[Forlorn Ascension]|[Rites of Dominion]

by Desrium

Discarded

Elysia turned her head, looking out of her view screen from the peripherals of her vision and seeing the bone covered giant that utterly dwarfed the pony that stood in front of it. Visible between its legs, Phineas was even smaller in scale than he was compared to the normal denizens of the galaxy. Though diminutive he may be the stallion stood his ground as defiant as ever. It was an inspiring sight… which was why she couldn’t bring herself to leave the burning chamber.

“You need to focus,” Alikir started to say to her when he noticed that her mind was distant, “we don’t have time to waste-“

“Can you really call yourself a Space Ranger and leave a comrade behind like this? What would our squadmates think of us?” Elysia asked. Without waiting for a response, she started to lower the battle-pod down to the chamber’s floor, deploying its landing struts as she did.

“But what about the Hex-core?” Alikir replied as the small ranger retracted the cockpit’s screen.

“We’ll handle it after we neutralize this enemy. Then we’ll extract Startrot and get him back to the Situation Observatory for the aid he needs,” Elysia said with her trademark authoritativeness that made it clear that she was fully committed to her actions. The pod touched down and she shot out of her seat. She put her hand down on the inside paneling of the cockpit and then pivoted her body over the side while drawing her gun at the same time.

Alikir undid his own harness and joined her, thinking all the while: ”How does an attitude so big fit in a body so small?” He dropped down beside the female ranger in a crouched stance, hands at his hips. His guns popped up from their holsters and he took them in his grasp.

“Fan and flank, do not engage until I give the signal,” Elysia said lowly and Alikir nodded. The two darted across the chamber in opposite directions, their footfalls silent against the metal floor.

”What the hell are they doing!?” Phineas thought when he saw the two rangers move out from behind the bone-giant and dash away from each other so that there was one of them covering either side of the monster. They then hunkered down near the array of terminals around the bottom level of the throne room, taking their positions until further notice. The entire reason he wanted them to go after the ship’s engine was so they wouldn’t be in the danger he was in right now! It was for their own good!

He didn’t dare let on that something was amiss to The Immortal though. He just stood before the giant and looked into its intense glowing eyes with his expressionless yellow ones. The bony plates on the side of its jaw flexed and slid forward, overlapping other bony bits of various sizes and forming mandibles that clicked and rattled as the being within began to speak.

“You are a fool unlike any other. We were the Gods’ greatest servants and we were abandoned by them just as we neared supreme victory!” The Immortal rumbled as it took its first lumbering steps towards the stallion, the black mist that it was wreathed in before rising out of the gaps in the sides of its mouth. Its footsteps were heavy, thudding against the deck and causing it to quake.

Phineas used the broken staff as a means to balance again, taking note of the giant’s movement. It was slow yet powerful. The only thing it seemed to have going for it were the flaming whips it was dragging at its sides, which provided both speed and range. Getting close to The Immortal would be a chore, but if he could pull it off then he could work on taking apart the colossus piece by bony piece. What bothered the stallion was the fact he was playing this game of danger with borrowed time. How long did he have until the decaying magic started to affect him again? And how was he going to handle this without getting the others hurt? His mind was racing trying to formulate a plan on the spot.

“Funny thing about that traitor,” Phineas began to say, “when I was fighting him, he got it in his head that I was some trial sent by your ‘gods’ to test him or something. Maybe he was right? Maybe you are being tested right now! Maybe you already failed!”

The white and black colossus paused mid-step. It almost gingerly put its taloned foot down and its glaring eyes were locked on the armored pony in an almost contemplative way. Phineas raised a brow. He started mumbling, “What have I d-?“

“FOOL!” The Immortal boomed suddenly, swinging a massive arm into the air. “HERETIC!” it roared as it swung it downwards. Phineas retracted his energy blade, ducked off to the side and did a roll to evade the azure whips that lashed down where he was standing, baleful fire flaring up on impact with the metal and causing sparks to leap into the air.

Phineas then saw its other arm coming around, sweeping the whips horizontally through the air along with it. Acting swiftly, he decided to thrust the blunt end of the staff into the floor at an angle and then at the precise moment just as the whips were nearing, kicked off of the ground and vaulted over them using the pole. He twisted himself around in the air, pulling the staff from the floor as the burning bone chains passed underneath. He then landed on his back hooves and dropped into a crouch, holding the staff across his front side. He was panting, feeling like a zebra martial arts master from the old age of Equestria.

“Fool or heretic,” The Immortal snarled disdainfully to the stallion as it let its arms hang at its sides. It stood like a pillar as it spoke down to him with its burning, hateful eyes. “Whichever you may be: a fool who knows not of what he speaks, or a heretic who knowingly speaks against the Gods, it does not matter,” it said, its eyes blazing as its words grew more harsh.

The armored giant made a deep rumbling from within its burly form and continued on with its speech, “Our deed has been done; the souls of the strong have been given to the Gods to prey upon so that they can become even stronger. We have done in mere days what the traitor delayed by centuries with his fake soldiers and pathetic toys. We were bestowed with the artifact, we sought out the trinkets of the Rejected Ones and we served the Masters and the Masters alone. But are we the blessed and privileged?”

It let out a bout of laughter. It was a deep sound, though it lacked mirth. It was dry, lacking and hopeless. Phineas scowled, wondering how something responsible for so much death and destruction could sound as The Immortal sounded; like it was the victim despite it committing so many crimes. It was infuriating, but Phineas maintained restraint. In its time of despair, its rambling was answering his questions. He wanted to know just how much answers he could get out of the abomination before he had to finally kill it.

“We were discarded without warning, left to become victims of the likes of you”

The dark miasma started billowing out of the gaps in The Immortal’s armor all over its body. The green fires darkened until they too were black and they grew larger until they were spilling out of the creature’s exoskeleton. Phineas braced himself, the creature’s voice alone enough to raise his alarm, much less the volatile display that its body was doing.

“But we will not go quietly into the nightly realm of death to be eternally judged by the Eternal Eyes. We will either regain the favor of our Masters or ensure that you are dragged along with us to the place of the forsaken!”

At this point, Elysia’s hand shot up, signaling Alikir to spring into action. The two rangers popped up from their places and activated their booster packs, rushing toward the giant from behind as they opened fire. Alikir emptied his pistols into the back of the golem’s head and neck, the explosive rounds smashing the armor with ease. Elysia’s high powered gun, while slower to fire, sent penetrating rounds through the weakened armor, be it bone or metal, punching large holes into the giant’s body. A jet of superheated gas shot out of the entry wounds, bone fracturing into fragments which then turned into a powder in a fraction of a second.

Though their attack looked like it had impressive results, it was quickly apparent that it had no effect on The Immortal within the golem. The bone-giant exploded into its many individual parts, suspended in the air as the black powers swirled and churned like a storm cloud. In an instant, the bones and metal came together again, forming several tall, slender pylons that were hanging a few feet in the air around the black cloud. The flames on the walls were drawn to them, sucked towards the center of the chamber and turning into a flaming twister around The Immortal. In another instant, the flames were collected into a single orb of light that was shining brightly over the malevolent essence, rings composed of raw magical energy spinning around the altar with runes running across them.

“Masters!” the many voices of The Immortal cried out as one, “is this what you wanted!?”

The pylons were then raised, stabbing into the orb and causing bolts of green lightning to manifest around them. The electricity snaked around the bony structures and the runes began to spin even faster. The pitch of the voices were stretched and distorted until they were nothing but formless noises in the storm.
The two rangers swerved around the upheaval and planted their feet on the ground on either side of the armored stallion. “What in the blazes is going on?” Alikir asked.

“My suit’s sensors can’t get a read on the energy signatures!” Elysia exclaimed. “This isn’t anything that occurs naturally! Not even Spell-cores produce energies like this!”

Phineas looked down at the broken staff and snarled, “That’s because this isn’t a natural event! That’s some kind of Hex-core! It’s opening a connection directly to the Star Terrors!”

“Great!” Alikir responded. “Now how do we stop it!?”

“Just shooting it doesn’t seem to be much of an option,” said Elysia.

“Hold on,” Phineas muttered. He reached into a toolbox with one free hoof and promptly pulled out his Magi-Flux Harmonizer. “It’s only a hunch but…”

He powered up the magical tool, its prongs lighting up and crackling with white and blue energy. He maneuvered the tip of it to the jagged end of the broken staff, inching closer and closer until finally, a stream of magic jumped from the Harmonizer to the end of the pole.

“What are you doing?” Elysia asked, watching the Federation pony work from over his shoulder.

“This staff came from the Star Terrors. I’m betting that if I give it enough of a charge, one of you can throw it into that orb and disrupt the whole thing,” Phineas replied.

There was a short pause and Elysia turned her head to look at the tall ranger. He, in turn, looked to her and then bowed his head. “Right, what with you dying on the inside as we speak and Elyisa’s uh… physique, I guess I’m the only candidate left for throwing things.”

“Your name will be remembered for centuries to come for your actions here,” the female ranger stated. “Alikir: Thrower of Enchanted Objects.”

“I’m so honored.”

Phineas shut off his Harmonizer and stuck it back in his toolbox. “There,” he said, feeling his breaths becoming shallower. With minor difficulty, he said to Alikir: “Before any of that happens, you gotta… pull it off.” He coughed and added “No pressure.”

The pony gave the Space Ranger the staff then pulled out a stabilizing spell. He activated it, put its tip against his chest and administered another dose of the healing magic. Meanwhile, Alikir walked a short distance to the maelstrom of dark magic, stopping after only a few feet. He took a deep breath, adjusted his stance and held the pole at shoulder level. He eyed his glowing target, tensed his body and with one final, fluid release, sent the staff sailing through the air to it.

”No pressure at all,” the ranger thought.

The staff disappeared into the orb and a blinding flash of light washed across the chamber, a light so powerful that not even Phineas’ adaptive screens could have diminished its effect. He closed his eyes and raised a foreleg to block them. The rangers did the same, with Alikir backing away from the chaos to boot.

As if pulled back from the nether, the voices of The Immortal reformed into something recognizable: tortured screaming. When the three opened their eyes again, they saw that the light had subsided and that there was a horrible mess surrounded by glowing metal before the black throne. The paste that was boiling away in front of them was a light gray in color with hints of reds and Phineas was really glad he could not smell the stench that was surely coming off from it.

They were all silent for a long time. It was Alikir who regained the ability to speak first, and he used it to offer his insight on the matter: “Holy… shit.”

“Um…” was all Elysia was able to say, her eyes glued to the spot.

“Well then… this isn’t going to haunt me for the rest of my life,” Phineas deadpanned.

“So… is it over?” Elysia asked with a trembling voice. “Is this the end?”

Alikir shook his head. “We still gotta blow this ship up and every last undead bastard on board.”

“Right… right…” The small ranger shook her head and took a few deep breaths to regain her composure. “It’s time to finish the mission.”

Alikir nodded and then looked over to Phineas. The pony had just put down the foreleg that his PDA was attached to. Alikir cocked his head slightly and asked, “How are you holding up?”

“I’m not dead,” Phineas replied as he walked over to where his hover-platform rifles landed. He picked them up and started to put them back in his utility pack when he added: “so pretty good, all things considered.”

Alikir then asked, “So what are you going to do now?”

“Help finish the mission,” Phineas replied simply.

“Help?” Alikir asked, “Help how?”

“I’m sure you can figure that one out, Space Ranger,” said Phineas.

For the first time since the ranger met the pony, Alikir detected something that wasn’t overbearingly serious in Phineas’ tone. It wasn’t much, but there was a sliver of impish humor present. A twinkle in the corner of his eye a few moments later caught his attention and then he heard the rapidly approaching roar of a spaceship’s engines. He looked to the hole in the front of the ruined chamber. There, he saw the black and white shuttle rushing down the straight, answering its pilot’s call.

The shuttle slowed to a hover shortly after it entered the formerly burning chamber. The canopy opened up and the ladder extended. Phineas grabbed the rungs and started to climb.

“Are you fit to fly?” Elysia asked with evident concern.

“Fit enough,” Phineas replied, “for the time being, at least.”

“I suppose we should get this done quickly then,” the female ranger mused.

“Make it a clean sweep, as you would say?” Alikir commented.

“Before we do,” Phineas said suddenly at the top of the entrance ladder, “I want to know just why the hell you followed me anyway, and how the hell did you manage to do it.”

“Short answer?” Elysia responded. “Commander’s orders.”

“Long answer would take too long,” Alikir chimed in.

Phineas simply nodded. ”We’ll be having words, Uolix.”

***

The undead scuttled along the levels of Hex-core chamber at a loss, without purpose. Like mindless beasts they fought amongst themselves, necrotic bolts and beams soaring across the engine block and disturbing the reddish-orange glow. The Hex-core drive was left unattended for the most part, save for the deathless that destroyed the monitoring consoles in fits of rage, some of them going as far as attempting to ingest the frayed wiring and chunks of machinery. They paid no attention to the tell-tale explosions that were increasing in volume with each passing second in their frenzied state of being.

The battle-pod screeched through the warzone, fires erupting out of the tunnel it bore through the ship’s structure. Just as quickly as it had appeared, the fighter was gone, making a sharp turn and proceeding to eat its way through the ship’s hull, superheated rings of metal dripping slag left in its passing. The undead had no reaction to its appearance, and likewise, had no reaction to the second blur that shot out of the tunnel with a streak of blue behind it. It did not turn however; instead it held its course until it slammed into the central block of the Hex-core.

The explosion went off as the shuttle was passing through the chamber, swerving into the second tunnel and chased by the expanding bubble of violent magic. Blue and green flames rendered the ship a shadow as it hurtled down the carved out passage. The edge of the explosion tailed the shuttle all the way until it finally shot out into space, escaping the death of the Marauder.

The ship shook as a tremendous quake rippled down its length. The beak at the front opened slowly, bleeding out red and green mist into the void. Its structure buckled, bent, and then ruptured viciously, the fireball spreading to the deathless stations around the enormous vessel.