Cold Scales

by Konatra

Duo

Inside the command deck was dark and looked exactly what a crashed ship would look like. Seats tossed about, windows shattered, lights flickering in the dark that briefly showed a massive figure in the middle of it all. Fear Spiked in the dragon, the source of so much suffering was only a few feet away. Forcefully she pushed on, trying to see it as a video game to desensitize herself.

The demon of legend, the Void of Death and the destroyer of the Old Gods was her final opponent. To kill it would save Canterlot and possibly the world, this was her endgame. Courage welled up in her and she shot out like a dark with her blade unsheathed, she plunged down unexpectedly right into its large head. A direct hit! Her monetary shock and awe were quickly diminished when she saw no reaction, no scream or even reflex to the should-be fatal blow...

hopping down in front of it she flashed her hud's LED to see a nightmarish sight.

It was torn almost in half, purple blood leaked from its missing right arm...no, not just the arm was missing but a whole chunk from its torso too. She could see the flesh wriggle and writhe and several beating objects she determined to be its organs. "What the fuck?" She choked out.

"Hm?" Its deep violet eyes shot open and peered down at her. Blood trickled down its face from her attack. "That was you?" It asked and gave a deep chuckle, its voice shook her, it pounded on her mind and she wasn't even here physically. "I had assumed you were a bit of falling debris..." It got up, somehow it got up as if its flesh and bone wasn't out in the open. Bits of armor it wore fell off and some chunks of flesh fell with it. Blood pooled at her metal feet. "This is what happens when you conjure a Xon without the proper equipment...but it was worth it to distract your little army."

Spines could only assume it referred to the Blood Clot...to have the will to mutilate oneself, for a distraction? Quickly she scanned the room to see where the ship's controls were but to her luck it could not be found due to insufficient data her body held within, it could only determine the most likely areas it could be and without the know-how on turning it off she had to opt to the more risky method of destroying the panels themselves. The obvious obstacle would be the brutal demon before her, this Void...she had no battle tactics on how these things fought but she knew it didn't take pain the way she would expect a physical being would, headshots apparently didn't work either at least at her output of damage. The room had no real vantage or cover points aside from the council behind her...it didn't look good, that was what she came to conclude.

"What brings you to my domain tiny drone. I expected a leader of yours to be here, not the fodder." Slowly it picked up a glaive-like weapon that was rather small compared to the size of its handler. She tensed up to move. "Bring me a challenge little one, run and bring me someone worth the effort." Like lighting it swung its blade in a forward arc. She swung herself back just enough to avoid losing her torso, the same could not be said for her tail. About half of it came clean off, nothing much to cry about but it was a bad first start to this battle.

'It has good reach but it's missing an entire portion of its right side, attack the open flesh, that's all I can hope to do.' Her fear held her back from advancing it like she would on any other enemy. This was something Discord feared, a God Slayer to her belief. But it had a gaping wound right in front of her, if there was ever a time to strike it had to be now. As she landed she opened up a quick charge blast aimed at its pulsating wound.

It didn't seem to anticipate this or was simply unable to and took the bolt of plasma mid-center. To her shock, it actually grunted in discomfort and pulled back. "So you have 'mind', a drone would have gone for the head, but you know how to think." It grumbled as its flesh began to writhe from the searing sensation. "But that will be all you get." It stabbed forward with incredible speed but still she narrowly side-stepped and tried to fire another burst attack on its flesh but it brought its massive arm in and blocked. Its rock-like hide didn't even singe with her attack, she expected as much knowing Tendrix couldn't kill him but to her luck, she had a chance she didn't.

"One hit will tear you in two and we can watch my rise to power together as you lay shattered little tin solider." Spines felt a haunting sensation crawl down her nonexistent skin. She didn't like how calm it was, from what little she heard she expected a wild bloodthirsty beast but this one seemed to be calculating every step she took with those blazing eyes. She couldn't get a hit in now that it was on the defensive but she knew her sword could at least penetrate its armor from how cracked open it seemed to be. Slowly she powered down her gun arm and held out her blade.

Silently they stood only a few meters apart, to her surprise she could see a slight look of hesitation in its eyes, it made her wonder just how much of a threat she really was to this monster in this state. Perhaps it knew that an unlucky step could actually spell doom? She didn't want to get ahead of herself before she even made her attack. Another second passed and she noticed just how focused it seemed in keeping its exposed organs covered...

Without warning she made the first strike like a bolt she flew through the air aiming at its still covered flesh, the Void seemed somewhat amused seeing her go for a definite kill point and prepared to make a single clean stab and impale her. "I expected better." It chided but as it attacked Spines suddenly activated her thrust jets on her right side at full blast which jerked her whole body left and avoided the glaive's strike by an inch. Aiming her blade up she made a fierce double stab at both of its eyes that were still wide in shock from the misdirection it fell for.

The Void made an unearthly bellow and trashed around blindly while Spines fell behind its back and slashed a bit at its heel. Again it shouted and swung its blade back so fast she could not dodge fast enough to avoid losing a better portion of her left side fingers. A flash of remembrance went across her from her real-life injuries but she forcefully pushed them down. "Enough of this game." Rolling back she saw the Void tear off its armor chest plate to reveal a pulsating large 3rd eye aimed right at her. Now within sight, it stabbed at her and managed to nick a bit off her side and out sparked some electricity. Her internals warned of the several compromised components too numerous to ignore. Quick diagnostics showed she could only function for another 45 seconds before her nonvital parts had to be shut down to retain basic function.

Swearing her luck, Spines ran numerous more scans of the room to find the control deck as she dodged another swing. 33 Seconds She could barely keep up as is, she wouldn't last another second if her battle systems shut down. She sidestepped a crushing blow. 25 Seconds. Her scans came up with a single result showing the ship controls were left to where the Void's seat was and it showed how to activate the emergency shut down.

With her declining strength, she leaped past another narrow jab at her chest. At least she was still faster than this tumbling gorilla. 14 Seconds Now on the counsel she scanned the alien controls and odd symbols that must have made up the Void's language. Just like her suit told her she pushed the left-most square key and slid down the black knob halfway- The Void was already upon her and despite being able to move away easily she chose to sacrifice this body and slam down hard on the glowing key.

Not even a blink in she found herself flown across the room in two pieces. The timer didn't even matter anymore with the dozens of alert messages she was receiving. Clear fluid dripped from her chest cavity, her lower torso sitting a few feet away from her. Amidst the chaos, her body was going through she felt relieved to be able to save Canter- "How pointless."

The Void spoke as it pushed down a few buttons on the counsel she was at a second ago. To her dismay it already turned the engine back on with another violent rumble in tow, in her rush she forgot about the Void just turning it back on. She felt like a fool as her internals began to shut down one after the other. First her vocal processor then motor functions and audio receptors. She forcefully diverted power to keep her optics online a bit longer, she had to keep seeing, to maybe find a way to beat the demon that had plagued her world. It came upon her looking down with its pulsating black eye, it raised its foot to crush her.

But as it made the motion a sharp tendril pierced through its chest and eye, it turned back to see a jarring sight.

It was her...Spines with all her limbs intact stood there with a glaring white sheen in her eyes. Her arm outstretched into a black tendril that returned to a normal claw as if it were made of clay. In retaliation, the Void stabbed its glaive in an attempt to cut off the dragoness's head but met nothing when it seemingly fazed out of existence only to appear right in front of the Void's wound. With its arm outstretched, the Void couldn't move quick enough to cover its damage, with that the dragoness drove her black claws into the Void.

The dying form that was Spines saw the enemy writhe in pain from the impact, but such a small attack shouldn't cause su- mid-thought the Void's wound bled out tendrils and even more disturbing its eye pulsated as it looked around in frantic horror before it exploded out more tendrils. It took a step back and Spines' body took a step forward with a look of sick satisfaction. Every second another few tendrils would shoot out of the Void's body until it had more pins than a pine tree. Finally, it stopped moving and kneeled over, but her body didn't see that as enough and somehow caused the Void, the once thought God of Darkness, the harbinger of Doom, to explode in a gory mess of flesh and blood all over the room.

Her metal form now covered in purple fluids of her dead enemy began to corrode away faster than acid. Alert messages plagued her mind furiously until she was once again cast back into uncertain darkness. Unknown if she would return this time.

Author's Note:

Sorry for the wait. I took a bit of time to fix many of the errors of the previous chapters. It's not the best fix or anything worth rereading but a long overdue one.