final gift was. The stone sent out pulses of magic, that rippled throughout Canterlot (even over Equestria as she learned later), and started repairing the damage that the deadra and shades left on the land. Wherever the waves of magic passed, rubble was cleared and buildings were repaired, even the dead were showing signs of life. The previously dead Pegasus lieutenant that took an arrow to the heart for her flew over with many more guards. Mazken and Aureal joined them soon after.

“The deed is done?” one asked, Celestia nodded. “Then our job here is done, we will alert the mad god of what happened here today.” She opened a blue portal and then they left the city. Leaving only the ponies and one Argonian.

“I think it would be best if we got some rest, then we will see if we can return things to normal.” Celestia stated.

“We think that is a great idea.” Luna replied, the only thing she got from the others were nods of approval. “Alright, everypony get some rest, we have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”