Chapter 38: Endgame
“No.”
The windigo paused as it heard that. It could afford to pause. Its prey, the thorn in its side that was Shield Maiden, was writhing helplessly in its grasp with her allies beaten, defeated or neutralized by either the windigo’s minions or the icy cold it surrounded itself with. Besides, waiting would make the meal to come all the sweeter, enriched by the flavours of loneliness and despair that were the spirit’s meat and drink.
“Who dares deny me?” called out the creature of eternal heartlessness, looking around at the few ponies that were still on their hooves.
“I do,” said Father Addison, dropping gently to the ground and not even deigning to notice that his hooves were almost instantly frozen to the rime covered ground.
“You have no power here, pony,” the windigo mocked, adding, “all you can do is be my next meal.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” the bat pony replied, head high and the cross on his chest glowing golden. “But Shield Maiden is my friend, and friends are never alone. So, if she falls, I will be with her.”
“And when you fall to my hunger? When you are cut off and alone? Who will be there for you?” questioned the spirit, who furrowed a brow for a moment in confusion. Was it warmer, all of a sudden?
“My husband is never alone,” replied Addison’s wife Natasha, coming in to land by her side. Her hooves stuck briefly to the ice covered asphalt of the road before the bat pony pulled them loose again. “Even if you take his heart, his very soul; you will still see me looking back at you because we are never alone.”
“Love. Such a lie,” the windigo responded, having to push more of its power now into keeping the temperature cold enough to freeze the mare to the ground. “You think you can stop me with the power of love or some other… feeling? I am the Windigo! I am Cold. I am Loneliness, Greed, and Death. You cannot stop me, because there is nothing else like me.”
“There are always things like you,” Montcalm said, stepping out from the weakening storm, his grey tail streaming away from his brick red body. “And there will always be people like us to stop you. Friends, lovers, neighbors, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands… a community.”
“And people like me are just the point of their spear,” added Rios, stepping forward as the winds lessened further and the walls of cloud grew even thinner. “By myself I’m just an army of one or two, but behind me there’s a whole town ready and willing to take my place. Armies of them, standing together against the cold and dark. Standing against you.”
The windigo felt shock go through its immaterial body as the impossible seemed to be happening. These people were beating it, somehow. The temperature was climbing now, and nothing the windigo did seemed to bring it back down. In desperation, it called to its icy minions, the ones that it and Ash Heart had taken on the way to this accursed place, but they were strangely unresponsive. Unwilling to heed the commands of their icy lord and master.
“How are you doing this?!” demanded the windigo, seeing ice begin to melt away from its soldiers in spite of its best efforts.
“No man is an island, entire of itself,” quoted Polaris, alighting from his perch to join this final confrontation. “Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
The windigo realized with shock that it was losing. In fact, it was on the verge of being defeated utterly. Warmth and light were beaming out from the ponies that stood before it as if they were all miniature suns, heating up the area to well above freezing. It understood that it now had only one card left to play. Something that it had wanted to take its time with and savor, but that would now have to be done in desperate haste.
“Well, if you are all lining up to be my buffet, I may as well get started,” declared the windigo, dropping Shield Maiden in past its maw and directly into its gullet, where it began to feed on the young pony’s life force and magical energy.
The effects were immediate and massive as stolen power surged into the windigo. The temperature plummeted like a stooping eagle and all around the cold creature water refroze back into ice, cementing every pony to the ground in bonds as strong as iron. As one, the armor of the windigo’s ice soldiers reformed, reasserting its control over its forces, who began to move toward the assembled ponies with clear intent.
The wind began to wail again, merging with Shield Maiden’s cry of fear and despair as she felt herself starting to become weaker and her every attempt at creating a shield was simply swallowed up to drain her even further.
“ROWAN!” Iron Hoof cried out, straining desperately as he tried to reach his adopted sister, but although the ice holding his hooves cracked and chipped, it held firm.
The demonic creature crowed with glee as it pulled more and more strength from its meal. Soon all of the magic from one of the most powerful creatures in Brightly would be a part of it, and then at last this pitiful town would fall to its will. Looking back at the horrified faces around it, the windigo focused on Father Addison’s, “Since you offered priest, you will be next.”
“LET HER GO!” screamed Iron Hoof, steam rising from his body as he threw everything he had in trying to break free.
“Hey kid,” Rios called over, drawing a bead on the young pony with his shotgun. “End this.”
Rios dropped his muzzle a fraction of an inch before pulling the trigger, causing a long length of hardened rubber to launch out from the weapon’s barrel. The baton round crossed the short distance in less time than it took to blink, striking the ice around Iron Hoof’s legs with shattering force and a heartbeat later the pony blurred into action.
Moving faster and with greater purpose than he had ever before, young Iron Hoof swept the Seed of Joy up into his forehooves before pivoting and propelling himself into the air with his rear legs. The strongest of the Furred Five arced earthwards toward the windigo, bringing his shining sword down with all the power and fury of a vengeful god.
Traditionally, the gladius was a stabbing weapon, which was how Iron Hoof instinctively used it. The pony drove the preternaturally sharp needle point of the sword down into the windigo’s back, its following leaf shape blade barely slowing down as Iron Hoof plunged the blade in all the way to the hilt.
In response, the icy spirit seemed to barely notice the massive impact of both pony and blade, staggering only a little before straightening back up.
“Fool,” sneered the windigo, looking down over its shoulder where Iron Hoof clung tenaciously to the weapon’s hilt. “No blade forged of man or machine can hurt me. Steel won’t kill me and neither will lead.”
“Then it’s a good thing my father is a PONY!” yelled Iron Hoof, and touching his soul to whatever it was that lived in his blade, asked, “Please?”
“You have used me well,” said the blade in satisfaction, as it began to glow.
“What? What is this?” demanded the windigo, feeling a strange, forgotten warmth in its heart.
“Joy and happiness,” Iron Hoof replied, sparing a glance to where his sister lay inside the creature.
“You! No!” cried the windigo, writhing as long lost emotions and feelings began to unmake the greed and selfishness at its cold core. “This… I… You cannot do this!”
“What greater weapon against despair, than joy?” Father Addison asked, rhetorically.
Inside the windigo, the Seed of Joy was glowing as brightly as the day it had been forged, radiating heat and light with a golden metallic fire that seemed to bring a smile to everyone present. Even to the windigo.
“I… I remember,” the creature said, with a hushed voice. “I remember my friends…”
Once more the winds and clouds began to fall away as the windigo started to shrink in on itself and the natural order of the seasons began to return. Both Shield Maiden and the Seed of Joy fell free from the windigo’s body as it further reduced in size from a monstrous shape to something more man-sized.
“Rowan!” cried Iron Hoof, gathering his sister up into his forelegs. “I thought we’d lost you.”
“Still here,” the young unicorn replied with a weak smile. “What did you do to him?”
“Him?” Iron Hoof asked, and glancing back, saw with shock that the windigo was now in the form of a man. A very, very old man clothed in the tattered rags of a pair of pants and barely intact work boots.
“George, Jimmy, Charlie,” whispered the ancient human, in a voice filled with regret. “I’m sorry. Klondike gold fever got to me. I never shoulda done what I did. I’m sorry.”
“Do you truly repent of your sins, my Son?” Father Addison gently asked, kneeling at the man’s side as age began to overtake his body even more.
“Aye. I did all o’ you, and all my mates wrong. I went bad a long time ago,” gasped the man, breath coming hard now. “I know I’m headed for the Bad Place, padre. And it’s okay. It’s what I’m due for what I started back then.”
“In that you have repented freely… ” Father Addison began, and the golden lights of both sword and crucifix seemed to become part of the Anglican priest as he continued with, “I commend you, my dear brother, to Almighty God, and entrust you to your Creator. May you return to him who formed you from the dust of the earth. May Holy Mary, the angels, and all the saints come to meet you as you go forth from this life. May Christ, the true Shepherd, acknowledge you as one of his flock. May he forgive all your sins, and set you among those he has chosen. Amen.”
“Th-thanks… “ gasped the man, giving a sudden flinch as his face reflected a dark purple light from something going on down near the school. “But I think yer gonna be needed someplace else pretty soon.”
With sudden, desperate strength the wizened creature reached out, snatching one of Iron Hoof’s hooves in his skeletal hand.
“Never feel bad for what you dun today, boy,” wheezed the old miner. “You set right a wrong, and put light back in a black heart. Never forg—”
Whatever had been holding the over hundred year old body together finally gave way and the miner who had betrayed friends, family and fellowship in the Klondike gold rush breathed his last. The Seed of Joy had reminded him of the joy and happiness that comes with family and community, and in doing so, made a final end to the spirit of the windigo that had haunted northern British Columbia and the Yukon for so very long.
“Requiescat in pace,” intoned Father Addison in Latin, before straightening and adding, “I wonder what he meant that I was going to be needed—”
A roaring sound cut off the priest and every eye turned to a pillar of incandescent dark magenta flame rising up into the sky from down the road.
“That’s Mom,” Shield Maiden stated, in an awed voice.
“Let us hope it is still thy Mother,” replied Rios, his voice shifting in timbre and vocabulary as a mark in the shape of a yin-yang symbol, held in the arms of a crescent moon, appeared on his flank.
“What are you all looking at?’ Rios demanded, in his normal voice a moment later, as everypony stared at him. “Let’s get moving people!”
“No.”
Ash Heart recoiled in shock. Nothing could survive with its will intact after that. Nothing!
“Get off me, you smug idiot,” the white unicorn said, with a tone containing equal amounts of disdain and dismissal. “You look like you’re trying to mate with me, badly.”
“You will obey ME!” Ash Heart roared, slamming more of his sorcerous strength at the mind of the mare beneath him. “You are mine, Foxfire. Body, mind and soul.”
“We’re sorry, but Foxfire isn’t in right now,” replied the mare, with a small contemptuous laugh. “Last chance. Get. Off. Of. Me.”
“If you will not be mine, then you won’t be anyone’s,” Ash Heart growled with anger, charging his horn to put a bolt of power through the back of the unicorn’s head. “DI—AIEeeeeeee!”
Ash Heart was forced to leap off his captive as her mane and tail erupted into sheets of dark violet flame, his panicked flight stopped by the unmoving body of Prism, who continued to be in thrall to the unicorn. As for the mare, she rose with grace and elegance to her hooves, unaffected by the streams of living fire coming from her head and hindquarters.
“How?” demanded Ash Heart, with wide incredulous eyes. “You were beaten! Mine!”
“I really must thank you,” replied the white mare, smiling as she examined one of her forehooves. “I would have never made it back to the waking world if you hadn’t pumped all of that power into me. And for the record, Foxfire was never yours. She is, was, and always shall be mine.”
Ebon Donavich had been many things in both his lives, but forgetful had never been one of them. He’d made a career out of finding weaknesses in others and exploiting them, which is why he remembered the part of the file on Jean Pedersen that referred to her attempt to take over the town months ago.
“Foxfire, Queen of Brightly and the Lands Beyond, I presume,” Ash Heart said, tamping down his anger to bring out all the charm he could bring to bear. Foxfire may have found some… very intriguing reservoir of strength to stop him from overpowering her, but she was just a female and he could easily outwit her.
“You don’t listen very well, do you?” noted the mare, taking a moment to examine her flaming tail. “So let me explain it slowly to you, in small sentences. Foxfire isn’t here anymore. You put her under. You woke me, and I’m in charge now.”
Ash Heart took a step back, mind racing as he tried to decide what to do next. “So if you aren’t Foxfire, who are you?”
“Nytefyre,” stated the unicorn; and violet magic seemed to flow out from her horn, pulling in dust and debris from all around, obscuring her for a few seconds as well as briefly touching every pony present. When Nytefyre emerged, she was wearing a silver tiara, set with moonstones on her head, with a matching torc around her neck. “I am the ultimate expression of unicorn magic. I am power and majesty, without the constraints of the so-called morals and ethics of the puling masses.”
“Then join me!” Ash Heart said passionately. “Together we would easily take over this town and more. Think of it! You and I, King and Queen of the entire world.”
“Tempting,” commented Nytefyre, as silver boots with elegant filigree came into being around her hooves and fetlocks. “Except for one small problem.”
“The windigo, I agree,” replied Ash Heart, looking back up Brightly’s long main street. “But togeth—”
“Not the windigo,” interrupted the royal unicorn, picking up the Seed of Fire and humming in satisfaction as its flame also took on the same near black shade of her mane and tail. “You, are the small problem.”
“Well yes, I did attack you. And I did try to make you my mind-slave. So I do see how that could be a problem between us,” admitted Ash Heart, bowing his head as he acknowledged the point. “But that was before you allowed me to see your majesty. To see the glory of a true unicorn at the height of her power. You deserve to rule over everything you see. All I ask is that you allow me to help you realize that destiny.”
“Flattering words, and a rather swift change from wanting to rule at my side, to asking to serve me, though I do appreciate a being who can adapt to new realities,” Nytefyre responded, walking with slow measured steps toward Ash Heart.
“Yes! I can work for you, be your lieutenant, help you conquer anyone who dares stand against you. I pledge myself to your service, Queen Nytefyre,” Ash Heart declared, bowing low.
“That reminds me,” Nytefyre said, looking around as she noticed the storm around Brightly fading away before focusing on Prism. “Prism, do be a dear and fly to the clinic. Search for a drawer labeled ‘Nytefyre’ and destroy the contents. Look around for any files with that name on them as well, and destroy them too. Crusaders?”
The heads of all three fillies snapped to attention.
“Go to Thunder’s home, open the bottommost drawer on the right in his study and destroy what you find there. Come back to me when you are done, my little ponies. Understood?” asked the Mistress of Magic.
All four commanded ponies left their queen’s side with as much speed as they could manage to fulfill their appointed tasks.
“What are you doing?” Ash Heart asked, confused.
“Securing my rule. Foxfire’s friends expected my return and made plans to stop me, but they foolishly allowed my host to contribute to them. And what Foxfire knew, I know,” explained the mare, before turning to her three students. “Ladies, I ask that you go to my home. In my kitchen, on the top shelf, will be several jars of herbs. Destroy any whose labels have three black dots arranged in a triangle on them. Be on your way now.”
Summer, Chilly and Synergy each bowed deeply to their mistress before moving away at their best speed and leaving the two unicorns alone. Ash Heart and Nytefyre locked gazes for several moments, and in those depths, the stallion could see no trace of pity, mercy or compassion. Nytefyre was every bit as uncaring and ruthless as Ash Heart had been throughout his life.
“And how shall I serve you, My Queen?” Ash Heart asked, dropping his gaze.
“You… shall serve as an example of what will happen to those who oppose or attempt to manipulate me,” the unicorn replied, her eyes taking on a hard edge.
“I would do no such thing! I have pledged my loyalty to you. All I ask is to be allowed to serve,” Ash Heart claimed, feeling the first twinges of desperation. Whatever this alternate, more powerful version of Foxfire was, she wasn’t falling for Ash Heart’s usual charm.
“You have been trying to worm your way back into my mind with your magic since I first manifested,” Nytefyre noted, advancing slowly; like a lioness stalking a deer. “You barely understand the powers you have been gifted with, the powers that I was born into. You are a fool, and you use your powers like one.”
“What… what are you?” asked Ash Heart, almost begging the question as he gave ground before the fiery unicorn.
“I am a being of pure magic. A creature born of the place where time, space, and imagination intersect to create the wonder that is the universe,” answered Nytefyre, keeping her prey in range and herding it along the street. “I am an Umbral. Born to power, bred to uphold the supremacy of the immaterial over the material, and I have bound myself to this most delightful of mares as my avatar in the physical realm.”
“Get back!” yelled Ash Heart, unleashing a bolt of power from his horn with every erg of strength he could bring to bear, only to impact with as much effect as a squirt gun against a rock face.
“I had thought at first to give you a clean death. Something quick and simple,” the mare commented idly, her silver regalia glinting as the sun began to emerge again. “But my host has a particular hatred of you, and a particular love of movies. Tell me, have you seen the ‘Princess Bride’?”
“Let me go, or I will have all of my soldiers kill themselves,” Ash Heart threatened, realizing his only chance for survival lay in flight, and if he didn’t keep this avatar of magic in front of him busy, she’d take him out the instant he turned to run.
“Go ahead. None of them mean anything to me,” shrugged Nytefyre, gauging how far they were from both the town hall and the school and judging it to be good.
“Fine. But this is on your head,” Ash Heart stated, concentrating on his power. Perhaps a few bodies would be enough of a distraction. Moments passed and the unicorn frowned as nothing seemed to happen. Nothing at all. No bodies falling, no screams… and no magic.
“What have you done?” demanded Ash Heart, lashing back verbally.
“Taken away your ability to use magic,” Nytefyre calmly replied. “And that’s just the beginning.”
“HOW?” pressed the dark unicorn, eyes wide in fear as he began to realize that it was already too late.
“As I said, you barely understand the powers you were gifted with,” responded the mage, rolling her eyes derisively. “Any attack creates a hole in your defenses, and you’ve left yourself wide open.”
Ash Heart felt a strange tugging from his chest, and before he could react a mummified hand appeared in front of him.
“Give that back!” screamed Ash Heart, barely noticing as his rear legs went out from under him. “The Hand of Franklin is mine!”
“This belongs far away,” Nytefyre answered, drawing the relic close to her and telling it, “Go home. Rest, and be at peace.”
Wreathed in the dark violet magic that was Nytefyre’s signature hue, the ancient relic of failure and despair rocketed northwards, seeking its resting place among the bones of HMS Terror. The magical mare watched the departing relic fly through the sky for a few seconds before returning her attention to the stallion in front of her, who was now trying to drag himself away using only his forehooves. A simple levitation spun Ash Heart back around so that he was facing Nytefyre once more.
“What have you done to me?” begged the stallion, fully desperate now.
“I’ve taken away your magic, and your ability to walk,” Nytefyre answered, gently lifting Ash Heart’s chin so she could look directly into his dark eyes. “Next I will take your sight, and the use of your right foreleg.”
“Please,” Ash Heart begged, “Just kill me and be done with it.”
“As I said, I’m making an example of you, and dead examples become forgotten too quickly for my taste,” the mare replied with a dark chuckle that raised the hairs on the back of Ash Heart’s neck. “Every shriek of every child staring at the wreck of your body is going to echo in your ears. Every foal that cries as you drag yourself towards them, every mare who screams out, ‘Oh gods, what is that hideous thing,’ will be yours to cherish. You tried to do to my mount what you have done to a hundred mares in the past, so I am going to make sure you live in anguished freakish misery for the rest of your long life.”
Ash Heart felt a cold wetness beneath him, realizing to his shame that he had voided himself.
“Oh yes, I forgot to mention that bit,” said Nytefyre, laughing openly as bit by bit she wiped out Ash Heart’s control over his own body.
“Aecklpth!” Ash Heart cried out, as the Queen of Brightly and the Lands Beyond finally withdrew her power from him, having removed his magic, his sight, his ability to move three of his four limbs, and his ability to speak or control his bodily functions.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you are well cared for,” Nytefyre gently whispered into the blubbering unicorn’s ear. “You are going to have a long and healthy life, but if you will excuse me, I feel someone waking back up.”
Moving away from the living example of her power, Nytefyre looked up the street where she could see several ponies racing towards her, having won their battle against the windigo. In her judgment, she should have just enough time before they reached her to make sure that her mental house was fully in order. After all, a queen should make a good first impression on her subjects.
“Hello Foxfire,” Nytefyre said, turning her mental gaze inward. “It is time to settle things between us, my host.”
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Well Frig. This ain't good at all.
I have a feeling that all of the blades when used together will help Foxfire be able to subdue Nytefyre.
Trust the writer. Trust the writer. Trust the writer.
"Get a diet fatty!" Despite being a spirit of ice, the windigo felt a strange burning sensation.
Blades of Harmony, combine thy might, and banish evil this very night!
Princess Bride, now that’s not something I had expected to hear references about in an MLP fic but dang do they nail in their character.
Also…
“You cannot stop me”
“I know, but she can”
*Roaring noises*