Dying Embers

by MrSpartan

Let the Bodies Hit the Floor

Meanwhile…

Lyra kept running as fast as she could, which wasn’t nearly fast enough since unicorns were easily the least athletic of the three types of ponies. The aqua unicorn with an aqua and white main/tail combo had always believed in the myths of humans ever since she was a filly. She even managed to get her hooves on a couple old books that proposed their existence, not just in Equestria but in realities beyond it and perhaps even among the stars. One had gone into theory after theory about how the oldest human civilizations had vanished from Equestria, why they weren’t around now, and gave details about their technologically advanced society that still left traces of their glory buried in the dunes of the southern desert most ponies called the wasteland. Lyra had been reading that very volume when the door to her house was kicked off its hinges and a large human clad in the fur of woodland creatures entered. Bon Bon (her roommate) was out getting groceries so the unicorn was alone with the muscular man. Lyra’s first instinct had been to ask him all the questions she had about him and his species. That was when she noticed the two sided axe at his side that was nearly as big as he was and her other, more basic instinct kicked in.

RUN

This brings us back to the current situation. This is, without a doubt, the worst introduction to humans I’ll ever have. Lyra currently thought.

“Ooof!” Lyra grunted as she was tackled to the ground.

“Gotcha you little…uh…horse…thing!”

Ok, so clearly this human wasn’t the brightest candle out there. The barbarian leaned over to the side and yelled. “Got another one over here mage. Get on it.”

The specialist necromancer and time weaver, who was the only caster within earshot, rushed over. “My name is Dails Assent, you savage. And I’d appreciate it if you got my title of Nechronomancer correct instead of applying that generic term you deem an appropriate adjective. Besides I’m assigned to several other individuals I was regimented to disenable prisoners for. Not just for yourself and your repressed anger engagement techniques.”

The well built barbarian stared for a minute at the other man. “Uh, what?” He had barely understood a word that left the mage’s mouth.

Dails Assent scowled at the idiot he was forced to work with. “Just keep it pinned. While I-“

“My name is Lyra Heartstrings and I’m a ‘she’, not an ‘it’, “ Lyra may be their prisoner but they could at least bother to learn her name and gender for crying out loud. Also what did the fur clad one eat, lead? He felt like he weighed a thousand pounds.

The nechronomancer sneered a bit before continuing. “Just keep her pinned while I conjure the restraints.”

The aqua and white unicorn could feel a tingly sensation around her legs. Then it stopped. The huge lug on top of her finally got off and allowed her to breathe correctly again. “Now come with us,” he said. Lyra instead tried to run. She wasn’t very good at magic so decided against fighting back. The minute she attempted to move her legs, however, she found she could barely budge an inch. It felt like trying to run in ice cold molasses mixed with glue and tar. “Don’t bother trying to escape. The incorporeal restraints you now wear increase the friction around your extremities the more force and speed you try to use. Oh and they also disrupt any innate magic all you pony tribes have, so don’t bother resisting either. Bring her to our glorious leader Illitheous and he’ll tell you where you should store her,” Dails Assent said.

“Yeah, yeah don’t get your robes in a knot.” The fur wearing man bodily scooped up the unfortunate unicorn by the ankles and held her upside down over his back like a sack of potatoes. Lyra’s half lidded expression and frown were her only reaction. This day was just off to an absolutely AMAZING start. While being carried to who she assumed was the human’s group leader, she saw the same sort of thing happening to other ponies that had happened to her. The style of the capture seemed to differ from one human to the other.

She noticed Carrot Top was unconscious after one unarmored human had stuck its thumb and index finger into her neck. Some kind of pressure point assault? The three flowershop ponies from a few blocks over were hugging each other in fear as two fully armored humans loomed over them. Lyra wouldn’t even be able to tell they weren’t some kind of living metal monsters if it weren’t for their two legged posture and all the other humans in armor scattered around. Before the unicorn could scan the chaos further, the hulking mass of muscle that currently served as her taxi cart stopped.

“Sir!” the barbarian cried “Where do I put the things I catch?”

“In the pit near the Umber Hulk and the siege drill from the elemental chaos we brought!” came a holler from farther off.

Lyra noted the voice sounded busy with something. Her receding view of Ponyville continued a bit longer before the man stopped and talked to her.

“Alright horsie. In ya goes.”

He then uncouthly chucked her into a circular pit that was about eleven feet deep with dirt walls going up at ninety degree angles. Lyra noticed there were numerous other ponies here including pegasi. Guess that dark robed one was right about none of the others’ magic working. The pit was unusually smooth thanks to some kind of magic probably. Or maybe humans were just really good at digging deep pits others couldn’t climb out of?

Drip.

“Hey what just dripped on my head?” Lyra asked nopony in particular.

She looked up to see a bug eyed horror looking down over her. It was brown, and big. It had an exoskeleton just like some kind of insect. It had four arms. Two were tiny and had pincers on the ends. The upper pair was as wide as tree trunks with three-fingered hand shapes at the ends of those. Its legs were smaller and shaped roughly like a diamond dog’s with the biggest difference being needle shaped claws at the ends. Its head was dominated by two feelers, two sets of eyes (one set small above a larger set) and two massive mandibles. The last feature was the source of the dripping or rather dribbling.

Oh GROSS! Lyra thought.

Overall, it looked like a cross between a Silverback Gorilla and a Beatle.

“Lyra? Lyra is that you? Over this way,” a familiar voice tried to get her attention. Lyra looked from side to side, searching for the voice’s owner. An off white hoof waved from amid the captured ponies. “I’m over here.” Lyra politely darted her way through the crowding pit to her roomie.

“Bon Bon they got you too.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah. I was tackled by one of them when shopping for radishes for us.” The earth pony with a magenta and navy blue mane replied.

“Same basic story here. Except I was at home reading when one barged in,” Lyra explained. There was a momentary quiet between them. Lyra beamed as she prepared to say what she always wanted to say to her doubtful friend. “I told you so.”

“Oh just shut up will you?!” said the annoyed earth pony.

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The Crusaders of Fire continued to round up the little equines at a slow, yet steady pace. Quite a few were being a royal pain to round up. Not from fighting back mind you. The few who fought back were overpowered easily. It’s just that many were difficult to catch. Illitheous, standing on the shoulder of the Adamantine Golem, found it rather insulting actually. The race that had taken the place of his, an entire town no less, couldn’t even stand up to about 30 humans. Granted, his chosen were the most talented and firmest believers in the cause he could find, and he didn’t truly expect much resistance from the villagers. Still, the two trump cards of his were just standing idle and the ease of all this made human villages of similar size seem deadly by comparison.

The town would serve as a good launch point for their onslaught of the capitol. They would spend a day, maybe two, resting completely here in order be at their absolute peak when the attack commenced. The few resources they needed, namely food and comfortable beds to sleep in, were all in abundance here. He knew because he had secretly scouted the entire town before his forces were even close. Teleportation was a wonderful thing. He had almost been spotted a few times by an all too pink villager but had managed to continue unnoticed. The wind shifted marginally. Illitheous' head went ringing with alarm bells. Something was off about it. The breeze was unusually strong and warm. His infernal senses told him several strong auras and many more weak auras were heading their way.

I had hoped for more time before they knew where and when we arrived. Oh well. The time of confrontation will just be moved ahead of schedule, I suppose. The man’s ring glowed very faintly, giving his voice an echoing quality that could be listened to by all in the rural community. “We’re expecting some unwanted guests! Get ready for air forces to attack!” The other humans all stopped chasing down the stragglers and switched to readying their weapons. “Prepare pattern Spider and Fly!”

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The Royal Soldiers of the Sun: Probe Division were the first to arrive at the community of Ponyville. When pegasi pulled in closer all they could see was an evidently deserted province. After five minutes of flying by the area and seeing nopony they all landed in town square. It was eerily quiet. There were forty of them, all wielding crossbows clamped onto both their forelegs. Not a single one of them felt safe despite them being extremely well armed by pony standers.

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The Cutie Mark Crusaders were hugging each other for emotional comfort. They had all been caught and now resided in the large pit with all the others. A human had come only minutes earlier and told them to be quiet while the other warriors discussed something. The ugly ape had then put a metal wire cover over the pit and put leaves and twigs on top of that. The CMC had heard the pair of footfalls, the thunderous sounding pair belonging to the scary bug thing that had been the pit’s sentinel. After a moment, or several, of cowering together an idea suddenly hit Sweetie Belle like an anvil to the head, or maybe a baby grand piano. “Crusaders, doesn’t this seem weird?”

“Well duh it’s weird. We all got kidnapped by a bunch of weirdo hairless monkey things.” Scootaloo said unhappily.

“No I mean why would they just ASK us to all be quiet instead of just forcing us to with magic or something. Plus what does the cover have to do with keeping us silent? It doesn’t make sense. Unlessssss…” Sweetie Belle leaned in close to her friends with a smile on her lips, waiting for them to fill in the gaps.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom both grinned as they put two and two together. “Unless somepony up there is trying to rescue us and they don’t have time to move us somewhere more secret!” they said together.

“HELP SOMEPONY!!! WE’RE DOWN HERE!!!” The CMC yelled at the top of their lungs, which was considerable as anypony who ever had to deal with their antics before could attest. Eventually the rest in the pit realized why the three fillies had decided to yell now and joined them. The screaming made it through the metal wire and foliage cover, but it was muffled.

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“Do you hear that?” The sergeant of the group, who went by Fallen Angel, perked up an ear.

“Somepony help us! Help!”

“Sounds like the missing citizens,” another of the guards stated.

They all moved in a square formation with twenty on the ground and twenty hovering just over them to provide cover fire if necessary. They moved closer and closer to the voices. While they did so the hoverers kept their aim at the windows and doorways. They had been told no human could fly and they used a wide array of weapons and that they might be able to cast unknown magic, but that was all they really knew about human war tactics. They rounded the final corner leading to the villagers. In the remains of a building that had been gutted, with only the outer walls and the roof remaining, crouched into a ball was the unrivaled mass of the Adamantine Golem. Anyone seeing it from the sky wouldn’t have seen a thing out of the ordinary.

“Please! Help us!” It repeated perfectly in the voices of the villagers.

“It’s a trap!” one of the pegasi yelled.

The three story building exploded apart as the titanic construct stood to full height and sent a massive fist hurtling at the surprised forces. They all tried to move away as fast as possible. A good fifteen of them weren’t fast enough as they either were struck by a bone shattering glancing strike or by the shock wave of force that followed. They went hurtling like four legged bowling pins after the strike. The few pegasi that were reflexive enough shot bolts at the thing but they bounced off harmlessly. They didn’t even leave scrape marks. Then human warriors seemed to materialize out of thin air and charged at the opposing soldiers. One of the mages had used his expertise to cast a powerful illusion spell earlier to cloak the entire human platoon, making them invisible and silent. Several more pegisi went down, either injured or unconscious, before the human onslaught. Barbarians cracked skulls, Sorcerers froze bodies, knights disabled extremities, and wizards paralyzed nervous systems. The royal soldiers had not only been taken entirely offgaurd by this clever and brutal ambush, but they were completely outmatched. This wasn’t a battle. It was a beat down.

The sergeant Fallen Angel, the leader of this particular squad, was barking orders left and right while injuring a couple opponents in between his shouting. The human forces were nothing if not effective however in incapacitating the pegasi with unknown and different fighting styles. A guard would fight off a master of eloquent swordplay only to be paralyzed by a pressure point barrage from a robed martial arts master. The royal forces were finally regrouping in the air, away from the melee fighters and launching practiced waves of crossbow bolts back at the humans. When the first few fired and transitioned to reloading, the other ones would fire. It was starting to push the bipedal apes back when the giant made of some unknown metal sent another massive fist at the formation. They all managed to fly out of its path this time.

“Focus on that thing and look for a weak spot!” Fallen Angel ordered while pointing with an armored hoof at the Golem.

Like a swarm of hornets the flying ponies dodged this way and that while firing a continuous barrage of projectiles at the golem. It didn’t return the attack this time with its fists, seeming to stand down for no reason. Had they focused less on shooting it and more on its face they would have seen the golden glow increase in its eye sockets. A buzzing sounded right before a field of electricity effectively knocked out nearly every Pegasus left.

One lucky son-of-a-gun hadn’t been in range of the fierce blast and was now attempting to wrassle the metal sucker down with a chock hold. The Golem swiveled its head effortlessly to better see its assaulter. It raised a hand and flicked the admittedly brave colt with its thumb and middle finger. The pegasis went flying not of his own desire into the side of a house with a solid crash. Maybe not so lucky.

The sergeant scowled. Horse apples! I’m the only one left. Sorry, Your Majesty. Looks like I wont be reporting back in. The sergeant landed and prepared to make his last stand a memorable one.

The human crusaders wearing the heaviest armor surrounded the lone colt, victorious grins already showing. The Adamantine Golem blotted out the sun as it loomed just behind them, ready to halt any escape attempts.

“I’ll make you regret invading Equestria!” taunted Fallen Angel.

“I think not,” said a gravely voice.

The pony sergeant attempted to turn around and shoot the possessor of the voice. He was stopped and felt his throat close up. He was being choked by an even uglier one of the hairless apes.

“Give up and I’ll be merciful,” it offered. Fallen Angel instead opted to spit in the monsters eye. “Arg!” the dead looking creature wiped his eye with his good hand, now holding the fully armored war horse with the skeletal one. The sergeant thought that would allow him enough freedom to break the leader’s hold on his throat, but somehow the grip didn’t lessen in the slightest. “You’re loyal to the crown. I can respect that.” The human had misinterpreted his feeble attempt to break his grasp for sheer defiance. A tiny smile developed on the mans mouth but there was no humor to it. “Would you look at that?” a feeling of dread began forming in the pit of Fallen Angel’s stomach. “There’s something on your face,” Illitheous’ ring’s ruby and black stone mixed colors as his hand, still holding the soldier by the throat, ignited. The war horses body twitched and shuddered uncontrollably with red lave esqe lines developing over it. Fallen Angel tried to scream, for the torturous pain was worse then anything he had ever experienced, yet he couldn’t get his mouth to move right. He started foaming there now too. Followed by that was the fiery red glowing of his eyes. He continued for another minute as his soul was torched along with his body.

Illitheous finished his earlier dialogue “It was DEATH.” He unceremoniously let go of the colt. The body hit the cobblestones with a sickening wet thwack and the clang of now blackened armor. Illitheous put his still burning skeletal hand up to his neck as he jerked his cranium close to his shoulder with an unhealthy sounding *CRACK* of neck vertebrae.

Fallen Angel had been right about one thing. His last stand had been memorable.

Comments

[Darth]

i though he would say ' IT WAS PAIN' no death... oh well.

[JarOfHearts]

FATALITY!

FLAWLESS VICTORY!

[Mehnlo]

Lololol. I like Ilithous! See, who says evil lich lords of destruction cannot have a sense of humour!
Seriously I cant stop laughing

[La Barata]