CHAPTER 7: Souls - All You Can Eat Special

The Eater of Worlds lumbered over the three heroes, its many eyes trained on them like an anxious cat watching a group of mice. Twilight Sparkle and Hailstorm, despite having gotten used to the grotesque, sinister motif of the Corruption's monsters, still trembled in fear beneath the intimidating beast.

Even Blahsadfeguie nearly fainted at the sight of it. He had seen and fought the Eater of Worlds many times before, but only as a collection of pixels on a computer screen. With the boss of the Corruption now taking up most of his vision, he was nearly as frightened as the ponies were. Seeing its prey cowering below it, the giant worm let loose a deafening roar.

Blah quickly looked down at his weapons. Dual-wielding would only prove tedious here, and he knew Twilight had no physical means of defending herself. "You should probably take this," he decided, handing the unicorn his Quartz Lance.

She picked up the lance with her telekinesis again, wielding it consciously for the first time. She couldn't even remember the last time she had so much as looked at a real weapon. Fighting monsters wasn't something she enjoyed doing, but no amount of pacifism could get her out of this mess.

"Watch out!" cried Blah, snapping Twilight back to attention just in time for her to register the massive head of the Eater crashing down above her. She jumped away at the last second, the beast creating another hole in the floor. Having such a long body, it could barely turn around without feeding the rest of it into the hole it had just made. Blah spotted this as an opportunity to strike. "Now's our chance!" he shouted, raising his hammer. "Attack!"

Blah smashed as many segments as he could, with Hail unloading his bolts as rapidly as he could reload them, and Twilight apprehensively stabbing at it. Unfortunately, the creature's thick hide allowed it to withstand the onslaught in one piece as it emerged in a different place, breaking apart yet more of the library. This barely missed Hail, who reflexively shot up against the ceiling and stayed there.

Quickly running through his options, the man remembered the one part of the boss that was weaker than the rest. "Aim for the head!" Blah ordered, putting his all into a single swing which cracked against the creature's mandible, causing it to sway off course. Closing her eyes in anticipation, Twilight lanced through the bottom of the head, coming out through the top quite gruesomely. She could barely watch her own attacks.

The Eater roared, and careened straight for Hail. He lined up his crossbow carefully, firing a perfect shot straight into its mouth. But the pressure was too much for him. The Eater snatched up Hail like a fork would a lone pea, crushing the squirming pegasus between its mandibles.

Twilight winced, hesitating. Blah growled, not about to let his ally get eaten. He lunged at the Eater's head before it could dive back underground with his pegasus friend in tow. He gave it a massive golf swing, bursting the head into several chunks and freeing Hail in the process.

The colt slid across the ground. Groaning, he stood up slowly, looking down at himself to double check that he had survived. His armor had saved him from being crunched in two. "Wow... I thought I was done for..."

"Don't let your guard down yet!" shouted Blah, fixated on what remained of the Eater of Worlds. "He's far from beat!"

Confused, Hail glanced back up at the Eater, and jumped when he saw that it still had a head. The segment directly below the Eater's previous head had sprouted mandibles and was now diving straight for Twilight.

"Eek!" Twilight squealed, desperately thrusting the lance forward and driving it straight through the Eater's bottomless mouth. It remained unfazed, despite the visible damage, and relentlessly pursued its original target.

Blah lunged at the worm's new head, determined not to let it make a meal out of anyone. His warhammer slammed down onto the Eater of Worlds, forcing it back through the ground mere inches from where Twilight stood, waiting in panic.

The Eater's body shuffled through the ground, and the floor creaked. Everyone came to the same conclusion: they would have to move very soon, ideally taking the fight into the outside air, before the floor gave out from under them. Blah figured that Hail would have no problem giving him a lift this time, but that didn't account for Twilight.

"Twilight," Blah called, thinking quickly, "Can you levitate yourself?"

"I..." Twilight was taken aback slightly as she tried to come back to her senses. "Maybe, but probably not for very long... It'd be more efficient to teleport anywhere I need to be."

Blah considered this for a moment as he approached Hail, who hesitantly yet understandingly bent down to let the human mount him. "Well, if you can't help out from the air, try to stay on the rooftops," Blah advised. "Touching the corruption again would be a bad idea."

Twilight nodded, casting a quick spell to disappear. Hail took off and flew out of the balcony with Blah in tow.

Hail circled the library, waiting for the Eater to show itself again. Twilight stood by on the canopy, balancing on one of the higher branches. Blah watched the unicorn worriedly. 'I hope she knows what she's doing,' he thought.

The Eater of Worlds didn't take long to show up again, bursting out of the earth in front of the library, rather than inside it. Hail immediately opened fire with his crossbow. The Eater soared into the air, propelled by its lower sections still emerging from underground.

A brief light glistened from the Eater's head as it exposed itself to the sun. It was at that point that Twilight realized she had left the lance sticking out of its mouth.

Blah recognized it as well. Whether it was for him or Twilight, the lance would do no one any good stuck inside the creature like that. "Bring me closer, we need that lance," he told his mount.

"Closer?!" Hail repeated in disbelief, none too thrilled with the idea of getting close to that thing again. However, the Eater of Worlds soon spotted the two of them and locked on, meaning they'd soon be too close for comfort either way. "If you say so..." he said uneasily as he began to charge.

'Ok, Hailstorm, stay cool,' thought the pegasus to himself, biting back his hesitation and fear for as long as he could.

The two zoomed closer and closer to each other. Blah focused himself, stretching out his arm and flexing his fingers. "When I give the signal, turn away," he instructed. The worm's jaws opened wide to accommodate them both. It took Blah and Hail all of their courage to stay trained on the shining prize.

"Now!" Blah shouted preemptively, giving Hail enough time to react. Blah felt the handle touch his hand, and he clasped down firmly just as Hail swerved sharply to the right. The lance twisted in the Eater's body for a bit until it was wrenched loose, causing even more damage to it.

When he believed he had reached a safe distance from the worm, Hail turned around and stopped, panting heavily. Blah's eyes did not leave the Eater of Worlds for even a moment, and he watched as it started to dive underground again. The rear end of the worm was still emerging from its original hole, leaving a large portion of its body exposed. "All right, we got a straight shot on it," he observed, straightening his lance. "Take us just underneath the arc."

Hail gulped, taking a moment to regain himself. With the Eater's head underground, he found it a lot easier to summon the courage to approach. He swooped down towards the exposed segments, gaining speed rapidly thanks to gravity. Blah held the lance back, ready to thrust it forward.

Suddenly, the Eater's head burst back out of the ground, directly underneath both of them and rising rapidly. Blah was too focused on lancing the segments in front of him to notice, but Hail caught sight of the beast's mandibles below him and panicked. He instinctively performed an evasive barrel roll to avoid getting snatched up a second time, only realizing afterward that he had lost his passenger in the confusion.

Before he knew what was going on, Blah was falling towards the Eater, lined up directly with its mouth. It opened wide, and all Blah saw was the bottomless, darkened pit that was its gullet. From deep within the beast, Blah could hear the demonic laughter of Ipsus, cackling at the thought of wolfing down the soul of his own creator.

Hail searched the air for his fumbled rider, practically losing altitude from the weight that dropped into his stomach when his eyes fell upon Blah, who was seconds away from being devoured. He could only watch in horror, knowing that there was no way that he could so much as move Blah out of the way in time, and making such an attempt would probably result in his own demise as well.

'Welp,' thought Blah, closing his eyes and bracing for impact, 'Something tells me I won't respawn from this one...'


Blah felt a tug, and a disruption in the rushing air around him. His anticipated end never came.

He opened his eyes and saw that he had somehow shifted a few feet sideways, causing him to fall next to the Eater rather than into it.

Flabbergasted, Blah edged over to the side of the Eater and clung onto it with one arm and both legs. 'This thing is even nastier up close,' he discovered, shuddering slightly from touching the Eater's rotten hide. Shaking it off, he took his lance and drove it right into one segment, piercing all the way to the other side. He repeatedly stabbed the same segment over and over until it split apart.

The Eater of Worlds was now two. The head of the new half grew mandibles just as the first, and the bottom of the old half closed off and formed a new tail.

Blah realized he was now uncomfortably close to the head of one of the halves.

He felt another tug, and this time with his eyes open he could see a faint magenta aura surrounding him. He looked up to see Twilight pulling the strings from the library roof. At that distance, Blah imagined that it must have been difficult to aim the levitation spell, let alone carry something of his size, but she could at least give him a helpful shove when he needed it.

Blah gave Twilight a quick salute and grabbed onto another segment of the new half, continuing the assault with his crystalline weapon.

Hail breathed a slow sigh of relief, glad that they had a unicorn on their side. The feeling was cut short, however, when he spotted the former upper half of the Eater of Worlds dive-bombing him from the air.

Staring into the soulless eye and starving mouth of the relentless demon was enough to nearly make Hail drop his crossbow. After some fumbling, he somehow managed to get it upright in time to fire a shot straight into its throat. He couldn't bear to watch the aftermath.

The bolt entered the Eater's mouth and pierced through multiple sections before escaping through a segment near the middle. Hail opened his eyes again to witness the Eater crashing back into the ground just in front of him, halted by the unexpected force of the bolt.

As the boss disappeared into yet another tunnel, Hail fired another bolt and saw why his last one had been so effective. Twilight had locked on to each bolt as it left the crossbow, her magic vastly increasing its speed and accuracy. It pierced the same segment, splitting the Eater again.

With the stabbings that Blah administered, the Eater was now in four pieces, all fully functional and equally hungry. Blah kicked off of the Eater before it could snap at him, taking a short fall the rest of the way and landing safely on the ground. He felt the corruption try to spread into his being, but his near-death experience with the core of the corruption itself made this feel like nothing in comparison.

He spotted Hailstorm in the sky and waved his arms wildly, trying to get his attention. As soon as the pegasus saw him, he wasted no time in swooping down to retrieve his human friend. "When does this thing ever die?!" asked Hail, nearing exhaustion.

"We have to destroy every segment," replied Blah as he climbed back onto Hail. "It's the only way."

With a deep sigh, Hail returned to the air and increased in altitude before one of the smaller worms could take the easy target. Hail watched as one emerged where Blah had been moments prior. Seeing its reduced length gave him an idea. He soared higher, even above the library, and watched as none of the segments could even come close to reaching him.

"Hey, this isn't so bad!" he exclaimed, readying his crossbow so he could rain death upon the worms which clambered below uselessly.

Although he didn't get to be a part of the action, Blah could always appreciate a creative solution to a tough problem. He beamed at the pony's exploitative strategy. "Brilliant!" he commented. "I can't believe we didn't think of this before!"

While Hail took shots at his own leisure, Blah noticed that the Eaters were starting to make their way towards the library. At first, he was amused, as he knew that there was nowhere in town from which the remnants of the boss could reach them, but his smile faded when he remembered who was on top of the half-destroyed tree. Eaters burst out of the bark and through the leaves, gunning straight for Twilight Sparkle, who struggled to maintain her footing in the canopy.

"Oh, of course they would," lamented Blah. "We need to get over there, fast!"

Hail sped off towards the roof of the crumbling library, where Twilight stood, looking around frantically for an escape route.

"Twilight, catch!" Blah tossed the quartz lance in Twilight's direction as Hail got close. She managed to catch it with her horn, and she spun it around to face the Eater again.

With Twilight armed, Hail circled the structure to fire some more bolts onto the Eaters in the hopes that it would cease before the library was completely destroyed. One of them split in two again, but another mouth meant they would only chew through the wood faster. At this rate, the library would soon collapse, bringing Twilight down with it.

One of the Eaters managed to burst through the roof, the mandible slicing across Twilight's flank, creating a gash, and it soared straight for Blah and Hail using the extra altitude.

"I'll handle this one myself," Blah said, raising his hammer. "Twilight needs the help, so keep them off her! Just stay still!"

Hail froze, hesitating at Blah's instructions. He wasn't so sure that Blah fully knew what he was doing. Could he really stop the Eater of Worlds from swallowing both of them whole?

The pegasus ducked under the worm, nearly throwing his unsuspecting rider off of him again. He couldn't bring himself to face that voracious jaw head-on again, after all of the close calls.

"What are you doing?!" Blah shouted, clinging onto Hail for dear life. "I could've done some serious damage to that thing!"

"You know, Blah," Hail angrily voiced, taking out his frustration by peppering Twilight's assailants with bolts, "You're just too reckless with the lives of others. You nearly killed Twilight earlier, and you certainly didn't seem to want to hold back against those corrupted ponies. I don't think I can trust you with anyone else's life, especially not my own."

"W-well, I..." Blah stopped, speechless. Looking back, it was true that he often completely overlooked the safety of the lives he was trying to protect. "I-It's not like I want to see them dead... I'm trying to save everyone in the end, and so far nobody actually died under my watch! And I've saved your life multiple times since we've met! Isn't that good enough?" While his tone began sounding mortified, it quickly shifted into a defensive one.

"Look, Blah," said Hail, glancing back at him for a moment before returning to shooting, "I know you mean well, but you take too many risks when you can't afford the consequences. So far, you've gotten away with it, but what if one of your plans backfires? What will you do then?"

"Can we talk about this some other time?" Blah pleaded, desperate to take his mind off of the possibility of his failure. "When you said you'd be having a talk with me later, I didn't think it would be in the middle of battle." He heard Hail grumble quietly, obviously not satisfied. "Now, we'll never make any headway on this thing if we do nothing but shoot tiny needles at it. Suck it up and take us in so I can wail on it with my hammer."

Hail took a deep breath, trying his best not to let Blah's undermining of his own abilities get to him. Giant bits of bark and branches fell off of the library one after another as the Eaters swarmed Twilight. He saw the Unicorn fumble around, unable to do any more than dodge Ipsus's constant onslaught. 'If nothing else,' Hail thought, putting his grievances aside, 'this is for Twilight, and all of Ponyville. Not just Blah.'

With a somewhat intentionally violent jerk, Hail swooped down towards the canopy of the library. Blah held on tight with one hand as he readied his weapon with the other. One of the longer worms poised itself above Twilight, who was distracted by two others. The hammerman took advantage of all the inertia granted by Hail's trajectory to violently slam the threatening one backwards, its current head splitting into several chunks. He swung again at the newly sprouted head as it spiraled back towards the ground. Hail was able to get the attention of the worms harassing Twilight with a few bolts, freeing her up to finally propel the lance at one of them, splitting the entire thing in twain.

The three of them had little time to celebrate, however. There was a resounding creak, and the decimated tree finally succumbed to gravity. Twilight made a jump for a neighboring roof and teleported the rest of the way onto it. Seeing that the unicorn was all right, Hailstorm flew out of the way with ease.

The Eaters immediately changed course and rocketed towards Twilight's new perch. Hail zoomed in closer, pulling out his boomerang. He fired, aiming straight between two segments, which was boosted in power by the ever-helpful Twilight. The boomerang sliced through like a hot knife through butter.

"Now that's more like it!" exclaimed Blah as the remaining eaters burrowed simultaneously, presumably to regroup. "We'll have this thing beat in no time!" 'At the expense of half of Ponyville, that is...' he added in his mind. 'Let's hope I don't have to reimburse the town for any property damage...'

The first Eater re-emerged from underground, and all three of them were ready for it, being just out of reach of the longest worm. Hail hovered just at the Eater's anticipated peak, but his heart sank when it kept going upward. The mouths of the broken segments had clamped onto the tails of others, more or less making a creature of similar length to the original and catching all of them completely off-guard.

"What the-!" Blah shouted, having never seen this tactic before. He had no right to question it, though. "Get out of the way!" he ordered in a panic.

Hail was way ahead of him. He dove to the side, watching the again-massive thing rise before him.

Blah swung his hammer like a baseball bat, splitting up the segment again and causing the smaller first half sticking straight up in the air to cascade downward, crashing into the ground in reverse and squashing itself with its own weight. The other half curved around and entered the ground again.

The fighters really had to keep on their toes now, because they had no idea where the beast would emerge, or in how many pieces. Suspense grew as they surveyed the wrecked landscape that the Eaters had abused many times over during the fight.

Twilight felt the house below her shaking violently, and knew that she was the next target. She crouched down, ready to move. Sure enough, the Eater soon came blasting through the roof, shattering it. Twilight had just enough time to leap away and stab at it with her lance.

"Stay focused," Blah warned Hail, noticing that this segment was rather short. "There's plenty more where that came from." The rest of it launched upward from the ground near the house, and curved around to come crashing down on top of it where Twilight stood. As he had guessed, the first segment was indeed a distraction. Hail swooped in to intercept it, thinking that they had stayed on top of Ipsus's strategy, and Blah prepared for a heavy strike once more.

The pegasus failed to notice a third, tiny segment appearing with perfect timing right under him. Hail was too close to the ground to avoid getting chomped on, and it dragged him and Blah down.

"Aah!" screamed Hail, helpless against the mandibles' grasp. Thinking quickly, Blah leaped off of the pegasus and did a passing swing on the segment, breaking it apart and landing awkwardly on the ground. While Hail tended to his injuries and caught his breath, Blah glanced up at the rooftop where the majority of the Eater was still heading straight for Twilight.

"Twilight, above you!" shouted Blah, and Twilight heard just in time. She teleported above the main segment, standing on top of the lance as it dropped onto and through the main body, tearing apart many segments simultaneously.

The Eater roared in pain, now reduced to a few small segments. The house on which Twilight stood was miraculously still standing as the remainder of the Eater of Worlds tunneled into the ground once more.

Blah had enough time to examine his partner's wounds. Both of his back legs had moderately deep cuts. "You all right?" Blah asked, wishing he had brought just one more potion.

"Oh, now you care," muttered Hail, carefully walking over to the human despite the pain. "Just get on. Don't worry, I don't need these legs to fly."

Blah climbed delicately onto Hail's back, dismissing the stallion's evaluation of his carelessness as exaggeration. The two ascended for what they both hoped would be the last time in this battle. All of the remaining partitions emerged at once, surrounding the two before they could get much higher in the air. There were five in total.

Hail shot one of them through its core, finishing it off as Blah knocked out a second one with his hammer. Twilight, focusing the last of her magical efforts, seized a third with her horn and drove it into a fourth, killing them both.

One tiny Eater remained. Blah leaped off of Hail again, hammer held high. Using everything he knew about angular momentum, he brought his limbs close so that his body initiated a series of front-flips. His hammer collided with the final Eater with significant force, causing it to explode. The last of the rotten chunks scattered along the ground.

Blah landed unceremoniously on his back, sprawling out among the greenish sludge that composed the creature's innards. "Owww..." he groaned. "So much for an awesome landing."

Already, the grass around him began to fade back to its original, lush green. Twilight laughed exhaustively, teleporting back down to ground level, and Hail unleashed his held breath as he landed as well.

"Hey, we saved the town," Twilight reassured Blah, helping him up. "That's awesome enough in my book!"

"Most of it, you mean," Blah said as he retrieved his hammer, slinging it over his shoulder and looking upon the ruins of the library. "That building looked like one of a kind... can it even be replaced?"

"We'll worry about that later," answered Twilight. "We should probably get Hailstorm patched up..." She glanced over at the pegasus, who stared unhappily at the blood trickling down his legs, unsure what to do.

"We can take care of him." Blah looked up to see Fluttershy and Applejack quickly arriving on the scene. Fluttershy had apparently gained possession of a healing potion and was rushing it over to the injured pony.

Breathing a sigh of relief, the human watched as the town slowly converted back to its normal colors as the corruption's iron choke-hold loosened. The corrupted ponies that had gathered to watch the fight were becoming their bright, colorful selves again.

A faded dark spirit emerged from the wreckage of his servant, weakened and broken.

"No..." cried Ipsus. "No way... The corruption... My source of power... I spent all I had on that worm..."

Blah glared sternly at the dying spirit. He finally had him right where he wanted him. "All right, you've had your fun," he growled, strolling indignantly up to Ipsus. "Now it's time for you to tell me everything you know. Where did you come from, and how did I end up here?"

Ipsus chuckled evilly. Despite his weakness, he still had an air of confidence about him. "I don't have to tell you anything... so all I'm going to say is... you may have won this battle, but you haven't seen the last of... US!"

Blah made an angry grab for Ipsus, but he had already faded to nothing, his final laughs echoing throughout the town.

The last trace of the corruption gone, the ponies crowded gratefully around the heroes, all of them offering their thanks at once, as well as asking various questions. However, all Blah could think about was the spirit's last words. Was Ipsus simply a part of a larger organization? And what did Blah have to do with them? Did they bring him here, and if so, why?

And then, it dawned on him. He had just vanquished a corrupted spirit and its demonic minions to save an entire town. Not even a week in this new world, and he was a hero in the eyes of many. Amidst all the cheering, he began to wonder if it even mattered where he came from or how he got there. It was clear that this world needed a hero, and if he could fit that role, perhaps that was where he belonged.

Or maybe he just got lucky. He couldn't rule out that possibility either, but when a town full of ponies collectively share their gratitude, why complain?

Blah loudly cleared his throat, enticing the crowd to quiet down for a moment. "I am Blahsadfeguie," he proudly proclaimed, high on the energy of hundreds of souls, "and when I'm in town, evil doesn't stand a chance!" As he held his hammer skyward and donned a heroic grin, the crowd roared, attempting to chant his full given name. When that failed, they resolved to simply "Blah! Blah!"

Hailstorm slammed his face into the dirt, muttering something that was lost in the noise and probably better off that way.