Chapter 30: Magic and Sorcerery


The third pathway crumbles to dust, plunging the quartet of ponies right back into the fluid expanse of the ether. Sunset, for her part, merely groans and paddles her hooves uselessly in the nothingness. A few grunts of discomfort and surprise escape her throat, while Luna stretches uncomfortably, righting herself more by instinct than anything else. She moves a forehoof out, touching the nearly invisible obsidian pathway beneath her while Starlight and Twilight only just begin to stir from their curled up fetal position in the void.

Already the pale pink haze was clearing into the glitter of a cosmic nebulae of whirling blue, lavender, mauve, and yellow. The black obsidian path is nearly in hoof reach of the others. Though, as Sunset floats in the murk of the void, she merely mutters an unbecoming curse beneath her breath, it was still straying awkwardly away from her waggling hoof. The Unicorn uncurls and stretches a hoof towards the pathway only to come up short again. She stretches, kicking her hind hooves and gritting her teeth, "Oh c'mon!"

Already Twilight was twisting herself with her wings to 'right' herself. Luna still kept her left wing clamped tightly to her barrel as she reaches out with a hoof to grasp Sunset and pull her onto the pathway. She tugs the fiery Unicorn down, letting her land a little hard as she tumbles into a heap on the pathway. "Empathy, we hath little time to play. Starlight Glimmer." The mauve Unicorn looks back and forth before she's surrounded in a blue aura. Luna swivels the pony around and sets her down on her rump.

"T-thanks, princess." Starlight replies with a slight stutter, but Luna was already looking elsewhere. Sunset just blinks as she sees the princess from a somewhat unflattering angle. Even with her left wing tucked tightly to her body, the Alicorn's wound could be glimpsed from her spot on the ground, along with the crystalline black and red scab forming from where she'd been lanced through her wing and barrel.

"Now, where art thou?" Luna whispers to herself, eyes darting back and forth through the vastness of the fiery nebula rotating slowly around them.

"Starlight?" Sunset whispers covertly as the Alicorn wanders off further up the path. "Did you see that?"

The other Unicorn flashes her a blush and slightly insulted glare, "I have a marefriend, I wasn't looking at anything."

"No... no not..." she sighs, looking back, but by now the Princess of the Night was too far away, merely a tall dark figure. 'Was her coat always so glossy?' it reflected the red light of the nebula remarkably well in her silhouette.

Shaking her head, the Unicorn rose to all fours and nods as Twilight trots up behind them. "Alright, alright we just gotta keep going. I think if we follow this exactly-" she shoots a look to Luna for the benefit of the other two near her, "we should go right through to Luna's friend. It should all be between these layers." she gestures offhoofedly at the vague shapes hidden amidst the nebula's mists.

"Then tarry not!" Luna draws a sharp breath, "Soon shall be a reckoning!"

Sunset glances swiftly to the youngest Alicorn who was cautiously taking up the rear. Sunset does catch Twilight's eye after a moment as they share a wordless glance, one that carried a worried hint of apprehension. Something's wrong. Twilight, for her part, responds with a clipped nod before peering sidelong at Starlight.

"Hmm?" Twilight's expression goes unheeded as Starlight was already trotting forward towards Luna, " Shouldn't we just focus on finding your friend and just ignore the sorcerer unti-"

"Nay! The wretch is the source, and he must be found and be henceforth brought to justice!" Luna's quick trot turns into something just short of a fast canter that leaves her three companions galloping to catch up.

"But wouldn't it be better with some more help?" Twilight asks the open air, getting an unflattering glare as the taller Alicorn glances back over her withers. The tail flick of irritation is her only answer, though Sunset redoubles her pace and tilts her head towards the princess taking up the vanguard. Her message was clear, 'watch her.'

Sunset's attention swiftly turns to the sudden shapes looming above them. The path curves between the enormous foundations of two separate tines of the maze's twisting sprawl. Unnatural spans form around them, but already something was different. As the ponies dash further up along the pathway, a low steady hum rolls across the void. A high pitched keening howl erupts as their path dips beneath the twist of some organic-looking tower, each twisting spires looking like it may have come from the depths of Equus's ocean deep. And after another few minutes, the Alicorn Princess of the Night breaks into a full gallop. The wailing howl swells to a deafening crescendo as the path twists one last time.

What meets them is a blistering cold white light that the ponies have to shade their eyes from. Four enormous metal bands surround the glowing orb that pulsates with power, each metal ring spins in a rhythmic gyroscopic pattern to reveal the blaze of uncomfortable light. And from within the core the size of a sporting field, is a single shackled figure at its beating heart.

The ponies near the incandescent glow and hear the almost methodical whir of the building sized metal bands as they swirl around the glowing core. Beyond that is the unmistakable drone of arrhythmic chanting and clamour of tambourines and horns. Luna looks at the bands, spotting where they cross right through the obsidian path like it wasn't there... and perhaps, it never had been. Twilight's fur stands on edge as one of the bands passes straight through with a 'whompf', feeling the suction like a fan blade for a moment. But even as she staggers to remain standing at the sudden pressure, Luna was darting through and into the core.

"You'll not be rid of Us!" Princess Luna howls, blade forming even as she darts through the dangerous bands and starts to fade into a silhouette. A silhouette taller, more wild, more uncomfortable. Twilight licks her lips, then locks up. Her eyes widen as she zones out for a long moment, and a simper of surprise bubbles from her throat in a creaky rasp of hesitation.

Of the three ponies that watched the Princess of the Night plunge through the whirl of churning blades, only Sunset's voice comes out as anything understandable. "Twi-twi-TWI, something's definitely wrong here!" Sunset warbles and charges forward, leaving Twilight and Starlight to catch up.

And as they cross the threshold, they see it too. Unknowingly, they had entered another such plane of swirling energy ribbons in some monolithic whirlpool. It was no longer the cold unfeeling glare of blinding white light, but the constantly shifting luminescence of a full spectrum streaked with serpentine bands of darkness spangled with auroras and lights. They'd emerged into some cosmic garden, some gestation niche that reeks of ozone and copper. And, hovering at its center of a rotating disc of black and purple light, is the Sorcerer.

He stands taller than Luna, upright like a human, clad in armor colored a sickly clotted red with spines and spires of brass sticking out from beneath thick metal plates. Horns spiral like a ram from what had to be a helm surmounted by a darkly radiating halo of crackling purple energy. But behind him is something else, a rippling gash in reality that flickers and strobes with pulsing light like blood around a sucking wound.

"Please say that's not Sombra..." Sunset whispers in concern and shoots a look to Twilight, the only one to have witnessed the blighted King of the North. Twilight can only peer at the slowly clearing frame. The baroque crimson plate looks unalike anything any pony had seen. But Twilight's eyes narrow at the stance as subtle runic figures whirl around the edges of the disc.

"No, no it's not. But he is definitely using Dark Magic! Look at the wards and charms!" she mutters to herself, seeing the subtle incantations of primitively scratched runes in the pool of swirling energy.

"I get the feeling this isn't what it looks like." Sunset narrows her eyes as she takes in the sight of the levitating Sorcerer, hands outstretched, four nearly imperceptible metal chains wrapped around his splayed fingers. But two on the left and two on the right had been snapped, and now whirl around him in gossamer threads of silver, brass, iron, and gold.

Luna doesn't so much as glance back at them, her astral mane and tail flaring in an incandescent tapestry of colors beyond its usual glow. It was the orange and red of fire and blood. The sorcerers gaze shifts slowly, eyes glowing pale blue bale fire that roils in wisps of eldritch flame.

"I really must commend you." the voice spills from a mouthless grate of blackness in his short muzzle. Despite its evident malice, it's still smooth and insidiously charming. Twilight's hackles prickle as she all but feels the smile forming on the Sorcerer's lips. He continues undeterred, "I never expected that you would be even half this disruptive."

Princess Luna trembles, her glittering halberd flaring with red sparks as it forms in the midst of the void. It doesn't look anything like what Sunset had expected the mythic Ceifador to look like. It certainly wasn't the same that she'd glimpsed in Luna's bedchambers: the moonlit blade never emerged from its ashen black pallor, and the barbed twists of primrose and moonflowers had the hooks of a hawthorn. Waves of radiating malice pour from the weapon like a waterfall, sending shivers running through the Unicorn.

"Luna." Twilight whispers as the dark Alicorn shakes and glares at the figure not ten paces from her.

"I'm unarmed." Erebus lifts his hands wide as the chains pull taut, "Go ahead. Try to kill me. You will never stop the Hand of Fate. No animal will over-rule the will of the gods."

Luna snarls, drawing closer with the halberd extended in front of her. "Thou art a serpent and a vile warlock, thy punishment should be death!" spittle flecks her lips, making her three companions shrink back as the princess drops into a predatory crouch. "We should tear thy throat apart, but then how wouldst we hear thee beg for mercy?" She growls as Twilight and Sunset rush to her side, though both shied away from direct contact. The hairs on her coat, normally glossy midnight blue were tipped in red.

"Luna." Twilight's voice pricks the Alicorn's ears, but she doesn't turn. "Luna c'mon, we're here to find your friend, right? If we can get around-"

"Nay! We are here to bring about the end of this! The knave is responsible for it, for the death of many! For such crimes, he must be held accountable! And he shall be made to-." Luna gestures using the point of Ceifador, only then seeing Twilight and Starlight's eyes staring at the socketed head.

"Princess STOP!" Sunset charges forward as Luna's face morphs into a mask of rage. The Unicorn winces as she crashes into Luna's back, it jars her left wing coaxing a feral cry of pain from the Princess of the Night as the fellow princesses hooves wrap around her neck. But from the moment she collided with the princess, the heady thrum of adrenaline started to pulse through her body. Fear. Pain. Rage. It bled from the Alicorn, oozing like sweat from her pores. But the Unicorn's eyes escape Luna's dark glower and focuses on the slender metal blade levitating in front of them.

Starlight's worried trill sounds higher than before, "When'd that get a skull on it, for pony's sake?!" Sure enough, Ceifador's blade and pick socket were fed through the mouth of an metal equine skull.

With Sunset draping her forelegs over Luna's withers, the Princess of the Night still stares daggers at the astartes. Her lips still pull in barely restrained twitches, showing serrated teeth, eyes narrowing to slits. "We should kill you." Luna's voice slips deeper into her husky register, never quite recovering from the outcry of pain.

Sunset closes her eyes and whispers, "We're doing this for your friend, right?" and points a shaking hoof past the Sorcerer to the almost forgotten rift. And past the Sorcerer, through the wavering heat haze, the Dark Alicorn glimpses something. A shape. Through a narrow winding passageway, she can see a figure laid upon a stone dais, all clothed in white. With a blink, her pupils snap back into her more equine form as little flecks of gathering red dissipate from the cyan sea. "Please." Sunset whispers.

Luna swallows and nods, "But We won't. For their sake."

"No?" The Sorcerer's smirk was nearly palpable from behind the twisted helm.

The pause was there, and the void crackles with energy as Erebus snaps a hand up like a slap. Trailing whips lash as fast as lighting at Starlight and Twilight. The tendrils streak out and snap against unprotected bodies. With a scintillating whip-crack, Starlight's cry rings out and four gory red strips are shredded through her mauve fur.

"How about now?!" Erebus laughs and swings his other hand as Twilight covers Starlight and throws up a ruby red shield over the quartet. A second crackling lash stretches from a point just in front of the sorcerers open palm as it twists like a whip.

In a shower of dark sparks, it bursts against the bright raspberry shield as Sunset covers the struggling Alicorn of the Night. Straining against the lashing whips of energy, Twilight's eyes flicker back and forth and her ears swivel as if hearing something in the distance.

"You'll be a feast for the Neverborne!" Erebus cackles, "You'll be nothing but dust, your souls torn from your pathetic mortal-"

Luna's undamaged wing fans out, throwing Sunset aside as she lets out a shriek of virulent rage and lunges at the taunting sorcerer.

"Princess Luna?!" Twilight calls, hovering over Starlight, seeing hoof-width strips of skin flayed from her coat. But there was no blood, no lacerated wounds. Twilight's hoof hovers over the ragged strips gouged out, seeing taut red muscled flesh just underneath and the rapid growth of crystalline scabs oozing sickly black ichor. She'd seen it before, "Sombra." she whispers mostly to herself, but winces and glances up at the sorcerer as the lashing tendrils still flicker across her shield.

Ceifador slams forward, "NO!" But comes crashing down with murderous force. The Sorcerer forces a hand up to project a rippling roundel of force to hold Ceifador's red-hued sparks at bay. The Astartes grunts with visible effort, having to brace his feet in the ether as if on solid ground.

Erebus's constant laugh drives Luna's howl of rage even louder. The Alicorn forces every bit of herself into the halberd as she throws herself at the blade to physically drive it through the shield of energy. The magic cracks, yielding to her weapon as her jaw sets and her shriek whips the swirling maelstrom into a vortex of swirling red.

"Luna, STOP!" Twilight cries, looking around. Sickly skeletal figures gather at the edge of the maelstrom, burning ember eyes staring at the princess whose mane flickers with flares of cosmic wrath. The reflection of comets and meteors streak and flare from Luna's ephemeral mane and tail.

Sunset scrambles to her feet and charges forward as the Sorcerer snarls. The Unicorn watches his chained hand reaching towards the back of his belt where a vicious curved dagger rests. Luna heaves herself up and pushes herself fully onto the butt of the halberd as her horn crackles with untapped power.

This had to stop, she might not see it but Luna had to know. The Unicorn leaps forward, pressing her forehooves against both Sorcerer and Princess.

Flashes of memories, hours... days, lifetimes, flicker by in the blink of an eye.

The crackle of weapons, the fall of knights to betrayal, the roar of war. But beyond that was something Luna had kept far down, comforting ponies and then something else... A child. A human, or something so close it could be mistaken for it. She wrapped it in her wings, and spoke words of comfort with a lullaby. And then she'd told him that his father loved him, that she was sent by him, that he should be a good little colt and find the others.

And she saw the decay. The passage of years on a broken mountain top castle, the clash of rusting blades, and the image of a single demigod of mankind surrounded by monolithic creatures spawned of primal terrors.

A sightless bird screeches into the dark as countless eyes bubble and burst from its feathers. Thousands of legged insects crawl over a rotting corpse that slowly mouths a long forbidden word. Writhing half-monsters twist and cavort around a morbidly obese creature that bore only passing resemblance to a woman. And amidst it all reverberates braying snarls and thundering hooves that pound the arid earth. The Sorcerer knew, he had been told by a shape lurking in the shadows. And thus the Sorcerer told another, racked and ravaged in body and mind as he was dragged through halls by twisted cadres of bestial simian shapes.

'We aided her in her escape, but your time is up. Horus Lupercal. This choice is yours, now. Not mine. I wash my hands of this.'

She sees the crumbling of Canterlot, the white gold towers split asunder, it's nothing more than ruins in flames. Accept the demand: give in, or all will be turned to ruin. And there's nothing that can stop it. The hillside of Sunset's home lay in tatters, staked with ragged banners devoted to fell powers, the ashen wastes of magic scoured fields that once sang with life.

And it was all his fault.

Erebus, that sickly sorcerer with a face of carved gold and inked with etchings, offering a mocking hand in some pantomime of friendship. It wasn't an open palm, but from his pinched fingers hangs a brass sigil of a slitted eye. And the demigod, with shaven head and straining limbs, merely glares through golden eyes. Even then, he was alone.

And the gaze turns to her, even in her trance, even though another couldn't possibly know. The Sorcerer's lips pull into a joyless smirk.

"It didn't have to be like this. It was all her fault... are you listening now, 'Little Moon'? Are your petty magics enough to intervene now? For everything happens under your moonlight, your guidance, and you couldn't see this coming? Even now you're blood drunk and fit to follow the eight fold path. Stupid, stupid animal."

Twilight strains against another arcane lance of energy that shatters to blue sparks against the flickering shield around them. Luna snarls, teeth bared, but they weren't the dagger-like fangs of Nightmare moon, and the red-flecked slitted eyes start to widen back to their equine norm. "You were right, Sunset..." Luna growls, her formal speech wilting away, "They were playing us."

And with a sickly judder that ripples through the void, everything hesitates.

The tines of magic, the thrust of the halberd blade, even the slow blink from the Alicorn as reflections of sparks flare in her eyes. Even the very sway of the princess's mane slows to nearly nothing. She's about to say something, but Sunset's gaze drifts to a wavering crackle of energy in the sorcerer's left hand held upturned towards her, the horned helm fixing its piercing azure gaze on her and not the Alicorn near-frozen three paces from her.

"Well well. I said I'd see you again, didn't I?" A familiar feminine voice calls. Sunset whirls on her hooves to face the rip in reality, and the figure that stands in front of it. The Lurker merely smiles, swaying in a sashay meant to be as eye catching as possible. The lace on her ruined claw was still there, but now it jangles with golden beads tapping together as she moves.

The creature nears, still looking at a frozen image of Luna. She traces a claw near her, but with Sunset's warning growl, the bovine spirit shrugs and doesn't even let her claw tip come into contact with the princess. "It just so happens that everyone's busy, so I figure I'd take the chance to chat with my favorite little Sunbeam." The gangly bovine sits cross-legged in front of her, stooping down, abs flexed and chest hanging low as she's nearly bent double to stare at Sunset on nearly the same level.

"No-no-no, I said NO!" Sunset draws back against Luna, hind hooves nearly tangling with Luna's injured left wing.

"Huuuush, hush, my little ray of Sunshine. I didn't mean to give you a fright." Kanathara chortles, the sound like the pattering fall of a xylophone in some weird musical burble. "I said I'd see you again. Erebus is merely facilitating a little bit of a reunion by keeping your princesses occupied. Lovely boy. Not my type." she offhandedly gestures with her remaining razor limb in a little circle before tracing it closer towards her. "Not my type at all."

"Get out of Luna... Luna's..." Sunset's eyes fall on the dark Alicorn who's eyes were slowly starting to clear. "You're not in her head."

"Cute and clever. Quite right, I'm not." The Lurker casually flicks a hand dismissively at the Unicorn. But the smarmy grin shows teeth, for the first time, a dual row of perfect white razors. "Of course, the Great Ocean has many inlets. No, little Sunbeam, I'm not in Luna's head." She leans forward just as Sunset rocks back. "I'm not in her head at all."

The searching eyes, the winning grin, the nearly cosmic smirk that could span the stars. She doesn't need to say a whisper as a cold shiver traces down Sunset's spine. Sunset steps back, or tries, and merely wobbles with one forehoof hovering in mid air. "O-oh buck. T-there's no way..."

"We spent so much time together, are you really surprised? Don't remember quite how you got out? Hmmm... I should be insulted." Sunset's eye flicks as she sees the black forked tongue slip from between the lithe creature's lips like a serpent tasting the air for its prey. "There's no need to be afraid of me."

Something brushes against her hind hock, and the Unicorn's neck stiffens so she can't even glance back. She swallows the saliva in her otherwise parched throat. The spirit sits in front of her, but her voice whispers hotly in Starlight's ear. "Surprise, Sunset Shimmer."

Slowly Sunset's head turns with the help from an icy cold hoof. She lays eye on a nearly featureless inky black mass broken only by the grinning serrated teeth of a pony's grin. It's her size, made of oil, and slowly dripping over her withers as it leans against her side.

"Let little Luna find her, how would one say, coltfriend? Hmm, yes, that sounds about right if that's what They're hoping. Group them together and it'll make them an easier and they'll either find cracks, or make them. Now, Erebus-" the sickly pony facsimile gestures again and spatters black globs into the ether, "has some very legitimate concerns. I mean I should be helping try to overwhelm your little friends there." She nods pointedly at Twilight who still hunches protectively over Starlight. The Unicorn's face is locked in that rictus snarl of pain and isn't going away as four strips are carved from her shoulder and chest.

"Don't you dare touch them!" Sunset gnashes her teeth at the eyeless black mass who still grins in its own demented way. The bovine figure was gone completely, leaving her with the twisted abomination of a pony.

The creature just smiles, biting her lip again before stepping away from Starlight, leaving a sticky bridge of ooze between them. She approaches the raspberry hued shield bubble, levitating a pseudo-hoof over the surface. Sunset, for the first time, sees the creature shiver. But it curiously asks, "Do you think I could? Just... Snap this closed, surprise your little pony friend, and let one of the others drag her off for their fun?"

"NO!" Sunset shouts and steps closer, finding her footing for the first time, "I don't think you could. I'd stop you, Twilight would stop you. She's the element of magic, princess of friendship!"

The Lurker smiles and nods. "Oh, you're probably right. I'm amazed she hasn't been courted by Ix'thar'ganix or even Kairos himself. But all in good time. Luna's most deeeefinitely met at least the Skulltaker. Look at her, she's positively radiant." the creature points to the rage-fueled Alicorn, "And lo, the cracks doth appear, just like I said. And don't think your other friend isn't at least considering something drastic as well." the oozing form looks back to Twilight. "Still, trying to make your friend's day end in screams that last a thousand generations isn't the only thing I could do for you."

The amorphous slick of a creature slides back over, and with a dancer's pirouette that sends trails of slopping blackness in every direction, she slips behind Erebus. This time, the enormous grin nearly caresses the back of his neck, exposing the razor sharp teeth. She lets her tongue flick out, this time caressing the Sorcerer's helm and wrapping around one of his helm's golden horns. It coils around it, leaving a sheen of wetness, "What about this, my little Sunshine? What's it worth to you? Mmmm, come on, I'm nearly begging now. What if I let you have Luna and the Lupercal, what would you give me?"

"Nothing. You won't get anything from me!" Sunset glares. "Or from any of us!"

"I have to warn you, my little Sunny Bunny... I like hard to get." She steps back from Erebus. "But if you insist, I guess our time's up for today. I'll see you soon, my little ray of sunshine."

With a warbled 'thump' Luna's eyes had refocused and her senses swam back to her. She mouths some incantation faster than the eye could see before she darts to the side to covers Sunset with her good wing.

The sorcerer snarls at the same moment, looking down as the sigil on his hand scorched white as the crackling blasts of magic rack against Twilight's shield in a screaming torrent. Twilight grits her teeth, hissing in concentration as she keeps the barrier up against the tide. Twilight's barrier drops for just a moment, long enough to infuse her horn with magic and send a rippling blaze of lambent eldretch energy spearing towards the Sorcerer. The energy slams into his outstretched arm, consuming it in white light. His scream of anguish melds with the fleeting guttering flutter of the world around them.

Ceifador howls down, brought out and around by Luna in a heartbeat. It slices through the void, then shears all four of the remainign chains from the Sorcerer's outstretched hands. The weapon hangs for just a moment as the thunderous concussive boom blasts the blood mists away in every direction leaving a silent starscape as far as the eye can see.

Motes of twinkling silver light sparkle into the starry distance, leaving a quiet starscape around them. A thin pane of black glass leads to an uninspired stone door just a dozen paces away, resting exactly where the rippling tear in reality was moments before. It yawns open, showing a rough stone face and the tempting glimpse of a familiar form laid out on a great stone table.

The Sorcerer clutches at his arm, the blood red armor on his limb bleached to an ashen grey as he slumps to one knee. His other gauntlet clutching at his wrist as he grunts and seethes in pain. Luna seizes him in her magic, hauling him close. But it wasn't the only magic to form. Twilight swiftly uses her magic on the crystals jutting from Starlight's wound, turning the sickly black clusters to vapor. But the Sorcerer was focused on something behind the quartet, the faint golden glow touching the surface of his armor and sizzling away the scraps of parchment affixed to his pauldrons in the same way as Starlight's sickly wounds.

Luna forms the dark halberd right behind the Sorcerer as he reels back. The bloodthirsty blade poised to strike at the nape of his poorly protected neck.

"Don't!" Sunset latches her forehooves around Luna's neck. "Remember, It's what they want! It's what they WANT!" She clutches the dark Alicorn, and despite Erebus fumbling forward into the perfect path of the killing stroke, the blade doesn't fall.

"Come on, we have to leave." Sunset implores, clutching Luna's hooves with her own and staring into smouldering cyan eyes.

Luna's visage twitches and spasms with anger, they keep flicking to Erebus as Twilight groans with the effort keeping them safe on the obsidian path. Starlight struggles up, shaking and evidently still in pain. But her horn flickers with power as she leans against her mentor, fusing sapphire chains of arcane energy around the Sorcerer's limbs.

Luna snorts, "We can't let them-"

"Luna!" Twilight interjects, standing and helping Starlight up. Both ponies slowly close the gap and return to Luna's side, but it's Twilight that reaches out a hoof to rest on the princess's shoulder. "Please, Princess, let's just go. The way's open." she gestures to the doorway a few paces behind the kneeling Sorcerer.

Erebus cackles, chest wracked as he shakily peels off his helmet to reveal the bright bronzed skin of a native Colchisian. Intricate black etched tattoos cover nearly every surface of his skin in tiny lines, marring his otherwise handsome features. "You can never escape, and you're already too late. But you have caused me some consternation, so beg." he grins and leans heavily towards Luna, jutting his chin in defiance to the smaller Equestrian, "Beg, and perhaps I shall show you some mercy, otherwise-"

Luna stretches out her hoof, seizing the astartes and dragging him with a swirl of lavender magic. Pulling him up, eye to eye, seeing cyan meet gold, she speaks clearly and evenly. "It's not my place to punish you. It'll be his. I will wrest him from your clutches and save him, Sorcerer. He shall forever be beyond your reach. Mark. My. Words."

Erebus smirks, and Sunset shies back, ears pinned to her skull as a look of disgust and horror slips across her face. Even from a pace away, she could feel it. His arm slips behind him, clutching at the short sword hidden behind his back. With a viper's swiftness, he lashes it viciously at Sunset's neck.

But even before Sunset's lips could peel back in surprise, Starlight's magic halts the Sorcerer's arm mid-swing, then forces his fingers back a little too far. Sunset scuttles back out of arm's reach of the Sorcerer as he hisses in pain at the unnatural angle of his hand. Erebus growls for just long enough to Luna's forehooves to rock forward and smash into his face. Twilight's hoof snaps out, smashing into Erebus's forearm and sending the blade spinning into oblivion.

Twilight snorts and fixes him with a glare, "Isn't that enough?" Her blow meant only to get rid of the blade. But as Erebus's nose streams blood from Luna's strike, Twilight's eyes trail down the blood red armour to a semi-circle of grey on his arm where her own hoof had connected. The hoofprint stays, and slowly spreads outward in a blaze of grey and white light.

Luna's eyes widen as she watches the twisted sanguine armor form back into the familiar dull grey she had seen. A thin rivulet of blood pours across the gorget and down his chest before clotting almost instantly. But his eyes were wide, uncomprehending as he stares at the shimmer of light spreading up his body. "What have you done?!"

He glances sharply up at Sunset, then glares at Twilight. But the Alicorn stiffens, chest puffed out in defiance. "You," Twilight begins, and points authoritatively at the kneeling Astartes, "You will not hurt her. In fact, you will not even touch her."

Luna nods, evidently satisfied before muttering, "I shall haul you before Horus Lupercal myself. He's not beyond my reach, but you have lost him. It's done, Sorcerer."

"Is that what you think, little warp whore?" Erebus interposes, nearly spitting. But the smirk on his face only darkens his swarthy features, and he slowly pans his vision from Luna to the door. It was an invitation for them all to look. He leans back on his heels. His whole body seems to flicker and crackle, going transparent for an instant as that self-satisfied grin spreads across his face. "I'll burn the galaxy to ash before I let you have him. He will be ours, or he will be a martyr." He takes a breath, "Akshub." Erebus's voice comes out muddled as if only partially there, eyes glazed over. "Kill Horus Lupercal."

Luna's teeth flash with a vengeance and Ceifador bubbles into existence in a loathsome red glow.

"Luna STOP!" Sunset lights her horn, as Starlight's magic flickers and her grasp on Erebus slips.

The sorcerer laughs and disappears in a flash of sickly green light as the halberd cleaves into nothingness.

Luna's racking breath is unsteady, racing one moment and nearly stopped the next. She glances at the door, racing over as her wings tried to flap but one dead limb causes her to gasp in pain and she stumbles only to be propped up by Sunset.

"C'mon!" Sunset calls as Twilight shoots a glance between Luna and Starlight.

The Unicorn groans and slides to Twilight's side, "G-go on, I'll be fi-"

Twilight's hoof softly shuts her up, and she shakes her head. She glances back around them, and after just an instant, the Alicorn's eyes widen as she spots what Erebus no doubt had: there, through the clearing haze of the once intense storm, is a warm golden light.

"No time!" Luna rasps as the unadorned doorway begins to close.

With a breath, Twilight's magic surrounds Sunset and Luna, flinging them both forward and through the closing portal.


Luna stumbles forward through the portal. The ground seems to give way, a small bump catching her hoof and sending her tumbling face first onto the stone floor. With her breath driven from her lungs, her hind legs stick up and good wing flops to the side in a decidedly unregal pose. But despite her vision swimming, she was growing used to the harsh firelight glinting off dull stone slabs and runic carved walls.

The rattle of bones and discordant drone of different guttural grunting songs fills the air to accompany a sickly infusion of fragrant sandlewood and rotten ginko.

She can catch the glinting eyes in the dark as dozens of bestial fetish adorned figures crowd the edges of the room. But as she takes in the cave-like chamber, her blood runs cold. On a single stone plinth at the very centre of the room is the still body she'd grown to recognize. Muscled flesh and white garments swathe the unmoving form of Horus Lupercal.

Everything else in the room moves wrong, exaggerated, with shadows dancing in the firelight and the hollow whimpering of tallow fat candles and ancient oil lamps.

"Luna." Sunset whispers from beside her, getting up and turning sharply to gaze at the figures all around them.

"It's a waking dream, it's a waking night-" the rasp of a flint blade catches both ponies attentions.

Both turn, spotting a figure stalking forward from the fire lit ring. Dried blood crusts her bare chest, starting from somewhere behind a grotesque carved mask plumed in elaborate feathers. Tribal fetishes and scrimshaw bones rattle from entwined thongs of leather hanging from the scrap of a loincloth where she'd drawn a simple stone dagger.

She strides purposefully towards the still form of Horus, bare feet sliding in the offensive sludge of offal and blood spilled onto the stone floor all around the motionless primarch.

But seems to hesitate for a moment as the empty sockets of the mask show only a glitter of infernal understanding. "Warp ghosts?" the female breaks into a rasping cackle, then resumes her walk.

A blast of arcane magic from Luna sparks through the air, passing straight through the shaman, turning the world into crackling after-images of dancing blue and white light.

But it did nothing.

"Luna... Luna, by Celestia, she's gonna-" Sunset's eyes widen as she darts forward.

"BE SILENT, WE ARE THINKING!" Sunset isn't half as fast as Luna. But despite the hop-jump towards the stone plinth, ignoring the splash of foul liquids, some niggling feeling worms through the back of her mind.

'How are we supposed to wake him up?' A shock of a dream, a stab of emotion, some way to end it all. She glances back, seeing the shaman just a few precious paces behind Luna. The Alicorn perches half over the primarch, while the primitive shaman raises the crude dagger high overhead.

The Alicorn glances at Horus, the man had turned a waxy and unhealthy pallor. His eyes roll and rove behind his eyelids as his body tenses and spasms in juddering fits. It all closes in as the reeking breath of the Davinite high priestess washes over the back of Luna's starry mane.

'Stars above, help me.'