Level Up!

by RisuUmbra

Chapter 30: Revolution Part 3

Chapter 30 Revolution Part 3:
David PoV:

To be perfectly honest, everything was going way smoother than I was expecting. Not that I was hoping for anything horrible or for anything to go wrong, but so far things have been going smoothly. The cloud cover was almost easy to put together, we dispersed the fog bank over most of the town from above. None of the guards really reacted to the sudden loss of vision which was really odd to be honest but they haven't done anything of concern so I left them alone.

After I finished the last fog bank Mix Up asked me to make a few more chunks of cloud seed for an experiment of his, after what I had seen last time when it comes to his experiments I didn’t want to stick around. It was almost time and I was kinda worried about the others. Morgana has to lead an uprising and I'm pretty sure she only has experience quelling arguments… not sparking revolutions, and then there’s Markus. I have complete faith in him, but there are times where it's like the world is out to get him. From what I'm told there was the waterfall incident first, then the Thunder Lion next, then the whole thing with Aaron, then the village siege which ended with him against a behemoth of a pony, and now we’re trying to bring down a tyrannical possibly necromancer-esque guy with Markus sneaking in alone so… I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Knowing I couldn’t exactly fly over and check on Markus I banked a hard right and started heading back in the main gate's direction. It wasn’t hard to find as it was the only gate that had a tent city surrounding it, but it wasn’t the tents that caught my attention first… no, it was the singing. It was like I had taken a wrong turn into a Disney film, there was a melody flowing in the wind that seemed to just… appear out of thin air! The uplifting melody was at its loudest on the ground where the red mane of Morgana led all the previously depressed ponies up the street towards the mansion… dang girl! I don’t think she’ll need my help anytime soon. I landed on a nearby rooftop and just watched as Morgana liberated a whole city basically on her own. A few shambling guards tried to block their path but they were quickly taken down by either Morgana or the ponies following her, the lack of effort needed to take out the guards was really odd. I remember The Keeper warning us of how much of a threat they are and yet here I am watching one of my friends blow through them like paper… this is some plot armor… like actual plot armor. I feel like I'm watching a Shonen anime. Is Morgana the main character?

The mental image of Morgana crouching down and screaming to power up popped into my mind and I didn’t even attempt to stop my laughter. The music started to soften as Morgana’s main force passed me by, I shook my laughter away and refocused. I should get the fog ready for the approach since apparently we’re ahead of schedule, which is a nice change for once. I tightened the belt holding my sword and tried to prepare myself, I knew things were about to get hairy and I wanted to be as ready as possible. I checked over the blade of my cutlass and suppressed the small jolt of glee I felt whenever I saw my sword. The fact that I was a flying swashbuckling badass wasn’t lost on me and wouldn’t be getting old any time soon. The blade itself looked to be in good shape as far as I could tell but the handle itself actually had me worried. The handle was old and dented in places, the handle looked much older than it’s attached blade so I was worried it would snap before the blade actually ever wore down.

I made a mental note to talk to Markus later about getting a better and maybe much more permanent sword, though that means I'll have to decide what type of sword I want to stick with. I like the cutlass so far. Though the handle is a bit weird to hold with hooves and all… I'll have to think deeper about this later. The fog cover has really started to thicken around the mansion and Morgana’s army has just about reached it which means it’s about time for everything to kick off and I need to be in the air once it’s time.

It took almost no effort on my part to get back into the air and into the cloud layer floating over the town. [Cloud Control] magic is a bit odd in application I will admit, besides the whole making clouds thing it allows me to actually simulate most types of weather. While speculating about magic is more Markus’ thing I do have my own little theories about it, like my theory about Markus’ magic and why it’s so different from all the other unicorn magic I've seen. Ignoring the fact that Markus is incredibly cagey about what he can do, I've noticed that most of his spells are extremely malleable when it comes to their application yet the spells I've seen other unicorns cast are a bit more cookie-cutter in nature. Settling down on one of the clouds I opened my wings and started to steadily flap them, it didn’t take much more for the clouds to begin spreading through the town.

My thoughts turned to my own skills, just like Markus and Morgana my skills are more guidelines then actual skills. Though I do have the option to buy other skills in the skill trees but the skills themselves are… different. There’s one skill under my [Weather Magic] tab that literally just says [Dispersal]. It’s a skill that lets me disperse clouds… I can already do that naturally?! There's also the fact that the skill doesn’t have a level or rank, it doesn’t grow with use over time or improve in any way. It’s completely useless to almost everyone, weather magic isn’t required to burst a cloud so it makes me wonder how many other skills are as stagnant as this one.

Something pulled me from my thoughts, but I don’t know what. A prickle on the back of my neck, similar to the feeling of lighting being used. My eyes flicked around frantically to no avail, the fog was doing its job too well. I took to the air once again and dived into the fog, I flinched as another wave of something ran over my skin. Morgana’s distant song and the sounds of battle went silent as more and more ponies began to feel the… disturbance in the air. A flash of red in the distance, dulled by the wall of fog before me. I picked up my pace and caught sight of the mansion and Morgana at the entrance frozen. I was about to go down and see what was wrong until I felt it again, this time burning through my system and digging its claws deep. I recognized this feeling now… It was fear.

I was trapped… Frozen in the air, held hostage by a deep primal fear that was both alien to me and yet extremely familiar. This fear seemed almost alive, worming itself deeper and deeper, trying to drown out everything else. I tried to fight it, fear isn't anything new to me but… there was something different about this fear. This fear seemed to be all encompassing, it sucked the heat out of the air and my body. It dug up old buried memories and traumas and… for a moment… just a moment… I was back in that car…

And like that my fear turned to seething anger, the numbing cold was burned away by my quiet fury… It wasn’t my fault and I know that… I’ve known that for a long time. With a hard flap of my wings I was down next to Morgana. She was frozen in place just as I was, pupils turned to pin pricks and breathing turned ragged. She was shivering heavily and slowly she was beginning to curl into herself. I didn’t hesitate to pull her into a hug, I tried to inject as much warmth into the hug as I could. I could feel her shivers slowly stop and less than a minute later with a surprised jerk Morgana pulled away from me now lucid.

“Wha- What just… Thank you” I tried to give an understanding smile but I'm sure it looked off, I was still swimming in rage and I had the perfect outlet just inside that mansion. As if summoned by my thoughts the ground began rumbling, almost like a stampede was approaching. I shared a look with Morgana and readied myself, cutlass out and wings spread. I was ready for anything to burst out of those doors… Too bad nothing did.

There wasn’t a warning, no ominous glow, no yelling. One moment Morgana and I had an army at our backs ready to take down our latest foe… the next the rooftop had been reduced to shrapnel by a massive purple beam crashing through it. Morgana was quicker on the draw and with a twist of her hoof we were covered by a stone dome as rubble crashed down on top of us. It didn’t fall for long and when Morgana brought the dome down I saw that our ‘army’ had retreated at the sight of… What is that! Rising out of the wreckage of the mansion entrance was a monster straight out of Bloodborne, a long serpentine body covered in countless spindly limbs and at its head was a pony torso. It was a creature that could only be created from the mind of a mad man… and we had to fight that… wait! Where’s Markus?

“Morgana!” I had to yell over the sounds of the townsponies fleeing, Morgana was still staring up at the monster stunned. “Where’s Markus!” It was with an oddly steady hoof that Morgana pointed up into the sky, not at the monster no… past it. Up high into the air I could barely see the body of Markus… falling. I don’t remember getting into the air, I just remember being on the ground one moment and the next I was streaking past the monster and trying to reach my friend. I thought I was going to be the first to reach him, I was so close. I was seconds away from his unconscious body until a streak of fire swooped past me and into Markus’ body.

It was like looking into the sun, whatever entered Markus had enveloped him in an orb of pure fire and light. My vision went white and I spun out of the sky, I wasn’t able to regain my balance with my wings. Almost instinctively I activated [Cloud Control] and made a cloud under me to land on. Holding on for dear life with one hoof and scrubbing my eyes with the other I tried to see what had become of my friend. I could still feel the heat coming off the massive sphere of fire even from this distance. I thought my eyes were still messing with me when I caught sight of something in the flames. I saw… wings? With a screech that rivaled the initial flash in its ability to disorient the flames were blown apart to show… is that Markus?! Flapping in the air where my friend used to be was a creature that looked to be a mix between Markus and a bird, almost like a pony version of a harpy. Markus no longer had forelegs but large scarlet red wings that steadily pumped to keep himself airborne, his once blue coat was covered in orange and red spirals and filigree. Even his once black and silver mane had turned white with red feathers growing in it.

With another powerful shriek harpy Markus dived down at the abomination gazing up at us, I was stunned as I watched Markus wreath himself in flame and start taking fly by swipes at what I can only call an eldritch abomination. Left, right, dive bomb, corkscrew. I watched as whatever the ‘thing’ that was piloting Markus’ body began to spit fire at the howling beast forcing it back to the ground and off of the crumbling roof top. I was watching absolute chaos unfold before me and I had only one thing to say.

“What The Absolute Fuck Is Going On!” Then Markus got struck by lightning… Oops…

Author's Note:

I'm Here Now =)

Comments

[Mix-up]

Part 2: nice to find out that Markus' cutie mark has to do with sacrifices, not at all hinting to evil, and that he is now referring his 'benefactor' as 'the Goddess' I wonder if this is a sign her influence on him, thought it could also relate to his medical training that he had in a way. A little suggestion on writing prolonged actions scene, or horror, it to focus the narration on visceral sensations, descriptions and actions(ex: hack down, slash through, crushing stomps), with very short impactful sentences, that hints or suggest on what's going on, through the protagonists narrow limited perspective, struggling to keep up(or make sense) with the situation, rather then describe in clinical methodical detail. the attention is more put on the sensing of what the body is feeling, pain, effort and breathings, and the of the other senses touch, smells sound ,even tastes. For the antagonist of the situation(,yeah no inspired by the Nowhere King) I wonder if he is a sort of mirror reflection of what's going to happen to Markus if he keeps on going through that past, and I would have been curious to know what was it he wanted to talk to him about in before Markus was being belligerent and resisting.

part 3: Interesting chapter was nice to see David's POV on this one he sounded more as a define character then before. nice to see that Marcus didn't just turn into an alicorn for flying(we've seen enough of those), through I wonder if that current form are signs of things to come for him the further he dedicates himself to his Goddess?

[lainverse]

Dang it! This story only gets better with every chapter and now I'm out of chapters to read again!

[Alyarin9000]

Huh, and there I thought the ritual would defeat the abomination as it flew over it. I guess there's still some fight left in it! Or perhaps it just didn't contact the right segment... Whatever the reason, looks like the others will have quite a fight ahead of them!

Thinking about it a bit deeper, the guards being pushovers as a result of the ritual stealing the soul of their master does make sense... Perhaps it weakened the creature to some extent, but the eldrich entity is still in control? Who's to say...