RepTi: (Upon hearing Silver, accompanied by the dimming of more of the what looked like stars on his body, opened a few portals to evacuate troops with.) *The jaw began dissolving at an accelerated rate and the original dimmed group of stars started to brighten again.* Edmond: (started to escort troops to the nearest portals that Rep had made.) Selena: (continuing to play the song, pouring her heart into every note.)
As Apophis descended, Blackened took his guitar and played an eruptive tapping solo, which caused time to slow down only for the snake, giving Maya a bigger window of opportunity to aim the nuke.
Aphophis was in bad shape. Most of his obsidian scales had been torn away, exposing a glowing orange skin of semi-molten rock. In many places, the skin had been torn away entirely, exposing a skeleton of pure diamond. Dark shadows swirled within the clear diamond structures, writhing as if in pain. ********************************************************************************************** Blackheart and Blackout were the last to leave, working together to teleport a group of injured Guards away from the battle. As soon as they were gone, Silver called out to Maya. "Do it! Set the bomb and let him drop!"
Azrael teleported himself and a large group of ponies to Manehattan, then reappeared inside the shield by himself. His bird, finished collecting stray souls, flew down from the sky and landed on his back. ~~~~~~~~ "On it!" Maya bolted for the slowed Apophis, and hurled the bomb down his throat. It would go off not long after he hit the ground. She then flew herself back under the shield, waiting for impact.
Apophis landed right on top of the bar, the impact shattering the ground and driving the shielded building a hundred feet straight down. Those inside the shield could nothing outside but the fiery glow of the snake god's molten flesh. The force shook the building, throwing furniture and bottles, shattering the windows and cracking the walls. After a few seconds that felt like hours, the bar settled, damaged but still standing. Silver looked around. Celestia was still missing, but everypony else had either evacuated or made it under the shield. "Everypony close your eyes!" The blast was brighter than the sun and louder than anything anypony had ever heard. Even protected by the shields, a number of ponies suffered shattered eardrums and flash blindness. The force shook the bar further, shattering what few windows remained intact, and collapsing a large part of the second floor. The blinding light quickly faded, replaced by a wave of fire that burned for nearly five minutes before finally dying down. The medics that remained spent that time rushing around, repairing the eyes and ears of those affected by the blast. Eventually, all that was left was the blackened ground, the high walls of the crater they found themselves in, and the blue sky above.
*Unbeknownst to those within the shields, the Nuclear Force had reopened one of the points that Arch had occasionally used to enter the bar, allowing some Time energy to spill through and into Rep, who was in the process of siphoning energy from the dissolving jaw, brightening some of the stars.* ------------------ RepTi: (standing admist a devestated battleground watching as the fallout of the impact settled around the field, began to, slowly as his powers were still diminished, try to lower amounts of any harmful radiation that could injure anypony not within the shields, so as to not allow it to spread.)
Inside the bar, Navaja was pinned under a table that had launched into the air and landed on him. Asmo, shaken up himself, staggered over to lift the table off of him. ~~~~~~~~~ "Ow..." Raven, letting the wolf fade away, stumbled her way over to Dusty, shedding pieces of her armor along the way. "Dad. Hey, uhh... I need fixing. Ears." "Raven!" Dusty wrapped his hooves around her and hugged her tightly as he worked his magic. "We made it..." Maya flew down to her family, stepped out of her fancy Iron Mare suit, and took a deep breath. "Well, fam... That was one heck of an 18th, huh?" "Heh. Damn straight." After breaking the hug, Raven took to the air and looked around. "Hey, guys. You see Nightshade anywhere?" ~~~~~~~~~ Azrael, knocked down, and temporarily blinded and deafened by the explosion, slowly got to his hooves and focused his magic. He knew he had to capture the stray soul of Apophis and destroy it before anypony around could take it for themselves. Cain was nowhere in sight, so he couldn't be of much help. But something was wrong. Someone or something much more focused than him was overpowering him, taking the soul for itself. Unbeknownst to Az, Belial was standing right next to him, loosening his mask as a black energy flowed into his horn.
The dragon dematerialized as the snake creature fell down into the ground, followed by Black as he slowly flew down to the group where Raven stood, panting from the experience. It's over... he thought.
Maya trotted over and patted Blackened on the back. "Good job out there, dude. Ears okay? Eyes?" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The soul and power of the snake god were beginning to heal Belial. He could breathe again. He let the mask drop to the ground. The face below was horrid, burned, missing all fur, and bits of skin, no lips present. But that seemed to be changing. The pieces of skin were beginning to grow back, and patches of white fur returned to his face as the seconds passed.
"Thanks..." he responded, struggling to keep his eyes open. "All I can hear is ringing right now, and my sight's all blurry..."
Within seconds, he felt the ringing completely disappear along with his eyesight coming back into full gear. "Ah... Much better...~"
Asmo and Navaja made their way out of the bar, limping over to join the group. "Hey guys," Asmo spoke. "We just technically killed a god." "Yes, indeed we did," Dusty agreed, casting his spell one more time on the two.
"Did we?" Silver stared unblinkingly at Belial. "Listen closely, because this is important. I am going to open my bag. Whoever is holding a Godkiller blade will place the weapon inside the bag. Slowly. Do not draw his attention." "Silver? What is...?" Luna began. "Please do as I ask, Princess." His voice was calm, but the stress was obvious.
"Silv, what's going..." Maya caught sight of Belial and went pale. "Oh, buck." She made her way to recover her blade, brought it to Silver and dropped it in the bag. Asmo slithered one of his tentacles over, recovered Az's blade without being noticed, and did the same. ~~~~~~~~~~ Belial's face looked to be fixed by now. Damned if he wasn't handsome. He raised his own claymore while he sucked up the last pieces of Apophis' soul, preparing to strike Azrael with a wide grin across his face. Azrael came to his senses just in time to see his bird return and claw at Belial's eyes. Enraged, Belial's body gave off a strong, magic repulse. The force blew Azrael back twenty feet, sending him crashing on his side. The force also ripped Cain to tiny pieces, scattering feathers, embalming fluid and chunks of flesh all around. In one reflexive attack, Az's pet had ceased to exist.
Luna dropped her own blade in the bag as well. Apophis' power, now stored within the blades, was an obvious target. It was important that the three within the room be hidden from him. *************************************************************************** Silver drew his sword. "Who am I speaking to? Belial? Apophis? Both?"
"Oh.. Gods damn it!" Raven swore. "Come on, we just got done!" "There is no way he knows how to harness whatever he absorbed," Dusty said calmly. Navaja nodded. "Si. If we can strike now, he won't have time to learn." "Gotta keep him away from the swords, though," Asmo added. "Any way to destroy the power?" ~~~~~~~ Azrael jumped back to his hooves and froze as he saw the remains of his bird showering down. "C...Cain?" ~~~~~~~ In a surprisingly normal voice, Belial gave a chuckle, the deep scratches in his eyes quickly healing. "It's hard to say anymore, lapdog. Say, why don't you go sniff around for your precious princess of the sun while I feed Azzy over there what's left of his feathered friend?" His eyes flashed a bright red as his voice took on a deep, otherworldly growl. "I̜̱̮̤ ̹̣o̦̹̥͢ͅṉ̨͇̱̱̗̥̻ḽ̫̟̤͙͕y ͉n̹̻̪̮͍̥͟ee͙̞̜͕d̷̯̰ ͇̻̝͙̬͢b̧̘ͅư̤͈̬̱ṱ ̘̫͕̥͔̤͟a ̧̬̝̗͕͖m̩̣̤͍̳ͅo̧͙̝͉̫m̶̯̝̫eņ̦̟̣̭ṭ̛̹͓̝̥.̙̟́"
Silver laughed. A small chuckle, that quickly evolved into a bellowing guffaw. A huge, uncharacteristic grin split his face. "I am indeed blessed by the gods today! The monster that killed my friends! The foul abomination that killed my mother! Both in the same body!" **************************************************************************************************************************************** Three figures floated in zero gravity just above the atmosphere. "It seems as though he's already down," Celestia said to Nightshade and Discord. "Down but not out," Discord replied. "He's changed his form. Smaller, but still dangerous. I can feel the malice pouring out of him." "Let's do this, then," Nightshade snapped. "There's no air up here. Unlike you two, I'm still mortal. I need to breathe eventually."
*The warships arrived at Equus, visible to the three in space, but far enough away that the ships' Exo-Matter Universal Drive force wouldn't affect the three, and after switching to a less powerful, but still effective thrust system, began a descent to the last known location of the Research Ship, the North Pole.* ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Rep's titan form began to collapse in upon itself, until Rep was once more his original size, and appearance.* Rep: (feeling something powerful nearby, and touching the still-embedded giant form of his sword, causing it to collapse into its original form, before grabbing it and heading towards the bar, which might take a little) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Selena: (Having finished the song, relaxed for a little, lazily drifting in the breeze.)
"Your sun queen is in orbit, and several warships just arrived, possibly in an effort to put me down," Belial said plainly. "So I guess we need to hurry this up. DĮ͝E!̸, would you kindly!" He dashed and swung his hoof at Silver. Mid-swing, that hoof morphed into a large, scaly claw.
