Brightly Lit 2: Pharos

by Penalt

Chapter 36: Ice and Blood

The storm surged around the mountain with a force that would not be denied, and the icy heralds of its winds were a declaration of intent. This storm and the forces behind it had traveled thousands of miles to be here, driven by ancient magics and modern greed, by an aching hunger and the desire for power. It had come all this way to feast on this town and it would not be denied.

But this was not the Brightly that the windigo had known before. This was not the town who had come together via a serendipitous miracle at the last second, nor was it the place of slowly fading memories that it had been before. This was a town that had seen change coming and had taken those changes into its heart, transforming itself as old friends and new had changed from one form to another.

Brightly and its people had accepted those changes not as strangenesses to be feared, but as differences to be embraced and celebrated; to be cultivated, to be nurtured. New and old had become alloyed together like the bronze of the Foxfire swords. Their edge had been hardened by work, sharpened by experience and they strode forth bright and shining, ready to meet this latest threat.

“Darter, Skylark,” rang out the voice of the Shield Maiden, ever ready to protect her home. “Take some pegasi with you and do your best to keep those winds back.”

“On it!” Darter responded, flashing directed glances around and getting answering nods, blushing slightly when his gaze landed on his parents.

Windweaver and Thunder were both powerful weather talents, and it was clear to see where their son had gotten his abilities from, even if Darter had transformed long before his parents had.

“We’re with you, son,” Thunder said calmly, packing as much reassurance into his voice as he could. “You and your sister take the lead, we’ll back you up.”

Darter leaped into the air, with his reticent sister at his side and in their wake followed a phalanx of winged ponies. The weather around Brightly had been a near perfect mix of sun and rain over the past few months, and Darter’s fledgling weather service had been the reason why. However, the ragged formation had barely cleared the rooftops before all of the fliers found themselves buffeted by the approaching winds.

Several of the fliers felt themselves being pushed back down to the ground, ice beginning to coat their feathers as a frigid worm of fear began to worm its way into their hearts. Three of the pegasi were within a body length of the ground before a new warmth began to fill their bodies, energizing them and their wingbeats.

Climbing again, their eyes were drawn to the shining silver wingtips of Skylark, glowing as she shared the magic of her mark with her companions. The pegasus was not the fastest or the most agile of flyers, but for sheer power of flight nothing could or would ever top the Skylark of the Skies. Higher the pegasi rose, and while they could not drive back the storm, they could hold back the worst of its effects, giving time to the others.

“Right Ma’am,” Recon stated, stepping in front of Foxfire and her students, each of who had been delighted to find that they had been changed to unicorns by the transformative spell. “Time to get you and the Crusaders out of here.”

“What?” replied a shocked Foxfire. “I’m needed here. I’m the most powerful unicorn in town, plus I have this.”

Foxfire’s falchion blazed into existence, its eternal fire promising searing retribution to any that dared harm its mistress.

“You’re pregnant, and as much as you try to work around it, it’s affecting you,” Recon shot back, going nose to nose with the mystical mare. “Besides, your students can barely walk, and I need someone to make sure the Crusaders are out of the line of fire and managed. You might not be related to them, but you are a mother, and they’ll listen to you. Who can protect them better? You, or me?”

“Fine,” Foxfire answered in a voice that promised a long discussion later.

“But we can help!” the Crusaders cried as one, their faces set in a comical blend of earnest desire to be of assistance and full on begging.

“And you will,” Foxfire assured them. “First, you help me get my students to safety and then you help me protect the old and very young ponies. Can I count on you?”

“Yes Ma’am!” the Crusaders declared, and as a unit they began helping Summer, Char and Chilly turn their stumbles into something resembling actual walking.

“Head to the school,” Foxfire ordered the sextet, doing her best to be heard as winds in both directions began to roar in earnest. “Medevac is setting up her aid station there. I’m right behind you.”

Foxfire set actions to words and trotted along at the rear of the group, using her magic to help her student’s whenever a misstep threatened to turn into a tumble. The unicorn stopped a moment to look backwards one last time, where a phalanx of earth ponies began to form a battle line with Iron Hoof and Iron Heart at its core.

“Be safe,” she whispered, before resolutely facing forward and trotting quickly to catch up with her group.

Behind Foxfire, the clash of controlled weather was turning into a stalemate, with the windigo’s polar vortex unable to breach the wall of summoned chinook winds. The windigo had the advantage of sheer power and scale, but Brightly’s weather wings had nature on their side, and a powerful ally it was. Over a space of barely ten meters the icy wall clouds from the north surged back and forth against the warm winds of the west, neither side willing to give ground as each probed the other’s defences, seeking a way to push their enemy back.

The two weather systems screamed at each other over that small distance until the windigo’s face appeared on the front of the wall of cloud that marked its side of the strange battlefield to vomit forth a katabatic wail of doom at its enemies. At the pitiful creatures who dared stand in its path with their warmth and their magic, and it was right to be angry at them.

Without even taking a moment to think, Shield Maiden and the other unicorns with her took the blast on a set of instantly summoned shields, and directed it harmlessly away. Twice more the thing from the north tried freezing its foes in place, the second time forcing the unicorns to shift their protection away from themselves to the pegasi up above, as the creature tried to bring them down.

All three attempts met with failure, but that failure was not total. For though the windigo had been unable to take a quick and easy victory, it still succeeded in radically reducing the temperature in the area, strengthening itself and its abilities on the local scale. While not enough for it to freeze the ponies defending Brightly, it was enough for something else.

“What the hell is that?” Recon yelled out, for as the wind began to die down several loud crunching sounds could be heard from the far side of the curtain wall of cloud.

“I… I don’t know,” Shield Maiden answered, faltering somewhat. “Uh… everybody get ready for whatever!”

In that moment, Recon had a realization. For all of her bravery, skill and experience, Shield Maiden was still a twelve year old girl just barely starting the journey into womanhood complete with all the worries, fears and concerns of any young person her age. Shield Maiden was a unicorn pony of great skill and promise, dedicated to protecting her friends and family, but she wasn’t a soldier.

“Everybody! Eyes forward and brace for contact!” Recon yelled out, and as muzzles oriented forward and spines straightened, the soldier pony saw Shield Maiden shoot her a grateful look.

Nor was the experienced soldier’s call a moment to soon, as out from the wall of black storm clouds strode forth something out of a horror movie. Moving blocks of ice and snow, like something from a Minecraft nightmare, walking and undeterred by the strong winds of both sides moved forward with steady purpose and obvious intent.

“Squad, burst fire!” Recon called out, and bringing her modified P90 to her shoulder fired a three round burst into the closest of the dozen figures approaching.

The chatter of the weapons in semi-automatic mode sounded a brassy counterpoint to the basso thunder of the winds, and though Recon could see that her first burst had gone home, it had done little to her target beyond chipping off some ice; though Recon thought she could see something underneath.

The creatures were able to make another step or two before each member of Recon’s team flipped their weapons to fully automatic mode, unleashing a hail of 5.7mm devastation at the approaching enemies. The pegasus felt a surge of grim satisfaction as her first target went down in a spreading corona of shattered ice and blood, and she was sighting down her second target when her command instincts kicked in.

“HOLD FIRE!” Recon screamed out, but not before another half-dozen of the creatures went down.

There, lying on the icy pavement at the top of Brightly’s main street, was the body of a man. His body clothed in jeans and a bullet-riddled t-shirt, with the shattered remains of the ice that had been both his armor and his prison scattered around him. The other downed enemies were the same, men and women, civilians, who had been alive until the bullets of Recon’s protective detail had both freed and killed them simultaneously.

The members of Brightly’s protective detail were all experienced war fighters, with records of involvement in more than a dozen covert and overt operations around the globe. One does not join any country’s special forces simply by collecting bottle caps and the detached members of Joint Task Force Two were no exception to that rule. But even the best can be taken by surprise or shocked into inaction.

Taking advantage of the moment of shock and horror as Brightly’s defenders realized they were fighting flesh and blood opponents, the remaining members of the first wave closed the last few meters of the distance to the line of earth ponies and lashed out. Instantly, three of Brightly’s earth ponies found themselves grabbed in vices of ice and as a deadly cold spread out from the points of contact, each of them began to be frozen into prisons of frigid crystal.

“LET GO OF HIM!” Iron Hoof shouted, spinning to deliver a perfect double back kick to the attacker. Iron Hoof’s blow sent the warrior flying backwards, even as it shattered the ice around the human within, who landed in a groaning heap.

The other two victims were not as fortunate, and within the space of the few seconds it took for help to arrive, their bodies were totally sheathed in ice, disappearing into the frosty, opaque depths, their minds frozen over and chained to the will of the windigo.

“Fall back!” Recon yelled, as dozens more of the creatures emerged from the storm. “Hand to hand only!”

“But we’ve got hooves!” some joker called out.

“You know what I mean,” snapped back Recon, noting with some satisfaction that the defenders were indeed moving backwards in a steady retreat, coming to each other’s aid any time one or more of the ice warriors got close.

“How do we stop them?” Shield Maiden asked, using her magic to set up a large barrier.

“Physical impacts seem to do the job. The problem is that we’ve got to get close enough to them to… aw shit,” Recon commented, seeing two icy pony shapes join the line of attackers.

“Bad word!” Shield Maiden automatically corrected, adding a stern look for good measure.

“How long can you hold that wall up?” Recon asked, watching as more and more of the ice creatures began to pummel the mystical barrier..

“Not long!” yelled back the young unicorn, grimacing in concentration as her shield took more and more damage.

Recon’s mind raced, trying to think of options, noting with worry that the enemy was starting to fan out. If Brightly’s defenders didn’t do something soon, they were going to be outflanked and swarmed under.

“Detail! Prepare to open fire, full automatic,” Recon commanded.

“You can’t!” Iron Hoof protested, coming to stand nose to nose with the soldier pegasus. “Those are people!”

“Not when they’re trying to kill or convert you into a popsicle, they aren’t,” snapped back the pegasus. “It’s us or them.”

And just in that moment, everything suddenly went quiet as both wind and ice warriors became still, stopping their assaults. All eyes turned to the curtain wall of cloud as from it a ghostly horse of wind and ice stepped forth.

“The last time I was here, you defeated me,” stated the windigo, its form effortlessly shifting to that of a translucent, fanged bear. “This time I have allies. This time I have magic and power and strength with me. You cannot prevail.”

For all the obvious hatred on the windigo’s face, the words were delivered with cold dispassion, as if the creature was saying water was wet, or the sky blue.

“You will all be mine. You will all serve me,” continued the elemental. “If you fight me, this time you will lose and become nothing but food for my eternal hunger. Surrender.”

“Why?” Iron Heart asked, his unshorn fetlocks waving as he stepped forward. “You make a pretty good argument for us not to give up. Ever.”

“I will beat all of you, but it will cost me in time and strength I would rather use elsewhere,” admitted the creature. “So I will make you an offer, this one time. Join me, of your own free will as Ash Heart did. Serve me, as he does, and you will keep your hearts and minds. Act as my captains and lieutenants, and you will be raised up as this world becomes my kingdom of ice and snow.”

The cold words settled over the crowd, sinking into hearts and minds as all present considered their options. Darter and the pegasi contingent took the opportunity to land among their friends, and all exchanged worried glances. Each of them knew that surrender was unthinkable, but on the other hoof each of them knew how tenuous their defence was, of how close Shield Maiden’s barrier had come to being shattered or simply outflanked.

“How do we know you’ll keep your word?” Recon asked, trying to draw out the moment, ears flicking backwards as she heard the sound of reinforcements arriving, but without looking backwards there was no way she could tell who or how many.

“Oh, I’ve given you no word,” responded the windigo, shifting its body yet again into that of a spectral alicorn. “But the law of nature rules that the strong survive. Be strong, as my ponies of the storm.”

“Bullshit,” called out a young voice, and every eye went wide as they realized it was Shield Maiden herself who had said the expletive.

“What?” asked the windigo, tilting its head in confusion.

“I said, ‘bullshit’,” repeated the young unicorn, and Recon had to hold back a burst of inappropriate laughter that bubbled up from somewhere inside her. “You’re a liar. A big fat liar, and even if you weren’t it wouldn’t be worth it..”

“I will make sure you live to regret this,” hissed the windigo. “I will chain you in ice, and make you watch as I eat the essence of your f—”

<KRAKOW>

Everyone was forced to blink as the searing light of a scarlet lance of power shot down from above, gouging a head-sized crater from the pavement a bare few centimeters away from the windigo and forcing it to jump back.

“Hey asshole,” Polaris called out, from his old perch on top of Brightly’s hotel and smoothly sliding another round of depleted uranium into his weather hardened rifle. “Remember me?”

“The young lady said, ‘No’. So how about you just chill out,” Rios added, chambering a round into a riot gun while glaring pure death at the windigo from unblinking, jet grey pony eyes.

“Did you seriously just tell an ice spirit to chill out?” Polaris asked, as snickers, giggles, and guffaws rose up from the embattled ponies.

“Yup,” Rios replied laconically, pulling the trigger.

Ten centimeters of hardened rubber leapt out from the riot’s gun muzzle, crossing the distance in a flash and striking hard and true against the chest of one of the ice warriors, shattering its covering to show a dazed looking woman underneath. In response, the windigo glared daggers up at the American soldier, who replied with a universal gesture.

One second Recon was failing to hold back a snicker, the next all hell broke loose as the curtain wall of clouds exploded outwards to engulf the town with a blast of ice and cold. The pegasus managed to hold fast against the now unchecked gale force winds sweeping unchecked across the town, but visibility dropped to near zero.

Recon could just hear Shield Maiden call out for the pegasi to try to drive back the winds, and orienting on that faint voice, the guardian tried to make her way toward one of her charges only for a fresh ice warrior to loom out from the gloom and attack. Recon ducked under one wild swing, and was just wheeling to deliver a ferocious buck when a second creature joined the fight, trying to take her on her blind side.

The next minute felt like an hour as the pegasus exploded into a whirlwind on hand to hoof violence, dodging, striking, and weaving in and out of her opponents like a dervish with its tail on fire. Her opponents were clumsy, but they had the resilience of permafrost and strength like a calving glacier, and despite all of Recon’s skill and courage one of them manage to grasp her left wing by its primary feathers.

Instantly her wing was coated in a layer of ice, freezing it into immobility; and Recon could feel the numbness beginning to crawl into her brain as well. Cold numbed reactions allowed the other ice warrior grab onto her other wing, riming it over as well; and darkness began to fill the soldier’s vision.

“NO!” shouted Recon, as her will to survive and her fighting spirit manifested as one. Lunging forward and twisting as she did, the pegasus broke free of the hold, leaving her confused opponents staring at the huge handfuls of Recon’s primary, secondary and tertiary feathers they held instead of the pony.

The tearing pain kick started Recon’s mind back into full functionality laced with the pure savagery of “If someone tries to kill you, you kill them right back,” making time seem to crawl for the embattled member of Canada’s premier military unit. Scooping up her P90, the pegasus reared up and spun like a ballerina, blood arcing away from her mangled wings as she did so, to bring the butt of the PDW down on the head of first one and then the other ice creature.

Both beings staggered under the blows, and fueled by pure adrenaline, Recon kept up the assault, hammering away until both her enemies were down, their controlling armor of ice as thoroughly broken as the pony’s weapon was now. Panting, wings sheathed in carmine meltwater, the pegasus stood over her fallen foes, the human hosts who had been under the ice bruised and battered, but alive.

“Amateurs,” gasped the pony, turning to try to find her charges again. Despite her wounds, despite her lack of a weapon, Recon headed in the direction she had last heard Shield Maiden’s voice.

It took another minute or so of blind wandering, of stumbling past dazed people lying in pools of shattered, melting ice, or dashing away from ponies being changed into fighters for the windigo, for Recon to at last find her target.

And she was too late.

As the pony stepped out from yet another blinding wall of fog, she walked into a patch of cold, clear air. So clear and cold, in fact, that her hooves froze to the ground almost in the same instant that she realized that she had found Shield Maiden, Iron Hoof, and the windigo.

Iron Hoof stood frozen to the ground like she was, and Recon felt a surge of satisfaction to see the shattered leavings of at least a dozen ice warriors around him. Despite his valiant efforts however, the windigo held a struggling Shield Maiden in its grasp, holding her up like some sort of trophy.

“THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TRY TO SHINE A LIGHT INTO THE ETERNAL DARK AND COLD!”

Author's Note:

Next chapter in two weeks, though I may just get a jump start on it while I'm laid up with this uber head cold of mine.

Comments

[coyotethetrickster]

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[redandready45]

“The last time I was here, you defeated me,” stated the windigo, its form effortlessly shifting to that of a translucent, fanged bear. “This time I have allies. This time I have magic and power and strength with me. You cannot prevail.”

For all the obvious hatred on the windigo’s face, the words were delivered with cold dispassion, as if the creature was saying water was wet, or the sky blue.

“You will all be mine. You will all serve me,” continued the elemental. “If you fight me, this time you will lose and become nothing but food for my eternal hunger. Surrender.”

When you talk like this, it is a prelude to defeat.