Children of the Sun

by Vanner

Battle of Nightmares

Chapter Fourteen: The Battle of Nightmares

Bard really tried to keep it together, but behind the bravado he was a coward at heart. Despite his friendship to the ponies that stood with him, the unicorn turned tail and fled. He dove off the side of the spire, and hoped for the best among the clouds below. The other ponies were about to follow suit when the deafening flap of a hundreds of wings filled the foggy sky. Hundreds more emaciated griffins emerged from the fog like a swarm of hornets. The ponies backed away from the exit as they descended upon the spire to block every single exit. Manus’s family dropped to the platform and scampered inside with the ponies as the shrieks and squawks of the black swarm drowned out every other thought. They five adults corralled the children to the center of them, and prepared to fight.

Ridgeline assessed the situation. With the hundreds of ponies that had taken formation behind Phantasm, and the hundreds of griffins outside, there was no chance for them. Even if he lost control, he maybe could take out a few dozen, but even he would fall eventually. Still it might be enough if he could clear a path for the rest of his herd.

“They’re not attacking,” said Constance. Ridgeline glanced at the griffins that blocked the exits. They were unmoving, except for the screeching of terror. The blackened ponies also stood unmoving, as if waiting for Phantasm to give them the word to destroy. The emaciated griffin unfurled his multicolored wings and chuckled at the ponies.

“Come ponies,” he whispered. “Join my army. There is a place in the court of Phantasm for you all. I will take your princess, and I will remember those who have helped me.” Ridgeline pushed the herd behind him as he approached the nightmare griffin.

“I don’t know who you are,” he said, “and I don’t care where you’ve come from. The griffins are my enemies; they’ve killed everyone I’ve ever loved. So if you think I’m going to join you, you’ve got another thing coming.” He stomped a hoof. “I swear on Celestia’s horn that you will not lay a talon on my friends.”

Phantasm chuckled at the bravado of the stallion, and let a cloud of black tendrils roll from the smoke around his feet. The tendrils crept across the floor, and wrapped in an oily mist around Ridgeline’s fetlocks.

“Stupid pony,” snickered the nightmare. “You will join me whether you want to or not. I am the Phantasm, and all will obey.”

The smoke rose in an oily cloud to overtake Ridgeline. Gladus gasped in horror while Manus covered his children’s eyes. They knew what was coming, and even if they couldn’t stop it from happening to them, they could at least shield their child from the horror for another moment.

As the cloud dissipated around Ridgeline, the armored stallion stood unphased by the dark magics. His grey eyes only stared into the bright glow of Phantasm’s eyes. For a moment, he swore Phantasm looked shocked.

The griffins stared in amazement. There should have been screaming as Phantasm took his soul. The copper coated stallion should resembled the charred husks of ponies that stood as a legion behind the nightmare griffin. Instead he stood defiant of the nightmare griffin. The demon Phantasm had been unable to take control of Ridgeline.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” asked Ridgeline.

Phantasm’s scream sent the ponies and griffins to the ground, holding their ears. The deafening scream shook the very walls of the dome, and rattled debris from the ceiling of the chamber. Ridgeline only stood in defiance of the beast and his roar. An unchivalrous thought passed through his head that told him to attack while the beast was trying to scare him. He thought it was a damn good idea. Ridgeline barreled at the nightmare griffin with the cry of Celestia on his lips.

The blades adorning Ridgeline’s fetlocks swiped through the feathers of Phantasm as a colt ploughs through a piñata. The impossible strength of Ridgeline took the creature by surprise, and knocked him off balance. Phantasm stumbled backwards and fell down the open hole where he had emerged. There wasn’t enough room for him to spread his wings, and the shadow griffin plummeted into the spire. Ridgeline only scoffed. So much for Phantasm. He turned his attention the shrieking griffons outside when a rush of oily smoke shot past him and toward his friends.

Ridgeline jumped atop the cloud. His magic boot s found purchase in the smoky demon and shoved it to the floor inches away from his companions.

“Run, damn it!” yelled Ridgeline.

The griffins and ponies bolted for the stair case and began winding their way upstairs as the griffin again coalesced into form. Ridgeline brought down both hooves in an overhead smash that drove the demon’s head into the floor. The silver helm of the demon staved under the attack and Ridgeline pressed the advantage. He turned and bucked the shadow griffin in the beak, sending shattered pieces of it flying.

“Not so tough are you?” taunted Ridgeline. “I recognize your armor, fiend. You’re no Nightmare Moon. Your demon is trapped on the moon and it left your body to rot here.”

“Nightmare Moon was a part of me before she left for that bitch goddess of yours!” shrieked Phantasm. “I will again have the body of a goddess, and I will kill all those who stand in my way!”

The griffin swiped at Ridgeline with talons that caught in his armor. The creature drug Ridgeline across the floor with his massive size, and threw the pony into the lines of the ponies that waited behind him. Ridgeline flattened a unicorn that didn’t so much as squeak in protest. They simple stood there, as if nothing around them mattered at all. Ridgeline shook off the beating, and stood again.

Phantasm plowed through the line of ponies as if they were a field of bowling pins. Ridgeline ducked under the snapping beak, and bucked the griffon in the chest. His hooves caught in the breastplate of the beast, and sent it spiraling out of the crowd of charred ponies. Ridgeline leapt over the crowd to deliver the final blow to the griffin when it again dispersed into a cloud of oily smoke. Ridgeline snorted and spun to face the cloud

From that cloud of smoke, a talon raked across the front of his barding, and scratched the chest plate. The claws were sharp, but they had no force behind them. Ridgeline almost chuckled; sure he couldn’t do much to a cloud of smoke, but it also couldn’t hurt him. This fight was already over and Phantasm had lost. It wasn’t until the cloud took form again that the stallion realized how wrong he had been.

The cloud weaved around Ridgeline as if it were a humming bird. It paused to take shape again, and battered the stallion with furious kicks, or a scything talon. It moved with the nimbleness of a butterfly, dodging and weaving away from Ridgeline’s thundering hooves, and struck with the force of a wrecking ball, denting his armor, and sending him skidding across the floor. The smoke flitted in front of Ridgeline for a final time, and took on the full griffin form to deliver a two-taloned uppercut that sent Ridgeline down in a heap among the lines of ponies.

Ridgeline tried to stand again. He steadied himself on the flank of a pony that stood there, and readied himself for another beating. He felt weakened by the assaulted, as if each hit had taken from him a part of his being. Maybe it had, but he knew one thing: the griffin was panting. All those fancy tricks with the smoke and claws had worn him out, and it gave Ridgeline a much needed second to breathe. Something caught his eye on the flank of the filly in front of him.

Beneath the char and ash that covered the ponies there were cutie marks. Every pony here had one. They hadn’t been burned. They weren’t dead. They had just been taken over. These ponies were still alive under there. The cutie mark he saw on the flank of the filly in front of him was unmistakable which is why it caught his eye. It was a simple patch of fabric lined along the edges with stitching.

It was his sister. She had been frozen in time as a filly, but it was unmistakably Patches. His family wasn’t dead and the griffins hadn’t killed them. They’d been enslaved for ten years, and it was the doing of this thing that stood before him. Ridgeline narrowed his eyes at the charging Phantasm. In all the years he had been fighting, he had never really hated his enemy, not even the griffins. The demon in his head had always provided whatever anger he felt, but now as unbridled rage filled the stallion, he spit out his mouth guard and bit down on his tongue. As the maddening taste of blood filled his mouth, the demon inside demanded control. For the first time in his life, he welcomed the demon to his mind, and gave him control.

The baying of a nightmare echoed from the dome as the ponies and griffins climbed the stairs to get away from Phantasm. They came at last to a balcony overhanging the dome where they stopped to look down on Ridgeline. He appeared to be battering Phantasm into submission with vicious blow and bites that stained the dome floor with black ichor. So entranced by the copper stallion’s combat, the flock barely heard the approaching shriek of griffins.

A dark griffin nearly twice the size of Ridgeline battered through the throngs of smaller griffins guarding the exits. On either side was another griffin that shared the same burnt feathers and blacked fur of their larger captain. Gladus, Constance, and Manus put themselves between the dark griffins and the children. There was no banter; only the soulless hatred that hung behind glowing black eyes of the griffins. They moved in for the kill and the flock charged in to meet them.

Gladus dodged and weaved around the talon swipes and rear claws of the dark griffin. She ducked under a claw and came up with a talon full of powder from her bag of medicine. Whatever it was, it stuck to the glowing eyes of the dark griffin and sent it shrieking backwards in pain. Gladus charged the beast and tore through its feathers protecting its neck with a single swipe. The dark griffin swatted with a useless talon as the griffoness clamped her beak across its neck. In a spray of black ichor, the griffin thrashed and squawked in terror. Gladus swiped a talon across the griffin’s throat and tore it from his body.

Constance ducked under the talons of the smallest dark griffon. She pivoted with the grace of a dancer and bucked the creature in the beak. Stunned, the griffin stumbled backwards as Constance reared up. A right hoof across the temple sent the beast tumbling to the floor in a heap and Constance assured that it would stay down with another vicious stomp to the head. For as much of a lady as she appeared to be, the rose coated pegasus was certainly unrelenting when pressed. She moved to help Manus with the massive griffin.

Manus had not fared as well against his opponent, and his white feathers had been stained red with his own blood. He stood defiant as the massive griffon battered and clawed at him in a vain attempt to get at the chicks and filly. Manus struck back when he could but the sheer size and strength of the dark griffin was taking its toll, and he wouldn’t be able to stand much longer. The dark griffin raised a talon to strike the final blow when a buck from a rose colored hoof sent him flying.

Heart Chase had heard the baying of terror from far below, and it set her fur standing. She had heard that sound before, and she knew that Ridgeline had lost control. She only hoped that Bard’s trick worked again, and that she would be able to save her friends. The word didn’t even seem contrived anymore. These ponies were her friends. Even if she had lied to them, even if she hadn’t trusted them in the past, they were her friends and she was going to save them all. She barreled out of the stairwell and onto the platform with Constance and some griffin were locked in battle with a massive black griffin. Neither one looked to be doing too well. She continued her gallop across platform and leaped atop the beast.

With a pony on his back, a griffin on each side, and pegasus bucking him the face, the griffin finally began to realize he was losing. He swatted the pegasus away and charged for the children instead. Heart Chase wrapped her arms around the griffin’s giant neck and heaved to the side. Like an out of control bull, he listed to the right, and smashed into the platform in an explosion of feathers. Heart Chase rolled away from the beast, and slid next to Constance. The children scurried into the air behind the griffins.

Among the flying species, attacking the wings was considered poor form and the sign of dirty fight. Heart Chase didn’t know this at all, and had no compunctions about latching her teeth onto the dark griffon’s wing, then breaking it with a vicious kick. The snapping of hollow bones was met with a universal cringe from those with wings and as the beast bellowed in pain, Heart Chase swung herself around to break the other wing. The screeching reached deafening levels as Heart Chase rolled from his back and onto the platform. With the snap of teeth, the armored earth pony grabbed the creature’s broken wing and rolled backward off the platform with him.

Without even thinking, Constance dove off the edge platform after her. Heart Chase kicked free of the beast and into the gliding hooves of the pegasus. She couldn’t fly, especially with the added weight of an armored pony, but she managed to slow their descent. The dark griffon didn’t fare near as well and plummeted to the ground, then through the thin stone floor. Gladus tried to grab Muffins as she barreled over the side after the mares, but the griffin couldn’t lay a talon on the fuzzy filly.

In the mean time, Bard had gathered what nerve he had, and began building a staircase of clouds back to the spire entrance. He prayed to Luna that his friends were still alive, and they wouldn’t hate him for what he’d done. As he jumped to the entrance platform, the massive griffin punched through the floor of the dome, and continued screeching as he fell to his demise. A moment later the two mares floated to the floor, followed by Muffins. They all appeared to be safe and sound.

Behind them, Ridgeline had become a copper blur of blades and teeth. Ichor sprayed the room as the bladed fetlocks of the berserk pony carved through the multicolored wings of Phantasm. The armored plates that had fused with the beast were shattered by the hammer blows of Ridgeline’s hooves, and the creature was barely maintaining a sense of coherence. Ridgeline reared up and stomped the griffin’s head to the ground with both hooves. He raised a bladed fetlock above his head, and brought it down on the feathered neck of the nightmare creature with a sickening crunch of bone and feathers.

From the shattered remains of the creature rolled a cloud of black mist, and the air filled with the screams of souls that left the shattered form of the griffin. Each soul took the form of a pale cloud as it flitted back to its body, and the char began to fall away from every pony and griffin who had suffered under Phantasm’s cruelty. Life filled the dome as the colors returned to those who been taken. Ridgeline looked at the masses of ponies gathered before him, and saw only victims.

There are more now. Kill them all. Let the blood flow. Fill this house with the screams of pain. Those ponies will fight, Kill them first, and then slaughter those who stand there uselessly. Do as I command. I control you.

Bard reached out with his magic and touched upon the mind of his berserk friend. The demon was louder than ever before and the howling insanity forced Bard out of the stallions mind. The shriek that filled his mind sent him to the floor in agony. Ridgeline turned to the unicorn that had tried to shut him down, and charged. The mares moved to defend Bard, knowing they couldn’t stand against the monster that had taken control.

It was Muffins who shot out from behind the mares and slammed into Ridgeline. The fuzzy little pegasus moved with such speed and at just such an angle that she knocked Ridgeline off his hooves and onto his back. She stood atop his chest with a smile.

“You beat him!” she said. “You beat the mean ol’ griffin!”

Kill her. She is the enemy. No one is your friend, kill them all. Start with her, and let the blood flow. She is not your friend.

“SHE IS TOO MY FRIEND!” shrieked Ridgeline. He raised his hooves above the pegasus, and pulled her into an embrace. His eyes drained from black to their sad grey as the demon lost control of his body and let Ridgeline back in. He sobbed as he held the pegasus in his arms. There was something that could beat the demon, so it seemed.

Muffin’s unrelenting gift of friendship had saved them all.