The explosion surrounded the spirit, and as it faded away, he stood, surrounded by charred bits of the explosives. His entire body was covered in black soot, and he coughed into his hand. "As I said... before... Se... la... ouch..." He shook of the soot and turned in place back towards the heroes. "Another cartoon trope is, of course, that they never actually catch the main villain until the season finale, so. I'll be on my way, but please... enjoy some goons." Several hologram like copies of him appeared, and more of the creatures swarmed behind him. "and with that... I t-" "LIKE I SAID! If you want to break the rules, I'LL MAKE NEW ONES!" A bright light erupted from the ground below the spirit entangling his legs. "Rule 1, THE VILLAIN DOESN'T GET AWAY!" Jack flew straight through the hologram copies, holding a corpse of one of the creatures, destroying the holograms. "Rule 2, NO MORE CARTOONS!" He landed on the ground directly in front of the spirit. "Rule 3, Black Jack is an instant win." The light erupted from multiple places in the ground, grasping and restraining many of the creatures. Jack's eyes had turned solid white, glowing like the bands of light holding everything in place. He turned to the others. "Well, no time to waste. I made my card pun, kill him!"
Nightshade sighed. "Jack, you are many things, but fun is not one of them. Fine. Let's end this." Drawing her father's Blades of Tartarus, she charged at the Spirit, plunging the cursed swords into his chest. Hellfire spread from the blades as the power and rage of the evil spirits trapped within immolated the Spirit inside and out. Hope and Hemlock took full advantage of their new wings, tearing through the restrained minions with ease. Between her magic and his claws and teeth, the mortal Champions of the Goddess of Change made short work of the Spirit's underlings.
Venquis and Sihana tore through the defenses of the minions like nothing. Venquis used his spell-sword to deliver fatal blows to the minions with his astonishing swordsmanship while also using the Spell-Sword's ability to amplify his sword based magic attacks. Sihana, preferring magic as her style of combat, used her divine powers to erase the minions from existence. She did use her Yukobana Spell-Sword, but not as much as her champion turned god did. Once the group of minions was defeated, the two of them charged the Spirit from different directions. Sihana's hooves glowing with a pink aura as she attacked from the bottom while Venquis's spell-sword sparked with rainbow colored electricity as he came from the air, just as Nightshade pierced the Spirit with her Blades of Tartarus. Venquis came downwards from the air, rolling towards the Spirit like a bowling ball before slicing off the Spirit's right arm and sailed past Nightshade for about a hundred meters before stopping himself, followed by Sihana piercing the Spirit with the Yukobana in his torso.
"I must say... This was not in my... Books." As his arm fell from his body, the flames slowly took over the spirit. "I was hoping for something flashy like this though, my thanks." He bowed towards Nightshade, with his remaining arm going across his chest. He then collapsed on the swords. "It's a shame... You... Were my enemies... Aurevoir." With that he turned to stone, seeming to trap the swords in his torso, but the stone quickly turned to dust, falling to the ground in a pile. Obsidian broke several of the creatures heads from their bodies in one move, which also landed him with the group just as the spirit turned to dust. "Tragic, but the Master awaits. Jack, how long will this hold." "Since when do you rush? Whatever. I'll hold them so long as I stay here. If I try to do much besides stand here they'll break the bonds... So... What fun, I get to miss the final battle, or... we deal with these things the whole time. Take your pick darlings, not like we're in a hurry." Jack gave a fake smile, and shook his head to jingle the chain around his neck.
Hope looked at the creatures, unconcerned. "There are exactly one thousand, seven hundred and fifty-two creatures being held by Jack's magic right now. Taking into account the number of Legion-class demons and Dyads, that means that there are five hundred and eighty-seven opponents for us to deal with. I recommend we take them down now." She paused. "Or we could just leave Mister No-Fun here to hold them for the rest of eternity. I'm good with that, too." Nightshade shrugged, and picked up the Blades from the pile of ashes on the ground. The Spirit had been an interesting opponent. It was a shame that the fight had not lasted longer. "The smart thing to do would be to let Jack hold them while we deal with the Master..." She stared down at the Blades, a final gift from her father, and shook her head. "...But I'm not really in the mood to the smart thing right now." She swung one of the Blades, and a wave of flame struck the nearest helpless enemy. It died screaming in agony.
Venquis nodded at Jack and responded back with a small smile from the corners of his mouth. “Such a shame, you would have loved to see his demise. Anyway, I wish you luck.” He turned towards Sihana as the Goddess of Life closed her eyes for a second and thought to herself, opening them a moment later after what felt like an eternity. “I have just sent a telepathic link of all of those still alive to gather in the north. We’re not going to be alone in this fight, I can assure you that right now.” Sihana replied as she looked directly into the sky, and as if on cue, hundreds of bright lights zoomed past them like arrows towards the location of the rallying place. “Equestrian gods, the Nine Divines, Zebra, Griffon, Changing, Buffalo, Deer...” Venquis muttered to himself as he stared at the sky above before looking at Sihana. “This is going to be one to remember...."
"Well, Nightshade, as much a fan I am of seeing you rage all over these things... I think you can tell there's no real choice here given our restricted time limit. Can't wait to hear the stories, other sappy blah-blah-blah. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna see if I can use these things to squeeze some of these guys to death." Jack lifted his hoof to his forehead and then tossed it forward in an almost salute. Obsidian sighed at Jack and started in the direction of the "final battle". "He thinks he is cool by being the "sacrifice for the greater good" champion. Just... Just let him be. Let him have his moment, we have a battle upon us."
The two Ryborian gods looked at another and nodded before looking northward past a series of mountains to see the gathering. They were going to arrive last and were also the guests of honor. It might have been the last day that anyone could have been alive. From what they could tell, at least the last surviving 800 gods and demi-gods were at the gathering point, a large patch of land with a few hills with grass going for as far as the eye could see. "We'll meet up ahead, see you at the gathering point. It's directly north of here, you cant miss it." Venquis replied before the two of them flew up into the sky and vanished.
Nightshade sighed and sheathed the Blades. "Fine. Have it your way, Jack." As she flew away, she couldn't resist diving into the swarm of demons and snapping a few necks. Once she'd had her fun, she quickly disappeared into the horizon, flying towards the gathering point. Hope and Hemlock followed close behind her.
Tyberthia (Venquis) and Sihana had arrived at the gathering point roughly ten minutes after they had left the others, seeing a small camp with roughly 800 gods and demi-gods. There were several campfires, but the largest sat in the middle of the camp and was ten meters high. There was a dull and tense mood around the camp, but there was also excitement for what was ahead of them. Sihana had introduced Venquis to the rest of the divines, a day that he proudly felt was the best day of his life. While there, Midnight had arrived back with the rest of the group, but he had returned with Ocean and Crimson who had just been freed from Tartarus after Plague had kidnapped them and tortured them both for almost thirty years. He got the couple up to speed about what had been happening in the war and other important events. A proper celebration could wait until the Master is killed. Until then,despite how close they are to victory, they were still at war. (Might as well address Ven by his god name now.)
Obsidian waited by the center fire staring into it's core. Tricorna sat next to him, asking questions which went ignored. As Tyberthia and Sihana approached they both stood up. (Just kind of placing them in the camp.) At the edge of the camp, in a small puff of smoke a toy cat appeared. It ran into the camp trying to get anyponies attention, but none seemed to notice it, or just swatted it away. (btw, Serketh isn't dead. Yay minor plot holes!)
At the camp, Nightshade gave Hope a crash course in aerial combat. Fortunately, she had taken quite well to her new wings, and was soon able to fly as well as a Pegasus. She just needed to learn to fight like one. After the lesson was over, Nightshade nodded approvingly. "That wasn't bad. You have excellent instincts, and your magical abilities give you quite an edge. You fly a lot like your mother did. Graceful, and fearless. She would have been proud." Hope nodded, and held back a few tears. While she had stayed to defend Canterlot, Blackout and Cricket had gone to help defend the Hive. The few survivors that made it to Canterlot told her of what had happened, how her parents had torn through countless foes, fighting without rest for days, before the endless tide of demons finally overwhelmed the Hive's forces. Her father had fallen first, his heart pierced by a demon's sword. Her mother had lasted a few hours longer, and had even managed to kill one of the generals, before finally being brought down by a barrage of demonic arrows.
Tyberthia and Sihana approached Obsidian and Tricorna while Nightshade practiced with Hope. While the aspect of defeat still lingered on the minds of the gods, they had the remainder of their lives to focus on peace. If they were a god, this possibly could be for an eternity. With Tyberthia essentially becoming immortal alongside many of it's perks and curses, he could now focus on spending the rest of his days with Tricornia. Maybe even having a child with her. Still, that could have waited until after the Master was killed. If he could even be killed. From what they knew, the Master was the strongest of all of the foes any of them could have ever faced, many times over. "Well.... shall we prepare ourselves for what lies ahead of us. Shall we end the life of this maniac?" Sihana spoke. "Depends" Tyberthia said. "We could wait the night and celebrate what could be our final moments together. Or we can finish this monster right now. Either way, I'm not fussed."
"Our time is short Ve- Tyberthia. We should swarm him as soon as it is poss-" The toy cat jumped onto Obsidian's head and spun around his horn, interrupting him mid-sentence. It threw it arms up and its mouth opened as if it was yelling, but no sound came out. Obsidian tossed his head to the side, sending the cat to the ground. "This is... annoying. We are busy little creature. Trying to save everything from a villain." It threw its arms up again and tried yelling, again silent. "It's trying to talk, Obsidian. Maybe it's trying to say something important? It may not seem important, but obviously this little critter thinks its important enough to bother GODS. We should try to find a way for it to tell us." Tricorna pat the cat's head.
(Why does it remind me of Catbug?) Tyberthia looked at the little toy-cat, throwing his arms in the air frantically to get the gods attention. He was wondering why the toy cannot make sound when it tried to work, but he looked at the others. "It cant talk, but it still wants us to tell us something." Tyberthia told the group."I have an idea." He reached for his pocket to pull out a bracelet that would have appeared like a watch, but it would have been big enough for the toy to wear around it's waist like a belt. He knelled down next to Tricorna and held out the bracelet for the toy to take.
Nightshade, having left Hope to practice with Hemlock, approached in time to see the strange cat interrupt Obsidian. "This seems like a simple enough problem to solve." She reached down and grabbed the toy, yanking a pullstring that may or may not have been on its back the whole time. "Alright... Ninjakitty, I presume?... what's so important?"
The cat grabbed the bracelet as it was picked up and swatted Nightshade away from the pull-cord on its back. "The spirit took Serketh, he's still trapped. We can't get him out. You help." It pulled free of Nightshade and fell to the ground. It quickly stood back up and looked around them waiting for an answer. "I had assumed after all this time Serketh was dead. I do not think the spirit would have just kept him alive for no reason." Obsidian looked at the group. "I am certain it will be no trouble to get him free within a short period, and it could not hurt to have him help against the Master."
Nightshade was quick to agree. "He still has my father's silver swords. I'd like to get them back. Let's go find Serketh."
Tyberthia and Sihana nodded in agreement as Sihana opened up a portal. "This should be easy unless the Spirit has left behind some of his goons" Tyberthia spoke. "Then it would be more fun."
"Don't get cocky, Venquis." Nightshade grinned. "That's my job." For Nightshade, rescuing Serketh was a secondary concern. Her father's beloved silver swords, a memento of his first battle against the Ardak Luvanis, had been left with Serketh. They, not the foul and corrupted Blades of Tartarus, were her father's true weapons. If she couldn't have Silver back, she would at least have his swords.
