Saros

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Surfacing

Even now, drained of blood and oxygen, burned in a dozen places, Myrk could hear the sweet chime of her desperate voice. There was a rattling noise echoing across the thinning walls of the ventilation corridor. As he soared up the vertical tunnel, he paused his hyperventilating just long enough to feel the ringing owl pendant that was dangling around his neck. He sucked a painful breath inward, praying for the lunar surface to appear at any time.

Suddenly, the shaft exploded with bursts of hot lunar powder around him.

Myrk gasped, flexed his wings, and regained his steady flight upwards. There were more bursts of burning mana all around him. Several bright plumes of energy surged past his body. Grimacing, he glanced straight down.

A furious, disheveled Stellar was hot on his tail. He charged a bolt of blue light into his managlider and morphed the wings tighter to accommodate the shrinking corridor. The Rune Guard Captain gained speed, hurdling up after Myrk's battered body and firing volley after volley of burning death. "H'rhnum! H'rhnum!"

Myrk swiveled and twisted from side to side. The sheer proximity of the glowing projectiles was burning at his sensitive, sarosian coat. He wheezed, short of breath as he forced his numb wings to flap harder and harder. A tiny circle of light marked the end of the vertical shaft and the grated exit to the lunar surface beyond. The canister rattled around in his threadbare saddlebag. He grimaced and whimpered in pain as he felt the dreadful hum of the managlider gliding closer.

Stellar was gaining speed, but it still wasn't enough. He looked down behind him and saw the two distant specks of his backup guards. Cursing under his breath, he flexed his limbs and unlatched all four hooves from the crystalline controls of the glider. He stood straight up on the vertically ascending craft, unsheathing his scimitar. After several meditative breaths, he summoned a deep-throated growl. The horn flickered brightly through his helmet as tears trickled from the excruciating concentration needed for the following act.

"Rrrggghhh—" Stellar gnashed his teeth. Pulling a page out of the Phantoms' book, the unicorn disappeared in a flash of blue light.

A blue bolt shot straight up past Myrk. The sarosian's black eyes twitched, and he had very little time to react.

The ball of lightning materialized; Stellar came flying down with a full swing of his glowing scimitar. "—Aaaaaaugh!"

Myrk flung all four hooves ahead and caught the sharp blade between his metal shoes. The weight of Stellar halted him in midair and shoved him straight down the shaft.

And that's when Stellar's managlider caught up with them.

"Ooof!" Myrk slammed into the speeding vehicle hard. He rolled aside and dangled off the crystalline left wing of the craft.

Stellar perched above him, swinging and slashing furiously with his blade. Sparks danced off the ascending craft as the Captain's strikes inched closer and closer to Myrk's limbs, grazing him once.

Myrk hissed into his own spray of blood. As Stellar prepared a final blow, he planted his hooves against the middle of the craft and kicked off. He flipped up, dodged the blow, and landed with his rear hooves scraping the blurring wall. As Stellar prepared to swing his sword again, Myrk bucked his limbs against the shaft and speared his body into Stellar’s chest. The ponies' bodies sprawled over the nose of the glider, upsetting its ascent with their weight. The vehicle bent into a suicidal spiral as it drilled its way up the final length of the shaft. Stellar hissed and growled, kicking Myrk off him and slashing blindly at the sarosian’s body. Myrk dodged, somersaulted, and landed clumsily next to the Captain. Before Stellar could bash his sword’s hilt into Myrk’s face, the former Wraith clutched Stellar tightly from behind. On a whim, he wrenched the unicorn’s manarifle loose from his shoulderplate and aimed it at the the blurring wall.

"H'rhnum!" Myrk's lips produced.

Stellar's runes fired a manabullet point blank into the surface of the corridor, splashing a hot burst of lunar powder into his face. "Gaaah!" Stellar rolled off the nose of the craft. Before he could fall, he managed a loose grip onto the wing of his careening managlider and dangled wildly.

In the meantime, Myrk kicked off the craft, making a desperate leap forward. The grated exit to the shaft was just within screaming distance. The sarosian stretched his forelimbs out, hurdling himself fitfully for the exit, his goal, his salvation as well as Luna's.

Hanging from the glider, Stellar looked up, cleared the dust from his violet eyes, and frowned. With a concentrated burst of telekinesis, he chucked the scimitar straight forward and launched it after Myrk.

The glowing blade shot up the shaft... and sank its way deep into Myrk's flank.

The sarosian howled in pain, his voice reverberating off the last length of the tunnel. When his body struck the grate, it had become a living cannonball.

With meaty thunder, Myrk smashed through the door and into the blackness of space. He flew into a dramatic arc, his body leaking a crimson band of juices from the blade embedded behind him. It took three full breaths of agony, but his body finally came down, smashing hard and grinding to a cratered halt in the white, sunlit plains of the lunar surface. High above, the bright shape of the earth could be seen, with the blue oceans and the emerald continent of Equestria gazing apathetically at the lone sarosian's plight.

"Nnnngh... Mmmff..." Myrk heaved, twitching as he struggled to pull himself up. He looked skyward, his black eyes brimming with tears. Instantly, smoke rose from his skin. With a stifled shriek, he reached up and flung the hood over his brow. To his indescribable misfortune, he had arrived upon the moon's surface at the tail end of a lunar day. Sneaking a peak beyond the edge of his hood, he spotted a solid black line. A brief breath of hope escaped Myrk's lips; it was almost nightfall. However, the horizon of darkness was a torturous three hundred meters in front of him.

Myrk couldn't afford to wait for the sunset's release. As waves of pain cycled through him from the sword stuck in his side, he flung one hoof forward and then a second, pulling himself over the scorching powder in a desperate attempt to make it to the dark side of the moon.

He was not alone. With a burst of telekinetic energy, Captain Stellar's manacraft flew out of the shaft. He backflipped, dissolved the vehicle, and landed softly on the powdery sands. With icy menace, he trotted easily after Myrk's worming body. The two backup guards soon also emerged, and they joined their leader's side—breathless—with floating blades drawn.

Through the pain, Myrk could sense their approaching bodies. He didn't dare gallop—not even fly—for fear of losing all blood or being burnt to a crisp. He continued clamoring his way through the powder, inching slowly up the edge of a petrified crater. His breaths were shallow and tight, his gnashing teeth crunching flecks of dust into his dry mouth.

Stellar stood directly above the helpless sarosian. With a calm breath, he flickered a burst of energy through his horn and savagely ripped the scimitar out from Myrk's hide.

"Aaaaugh!" Myrk shrieked, a fountain of blood pouring out of his exposed wound. He lingered briefly in the lunar dust, soiling it with his juices. The pain was made all the more agonizing from the edges of his coat and limbs exposed beyond the flimsy, tattered veil of his cloak.

Stellar saw it. With a growl, he swung the scimitar and slashed the length of the cloak off Myrk's body. His weapon kicked the fabric loose, exposing the sarosian completely to the sunlight.

Myrk had never felt so much pain in all his years of guarding Princess Luna. His body sizzled from head to tail beneath the solar glare. Steam rose from his flesh as his stone-gray coat turned brown, filling the air with the musky scent of torture.

The other guards watched solemnly as Stellar marched over and kicked the burning sarosian in the side. "Nnngh!"

"Haaaugh!" Myrk howled in torture.

"Pathetic filth..." Captain Pierce Stellar spat on him and kicked his roasted flesh several more times. He leered above him, telekinetically gripping the scimitar. "I wasted a dozen of my stallions' lives chasing you down, and now you wail like an unweaned infant! Get up!"

Myrk rolled over the edge and down the white-hot embankment of the crater, curling into his own blood and whimpering.

"I said..." Stellar slid over and kicked him across the skull this time. "Get. Up!"

Myrk hissed and spat up blood, nearly vomiting to the scent of his own fumes filling the black spaces above.

Stellar snarled. He stood directly above Myrk and straddled him, purposefully controlling the degree to which his own shadows caressed the spasming sarosians' form. Leering, he pointed the edge of his blade into Myrk's chin and hissed, "I hate your kind. I always have. You sarosians and your mutant eyes and your self-righteous resolve and your wicked teeth and your stupid, ugly ears!" He slammed the hilt of the scimitar across Myrk's cheek and shouted, "Is this your holy prophecy?! Did your forbears promise you pain and anguish?! Look into my face, smell your own ashes, and tell me: Who is your Empress?!"

Myrk coughed and sputtered.

Stellar smacked him again. "Who is she?! Who is your Empress?!" He raised the hilt again.

Myrk squeaked and looked up through blood-soaked eyes. "I... snkkt... s-serve the Princess..."

Stellar stared silently down at him, the edge of his fury dissolving slightly.

Myrk gnashed his fanged teeth and bore the closest resemblance to a frown. "The phantom D-Daughter of... our b-beloved Father... is whom I serve, and not the sh-shadow..." He clenched his eyes and hissed forth, "The Nightmare must accept paradise... must accept harmony." He gulped and sputtered, "Only the Princess' solemn gr-grace and mercy has made purpose... out of m-my horror..."

Stellar seethed. After several heavy breaths, he stood up off of Myrk, reintroducing the sarosian to the burning sunlight.

"Gnnnghhh..." Myrk clasped his forelimbs over his face and curled into the dust.

"Listen to me, Myrk," Stellar grumbled. "You are a horror, an abomination." He knelt down and tore open the exiled wraith's saddlebag. "You were born of Discord to be a weapon, and today you just proved that." He reached in and felt for the canister. "And when Nightmare Moon returns to earth, and brings the weight of a thousand long years upon the aimless, sunlit fields of Equestria..." He yanked the container out and stood victoriously with it. "All your kind shall remain here on the moon, alone, buried deep within the forsaken ashes of Consus."

There were two gasping voices from behind Stellar.

The Captain turned around with a glare.

Wide-eyed, the guards were pointing silently at what was in his grasp.

He looked at the canister, and his own jaw dropped. "What in Entropa's name...?" The metal device was intact, but there was no glow to it. The bright blue energy had been completely drained. He held in his hooves what amounted to an empty jar of inert metal. "The.. The alicorn mana! Where... Where did...?!"

A weak chuckle filled the space above the crater, growing louder and more haunting.

Breathless, Captain Stellar gazed down at his burnt nemesis.

Myrk was hugging himself, laughing and coughing alternatively into the fumes of his charred flesh. "The... The sp-spirit of Luna...?!" He grinned bloodily, his eyes twitching as he struggled to glare up at the sight of the haggard Rune Guard. "Do you not h-have it?" He spat and wheezed before droning forth, "You never did, Stellar. Not you, not the Rune Guards, not even the Wraiths. Nopony who has ever worshiped the Empress Nightmare Moon can c-come close to being blessed with Luna's spirit, with her energy, her holy gift to c-cast off the fetters of the Deceiver and serve the goddesses like we were b-born to..."

Stellar's lip quivered. He stared at Myrk, at the empty canister, then at Myrk again. "You... But all this time...?"

"I'm the exiled Captain of the Lunar Wraiths," Myrk spat. "Do I look like a pony capable of protecting anything anymore?"

Comments

[Csquared08]

Brilliant! That plan seems to have worked flawlessly!

[Unwitting Brony]

Finally got around to reading this, and I must say- rarely will I ever interrupt reading a completed story in order to make a comment on it... but Myrk's move with the canister was absolutely brilliant. This entire story has been absolutely amazing. It has action, it has story, it even ties into the canon of Friendship is Magic (somewhat). If I may go so far as to say, this is the best fic of its sort that I've read. Ever.

[Revan]

That canister maneuver was brilliant.

[AppleTank]

I never really had your tube
>"Right Behind You" intensifies

[FOXTrot2]

Myrk was hugging himself, laughing and coughing alternatively into the fumes of his charred flesh. "The... The sp-spirit of Luna...?!" He grinned bloodily, his eyes twitching as he struggled to glare up at the sight of the haggard Rune Guard. "Do you not h-have it?" He spat and wheezed before droning forth, "You never did, Stellar. Not you, not the Rune Guards, not even the Wraiths. Nopony who has ever worshiped the Empress Nightmare Moon can c-come close to being blessed with Luna's spirit, with her energy, her holy gift to c-cast off the fetters of the Deceiver and serve the goddesses like we were b-born to..."

Hah. Gotcha, bitch! see who's laughing now!