And now, my little ponies, for the Battle of Duskfields...Time passes for the ponies of Duskfields, and for what feels like an eternity there is no sign of any movement from the red mist that hangs around the town. The order had long gone out for the civilians to hide in the tavern, which was the most defensible place in the town. They huddle there, whimpering in fear or comforting one another as much as they can. The tension grows with each passing moment
Finally, the tension is replaced with renewed fear when movement is spotted to the west.
On the hills, shrouded partially by the dense forest that covers the lands, a giant serpentine figure emerges. Smaller, pony sized creatures flank her, and a skeletal pony in heavy armor leads. They pause at the height of the hill to survey the town.
The order to form up goes out, and what soldiers and armed civilians there are mount the walls. The west is unprotected by fortifications, but driven by desperation and determination the armed ponies gallop to firing positions. They halt when more attackers are spotted down south. A massive wave of discordants approaches, and the order to protect the south is sounded.
As the battle begins, Flamgerge and Crosshair stand at the ready, on the top of the dining hall. Crosshair, has her weapon readied, and keeps her tail wrapped lightly on Flamberge’s leg, to keep him relaxed. Flamberge has given his orders, and knew to trust in his captain’s to see that they were carried out.
The attack begins lightly. A squad of mace armed zebras and ponies charge for the entrance wildly, taking hits from crossbows but not faltering.
The spearponies meet them at the bridge and true combat is joined. The invading discordants are cut down in seconds, with one being hurled into the moat as the blood drains from his broken body. Flamberge continues watching, letting his troops deal with this wave on their own, Crosshair providing covering fire from here. When the wave is slain, Flamberge shouts the order, and the defenders back into the entrance again, bracing for the next round of attackers.
Ponies of all colors and types brandishing crude armor and swords gallop for the gate. “Rejoice in the coming oblivion!” they cry as one, descending on the spearponies amidst another punishing hail of crossbow bolts.
A discordant goes down with a curse, taking a bolt to his foreleg then another to his neck. His brothers and sisters are undaunted and lock blades with spears. Once again they are crushed by the skilled defenders, sending two more dying ponies tumbling into the moat. Yet, for every discordant that is killed, another appears on the hills, galloping and screaming for the end of Duskfields.
Flamberge continues waiting, and watching. He knew the real enemy was Entropy, if they were to have any chance of victory, he needed to be ready for her.
A mass of ponies and a griffon wielding maces surge down the southeastern hills. Their numbers are almost too great for the combined might of the spearponies and swordsponies, and they fall into a chaotic knot of weapons and warriors at the bridge.
Bolts tear through the air and discordant ponies. Spears and swords deflect mace strikes. An attacker screams as his leg is torn away by a sword. Another drops, coughing blood and gagging as Scimitar draws his blade back from her chest. Yet another collapses silently as Bascinet’s spear rams through her skull.
The battle begins to turn.
That is, until a black earth pony of staggering proportions and a wicked, mindless sneer on his face catches Redhat from behind.
His mace crashes down on her back, twisting the steel of her peytral and crushing the bones in her spine. She collapses with a truncated gasp, and watches silently as he readies another swing. The pony gives pause when his guts are removed by Epaulette’s spear, and he keels over when Pila thrusts hers through his lung.
Redhat lies motionless, aside from the pleading looks from her eyes and feeble, silent motions of her mouth.
“Get him up!” Phalanx shouts, but there is no time. Without a moment to breathe, they are set upon by more ponies swinging axes. The able bodied defenders form up and meet the charge admirably. The discordant charge buckles and falters, and enraged by their loss, the defenders charge and give chase.
Scimitar lashes out with his sword at a fleeing griffon. His blade easily slides through the thin leather armor on her underside, and she twists and screams in the air. He sneers and thrusts again, spearing her chest and finally bringing her down. On top of him.
The attackers began to flee before the ferocity of the defenders’ onslaught, and Gorget just has time to grab the broken soldier when a thunderous crack of something massive teleporting rings out.
In the center of the defending line inside the gate, Entropy appears, wreathed in the afterglow of her teleportation spell and flanked by her personal defenders. An undead earth pony with heavy blackened armor, a deep gray pegasus stallion in lighter steel, an off white unicorn mare in golden armor, a zebra mare in bronze scale armor and a female griffon in heavy, brightly gleaming steel surround the draconequus, rallying in an instant from the sudden translocation.
The invaders fan out and angle their weapons at the Duskfields soldiers as Entropy raises both hands into the air. An intense violet glow shrouds her as she shouts, “Hear me, my children and return to the woods!
We will finish this!” She thrusts a glowing skeletal talon at the startled and confused defenders and shouts, “Cower before my might!” Her followers charge, choosing targets and lashing out with their weapons.
Flamberge sees Entropy and shouts an order to his soldiers throughout the town, “The Draconiquus is at the gate! Destroy her and this battle will be ours!” He draws his sword and takes flight.
Some of the defenders hear the new orders and turn to face their attackers. Many gasp or mutter silent prayers instead of attacking immediately, but a few draw aim and fire or charge the monstrosity with their weapons. Every strike that lands is met with a spray of green magic, and Entropy grins as a bolt explodes into splinters harmlessly in her face.
“Arise, and join me,” she chants, waving her hand across the corpses of the watch dogs killed in the initial attack. Their bodies moan and shudder before rising again and turning on their previous masters. She chuckles as the chaos spreads.
As she works, the skeletal pony and unicorn mare crash into the swordspony line. The sounds of blades clashing together echoes through the town, and neither side seems to be gaining an edge. Crossbow bolts fly from the trade depot where the pony caravan is still held up, and with a gesture Entropy commands for the zebra mare at her side to charge them.
Flamberge takes a step off the roof of the dining hall, allowing himself to fall to build speed, he spreads his wings pulling up at the last possible instant, the grass being blown aside as he flies. He charges the zebra mare, whom tries to brace to meet the charging pegasus with her sword. At the end of the flying charge Flamberge goes into a roll, flying over her weapon and beheading her with a single swipe as he blows past her.
“Silaha!” a raspy, ethereal voice cries out.
Entropy steps past the stunned undead pony and glares at Flamberge. “There you are!” She opens her mouth and thick, sickly green fumes spray forth, engulfing him.
Flamberge is immediately racked with terrible sickening nausea, which causes him to lose his balance and crash into the ground. His armor protecting him from serious injury. He begins to stand and retches, tossing his breakfast upon the blood slicked ground. With his stomach empty, he forces himself to stand, still feeling more sick than he had at any point in his life before this. He takes up his blade once more, and turns to face his foes.
Meanwhile, Crosshair had unload the 14th bolt into the skeletal pony who refuses to go down. The mare finds out that bolts are a lot more effective to things that actually have organs to hurt. But finally, with the 15th steel bolt of hers, the force snaps the skeletal pony’s head clean off, making the body crashes onto the floor in a heap. The captain of the guards signalled for the Markspony to fire another volley from the fortification at the Eldritch abomination again.
Entropy raises her hand, bathing both of them in a blue haze before another volley of crossbow bolts explode against green flares of her magical shield. She abandons the spell, snorts at Flamberge and looks at her new attackers. With a gesture at each, the marksponies cry out, clutching and their heads and slumping to the wooden fortifications.
She grins wickedly and returns her attention to the spear and sword ponies around her. Blows collide against her magically shielded body on all sides until she sweeps her arms out, blowing her attackers back in a flash of magic.
Epaulette lands in a heap next to Flamberge. She rises to her hooves with a groan and snatches up her spear just as an off white unicorn mare brandishing a sword wreathed in golden flames charges for them. “Colonel!” she shouts in warning, bracing herself.
Flamberge looks up at the charging mare with the magic blade, and raises his own to meet hers. She brings her blade down on Flamberge who parries, taking a step backwards, then following with an attack of his own. Unable to get a clean hit, the unicorn mare pushed the sickly colonel back, until, she stopped. Flamberge looked and saw Epaulette’s spear withdrawing from the space between the unicorn mare’s crupper and flanchard, soaked in blood. The discordant mare, stunned by the sudden backstab, finds her neck gashed open by Flamberge’s sword as he takes advantage of her opening. She falls and the two ponies of Dusk leap onto her, to finish her with a strike each to her vital organs, Flamberge punching through her breastplate with his sword and Epaulette going through her eye..
Cleansing Light shudders on the ground for a few moments before the glow of her sword dies out. At that instant, a twisted and shrill cry booms through Duskfields, heard all the way to the woods. When Flamberge and Epaulette look up, they see Pila withdrawing her spear from Entropy’s side. Putrid black fluid oozes from the wound.
With a shout of rage, Entropy again throws the ponies back with a blast of magic. She raises both hands into the air again and a wave of unsettling magic rolls through the town. Dead ponies moan and shamble to their hooves, clutching their weapons again and searching for lives to end.
Even the dogs, who were once again laid low, rise again to terrorize the ponies.
Entropy turns away from Flamberge and snatches up three spear ponies in her magic. They writhe in the air and drop their spears, smearing foul undead blood on the ground. She growls and clenches her fist, prompting screams from all three. They begin to ooze blood from their mouths and ears, kicking feebly at the air and whimpering.
Flamberge feels the sword mare under him begin to stir again, he smashes her helmet onto her with another slam of his hoof and bolts up after Entropy. With sliding movements he makes quick work of a few former merchants made undead by her magic, leaving them in several pieces, he then leaps upwards, taking wing and lands on Entropy’s back, he thrusts his sword into her neck with a bloodlust filled battlecry, but the blade only barely penetrates, as the last bit of her protective magic falters under the continuing assault. Entropy’s blood, black and congealed oozes onto the blade from the new wound.
Another unnatural, twisted roar of pain surges past the defenders. Entropy spins to face Flamberge, and a momentary flash of shock on her face is replaced by rage. She claws at him, missing the comparatively small pegasus by a league, then takes a step back. The air shifts strangely around them and with a blinding flash and ear-splitting boom she vanishes for an instant, followed by her reappearing atop the top of the tavern to their side.
Around him, Flamberge can hear the spear ponies moan as they stir and try to right themselves. Pila and Bascinet cough and wheeze blood while Phalanx vomits an alarming amount of red before slumping to the ground. From atop the tavern, Entropy sneers at Flamberge and clenches her fist. “
Die, maggot,” she taunts.
Flamberge is racked with even more terrible pain than before, as her magic envelops him. When her spell is complete. Flamberge barely manages to stand, as he coughs up blood onto the ground. Looking up, at her, his left ear bleeding profusely, the scar on his face, a gift from Carnath, long since healed is reopened, as are the other injuries under his armor. Every bruise and cut he’s had since birth seems to reappear at once. As his lifeforce pools to the ground, draining from him, he looks up at Entropy, defiance in his eyes, “I... won’t be beaten by you.”
A shimmer of green flickers across Entropy, and in that instant Flamberge feels her spell on him falter before returning. “You already
are beaten!” she shouts. She points a skeletal talon at him and sweeps it across the town. Almost every armed pony, discordant or otherwise, is incapacitated. Weak cries and whimpers come from every corner of the town, and she takes a step toward him. “You never stood a chance.”
"No Entropy. You, never stood a chance," Flamberge coughs up a bit more blood, "You think because I'm the strongest here, and that you are stronger than me, that you have nothing to fear. That you can not possibly lose to us. Your magic is powerful Entropy, but we have a magic of our own." As Flamberge speaks, he sees Crosshair and one of his sword ponies, Gorget, approaching Entropy in the air, from behind.
Entropy chuckles. “And what magic is that? I’ve seen every spell every pony has ever devised...”
"We ponies have not survived by our strength, or our magic, or our intellect, though we do possess all those things, we survive, against things like you, like the dragons, like every gods damned beast from the pits of hell that this world has to offer, because we work together. Because we care about each other, and will fight for each other. And because of that magic, we never need to fight alone."
With that Entropy feels the stinging pain of Gorget’s immense sword smashing into her tail, and the sting of Crosshair's last bolt in the back of her head. She turns with a roar to face them, with her back turned, Flamberge flies up and lands on her once again, this time atop her head and drives his sword into her eye.
Entropy’s prior screams of pain pale compared to what she unleashes. Flamberge, Gorget and Crosshair are hurled away yet again as her magic blows past them, but this time Flamberge can feel that it has weakened. Entropy collapses to her knees, covering her right eye with her hand. Growls are interspersed with tormented screams as thick, blackened and clotted blood pours between the exposed bones of her hand.
She staggers to her hooves and hisses, “
You... have earned... a
special personal place Flamberge... I’ll enjoy torturing you...”
A glowing red trail follows her left index finger as she aims at him, and another crackle of green lightning plays across her for an instant.
Flamberge unwilling to be hit with a third curse from the lich today, takes flight, flying evasively he gets into melee range and swings his sword at the bony wrist with all the strength he could still muster. His blade is met by the same magical force, but this time it crumples easily with a spray of green embers. The bones crack and shatter as if left to bleach in the sun for decades, sending her severed hand clattering to the roof and ending the spell.
Entropy reels backward with another startled shout. She covers the stump with her remaining hand, uncovering the destroyed remains of her eye and blood soaked face. Green magic swirls unevenly around her and crackles against the rooftop. For an instant, fear shows on her face, but it’s replaced with a hateful scowl moments later.
The ponies around her feel the air shift oddly again, but the teleport never goes off. A faint pop sounds out and the air gusts past them, but nobody moves. Entropy looks around, stunned. She takes a step back, nearly losing her balance and blowing off more wisps of green magic. “Wh...at?”
Flamberge gives her no time to recover, continuing his assault. He flies up to her face, and turns to buck out her teeth. His hooves meet the weakened force field, which collapses without much fight to let him connect.
Yellowed and rotten teeth spray across the roof to their side, and Entropy is driven back with a truncated yelp. She uncovers her face and spreads her bony wings, staring daggers at her attackers. With a mighty flap she lifts unsteadily from the roof and says, “You... think you’ve beaten me?” She backs over the edge of the roof while airborne and takes a deep breath.
A confused grunt passes her decayed lips as a sword erupts from her chest. Vile, thick green fumes seep from around the blade and from her mouth and nostrils. The blade retracts and Gorget rolls out from behind her, flapping his wings and looking for another angle to strike from. Entropy coughs and stares at the ponies as the green magic bleeding from her begins to splutter and fade.
With Entropy once more distracted, Flamberge flies around behind her. He grapples her neck with his rear legs and takes hold of his curving longsword with both forehooves before driving the blade into the back of her neck, just below her skull, he twists the blade, and cuts from one side to the other, severing her spine.
Even with her neck shattered and broken, she twists in his grasp and tries to dislodge him. She claws ineffectually at him twice, and when that fails, Flamberge sees a burst of white light and feels his entire body go numb.
The two combatants spiral listlessly to the ground, where Entropy lands with a crash between the buildings. Somehow, damaged and ruined as her body was, Flamberge sees her force herself upright. Faint green lightning arcs between her limbs and the structures around her as she stumbles and slumps against a building. She turns to him, nearly collapsing as she makes the motion and begins, “You...
you...” She slumps against a building again, and Flamberge feels the magical numbness vanish.
Flamberge somehow finds the strength to stand again. One forehoof gripping his badly bleeding injuries though his armor. He takes up his sword in his mouth again, and forces himself onward, charging at Entropy again, striking at her head with his sword and hooves and everything he can throw at her.
His sword rings against the final resistance her shield can put up, sliding through the energy to nearly remove an ear. She makes no sound at the injury and weakly tries to back away, but that doesn’t get her out of range. He strikes out with a hoof and when it connects with her forehead, the world
explodes.
Flamberge is tossed back against the side of the tavern amidst an almighty blast of magic. Swirls, bolts and plumes of purple and green magic surge through the entire town, buffeting him and making all of his senses swim. His head feels for a moment as if it could explode from an unexplained pressure and he can’t draw breath, but as suddenly as the sensations come on they vanish.
When he opens his eyes to look back where Entropy was standing, for an instant it appears as if she has disappeared. However, as his blurry vision sharpens again, he sees a much smaller serpentine figure standing where Entropy just was.
It quickly becomes apparent that the new creature was almost identical to Entropy. All four limbs were skeletal, and one arm was missing a hand. One eye is destroyed and still running with blood. A ragged hole in its chest drips with the same undead blood, and all of its scales were pale and blotchy. The only difference was that this creature was no taller than a pony.
She raises her only remaining hand with slow, jerky motions. “H-huh?” she squeaks, examining the bony extremity. She locks eyes with Flamberge for a moment, and mortal dread washes over her expression. “No...” Desperately, she tries to take a step, but collapses to her knees.
Flamberge gets to his hooves again, takes up his sword, and slowly approaches the new smaller creature, “Entropy?” he asks. Of all the things he could have expected, after that explosion, her shrinking was not among them.
The look of terror intensifies and she tries to stand, but merely succeeds in falling backward. Splayed out on the ground, she feebly raises her remaining hand to shield her face and says, “Fl-flamberge... w-wait...”
Flamberge raises his sword, “No Entropy, it’s over. Rejoice in the coming oblivion.”
And with that he lets the blade fall. She manages half of a whimper before the strike hits her skull. The decrepit bones and flesh give no resistance. Her body twitches and convulses for several seconds before she grows still, and a faint fog of light green and violet magic wisps from her mouth and nostrils.
For the first time since the battle began, all of Duskfields falls into deathly silence.
Yet, in the distance, from all directions, a cry of all consuming despair reaches the town...
The chorus of cries grows stronger with each passing moment, thousands of voices drowning one another out so that nothing but the sounds of ponies, griffons and zebras wailing can be heard. From the woods they come, charging toward the open gate and ignoring the few remaining bolts flying at them. Some are cut down by the exhausted defenders, but do not fight back.
In the skies, pegasi and griffons soar toward the town. As Flamberge stands near Entropy’s body, four sickly colored pegasi crash to the ground. They spin around frantically in search of something, and when their eyes settle on the draconequus sprawled out on the ground they gasp. As one they gallop to her side, ignoring Flamberge.
Flamberge confused takes a few steps backwards. His weapon at the ready.
“She... she’s dead...” a stallion utters.
A mare prods her lifeless body with a hoof. “No... no!”
Another mare crouches next to her and places a hoof on her shoulder. “Mommy? N-no... mommy!”
The fourth, a small pegasus barely old enough to be a stallion, turns to look at Flamberge. Tears stream down his cheeks as he asks, “Y-you killed her?” He draws a sword, clearly trembling.
Without enough time for Flamberge to reply, a steel bolt tore through the skull of the young trembling stallion right between his eyes, deep enough to have the head sticking out from the other side. Sending the poor thing down to the ground in a heap. The small captain of the guards have already halfway finished reloading her crossbow by the time the body hits the bloody floor. Having scavenged some bolts from the battle earlier.
Flamberge watches the colt drop, and knows that while his ponies may still be willing to fight, they could not take the rest of the army, battered as they are. He forces himself to hover, towering over the discordians, "Yes, I Flamberge! Lord of these lands, slew your mother! Entropy is dead! Flee now, or I shall do the same to you!" It was a bluff if Flamberge had ever used one, barely being able to stand, let alone fight anymore, but he knew it was his best shot.
The three remaining pegasi glance up as their sibling is killed, then turn their gaze to Flamberge. The stallion looks back down, sniffling and resting a hoof on Entropy’s body. “Pl-please... wake up....” Tears begin to form in his eyes now.
One of the mares sits back on her haunches and buries her face in her hooves before weeping openly. The second mare begins crying too, while drawing a dagger from a sheath on her foreleg.
Flamberge slowly lands, not surprised that his bluff didn’t send them running, but confused as to why they sat there and didn’t kill him.
Crosshair quickly rushes to his side, crossbow aimed and ready to put down the next Discordian mare who just drew a dagger. But what came afterwards shocked her.
The mare places the dagger awkwardly in her trembling hooves.. She looks down at the broken body and mutters, “I-I’ll be with you soon, mom.” She wipes her nose. “I still remember that
story you told me. I... I know you said there are no gods and goddesses.” She wipes her eyes. “I know you said that this was the only life there was... but I don’t believe that.” She shakes her head and starts crying softly again. “I know we’ll be together again. And then... then you can tell me all of the stories you know...” She takes the dagger and slices across her neck. Her eyes go wide and she gags for a second before collapsing atop Entropy’s body.
The remaining two continue to cry bitterly before taking one another in each other’s hooves and hugging tightly. “She’s
dead...” the stallion whimpers.
Flamberge holds onto Crosshair for stabilization. She feels his blood leaking from his chest wounds through his armor onto her fur, “Cross, what...should we do?”
Crosshair blinked for a moment, trying to make out what just happened. In a very bold, very foolish move, she cautiously approaches the weeping discordants and bring them into a hug. Patting their backs. “There... there?”
The two seem to ignore her attempts to console them. The stallion sniffles and wipes his eyes, then reaches for the dropped dagger. Which Crosshair instinctively kick it away from reach. Unable to make sense of any of this but wouldn’t let them die even though they were fighting earlier. Seeing as how little will they have left to fight, if at all. “Please... let me be with her...” he pleads, reaching for the dagger again. “I-I don’t want to be without her!”
Flamberge slinks to the ground, coughing up more blood. Seeing that, Crosshair quickly abandons the two crying discordians, picking up the dagger on her way and get to Flamberge’s side to help him lay on his side on the ground, unstrapping his armor to check on his wounds while trying to remember what firstaid experiences she have. A hoof holding his as she says fractically. “We-we’ve won, Flamberge! It’s over.. please, please be okay. Y-you were going to be a baron! remember? a-and our foals.. They’d be so happy, I’ll be so happy..”
Flamberge take a tight grip on Crosshair's hoof, the sound of thundering stampeding hooves can be heard, Flamberge turns his head and sees soldiers heading this way. A bright dawning sun and a pick emblazoned on their armor. He hears the sound of Crosshair calling for a medic though it sounds far away and muffed, and Flamberge lays his head back upon the hard stone, and drifts to sleep.
Duskfields has ended and peace has been restored...
...but those who raged and quit will never return.
Exhausted, Telgin looks back upon the disaster he helped cause and wonders,
'Why? Was this doomed from the start?'
Staring at the thread, the answers seem to escape him.
He only knows that Duskfields won't be the last of its kind.
How long will he keep dwelling on it? How long will his pain last?
Maybe nobody knows.
But... one thing he knows for sure...
...there will be no Dawnpick 3...
Author
Topic: Duskfields (My Little Fortress) (Read 48472 times)