The Breaking
I woke up with a start halfway through the night. It was so sudden that it took me a couple seconds to shake off enough sleep fog to actually realize what it was that had woken me up in the first place. Once that processed, the adrenaline hit and burned away any lingering sleepiness.
Coldharbor was on fire.
I bolted out of my room. Puzzle and Strumming were already out in the hallway, both looking just as confused and half-awake as I probably did. Kukri stumbled out of her room a second later, groaning and rubbing her eyes. I got straight to the point. “Anyone have any idea what the hay is going on?!”
“The city’s on fire.” Strumming opened up a window, letting the smell of burning wood and straw waft into the building.
“That doesn’t answer anything,” Kukri grumbled, shaking away the last bits of grogginess. “That just raises more questions, like ‘Why is the city on fire?!’”
Puzzle looked out the window, scowling to himself. “It’s a big fire, too. Looks like it’s already spread to half the city, and the rest probably won’t be far behind.”
“But how could half the city be on fire?” Kukri demanded. “What in the name of the White Pony’s flying feathering farts is going on here?!”
“Language, Kukri,” I absently chided, stepping over next to Puzzle to take a look for myself.
“Really, Shimmer-mare?” Kukri groaned.
Strumming idly ruffled my apprentice’s headcrest. “For the record, this seems like the right type of situation to use some colorful language.”
Once I got a good look at Coldharbor I was inclined to agree. The entire city looked like something out of Tartarus, the sky lit up with a sickly red glow as the flames spread. Coldharbor was pretty likely to have fires, now that I thought about it; wood and thatch were some of the most flammable building materials around, and the cold weather would probably have everyone burning something in their fireplace. The snow that normally covered roofs and the street had already started melting from all the heat, turning the streets into muddy slush as the city burned. Really, it was a surprise the city didn’t have fires all the time during winter. All it would take is one citizen falling asleep with an unattended fire that got a bit too wild...
A second later, I realized the problem with that: fires would be a known risk that the local authorities would be on the lookout for. Any halfway competent fire department would’ve stopped a house fire long before it spread to cover half the city. They certainly wouldn't let it get this out of control. For that matter, all sort of emergency services should’ve been running around doing damage control and clearing people out the danger zones as soon as the fire started running wild. But all I saw was chaos and confusion. What the hay was going on? This only made sense if the fires had just star—
And then I felt it.
The world exploded around me. I didn’t ... hear it exactly, if only because something that powerful can't be heard so much as survived. My bones shook inside my body, my eardrums throbbed in agony, and my very connection to magic flickered as a guttural roar exploded across the city. The glass rattled inside the windowpanes, or maybe it was my eardrums. Or maybe both—I honestly couldn’t tell. I was just happy that I could hear anything in the ensuing chaos.
A massive shadow swooped over us, blotting out the moon for several seconds as it passed. A line of fire emerged from the creature’s mouth, lashing into the city and setting dozens of houses ablaze. The fire also let me get a fleeting glance of Coldharbor’s attacker before his wings carried him out of view. A dragon. A really, really big dragon.
Kukri stared up at the creature, her jaw hanging so far open that it was practically on the floor. “Is ... is Argentium burning the city?”
The dragon came around and landed in the center of the city, right next to the jail holding Starlight Glimmer. Now that he was staying still I could actually see him well enough to get a good look at him: the dragon was certainly on the same scale as Argentium, but instead of silver his scales were pitch black. He had runes in them just like she did, but where hers had just kind of passively rested on her scales, his glowed in a particularly nasty shade of orange. The same color Starlight Glimmer’s magic had changed to.
It wasn’t hard to connect the dots. “That’s not Argentium.”
Kukri stared at the titanic dragon in horror. “It’s—it’s the other one? Blackfyre?! What are we going to do?!”
“Only one thing we can do.” Puzzle’s eyes flicked over to me. “We need to get to cover. Once he frees Starlight, she’ll almost certainly point him towards us.”
Kukri blinked. “We’re just going to run away?”
Strumming nodded along, pointing to Blackfyre as the dragon tore the roof off the stone jail with a single swipe. “You see how he’s tearing into that place like it’s made of wet clay? Well, we’re a lot squishier than solid granite walls.”
“Guess that confirms Starlight’s working for him.” I winced as I saw the local caribou and ponies fleeing the scene. “We have to go help them.”
Puzzle nodded along. “Your talents should be helpful for containing and dispersing the fires to keep evacuation routes open.”
“Not what I had in mind.” I grimaced and shook my head. “No point in trying to put out fires while Blackfyre’s running around setting them ten times faster. Puzzle, go find Scarlett—I’m gonna need all the help I can get to take on that overgrown lizard. Strumming, get Kukri and anyone else you can to somewhere safe.”
Strumming stared at me for several seconds. “Okay, you know the world’s gone nuts when I’m the one who thinks other ponies are talking crazy. Did you seriously just say you were gonna try to take on that?!” She pointed to the huge dragon as he smashed a house to kindling with an idle flick of his tail.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the idea, but... “Look, I can slow him down some. Keep his attention on me instead of wrecking the city and delay him while you get everyone to safety. Maybe even stop him from getting away with Starlight.”
Puzzle shook his head. “Shimmer-mare, you can’t fight that thing! You barely survived fighting Starlight, and she was just a minion he gave a little bit of his power! You haven’t even completely recovered from the beating she gave you!”
Strumming nodded along emphatically. “Think about it this way: Argentium and Celestia would think twice about picking a fight with this guy, but you just wanna go up and try to deck him in the schnozz? I know you had some recent brain damage, but I didn’t think it was that bad!”
“Shimmer-mare...” Kukri bit her lip, visibly struggling to think of what she could say. Probably torn between wanting to support me and thinking Strumming and Puzzle had a point.
Puzzle shook his head. “Look, we need to find Scarlett and send a message to Argentium. Assuming your mother hasn’t already done so, which she almost certainly has. Scarlett is stronger, more experienced, and knows much more about elder dragons than you, and the fact that she doesn’t seem to be rushing out to fight a delaying action against the dragon should probably be another sign of what a phenomenally bad idea that is. “
“Well I have to do something!” I exploded. “I can’t just sit back or run away while he’s tearing up buildings and killing everyone who gets in his way! Not when there’s something I could do to stop him, or at least slow him down until Argentium gets here!”
Strumming grimaced and put a hoof on my shoulder. “The only way you’d slow him down is if he decides to play with you for a bit before he kills you. I don’t like it either, but this is one of those times when you’ve got to walk away and let someone else handle it. You’re out of your league, and trying to punch that far above your weight class is just gonna get you pounded.”
“If you want to do something, help everyone else survive this,” Puzzle agreed. “You can’t stop the dragon, but you can clear a path through the flames to get a lot of innocent ponies and caribou to safety. Not to mention the rest of us.”
I wanted to argue the point, or even just ignore them completely and go rushing off to take on the dragon despite what they said, but ... well, they were right. I couldn’t even touch Scarlett, and she seemed to think that this fight was something to stay far away from. I’d nearly killed myself trying to keep up with Starlight, and she was just a lackey with a tiny little taste of Blackfyre’s power. Trying to take on the big dragon himself ... Strumming was right. I didn’t stand a chance. Admitting that wasn’t cowardice, it was just realism. The right thing to do was focus on what I could accomplish, not go rushing into a fight I stood no chance of winning.
Still, admitting that felt far too much like giving up. “Right. Evacuation. Get as many people together as you can, and I’ll focus on clearing a path through the fire. We’ll have to move fast. The fire’s spreading out of control and I can’t put out the entire city.” Not to mention putting out too many of the fires he was spreading all over the place might attract the giant evil lizard’s attention, and that was the last thing we wanted.
Puzzle nodded and immediately flew out the window, calling out the fleeing civilians to try and catch their attention and instill some measure of order in all the chaos. Strumming watched him fly out, grimacing down at her bandaged wing. “Dumb overgrown fire lizard couldn’t have the decency to give me another week or two to heal up...” She turned and started running down the stairs, calling out at the top of her voice.
Kukri looked up at me uncertainly. “What should this one do?”
I thought about it for a second. She was a bit too obviously young to be much help when it came to organizing the evacuation—nobody would listen to a kid. She could probably help a bit with dispersing any fire, but I would have to do the vast majority of the heavy lifting for that. “Keep your eyes on the dragon,” I answered. “I’ll be busy concentrating on the fires, so if he’s getting anywhere near us I need to know right away.”
“Right.” Kukri nodded dutifully.
By the time we got out into the street, Puzzle and Strumming had managed to organize a few dozen of the locals into an impromptu refugee convoy. Guess that proved one of the old lessons Celestia gave me about how authority works: if you go around bellowing orders like you know what you’re talking about and expect to be obeyed, a lot of people will just instinctively fall in line. It certainly explained why anyone would listen to two strangers in the middle of all this chaos: they really wanted to believe someone had a plan and could get them out of this.
Well, that just meant I couldn’t let them down. “Alright, I’ll clear us a path through the fire. Everyone stay behind me. Don’t split up, don’t run, and don’t lag too far behind. I’ll keep the path open as long as I can, but I can’t hold the fire off forever.”
The heat was already intense out in the street, even well away from any of the active fires. Northmarch’s freezing winter weather had vanished completely, and it felt like I was walking into an especially large oven. I didn’t even want to think about what it would be like once we got to one of the hot zones. Sure, I’d gotten through hotter temperatures myself, but I’d never tried shielding a large group of civilians from this much heat.
Well, failure wasn’t an option, so I’d just have to make it work.
I headed up to the first crossroads where the flames blocked the way forward. Even from twenty meters back the heat was enough that it took a conscious effort of will not to back off from it.
Thankfully, I had plenty of spells to handle that kind of thing. I started off by taking advantage of one of the basic laws of thermodynamics: heat rises. Sure, I could just try to snuff the fires out, but considering how much of the city was on fire I’d wear myself out trying to extinguish every blaze we came across. It was a lot easier to just take advantage of fire’s natural properties and just encourage the flames to go up a bit more and not in any dangerous direction.
“It’s clear.” I lead the way down the street I’d cleared. It certainly wouldn’t look exactly safe to any casual observer, but the flames were all curving upward and generally turning as much of their force as possible away from street level. It still felt hot enough to bake a cake, but it was safe enough as long as nobody lingered long enough to worry about heat stroke.
We moved through the burning city, stopping a couple more times whenever I needed to clear another burning street. As we moved towards the edge of town we started to attract more and more followers as the only island of relative calm in this insane inferno. On the one hoof, that was great because it meant I was helping more ponies and caribou make it out of here. The downside was it meant I had a lot more people to protect. Every group of strays we picked up meant I had to keep the anti-fire spells covering a wider area, and for a longer time.
Kukri’s eyes flicked back to me. “Shimmer-mare, are you okay? Can this one help?”
“I’m fine.” The last thing I needed was to make Kukri worry. Besides, much as I appreciated her offer, what I was doing right now required a ton of magical muscle and a really delicate touch. Kukri would probably never have the first of those unless she’d gorged on a ton of love energy, and apprentices are by definition not good at precision and fine control. Much as I appreciated the offer, if Kukri tried to help she’d be wasting her strength at best and unintentionally making my job harder at worst.
Strumming stepped up next to me, murmuring. “Good news/bad new time. Bad news is the crowd’s starting to get a bit big for just me and bug boy to handle. Good news is this street we’re coming up on should be pretty much a straight shot out of town.”
“Good.” We rounded the corner, exiting onto a wide thoroughfare. The road was wide enough to make things a bit easier on me, since the road was wide enough to provide some insulation from the burning houses on the sides, and none of the piles of burning rubble were enough to completely block off the road. I dared to hope that the worst was past, and from here it was just a matter of walking everyone to safety.
Then I heard the screams.
It was one of the taller buildings I’d seen in Coldharbor. At first I thought it must be an office building or something, but judging by how the ponies and caribou taking refuge on the roof were dressed it was probably a nightclub of some sort. Would explain why there’d been so many people there at this late hour.
Obviously we needed to help them. Sending some of the pegasi in was the obvious solution, but the fires on the lower levels of the building made that a risky prospect at best. Not to mention a few of the patrons were large enough that getting them down without any proper equipment would be hard.
By the same token, I couldn’t use my preferred method of firefighting. Sending all the heat up into the air wasn’t an option when the people we were trying to rescue were all upwards of the fire.
Good thing I wasn’t a one-trick pony.
Once I made sure nobody was standing too close, I pulled all the heat of that burning building towards me, relying on my own personal defenses to keep from frying myself. After a minute of work the fires within the building started subsiding. Or at least, it felt that way to my magical senses. I couldn’t count on my eyes in this case, since the massive pillar of flame centered around myself blocked just about all my senses. At same time I sent all that fire up, I pulled cold air from higher up down the middle of that column, keeping enough of it around myself to avoid burning despite the temperature.
As the spell continued the fire got wilder and wilder, the mix of hot and cold air starting to kick up furious winds. I didn’t have any choice but to weather the storm I was creating. At this point trying to stop the spell would probably just get me killed, and maybe a lot of other people in the bargain. Besides, if I wound up accidentally causing a thunderstorm or something, the rain would help everyone.
Rather than try to fight against the rapidly building flame-driven winds as they whirled around me I stayed in the center of my firestorm, just giving it a few nudges to keep it under control. If the laws of physics and forces of nature wanted to make my job a bit easier, I saw no reason not to go along with them.
After what felt like hours but was probably only a minute or two, the fires within the nightclub faded away, and there was nothing more to fuel my firestorm. I slowly dispersed the spell, letting the wild forces I’d barely even tried to tame disperse. Once the flames cleared enough for me to finally see everyone again, I realized that instead of running for safety far too many of them were staring at me.
Kukri was the first to break the stunned silence. “That. Was. AWESOME!”
“Gotta agree with Facon,” Strumming agreed. “Not many ponies would solve a burning building by creating a tornado and then setting it on fire instead of the building.”
“I was improvising.” I shrugged. “I needed to get the heat up and away and needed to do it far enough away from the building to make it safe.
“Has to be the first time I’ve heard the word safe associated with a giant flaming tornado,” Strumming shot back with a smirk.
Puzzle came back from organizing the rescue of the survivors, looking much less happy than the others. “A very impressive piece of improvisation,” he conceded before frowning at me. “And extremely noticeable.”
Before I fully understood what he was driving at, Kukri let out a tiny, nervous little squeak. “Um, Sh-shimmer-mare? Remember how you asked this one to keep an eye on the dragon?” She gulped. “He’s, uh ... he’s coming this way.”
A second later a titanic shadow swooped over us, the small gale accompanying it snuffing out the few embers my spell hadn’t gotten.
While anyone with a functioning brain probably didn’t need me to say anything, I did anyway. “Everyone run and get to cover, now!”
That sent the refugees scrambling, but I already knew it was too late. Blackfyre was already coming around for another pass, and while I was a long way from an expert on dragons I knew an attack run when I saw one. With all of us funneled into a single straight street, he could just fly along breathing fire and frying everyone. Some of the refugees would get to cover in time, but not everyone.
There was only one choice. Not a very good one, but it’s not like I had a wealth of options. “Kukri, Strumming, get behind me!”
I waited until Blackfyre swung around and lined up for his attack run; no sense wasting energy on defenses before he committed to the attack. Having the extra time to prepare certainly wouldn’t hurt, because I needed every scrap of power I could get if I was going to pull this off.
Barring Celestia wielding the sun’s power, there was pretty much no fire on the planet hotter than dragonfire. Especially since there was more to it than just fire. A dragon’s breath had a kind of magical weight to it, for lack of a better term. So far I’d only been dealing with the secondary fires his breath touched off. Trying to handle it when it came straight from the source...
As Blackfyre let out another earth-shaking roar before he unleashed his fire, I screamed my defiance up at him and cut loose with a continuous beam of pure arctic cold. All the remaining fires on the street level instantly snuffed out just from being near my spell, and the muddy sludge covering the road from the melted snow briefly became a sheet of particularly dirty ice. It was quite possibly the most raw power I’d ever poured into a single spell; just channeling that much power through my body felt like something between being on fire, getting electrocuted, and a weird sort of relief. Like the feeling you get in that brief moment right after you’ve finished carrying something really heavy.
Blackfyre’s head snapped forward, and a torrent of fire erupted from his jaws. It met my ice beam halfway into the air, the impact immediately producing a huge cloud of steam. For a moment I was afraid he’d use the steam cloud to evade my attack and come at me from another angle, but I should’ve known better. I’d pretty much directly challenged him with my attack, and a dragon as old and proud as Blackfyre would never back down from a challenge like that.
Especially when he was almost sure to win it. Despite pouring everything I had into the spell it only took a few seconds for the clashing energies to emerge from the steam cloud formed by their initial impact, the dragonfire inexorably forcing back my ice beam. I clenched my teeth and tried to push it back, but all I managed to do was slow his progress down a tiny bit.
The ice that had sprung up along the streets and buildings when I cast my spell rapidly melted as Blackfyre’s flames forced their way closer and closer. I tried to keep a cool head, but it wasn’t easy in the face of such obvious signs that I was outmatched.
Kukri stepped out from behind me, standing next to me and firing off an ice beam of her own in support of mine. Compared to the amount of power I was throwing at Blackfyre it was barely a trickle of energy, especially since my apprentice didn’t have anywhere near as much focus as I did. Using the power you had efficiently was at least as important as actually having a lot of raw power to throw around, and pretty much by definition an apprentice never had all that much fine control.
As a straight contribution to the fight, I doubt Blackfyre even noticed the difference. However, Kukri jumping it served as a stark reminder of just how much was at stake. If I couldn’t hold off the fire it wouldn’t just be me dying—it would be Kukri too. And Strumming, though I hadn’t promised her parents I’d bring her home safe.
No. I couldn’t lose here. It just wasn’t an option.
I dug deep down and threw every last reserve of strength I had to into just holding him off. My eyes watered from the effort, and my was horn practically vibrating from all the power. I could feel a bone-deep headache starting which probably should’ve worried me a lot more when I’d only just recovered from having an aneurysm, though I suppose it didn’t really matter if my brain exploded. If I couldn’t hold the fire back, I was dead either way.
I don’t know how long I kept pushing. I really didn’t have any mental energy to spare to think about things like keeping track of the passage of time. Everything I had was going into just surviving for the next few seconds.
And it still wasn’t enough. Blackfyre’s breath pushed back, igniting the buildings around us. Soon my beam of ice was little better than a glorified shield spell, barely projecting more than a meter in front of me. I could already feel the heat coming off his attack, and I knew it was just a taste of what would come if my defenses failed. Not only had the intense heat melted away all the ice on the ground, but it had evaporated the water and was making pretty good progress on reducing the paving stones to molten slag.
I tried to find some last hidden reserve of strength, anything I could throw at him to buy a few more precious seconds of life, but there was nothing. Or rather, nothing except my own life force. Drawing on that would mean...
Yeah.
My eyes flicked down to Kukri.
I’d promised her parents. And I’d promised myself as well. No matter what it took, Kukri was coming home safe. No. Matter. What.
I took a deep breath and prepared to cast the last spell of my life.
Then, so suddenly the absence of it seemed almost impossible to comprehend, Blackfyre’s breath finally ended.
The firestorm had reduced almost everything around us to blackened ciders. The cobblestones were half-melted and glowing red hot, except for a thin v-shaped area behind us that had been shielded by my spell. The heat was stifling, and between that and the sudden wave of exhaustion from ending the spell battle I was feeling a bit light-headed. Strumming caught my shoulder before I could faint, and after a few seconds I started feeling almost normal. Or at least as close to normal as I was going to get without a big meal and a twelve hour nap.
Not that I was likely to get either anytime soon. The shadow passed overhead once more, and this time instead of strafing us Blackfyre came in for a landing. I probably would’ve been utterly terrified of him if I wasn’t too tired to care. He looked every bit as big as Argentium, maybe even bigger, but more importantly he carried the size differently. Where Argentium seemed to move with an odd sort of delicate grace for a creature of her size, Blackfyre was far less subtle. A casual flick of his tail tore through the bottom floor of the nightclub I’d saved, collapsing the entire building into a pile of charred rubble. I wasn’t sure if that had been a deliberate show of force or just an accident spawned by how little he cared about the damage he could inflict, and I also wasn’t sure which prospect was scarier.
When he spoke, his voice was such a deep subsonic grumble it took me a moment to recognize the actual words. “What an interesting little gnat you are, Sunset Shimmer. I never would have believed a mortal could survive my flames.”
“I’m just full of surprises.” I couldn’t help but be a bit proud of actually managing to pull off a bit of defiant banter when most of my brain was torn between terror and exhaustion. Maybe that was another one of those instincts I was developing.
“Magi.” Blackfyre snorted, emitting another gout of flame. “Such arrogant little creatures, thinking that the mere taste of true power you possess gives you the strength to oppose your betters.”
“A dragon calling someone else arrogant?” I gasped out. “That’s a new one.”
Blackfyre fixed me with his piercing orange gaze, then smiled. Unlike Argentium, his smile displayed every single one of his massive fangs. Then he chuckled at me. “I see now why Celestia trained you: spirit, and undeniable talent. However, your master feared to face me in open battle, and you lack even the palest reflection of her might.” He reached up with one of his massive talons, plucking something off of his back.
Kukri got a good look at it before I did, shivering in revulsion as her voice took on a high-pitched, almost panicked note. “Oh Endless Night, what is that?!”
Once I got a good look at the creature I silently echoed her question. The twisted, broken thing contained within the metal cage undulated under our gaze. It might have been a pony once, or a gryphon, or a diamond dog or … a quadruped … but now it was a hunched, hairless thing perched upon a pedestal of colorless limbs bent at unnatural angles. Its skin was pale and thin, like a sheet of of parchment had been stretched over its bones. At first I thought the lump on its back was a tumor, but on closer inspection the lump had three misshapen limbs and a single black eye. The thing cringed as Blackfyre held it in front of his face.
The dragon’s gaze shifted back to us. “I have not been idle these last thousand years. Argentium never truly grasped the wonders that can be created when runecraft is worked into the very flesh and blood of a creature. Now...” He rattled the cage. “Sing for me, little one.”
The creature opened its mouth and shrieked. No, a word like ‘shriek’ doesn’t even begin to do justice to the sound it was letting out. The high-pitched wail made me want to plug up my ears, or maybe just blow out my own eardrums so I wouldn’t have to listen to it anymore. Except a second later I realized not even deafening myself would work, because there was a lot more to the scream than the sound the broken creature was producing, and I wasn’t just hearing it with my ears. It was tearing into my mind.
Kukri yelped as she reverted back to her natural form, and I tried to come up with a spell to block out the creature’s cries. Except when I went to cast the spell, nothing happened.
I tried again. Still nothing.
Blackfyre sat back on his haunches, looking far too smug. “Magi. You possess great power, but it exists in such a limited scope. Though if it's any consolation I can’t cast spells either at the moment.” He leaned in, smirking in a way that displayed every single one of his massive fangs. “Of course, without magic you’re just a tiny little pony, and I’m still a dragon.”
I saw his tail come swinging around just in time to duck under it. It was only after it sailed over my head that I realized he wasn’t even aiming for me. Strumming managed to dodge the worst of it, but the attack still bowled her over. Her attempt to counter with some of her throwing spikes went nowhere, the weapons just bouncing off Blackfyre’s hide. Puzzle charged in a second later, trying to work a stiletto in between two of the dragon’s scales. He didn’t manage anything before Blackfyre casually buffeted him down with one of his wings.
Then the attack Blackfyre actually intended for me came. He set a talon down on the ground and then flicked me aside like I was an annoying piece of dirt. Normally getting flicked by a talon isn’t that big of a deal, but when the talon in question is the size and thickness of an especially large tree...
I went flying towards one of the few buildings still standing. I instinctively tried to shield myself, but Blackfyre’s pet was still screeching and I couldn’t conjure up even a shred of magic. Back during the fight with Starlight we’d knocked each other through buildings thanks to our armor and protection spells. Without any magic ... well, when I hit the wall it wasn’t the building that broke this time.
It took about a minute or so for me to push through the pain and recover enough awareness of the world to realize what was going on around me. Each breath came with a razor sharp stab of pain that could only mean cracked or broken ribs. I only hoped I hadn’t smacked my head again when I hit the building. I really didn’t want to risk any more brain damage.
Eventually it occurred to me that I should be dead by now. I’d been down and helpless for more than enough time for him to finish me off if that was what he wanted. Which meant...
A single unbelievably massive paw settled over me, not quite crushing me but making it clear it could at a moment’s notice. Blackfyre’s maw leered over me. “Finally coherent enough to hear me? Then I shall make this plain: your companions are still alive. Swear to serve me, and they’ll remain so. Otherwise...”
I needed a bit to wrap my head around what he was saying. “You want me to … what, get a bunch of runes carved into my back like Starlight has?”
“Just so,” Blackfyre agreed with a cruel smile.
I decided to play for time and answers. “What guarantee do I have you won’t kill them?”
Blackfyre chuckled. “Oh, you misunderstand me. I won’t kill them. You will serve me—the only choice in the matter is whether you do so willingly, as Starlight does, or by becoming one of my blessed children. When I create a Blightspawn I purge all remnants of their former life. It assures their loyalty, and helps keep things ... tidy.”
Oh. Oh horseapples. This was bad. This was really, really bad. Somehow, he’d actually managed to make me wish I’d gone through with tossing a death curse at him. Normally I wasn’t a big believer in the whole idea of there being fates worse than death, but being twisted into one of Blackfyre’s Blightspawn? Yeah, that qualified.
I spotted the only slim hope I had of turning my situation around. The only problem was, it was out of reach when I had to rely on hooves instead of magic. I needed more time, so I pulled out the only thing I could think of that might give him pause. “You think you’ll get away with this? Celestia and Argentium beat you a thousand years ago, and that was when you had Sombra backing you up!”
Blackfyre’s eyes flashed. “They didn’t beat me. I simply chose to make peace and bide my time. Time, you see, is an immortal’s greatest ally: I didn’t need to enact some grand thousand-year plan to bring about the downfall of my enemies. I merely needed to wait for an opportunity to present itself. Celestia? Without her magic, she’s as helpless as you are.”
I rather doubted he could beat Celestia with a single critter’s spell-disrupting scream, but ... when Blackfyre was already a match for her, it might give him an edge.
“Besides,” Blackfyre hissed, “that’s what I’ll have you for. Facing you in battle would destroy her. Either she will refuse to fight and you will cut her down or annihilate you and hate herself for it.” Blackfyre turned his head upwards, gazing proudly at the burning city. “She would weep to see what I have accomplished here. Her attachment to mere mortals has always been her greatest weakness.”
I took advantage of his distraction to stretch out as far as I could, desperately trying to reach Chainbreaker’s hilt. Every move sent fresh waves of agony up my barrel, but I had no choice. Without any of my magic that sword was the only thing I had that stood the slightest chance of hurting Blackfyre.
But it was no use. Even if I’d been uninjured the sword was too far away, and with several busted ribs it might as well have been on the moon.
I made one last desperate grab for it, and then ... well, it was almost like the sword itself moved. The hilt snapped straight into my hooves as if I’d levitated it over.
I didn’t quite understand it, but I wasn’t going to complain. “Celestia’s not weak!” I brought the blade to bear. “And neither am I!”
Blackfyre barely spared me a bored, contemptuous glance as I struck. He probably expected my sword to bounce off his scales like Puzzle and Strumming’s weapons had. Hay, I had pretty much expected that happen.
Instead, Chainbreaker cut straight through his thick hide and into the flesh beneath, slicing into one of his talons. A second later Blackfyre withdrew his foot with a startled yelp, hopping back and snarling in pain. I pulled myself up to my hooves, ignoring all the pain as a fresh bit of hope filled me. I’d made him bleed. He might be horrifyingly powerful, but if he bled, he could die.
Blackfyre stared at his wounded talon for several seconds, as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened. “You actually wounded me in some small way, I’m impressed. You really are worth turning.” He smiled and chuckled to himself. “Still, we can’t let that sort of defiance go unpunished. That’s going to cost you a leg.”
His words had barely even registered before his tail came swinging around. Before I’d even realized the danger was there it slammed into my right foreleg, just below the shoulder. The next minute or so after that was just a very confused, painful blur.
When I finally regained my senses, I was hanging upside down in the air. Apparently Blackfyre was holding me up by the tail. Normally that would really hurt, but right now I was having a hard time feeling anything other than the pain coming from where he’d hit my leg.
I risked a glance over at it. The pain and shock might have addled my brain, but I was pretty sure my leg wasn’t supposed to bend that way. Or that many times. And I definitely shouldn’t see any bone poking out through the skin.
Blackfyre took some of the blood from the tiny little scratch I’d made on him, using it to trace a few runes on the ground. “You have about thirty seconds of free will left. If you want to say any of the typical melodramatic last words, I suggest you do it quickly.”
I managed to focus enough to say one thing. “You’re going to lose.”
“Oh really?” He paused his runework. “Pray tell, why? Is it because I’m corrupt? Because my evil will naturally make others rise up against me? Or do you just have so much blind faith in Celestia that you believe she can defeat me no matter how great her disadvantage is?”
“No...” I barely managed to smile. “Because Argentium’s about to hit you.”
An instant later the massive silver dragon finished swooping down from the sky and plowed into Blackfyre. The two of them rolled through the burning city, snarling, clawing, and biting at each other as they went.
The impact sent me flying up into the air as Blackfyre lost his grip. While Blackfyre’s anti-magic abomination had left the area along with him, I was in no state to do anything to stop my fall.
That would just figure. I manage to escape from the most evil and powerful dragon in the world, only to die from the fall when he dropped me.
Puzzle and Kukri slammed into me in mid-air. The impact sent fresh waves of agony through every single bone in my body, especially my broken leg. I must have passed out from the pain or something, because the next thing I remember is all three of us being down at ground level.
Kukri stared at my broken leg, eyes wide and jaw hanging open. “That’s ... what do we do?!”
Scarlett stepped out of nowhere, grimacing down at me. “We get her to a doctor. After we take away the pain.” She shifted her attention to me, her horn lighting up. “Sleep.”
Even if I’d wanted to resist the urge to fall into a deep, pain-free sleep, I was in no condition to do so.
Stats
Page generated in 0.027 seconds
Total duration
1,021 users online
1,864,969 hits today, 1,822,946 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Well someone has been reading OOTS...
That was....well I greatly enjoyed the chapter, but I do think the change of pace was jarring. Wonder why Chainbreaker was able to wound Blackfyre.
Sunset went YEET.
9395957
Indeed
giantitp.com/comics/images/w85eRCj4GRyI3UPQCDc.gif
Also, the anti-magic Blightspawn reminds me to the Shriekers from Divinity Original Sin 2.
Note: one thing bugs me; Blackie has been bidding his time for a thousand years, and know he dares to burn one of Argentum's cities thus violating the Dragon Law and attracting the retribution of Runescales, Celestia, the other members of the Dragon Council...all for a minion?
9396006
To add a minion yes. To actually lure one of his opponents out of a presumably well defended lair where his armies can fight her? Minion is a side benefit.
Welp. Someone's having a really bad day.
Well. That escalated quickly.
Blackfyre is indeed a most disturbing fellow, given his delving into unspeakable fleshcraft. Though that particular antimagic shrieker is... well, narrow, ironically enough. It only seems to work on unicorn magic. Pegasi still fly, runes still function... and so do ancient artifacts.
Still, Sunset is in a bad way. She may end up going to Equestria just because it has the nearest medical facilities. Or Argentium's lair again.
9396231
And it wasn't Sunset's fault.
Well, I think Baconhead has earned Argentium's respect at least.
Really. Big. Oof.
9395986 Just a theory, but Chainbreaker's purposes (for lack of a better word) is to free the oppressed, and Blackfyre is way beyond a normal slaver, what with him erasing minds and reshaping bodies and all, so maybe it has more power against him?
Shimmer's new title: Dragon Claw Clipper.
9396006
For a specific high value minion that when combined with his anti-magic shrieker, pretty much straight negates the more powerful of his two remaining major foes. He's had time to plan and he only didn't succeed because Argentium showed up *much* faster than he expected, and that appears to have mostly been bad luck as far as planning went, with a random encounter between a Blightspawn and a party that not only survived the encounter but included someone with a direct communications line to Argentium.
9397093
Chaotic good sword vs lawful evil dragon. Makes sense that it would work.
Hope to get more Blackfyre in the future. I look forward to his motivations and seeing more of his pearly whites.
9396006
Glad to see I'm not the only one getting Divinity vibes from that blightspawn
This chapter was so much fun to read... great job!
Daaaaaaamn. That was EPIC! <3
Oh look, the dragon came for his servant.
He's not wrong.
A fire tornado, flashy.
Hey, shielding the entirety of the first bombardment pass of an ancient dragon ain't bad.
Talk about a choice between a terrible option and an even worse one.
Nice!
Well, it was a good try.
What a well timed dragon.
So GOOD!
This is probably the coolest chapter you have ever written. Like this sent so many chills down my spine as if every scene was written perfectly!
Luna sure can make a sword.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this marks the first time we've seen a fight with a dragon in a Winningverse story. Between Chengar and Ponibius, it only took three and a half million words. That's a long time for your fantasy adventure series set in a world with dragons to go on without a single dragon fight, but now that it's finally happened, it's like the world is at last complete. I now understand what long-time Elder Scrolls fans must've felt like when Skyrim first came out.
Huh, so Chainbreaker does work on a dragon, what little comfort that is. This might be the most pain Sunset's gone through, at least in a single story. Maybe she'd better study up on the healing spells after all this.
Well, at least Sunset didn't blink, even when facing down a dragon like that. He was the obvious mastermind but I still didn't expect him to just show up so suddenly. Guess his plans were much farther along than anyone had realized. Another great fight, even with the odds against Sunset, but I'm actually more interested in the aftermath. After a disaster like that I doubt there'll be much of a town left.
Didn't realize Sunset was related to Derpy.
Use the force!