Day of the Devastator, By Smash

Part 3: Unholy Alliance
Chapter 24

A cowled figure moved silently throughout the dead forest, its head bowed.  A velvet black robe was pulled tight around it, concealing any identifying trait.  Its feet were blanketed in shadows and its hands were hidden within the sleeves of the robe.  When walking through shadows, it became almost one with the night, invisible to all.
It walked into a clearing.  Moonlight glinted off the gold lining on the hood of its robe.  It moved to the center and sat on a rock in the center.  It laid its head between the folds of its robed arms and a great weary breath escaped from the hidden lips of the black-souled figure.  Weary of life, of merely existing.  A silent plea escaped the lips of the creature.  Please… make it stop.  My life is not worth living anymore.
Then, abruptly, the unseen expression changed.  The desperate expression changed, giving way to a scowl of pure rage and hatred.  The figure rose form the stone and stalked out of the clearing.
Two warped, dead, trees lay close together across the bath, barring all access to what was beyond.  The figure came to a halt in front of them and paused, but only for seconds.  A snarled word and a hand gesture shattered the trees into splinters, leaving nothing where they were but a smoking hole.
A cliff extended over a ruined plain.  That plain had once been one of the most beautiful landscapes on Plit, but now it was just a barren wasteland.  It was enough to sicken any halfway decent creature and move anyone who truly cared about the planet to a deadly rage.
The black-hearted figure appeared on the cliff top.  As it surveyed the scene below, it began to tremble slightly.  A black mist flooded into the valley as fury began to build.  The land itself began to quake as an unearthly sound permeated the very essence of the land.  The figure fell to its knees on the cliff top, head thrown back in a deathly howl.  As the earth splintered like the trees before, the cry only escalated.  Explosions blasted along the land, creating dozens of new, tiny volcanoes.  A monstrous twister blazed into the clearing, tearing up rock shards and whipping them around with such speed to shatter boulders.  And still, the cry intensified.  A great sphere of shadows swelled in the center of the clearing, sending out tendrils of sinister darkness, consuming the land itself.
And, as sudden as it had started, it stopped.  The cry fell silent.  The darkness dissipated.  The twister calmed.  And all the fissures from where lava flowed sealed up, leaving only pools of molten rock to mark their passing.  The figure of darkness collapsed in on itself and lay on the cliff top, curled into a miserable ball, tears flowing freely from the reddened eyes.
***
Gillian discovered Smash on that cliff top in the very early morning, curled into the fetal position, his black robes drawn tightly around his body, shielding himself from the outer world.  She laid a claw upon his shoulder, pulling him onto his back.  He resisted her, only rolling over onto his other side, not even letting his face show.
She sighed and lay down next to him; her white robes a stark contrast to his black.  Her claws dug into the flesh near his spine, forcing his body to arch, and before he could curl up again, she had pulled herself into him and lay with him the rest of the night, her body pressed into his.  He relaxed within her grip, his thoughts untroubled, the farthest thing from his mind that she had just intimated what was a hopeless scenario, that a Black Robe fall in love with White.

Chapter 25

Kamek hummed tunelessly under his breath as he made his way through the ruined forest in search of Smash and Gillian.  He bit his lip as nervousness threatened to overcome him.  He tried to tell himself that those two could take care of themselves, but the memory of how they got captured by Zydar’s horde destroyed that thought.  He came upon a place covered with wood splinters.  The entire area was covered with shattered and scorched shards of dead trees driven into other trees with crushing force, a single splinter splitting an entire tree in half.  Ahead of him sat a cliff top.  Atop of it lay two huddled forms, one so black that it was nearly indistinguishable from the scorched and blackened ground.  The other was a combination of white and green.
Gillian stirred, opening one eye.  Her cat like pupil fixed on Kamek.  He leaned a bit closer.  The eye glanced over to Smash and then over the cliff.  Kamek glanced at Smash.  The psychic stench of evil magic still clung to him.  He looked over the cliff and his jaw dropped in surprise.  Smash had done that?  He realized why Gillian didn’t move.  It would wake up Smash and if he was angry enough to do that, there was no telling what may happen to an unannounced intruder.
He nodded to her and her eye gratefully closed again.  He walked back towards the dead forest, his intent to get out of sight before Smash woke up and noticed him.  A reasonable distance into the forest and over a hill and out of sight of the cliff top, he let out a great sigh of relief.
“You’ll be amazed what one can do with a bit of stealth and speed.”  A voice, soft as silk sliding along a bronze tablet, startled Kamek so completely that his breath caught in his throat.  Smash leapt down from the dead branches above.  “So, the Magikoopa doesn’t think I can take care of myself.”
Kamek sputtered.  “But-but… how…”
Gillian emerged from over the hill behind Kamek, her hair ruffled and her robe in disarray, revealing more than it was originally meant to.  She wore a somewhat panicked expression.  “Have you seen Smash?  He woke up and ran off through-” She was cut short as the dark figure revealed himself.  “My dear White Robe,” he said, “I am glad that you came looking for me, but I believe that our dear Magikoopa might have figured out the mystery himself.  But then again, maybe I overestimate him.”
Kamek bristled at the disrespect.  If it had been anyone else, he would probably have killed that person where they stood.  But he knew that it was all the result of the corrupting of Smash’s soul.  They had to revive him, or eventually he would end up serving Zydar.  Or worse, he would end up taking the place of Zydar.  Disaster, indeed.
Kamek stayed silent the rest of the way back to the camp.  When they got there, Smash rapped out a few sharp words to the effect of that they were to pack up and prepare to go.  Celeste, Karma, and Ludwig were packed.  Kamek had nothing but his Wand and his robes.
Soon they were on their way to Yoshi Island.   Smash had said that they were on their way to help the alliance prepare a defense against the demon hordes.  When he mentioned Zydar and the prospect of battle, his face lit up with such a dark joy that Kamek was truly frightened.  Smash had accepted his black fate.  Indeed, they must turn him back to Red, and soon!

Chapter 26

Gillian’s eyes opened slowly.  It was morning.  She took stock of her surroundings.  The night before, she had been so tired from Smash force marching them all day that she had just collapsed by the roadside and fell asleep.  Strangely, when she had fell, the land had been plain dirt, scorched by fire and lava, but now grass was sprouting, forming a soft cushion under her.  Smash lay next to her, his wings forming a protective shield about them, his arms around her, pulling them close.  He was still wearing his robe and she was still wearing hers, but just his touch evoked an infinite love and desire in her.
His eyes flickered open.  The first thing they lay upon was Gillian.  A tenderness beyond understanding showed in them.  He was black hearted, now, but his love was still as pure as ever.  There was nothing that could stop making him love her, or her, him.
“I have a surprise for you today,” he murmured into her ear.
“Oh, really?” she whispered back.  “What is it?”
“Now, now,” he said reprovingly, “If I told you, then it wouldn’t be a surprise.  But now, it’s time to get up.”
He pulled his wings back and she rolled to her feet, rearranging her robe.  As he pulled himself up, she looked at his robe.  Strange… when he had whispered to her, she could have sworn that the robe had been glowing with just a tinge of red.
***
Smash and Kamek led Gillian to a forest.  Smash was holding her by one elbow and Kamek had his hand on her other, as he was too short to be able to reach as high as Smash was comfortably.  The forest was a great green leafy place, with trees clustered so thickly that she couldn’t see three meters into it.
“I’ve got to go… in there?”
Kamek nodded.  Smash was silent, looking her over as if he was weighing her for something.  He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head towards Kamek when he thought she wasn’t looking, but she saw him out of the corner of her eye.  Kamek nodded in return.
“We will wait for you on the other side,” Smash announced.  Then he turned so his back was towards her.  There was a bright flash of light and he was gone.  Kamek touched his wand to his robe and winked out also.  With nothing else to do, she entered the forest.
It was dark and wet and disgusting.  Mud was everywhere, even on the branches of trees.  How it got there, she could only guess.  There was something strange about this forest.  Something not quite right.  She shoved that thought aside.  There was time to investigate that later.  She could ask Smash or Kamek about that when she got across.  They were more knowledgeable about things like this than she was.
There in front of her were three paths.   One led straight ahead into the forest.  The one to the left let to a swamp and the one on the right led to a plain.  She stood for a few seconds, then walked down the forest path.
About five minutes into it, she heard a rustling behind her.  She casually looked over her shoulder to see that the branches behind her were dipping low into the path, blocking her way back.  She turned again to see that her pathway ahead was blocked as well.  The forest to the sides offered no way past, as they were clogged with brambles, probably toxic by the looks of them.  She was trapped.
She attempted to crawl under the branches, but they dipped too close to even get one hand under.  She tried to crawl over, but desisted after several very painful scratches.  She pulled her battleaxe off of her back and chopped at a branch.  The magically hardened steel chopped cleanly through the wood.  A gout of red sap welled from her cut.  A muffled, “Ooooh!” came from the tree and rustling sounded above her.  She dived out of the way.  A heavy bough crashed where she had been seconds earlier, barely missing crushing both her legs.
Well, that didn’t work.  She had tried all the direct approaches, now what was left?  Magic, obviously, but of what kind?  The close call she had with that tree limb told her that destructive magic wouldn’t work, and she didn’t know how to teleport.  That was an advanced spell she couldn’t cast until she had taken her Test.  Well, what about sneaking by?  Stealth was a viable option, but how was she going to sneak by those?  They had to have brains of some kind, as shown by their continued plots to foil her.
Then it hit her.  Of course!  She was thinking too complicated.  She would use the very first spell she had learned.  She placed a hand on the tree trunk and closed her eyes in meditation.  To successfully cast this spell, she had to simplify her thoughts.  She concentrated on the basest needs of life, sending her consciousness deep into the limited nervous center of the tree.
A flood of base instincts flooded through her.  Absorb, create, consume.  Live, live at all costs.  Gillian began to understand this life form, allowing her to emulate it.  She sent feelings into the mind of the tree, and her more powerful mental powers convinced it that she was one of its species.  It snapped back into its place by the road.  Slowly, she expanded her realm of influence.  Eventually, all the trees were snapped back into place.  She strode carefully on through, not letting her concentration waver.  Once, halfway though, she let herself relax and suddenly the branches were closing down on her.  It was a frantic few minutes before she could reestablish her anonymity.
Soon she was through.  She let her guard drop and looked ahead of her.  The same three paths were in front of her!  Had she gone in a circle?  No, she had traveled in a straight line.  Therefore, it must have been magic.  She bit her lip.  Well, the center path did her no good.  How about the left?
She went down the swampy path.  Eventually, she came to a great expanse of burbling muck.  She gazed at it in horror.  Her stomach came up to her mouth as she saw the dirty white masses of carnivorous maggots writhing on the surface.  Not only that, but the only path led straight through it.  It was suspended on top, like a bridge.  It wound its way around the muck, magically suspended.  She bit her lip for a second, then started out.  She knew a pathway like this was too good to be true, so she made sure to test every step before trusting her weight to it.
Abruptly, the pathway lost all substance in front of her.  She stroked across it with her foot and the bare appendage brushed across the surface of the mess.  She stifled a gag as she yanked her foot from the water with such force that she toppled over backward, fortunately landing on the pathway behind her.  She flailed out with a hand and hit the solid pathway behind her.  Amazingly, it began to crumble.  Soon she was standing on nothing but a maybe two by one foot platform of stone, with no way out.
And as if things couldn’t get any worse, the mud below her began to shift and take form.  Abruptly, ten forms burst free from the muck.  Each one was a head-sized, bloated mass, made almost entirely of mud, or so it seemed.  They shook free the maggots stuck to them and began to circle her.  She produced her battleaxe and prepared for combat.
She swept her weapon unerringly down at the first slimeball to charge her.  It split cleanly in half, but the pieces just kept on coming.  She ducked and the first one missed her completely.  She almost dodged the second, but it caught a few strands of her hair and got tangled into them, painfully yanking her head around.  The mudball, its momentum intact, swung around and smote the side of her head.  It stuck there and began to constrict, antagonizingly slow.
Gillian, utilizing all her muscles and agility, leapt five feet into the air, twisting about to avoid the next barrage.  Amazingly, nothing hit her.  She swept her axe in a reverse arc below her, chopping two in half and severing bits of the others.  Nothing happened, except the number of her antagonists just doubled.
As soon as she landed, she was forced to drop to her knees to avoid the next pass of slime.  She stowed her axe and cudgeled her brain for some weapon to use.  Not her longbow.  If those things were immune to being chopped up, a mere puncture wound not hurt them.  She couldn’t use her claws as that muck would just stick to her and hamper her more.  She had to use magic again.  But what spell?  There was nothing in her repertoire to fight off things like this!
While she was recovering from her earlier physical feat, several more gunk balls hit, getting caught in her hair and sticking to her legs and arms, hampering her movement even more.  Splat, splat, splat!  She had to keep fighting.  The next one might get her across the mouth and suffocate her.
She spun in a circle to address the next threat, but she was too slow.  It smacked into her face, wrapping around her head, blinding her.  She screamed and clawed at the sewage fouling her eyes.  And, in doing this, she took a bad step and tumbled into the swamp.  The stuff was only waist deep, but she was submerged up to her neck.  Abruptly, the maggots in the murky water converged on her.  She felt the things squirming on her and the tiny pinpricks as they wriggled into her flesh.
Panic beset her.  She realized she was about to die, consumed by creatures less than the size of her smallest claw.  She had to think up some spell, but her mind drew a blank.  As a few maggots began to crawl up her neckline and into the tender flesh of her mouth, she screamed again.  A fiery word erupted from her throat, and she felt a strange power fill her.  It blazed out of her, and though she was unable to see the result, a great pressure was lifted from her.  She coughed as dust clogged her nostrils, and attempted to open her eyes.  She pawed at them, trying to unclog the dust that suddenly irritated her eyes.  When the dust was relatively clear, she blinked her eyes to a scene of utter desolation.  The forest still surrounded her, but the swamp where she had fallen was now a basin of dust.  Her spell had evaporated all the water around her, rendering a swamp into a desert.
Her emotion would have been regret if she had not been so sickened by feeling herself being eaten alive.  A convulsion shook her as she vomited into the dust that was the maggots and slime.  Several minutes later, her entire stomach was empty, but dry heaves still shook her body.  Vomit stained her robe and her skin.  She gathered up her things and crawled out of the pit and onto the pathway again.
Again Gillian came to the three roads.  This time she took the plains route.  It was quite pleasant, the only things befouling her enjoyment that she was still disgusted with the last scene and the fact that she was parched from all the vomiting that she had done.  She was quite weak, and only able to crawl on her hands and knees.  Eventually she came to a pool of clear water.  It was so crystal clear that her dehydration was sharpened.  She felt just like that dust that was clogging her eyes.
But as she lowered her head to the water to drink, she suddenly remembered something.  This pool might be enchanted.  So she reluctantly pulled her head away and cast a spot identification spell.  It was indeed enchanted, and maliciously as well.  She may have just drunk from it and damned the consequences, but she knew better than that, and reluctantly left the pool behind.
Next she came to a fountain.  The water in it was splashing around so invitingly that she was drawn a step towards it before she could check herself.  Just looking at it made her soiled robe seem even more so, until she seemed the ugliest and dirtiest creature in the universe, and just touching that water would make her clean and beautiful.  But she forced herself to check the spring again.  And it was malicious again.  She sighed and crawled on.
She came to another pool.  It was just a drab, tiny, thing.  It could maybe hold half her mass and didn’t even flash in the light.  She checked it as well.  It was enchanted as well, but it was a subtle thing, not good but not evil either.  She decided to risk it.  She cupped a bit of it in her claw and sipped it.
Abruptly, the texture and taste changed.  It was cool and sweet as it flowed down her throat.  She opened her eyes and the pool had changed.  It was an amazing thing.  The pool that now showed was a combination of the best aspects of both, twice as large and clear as the pool and as sparkling as the fountain.  She looked back and was horrified.  The fountain was a volcano, its fiery water scorching the ground around it.  Just imagine if she had splashed in it!  And the pool beyond it was a burbling, fetid, poison.  She realized that this pool had the magic of truth and dispelled all illusions.
She bent to the water and drank deeply.  As the water filled her body again, she felt such a healing power infuse her that she just slumped onto the bank and lay, with her nose touching the water for an unfathomable time.
She finally was able to pull herself up.  She glanced critically at herself and decided she needed to wash.  She tugged off her robe and washed it in the truth spring.  The stains came out readily, and even dispelled in the water seconds after they were removed from her robe.  After her belt, robe, and even axe blade were washed, she took off her hidden pouch, laid it on top of the pile, and slowly slid into the water.  The mere touch of it on her skin was infinitely relaxing.  She knew she would have to leave eventually, but she may as well enjoy herself while she could.
She submerged her head in the water for a long time, running her hands throughout her hair and over her face.  The water cleansed her body without soap, easily.  After several minutes, she came up.  She could feel sorry for Smash.  He was only a human and could hold his breath for but a fraction of the time she could.  As she cleared the water from her eyes, she saw a blurry figure at the edge of the pool, staring at her.  When her eyes cleared, she saw it was-
She gasped in horror.  Crovax!  The vampire was staring at her, salivating, as he contemplated devouring her blood, and worse, her very identity itself.  She looked around.  Demons were surrounding the pool.  She shrunk back to the center of the water, loathe to let one of those foul creatures even touch her.  In the center of the pool, she was far out of reach of those grasping claws, but if they decided to come in after her…
They didn’t follow her.  They just stood all around the pool and gazed hungrily at her.  But why wouldn’t they come in after her?  They couldn’t be that averted to water.  Another thing snapped into her mind.  And why hadn’t she heard them coming?  Demons were notoriously clumsy, preferring to leave the spying to their younger cousins, the imps.  Even with her head underwater, her keen ears should have been able to hear them crashing through the underbrush.
Acting on instinct, she swished a claw through the water, scattering droplets on several demons.  They silently disappeared into puffs of smoke.  Illusion!  No wonder they didn’t touch the water, it would have been suicidal.  She splashed the water around, hitting many more.  They all disappeared as well.  Eventually Crovax was all that was left.  She swung both her claws around into the water, sending a veritable wave of truth at the illusion.
There was a puff of smoke, like the demons had disappeared into, but this time the figure remained.  However, it changed form.  When the smoke cleared, an odd figure stood where the image of the vampire once was.  It was about five feet tall.  The face was boyish, but the eyes were golden and wizened, making the thing seem to be much older than it appeared.  It was dressed in a black robe.
The dark elf, as she surmised it was, gazed at her.  She gazed back for almost a timeless moment.  An inner sense could tell he was a powerful mage.  What he wanted, she could not tell.  He walked over to her gear and picked up her battleaxe, packs, and clothing.
“Hey!” she cried, temper flaring.  She leapt out of the water, her nude form shedding droplets as the dark elf faded into the forest.  She chased after him, not caring about her exposed state.
The forest seemed even darker and denser than usual.  She was forced to slide between trees, scraping up her body terribly.  Her feet sunk ankle deep in the wet soil on the ground.  Eventually, she realized she was completely lost.  She cursed herself.  She had let her body take over when she was supposed to be using her mind.  If she didn’t stop reacting purely on instinct and temper, she would end up worse than naked and weaponless, she would end up dead.
Sitting on a fallen tree, she began to ponder. The elf had a great camouflage, so she was unlikely to discover him until she was practically on top of him.  Likewise, her green skin gave her an element of camouflage as well.  So they were running blind.  Since she was the pursuer, she was at a disadvantage.  She was quite maneuverable, but she was not used to running through forests.  The elf was slimmer than she was, and was undoubtedly more at home in this place, so he could move quicker than she.  There was no was she could just chase him down.  She had to stalk him to his lair and challenge him there.
She considered momentarily about just leaving the forest and leaving her belongings, but she discarded that idea almost as quick as she come up with it.  Her hidden medicine pouch was in that pile, and it had taken her entire life to collect the rare herbs in there.  The elf also had her battleaxe.  Smash had given her that weapon, created from pure æther in the void between worlds, meant specifically for combating demonic forces.  She still remembered walking through that nothingness…
She shook her head.  This was no time to think about the past!  She had a thief to catch.  But how was she going to do it?  She had already lost the pathway, and as far as she knew, she was going to find a pathway back to the start and have to run the whole gauntlet again.
She sighed.  She would have to use magic again.  It was just a simple spell, but she hated having to use her spell casting power as a crutch when her senses should have been enough.
A short chant revealed to her the direction in which to walk.  It was at the place of the forest where evil was strongest.  The spell affected her vision in a subtle way, darkening the places when evil was stronger, and brightening where good prevailed.  The entire forest was black, so dark that she would have been unable to see but for the light that she brought with her in her alignment.
The place of greatest evil was in a clearing.  She stepped into it, glancing around, on guard for anything strange that might happen.  She bit her lip again, the fact that she was all but defenseless finally driving home.  She called into being a weak shield, not that it would make much difference against any spell her antagonist could cast.  A great surge of blackness obscured her vision.  She crouched on the forest floor, preparing for what she knew was coming…
A firestorm slammed into her, knocking her head over footclaws, leaving her moaning, her shield crushed, on the ground.  There was a crackle above her.  She barely had time to think before a tree branch crashed onto her bare back, hard enough that the branch was snapped in half.  Another branch fell onto her left leg.  She gasped out an almost stifled scream as her leg snapped.  She rolled painfully onto her side.  She realized that she had walked into a trap.  She was going to be slowly crushed to death.
In the center of the clearing she saw a huge boulder with an overhang.  She drove her claws into the ground and began to drag herself towards it.  Several more branches struck the ground near her, but only scored minor hits, scratching her face and arms.
She began to tire.  Each pull of her claws seemed harder and harder, and she eventually would falter and die. She looked up, and it seemed so close, but ultimately out of reach.  There was one chance left.  She heaved herself onto her feet, wincing as the bones in her leg ground together.  Concentrating all her energy, she leapt, using her good leg to push off with.  Amazingly, she landed under the overhang.  Unable to still her momentum, she hit the stone under the overhang.  She managed to stop most of the force, but ended up straddled, spread eagled, against the rock, her broken leg hanging down, her other slung over an outcropping.  Both her arms grasped cracks beside her.  She gingerly let herself down, hissing in pain when her leg had the slightest amount of pressure placed upon it.
Eventually, she managed to set herself down and brace her back against the stone, laying her broken leg to one side, and bending the other.  She scanned the trees nearby, searching for the dark elf.  She knew he was nearby, and could only guess why he hadn’t done anything while she was trying to situate herself.
A branch bounced off the overhang above her head and fell in front of her.  As it passed from her line of sight, she saw a black robed figure that she was positive wasn’t there before.  It was the dark elf, standing on a tree limb high up.  The elf’s cat eyes seemed to widen as they surveyed her bare form.  Even when scuffled and beaten, she apparently had quite a striking figure.
The elf pressed his hands together and another fireball flared from his fingertips.  She barely had time to throw up a shield as the sphere blazed at her.  When it hit the shield, the fireball spanked into the air and deep into the forest, detonating with a dull thud, blasting loam everywhere.
Gillian, taking advantage of her opponent’s distraction, made a weak throwing gesture with her right arm and a magic arrow erupted from her outstretched hand.  The elf flinched and threw her arms up, casting a shield of his own.  The arrow blasted the shield in a crackle of power, but the elf was unaffected.
Well, not entirely so.  The blast had knocked him off balance, and sent him pinwheeling his arms while teetering dangerously over the edge.  Gillian, finding an advantage, cried a variant of the first spell ever devised and spat at the elf.  A geyser of water erupted under the tree he was balanced in, tearing it from the soil and sending the elf headfirst into the ground.
She had thought it was over then.  There was almost no way any creature could have fallen from that height and survived.  She pulled herself towards a nearby fallen branch, hoping to use it as a crutch.  But as she heaved herself to her feet, a rustle in the pile of leaves that the dark elf had disappeared into caught her eye.  She limped over to it, her curiosity getting the better of her prudence.
The dark elf erupted from the pile, launching himself at her with a savage snarl.  Caught unawares, Gillian could not even begin to think of a protective spell or even bring a hand up to deflect the body flying at her.  The elf caught her wrists, twisting her about and knocking her to the ground.  A silver dagger appeared at her throat and his body pressed down on top of her, pinning her to the grassy turf.
She realized she was about to die.  The elf would first defile her body and soul and then cut her throat.  She went limp; there was nothing she could do now.  A tear brimmed at one eye.   She shuddered as the creature shifted his body, preparing to despoil her, and wished that something would happen, anything to pull her out of this torture.
A massive flare of heat blasted along her backside.  She heard the elf scream, a short, antagonized cry, and cringed as her back became scorched and blistered.  She could only thank fate that her scales absorbed much of the heat, even though they were mostly destroyed, leaving her backside raw and bleeding.  The weight was lifted from her.  She pushed herself upwards, looking for the dark elf.  He was gone, disintegrated in that blast of fire.  But where-
Her eyes focused on a figure just across the clearing.  It was clothed in black, with gold writing across the sleeves just like-
She tried to dash across to embrace her lover, but her leg failed her on the first step and she fell to her knees, gasping in pain.  Smash glided to her and pulled her to her feet.  She collapsed into him, shedding tears of relief.  He accepted her embrace, but did not return it, as if he found her presence unpleasant but did not wish to offend her.
She felt the difference.  She pulled away from him, yet keeping a hand on his shoulder to support herself.  “Smash?  What’s wrong?”
He reply was flippant and dismissing.  “No, nothing’s wrong.  In fact, something’s right.  I have accepted my fate.”
She gasped.  “You mean you’re going to stay as-“
“A Black Robe.  Right.  In fact, I have discovered an even better plan to stop Zydar.  I shall go to his citadel and join him.  Then, when the time is right, I shall kill him and take over the demon hordes myself.  After the plane is conquered, I shall send them back and Plit will finally be unified.”
“But the Koopas…and the Mushrooms, and the Yoshis.  What will happen to them?”
“There will only be a few left, but that is the cost.  There will be enough to repopulate the planet within twenty generations.”
Gillian was staggered.  “Twenty…generations?  What do you expect to survive?  Two per species?”
Smash nodded.  “Yes.  We’ll capture two of each and slay the rest.”
Gillian was horrified.  This was not the Smash she knew!  Zydar had done a better job corrupting him than she thought, and there was no way she could turn him back.  She knew him to be of the type that never gave up an idea once it got into his head.  She must stop him; the fate of the world lay in her hands.
She hissed at him and bit at his face.  He, not seeming surprised, veered out of her way and cuffed her alongside her head.  She crashed to the ground, clenching her teeth as pain again shot through her ruined body.
“I thought that was how you would react.  Well, you’ll come around.  I am leaving now.  You may follow if you wish, or just die here like the fool you are.”
Gillian trembled in rage.  She snarled a final spell and leapt at her Spirit Twine.  The bones in her leg ground together, but she couldn’t feel it.  At the peak of her leap, her hands burst into flame.  A weak spell against a dragon, to be sure, but it was all she had power left to cast.
She landed on Smash’s back, her hands tightening on his right shoulder and left arm.  The black cloth exploded into flame at the touch of her fingertips.  Smash screamed, more in anger than in pain, and hurtled her off him, sending her rolling backwards into a pile of leaves.  She went limp in the pile, one eye closed to prevent a stick that was pressing against her eyelid poking it out, her other open and watching Smash.
He slapped at the flames, attempting to put them out, but the fire was magical and would not be balked that easily.  The flame spread to his back, scorching his wings.  Smash screamed, this time in pain.  Before much else could happen, the rest of his robe ignited.  Smash dropped to the ground and rolled side to side, but the flames blazed all the higher, as he became a candle flame.  A final scream erupted from the blaze and he exploded in a blast of evil energy.
Gillian hunched over, futilely trying to protect herself from the power.  There was practically no physical pain, but the evil force tore at her soul, attempting to corrupt it.  It was a terrible battle as the terror of killing her love and fatigue of soul combated against her crumbling willpower.  When she thought she could not stand it one second more, the power finally faded.  Gillian stared at the pile of ashes that was once her lover and fainted clean away.
***
“Come on, come on, wake up.”
“We’ve killed her.  I knew that that last bit would prove too much!”
“No, she’s not dead.  I can feel it.”
“Well, she will be soon if you don’t quit hovering around her.  Move along and let me work.”
Gillian’s eyes flickered open.  She attempted to sit up, but Celeste’s restraining hands were too much for her in this weakened state.  Besides, the instant she moved, a wave of nausea overcame her and she collapsed back down again.
“I rest my case.  Did you ever doubt me?”
Gillian closed her eyes again.  She needed more rest, but that last voice…it seemed so familiar…
She blacked out again.
***
When she finally pulled herself out of the darkness again, it was evening.  On the trail nearby, five figures sat around a small campfire, sharing a frugal meal of herbs and small game.  She couldn’t tell who it could be, as her eyesight was still blurry, but she could guess.
A green-black figure on the far side of the fire glanced at her and waved.  A purple-blue figure jumped up from the brown thing it was resting on and walked up to her.  As she focused on the approaching form, she could just make out the Magikoopa features of Kamek.
He took her hand in his own and shook it.  “Kaiensti, magius,” he said in a sinuous dialect that seemed to flow like a burbling brook from his lips.
She started in surprise.  “That’s the old Kopi tongue,” she exclaimed.  She remembered learning a bit of it when young, but it had been so long ago that she couldn’t tell exactly what Kamek had said.
“Let’s see…” she mused, “Kaiensti, with that kind of inflection, has something to do with... a congratulations.  And magius…”
At that time she had noticed that another figure had stood up from the fire.  It was black and forbidding, but, at the same time, emanated warmth and an approving feeling that sunk to the depths of her soul.  It moved forward and embraced her.  The very touch of that creature was painful to her soul, but even deeper inside aroused a burning love and desire.
A surge of remembrance paralyzed her.  She had killed the person that was embracing her at this moment.  What had happened?  Was this all a dream?  Had that entire forest ordeal been a dream?
Her thoughts were cut off as she heard Smash murmuring, “I knew you would do it.  Your will is too strong for something like that to stop you.  You did better than I thought.”
She mulled those words over in her head.  Then, realizing something, she yanked herself back from her black lover’s embrace.  “What do you mean by that?” she stormed at him, “Are you saying this was all just an experiment to prove my worth?  Just a test?”
Smash chuckled, setting his wings quivering.  “Not just a test, my dear, the Test.”
Then the final word that Kamek had said burst into her mind.  “Magius!  It means…” she began incredulously, “Mage!”
Smash smiled and nodded.  “I wanted to wait until you were older, but Kamek convinced me otherwise.  The reason we this without you knowing is that we were afraid you would choke, knowing how unsure you are about many things.”  Gillian nodded.  She knew that if she had known she had been taking her Test, she would have refused.
Smash continued.  “Now that you are through and a true mage, we can finally apprentice you, but you must be sure about this.  You must dedicate your entire heart and soul to the magic, for if you do not, you shall be consumed from the inside and torn apart.  Do you accept the privilege and responsibility of a true mage?”
His blue eyes bored into her.  She paused only seconds before answering, “I do.”

Chapter 27

The hot sun beat down upon the heads of the figures in the scorched plain.  Metal flashed in the midday sunlight as swords clashed upon each other.  Nearby, sweaty palms nocked arrows to bows and wielded throwing hammers and slings at targets.  A black figure strode throughout the mass of bodies, hissing instructions to the creatures that were desperately planning for a fight.
Yoshi Island was preparing for war.
Gillian set her longbow aside.  She unhooked the bowstring and wrapped it loosely around her arm while standing up from the crouched position from where she had been filling a tree stump with arrow shafts.  She was still weak from her Test, but Celeste’s skills with healing had joined her leg back together and allowed her to walk again, at least.  She strode over to Smash, who was instructing a group of Koopas in the proper use of a sword.  Kamek had been conjuring up weapons for days, many of them stolen from Zydar’s horde.
“So, how goes the training, dark warrior?” she asked.
Smash, not taking his eyes off the trainees, responded, “As well as can be expected, bright apprentice.  However, we are vastly outnumbered and if we can’t stem the tide…” he shook his head.
“We do have an advantage, though,” she reminded him.  “We are at least twice as powerful in magic than they.”
“True,” he conceded, “But my change in alignment has made me unable to cast many of my best spells.  I have been studying dark spells in every moment I can spare but I am still crippled in magic.”
Gillian sighed.  It was true.  Even with such power as Smash and Kamek possessed, they were in for the fight of their lives.
***
Kamek waved his wand.  A spark of flame flickered into existence.  Out of the flame emerged a spear made of a demon’s horn.  He handed it to the Yoshi waiting for it and waved off the rest of the line waiting for weapons.  He fell back onto the stump he was sitting on and his eyes flickered shut.  He sighed heavily.  Magic always demanded a price and his old body was paying it terribly.  He would eventually recover, like always, but it would take time and that was one thing he didn’t have.
He must recover.  He had been placed in charge of the Yoshi ranged attack forces for the coming battle.  He had wanted to decline, but he was the only one with the tactical mind to plan a battle and the power to make his troops obey him.
If only he had help.  He was not the only magic user on the island, but Gillian was unable to conjure yet and Smash was hording his magic for the battle itself.  Celeste had hinted that she could work some kind of magery, but she was off commanding another company.  There was plenty of magic back when he was part of Bowser’s forces, but…
An idea came to him.  It was unlikely, but it might work.  The Koopa Troop had been devastated in the battle for New Castle Koopa but still remained a formidable force.  Maybe…just maybe… one of his students was still left.  Ludwig and Karma jointly commanded what remained, Karma taking the hand-to-hand fighters and the Yoshis that were better at using close range tactics.  Ludwig was commanding all the Koopa ranged attackers, including any Magikoopas that may be left.
He got up off the stump and went out to survey the troops.  The number he commanded was formidable, but paled in comparison to just the tiny bit of Zydar’s horde he had seen.  Every Yoshi that could throw an egg or use another long-range weapon with any reasonable degree of accuracy was here.  They were getting desperate.  Every child that could even hold a knife was lined up in the ranks.  Anyone too young to fight was to be kept on the far side of the island, so as to not interfere with the others training.
Unfortunately, his troops had the lowest morale in the army, stemming from the fact that he was a Koopa and all the troops under him were Yoshi.  The antagonism between the two races, though cooling at the emergence of this new threat, was still very much in evidence.
***
Ludwig relaxed under a lean-to created out of an old tree limb.  He was catching up on much-needed rest while his second in command, the Troopa Dart, surveyed the troops.  Ludwig knew that he should have been out there, but Dart had insisted that he rest.  He was just discovering his leadership potential.  That young Troopa had quite a head on his shoulders.  His charisma with the others of his species was astounding.
Dart had been leading the Koopa Troop ever since New Castle Koopa was occupied by the demons.  After he had pulled the shattered remnants to Mushroom Castle, he had been appointed King pro-tem of the Koopas by Toadstool.  Ludwig felt almost sorry for taking over his position.
He crawled out from under the limb.  It was time to see what kind of force he commanded.
Dart met him halfway and kneeled.  “My lord,” he said, “I have reviewed the troops.  I beg permission to disclose my findings.”
Ludwig waved an arm dismissively.  “You may dispense with the protocol, my friend.  Tell me what you have found.”
Dart rose to his feet.  “We have assembled roughly three hundred Rocky Wrenches, one hundred Hammer Brothers, fifty Boomerang Brothers, twenty-five Fire Brothers, five Sledge Brothers, and two Magikoopa students.  We also have managed to create one Bob-omb cannon and a Bullet Bill launcher from what materials we have found on this isle and a small amount of ammo in our possessions.”
Ludwig nodded.  “Good.  Carry on, Commander.  Inform me of any new developments.”
Dart paused, as if remembering something.  “Oh, yes.  Guildmaster Kamek left a message that he wanted to see you.”
Ludwig dismissed Dart with a wave of a claw and went off to find Kamek.  The old sorcerer wouldn’t call him on a trifling matter so this must be of at least minor importance.
***
Celeste screamed in frustrated rage and lashed out with her sword.  The spear that was placed in its way shattered into thousands of splinters and the Mushroom person holding it was only saved from having his life thread cut short by a dive to the ground, and even so, lost the tip of his cap to the chop.  Celeste, mortified, pulled him up, placed a hand upon the bleeding spot, and cast a minor healing spell.  The wound closed over and the bleeding stopped.
“Sorry about that,” she said, chagrined.  The Mushroom person stared at her in horror and backed away, a terrified expression on his face.
Celeste sighed in despair.  The tension was getting to her.  The battle was so close that she just couldn’t bring herself to relax.  She hadn’t slept for three nights straight, but refused to take a sleep potion.  She felt that if she couldn’t sleep naturally, she shouldn’t.
She strode to a pile of leaves and relaxed on them.  Her eyes fluttered closed, but the instant her normal vision was blotted out, the vision of the island blazing as demons swept down upon it burst into her head.  She was up with a scream, her heart pounding.
That dream had been plaguing her every time she had closed her eyes.  The terror of war had struck home at the battle now being referred to the Burning of the Isle.  All the members of the party had been affected, but Karma had Celeste had gotten hit the worst.  Kamek and Ludwig had been in battles before and were used to it, but were still scarred.  Those demons were brutal.  When Kamek had been near her, the support of his older and wiser presence supported her and the dream had been all but nonexistent, but now that she was deprived of him, it came with a vengeance.
She shook her head tiredly.  Only an hour left.  The six members of the group were meeting at the headquarters, placed roughly in the center of the island.  Celeste gave orders to her commander, a stout mushroom that displayed extraordinary talent with a cudgel.  Then she started off over the hills.  Maybe Kamek would be there already.

Chapter 28

Smash ran a finger down the leather stretched in the center of the tent.  The figures inscribed upon it writhed and shifted into a new formation.  He frowned at the pattern and banished it with a wave of his hand.  He growled under his breath.
Celeste poked her head in.  Smash glanced at her, the concerns and thoughts of both registering in an instant.  He gestured to a bed of grass in the corner and murmured a calming spell as she passed by him.  She was asleep before she hit the ground.
It was maybe forty-five minutes before the meeting he called was scheduled.  It surprised the dragon a bit that Celeste would come so early, but the war was taking a toll on them all.  He came back to himself with a double take.  War?  More like slaughter!  Gillian and several of the others had taken to calling it a war, but it was hardly like that.  There had been three major battles and a few minor skirmishes, and already the entire planet but this one island had fallen.  The demon hordes were ripping through the population like a scythe through wheat.
That brought up the question again.  How had the demons made it here?  There was no way they could have just been in hiding.  This many demons couldn’t have just lay low and not been noticed.  And demons weren’t even native to this plane!  Demons were only native to places like the Abyss, or Hell, as it was known on Earth.  Then again, maybe Zydar had discovered a portal to the Abyss and bringing demons through.  Conquering a planet-that was a way to impress the evil overlord that ruled the cursed plane.
He growled again and passed his tongue over his teeth, now tipped with acidic saliva and grown into sharp edged daggers.  As the tension in him had been increasing, he had been slowly been developing more and more traits of the fierce draconic aspect of his personality.  His skin was becoming tougher, as if it was scaled.  A swelling was growing on the back of his head, as if he were developing horns.  But so far, nothing had gotten even close to that wonderful transformation in Zydar’s citadel.  He, even weeks after, could feel the raw power throbbing through him.  The words of spells he could only guess at in human form flowing easily through his head.  The wind whistling by his face, refreshing his energy.  Oh, to be a dragon…
The tent flap was pulled aside and a blue feline in armor entered.  Smash glanced at it, then smiled.  “I’d recognize that figure anywhere.  How long has it been, Mewd?”
The feline grinned.  “About two years, I think.  So, you’re the one who pulled the group I saved together.  I thought I recognized your touch.  How are you, you old sword swinger?”
“Oh, fine, considering that I’ve been changed to evil and we’re on the verge of a planet-crushing holocaust.”
“I know.  This Zydar character has already set up a fortress on my planet and, even though he claims it’s only an outpost, I’ve noticed that there has been a buildup of troops.  The rulers have decided to turn a blind eye towards the war and they won’t listen to me, so I gathered my personal retainers and have come to assist you.”
“How many do you have?”
“Fifty, all well armed and battle-trained.”
“Good.  I shall place you to guard the headquarters.  I’m going to be running the battle from here and I need all the protection I can get.”
Mewd nodded.  “Okay, I’ll get them set up right away.”  He left.
A few minutes after Mewd left, Gillian entered the tent.  Her body was glistening with sweat.  She had forsaken her white mage’s robe for a more convenient brown garment, though she still had her spell components in pouches on her belt.  Smash rose and embraced her.  Wordlessly, she clasped him in her arms and kissed him.  They held each other for quite some time and when they finally separated, it was with a feeling of genuine regret.
Gillian looked over at the map and the formation emblazoned on it.  She grimaced, and then shook her head, sighing.  She exchanged a glance with Smash.  He sighed.
***
Kamek entered the tent, nodding to the Mewd who stood guard.  He was the last one inside.  Smash, Ludwig, Gillian, Karma, and Celeste were all standing around a table in the center of the room.  Celeste was leaning heavily on her part, as if she were tired.  Kamek walked over next to her and used a spell to change into human form.  Now he was tall enough to support her.  She collapsed gratefully onto his shoulder, squeezing his arm in affection.  He carefully maintained an indifferent expression and concentrated on Smash.
He was saying, “Now that we are all finally here, I have grave news.  The demon hordes have been spotted two days’ march from the island.  We are outnumbered at least five to one.  What we need are battle strategies.  I have planned several since I have been here, but in each of them, the demons have overrun the isle within an hour.”
Every face turned deathly somber.
“I must now seek counsel from you, my commanders.  My mind has exhausted itself, so the fate of the planet rests on your shoulders.”
Kamek stepped up first.  He pointed at the map, and the figures on it twisted to represent what he was thinking.  His plan was a variant of the divide and conquer strategy.  It didn’t work.  The demons were too numerous to divide even marginally.
Ludwig went next.  His plan revolved around a defense of the headquarters.  It failed as well.  Even if every one of the creatures on the island took down four demons before dying, there would still be an entire army of demons left.
Celeste stepped up.  She didn’t know much about battle strategy, so she didn’t expect much.  She was right.  The demons completely destroyed the defenses without even a token resistance.
Karma came up.  She started to put a plan into action, then paused.  “We’re all idiots!  I know what we should do!”  She gestured at the map and it began to shift.  All the other plans involved many of the demons already being on the island before the fighting started, but Karma reset the map back to the original formation, with the four companies and the headquarters.  A demon figure appeared out of the warp pipe and was instantly cut down by an arrow.  Another appeared and was similarly cut down.
Karma explained.  “You see, only one creature can go through the warp pipe a time.  When a demon comes through, it is vulnerable for an instant before it can make it all the way out.  If we can kill it in that instant, it’s one less demon and then we can take aim at the next.
Smash, standing back and contemplating the map suddenly came to life.  “Yes, this will work, but it is impossible to tell how well.  We have no idea how soon the demons will become smart enough to shield themselves as they come up, but it will work.”
Karma coughed.  Smash glanced at her, then stepped back.  Karma pointed at the map again.  “After we are forced back from the warp pipe, we allow them to occupy the southern half of the island.  This shall spread their forces thin, and allow us to break their lines in one place.  Here,” she said, pointing to a place near the warp pipe.  Once we cut them off from their escape route and further reinforcements, we can begin to actually fight.”
Smash stepped up again.  “I am forced to add something.  While you are doing this, the lines here must fall back.”  He pointed to the figures, and they moved obligingly.  “I shall attempt to delay them here.  If the plan is successful, the demons will be trapped between us and the sea.”
Karma stepped up again.  “After we have cut them off from the warp pipe, we must kill any demons that may still be coming through.  The part of the army that is responsible for that part will suffer great losses.  Since this is my plan, I shall volunteer for this task if we use this strategy.”
Gillian spoke for the first time in the meeting.  “It is impossible to tell how well Karma’s plan will work.  However, it is the best chance we have.  Go and prepare your troops for battle.”
After the commanders left, Smash sighed and sank onto the ground into a cross-legged position.  Gillian walked across and sat in front of him.  Her flame-shaded hair tumbled into Smash’s lap.  He absently began to massage her shoulders.  She sank into him, pleasure mingling with worry for her fiancée.  His massage subtly altered into a caress, hands stroking through her hair and down her back.  She relaxed into a contemplative state, closing her eyes and letting her mind drift into places unknown.
A gentle snore broke her out of her reverie some time later.  Smash was leaning against a shattered tree trunk inside the tent, sleeping lightly.  As she straightened, he awoke.
“How long have we been asleep?” she asked.
Smash glanced around.  “About an hour or two, I suppose.  It’s evening.”  They got up and glanced at the leather map again.
“What I didn’t tell her,” Smash confessed, “was that her plan had about a one in five hundred chance of working, but it was the best anyone could offer.”
Gillian nodded knowingly.  She sighed.  Smash looked up at her.
“You know,” he said, “If you agree, we could go back to our home right now.  The battle is pointless, and at least two of us would survive.  Our descendents would be safe for generations.”
Gillian stared at him.  “You wouldn’t!”
“I would.”
“Well, if you are, you go alone.  I’m not about to abandon our friends at the first hopeless situation we come to.  Don’t you remember?  We have a way of getting out of hopeless situations, if you remember.”
“But only divine intervention and a really good run of luck saved us.  But you’re right.  I couldn’t live with myself if I left you here.  I just hope my dark spells work.”
“How many new spells do you have, anyway?” Gillian asked.
“One,” Smash admitted, “But it’s a good one.”

Chapter 29

The sun beat down on Karma’s head like a sledgehammer.  It was a scorching hot day.  Even the wooden palisades set up for shelter seemed to be drooping.  But today was the day that the demons would arrive.  Sweat coursed down her face, stinging her eyes, making her hand slip on her sword hilt.  Her troops were lounging against dead trees, conserving energy, but their weapons were close at hand.
Ludwig was near as well.  His troops were mingled with her troops, but were distinguished by stripes on their shoulders.  Ludwig’s ranged attackers wore green stripes, while Karma’s command sported yellow.  She sat near Ludwig, enjoying their final time together before the conflict that would likely end one or both of their lives.
The warp pipe activated.  Karma was alert in seconds.  She clutched her sword and leapt up, only seconds quicker than the rest of the soldiers.  Ludwig pulled himself up and stepped in front of her.  The first part of the battle was his.
A demon popped out of the warp pipe.  A bowstring twanged.  The demon died instantly, an arrow shaft protruding from its eye socket.  The body was shoved out of the pipe and another demon appeared.  A hammer whistled through the air and crushed the side of its skull with a dull thwack!   A third demon emerged from the pipe.  A boomerang claimed its life.
There was a short pause before the next creature emerged.  It was a pit fiend.  A hammer whistled towards it, but it grabbed the body of one of the dead demons and used it to deflect the blow.  It survived long enough to take three steps before two arrows and a boomerang cut it down.  However, this had given enough time for another pit fiend to come through the warp pipe.  A fireball blazed at it and set its whip alight.  It screamed, a terrible sound, and charged at the source.  It dashed for three seconds before the storm of missiles brought it down.
By now five demons were free from the pipe and had set up a makeshift shelter from the bodies of their fallen comrades.  A deadly rain of hammers, arrows, and other weapons shot at them, bringing down them, but they came through the warp pipe even quicker.  Slowly, the demons advanced.
The first casualty for the defenders was a young hammer brother.  It had hurtled a hammer at a pair of demons charging at him, killing one.  While he was reaching for another hammer, the second demon caught up with him.  It thrust the horn on its head into the frail body of the hammer brother, mortally wounding it.  The brother’s last act was to bring his hammer around and break the demon’s neck.  Then he died.
Soon, another hammer brother fell.  Then a boomerang brother.  Then a fire brother.  The demons slowly advanced on the defenders, even in the face of incredible losses.  But the sheer weight of demons would soon overwhelm the defenders.
Ludwig, seeing this, gestured to Dart.  A shrill blast on a whistle sounded and the green striped troops danced away and Karma’s yellows took their place.  The demons charged her troops.
The battle for Yoshi Island had begun!
The defenders encircled the cluster of demons growing around the pipe.   They hacked, stabbed, and cut as they moved in a clockwise motion.  Slowly, they began to press the demons back toward the warp pipe.
Then a Devil teleported in and everything went south.
He swung his scythe in a mighty arc at the defenders.  Many weapons were chopped in half and a Yoshi lost her hand.  Karma shouted and a retreat whistle sounded.  The defenders began to fall back into the dead woods.
The Devil laughed and made a taunting gesture at the defenders.  Karma, infuriated, stepped towards him.  He waved his troops back and stepped forward to meet this bold female himself.  Karma smiled grimly.  What a fool he was to allow his pride to get in the way of his master’s work.
The Devil scoffed, as if such an opponent was beneath his dignity, and spat on her.  She wiped the black spittle off her face and chopped at the Devil’s leg.  The evil creature, taken unawares, fell to the ground, blood pouring from the stump of one leg.  Karma brought her sword down on his head with all her strength.  It split the Devil’s skull and didn’t stop until it was halfway down his face.  The creature dissolved into ash.
The demons just stared at her for a timeless instant, then shouted in rage and charged.  She turned and ran back to the safety of her troops.  Her troops met the demons with a wall of flashing steel.  The demons were driven back with heavy losses.  Again the defenders were able to push forward.  But the demons continued to flow through the warp pipe.  Soon the clearing was full and sheer force of flesh pressed the defenders back.  More and more died.
Soon Karma saw that the first part of the battle was lost.  She called a retreat and all her forces broke and fled into the woods.  Ludwig’s forces were right after her, still showering the demonic hordes with arrows and hammers.  The demons were so closely packed together that any arrow or hammer killed at least one and injured two more.  But then the Gogs came through.  Fireballs flew from over the heads of the demonic attackers; incinerating many a Koopa and setting the charred forest alight again.  The orderly retreat became a rout.  Scared Yoshis dropped their weapons and ran.  Hammers slackened off as the throwing arms of the brothers were paralyzed in fear.
Karma glanced back to see the demons howling after her, slaughtering her soldiers in their wake.  If this continued, they were going to lose the battle in mere hours, like Smash had foretold.  She had to figure out some way to fight back!

Chapter 30

Ludwig took a short hop-skip and sent his javelin hurtling down at the demon horde.  It whistled through the air, killing a pit fiend and injuring two more demons behind it.  They tumbled down the hillside, crashing into some others, and starting a minor avalanche.  The Koopa dove back behind the fortification that had been set up as fireballs flew in retaliation, exploding against the wood and stone barriers.  The wood kindled for an instant before seawater was dumped on it, putting out the flames.
Ludwig grabbed at another javelin and readied it for the next charge.  His command was positioned at the top of a hill, the only obstacle between his army and Headquarters at this point.  His goal was to prevent the demons from expanding in this direction, forcing them south.  When they were confined to the south portion of the island, then the next phase of the battle would come into play.
Karma and her troops were waiting behind him,
He heard a commotion down to the south.  Apparently, the demons had encountered Celeste and Kamek’s armies, being baited by a false retreat into the trapped southern portion.  He listened attentively until the demons at the bottom of the hill began another charge.  He cocked his javelin and let it fly.  His aim was off.  Instead of taking a demon through the eye, like he intended, it shattered on the base of its horn.  The demon fell back, stunned, and was trampled under the charge.  His ploy failed, Ludwig braced himself against the fortifications.
The shock was incredible.  The entire barricade was driven back ten feet by the onslaught of demons before the defenders could brace their bodies enough to grind it to a halt.  The demons came upon them so hard that the forerunners were crushed into jelly by the weight of their own companions.
To his side, Ludwig could see Dart issuing orders to his command.  The Troopa seemed to have a strategy in mind, but Ludwig couldn’t hear his subordinate’s words.  He glanced at his commander.  The Koopaling nodded affirmatively.  His mind was blank.  Why not try something new?  Dart shouted a few more commands and suddenly, the entire section of barricade they were behind collapsed.  Dart and his Troopas had abandoned it!
The demons came pouring in, crushing one unfortunate Troopa who had been too slow into oblivion.  Ludwig was too shocked at this betrayal to even react as the demons surged forward into the gap, completely ignoring all the soldiers to the sides in their charge for the headquarters.  Like a battering ram, they charged towards the west…
And were met by a countercharge from the entirety of Karma’s forces.  The Koopa/Yoshi commander and her army, at least as massive as the demonic invaders, shattered the charge and sent the demons into a retreat, right into Ludwig’s force.  The demons were butchered in minutes.
Ludwig dashed over to Dart and grabbed him by the throat.  “You traitor!” he shouted, choking the unfortunate.  His subordinate tried to formulate words, but the clawed hands around his throat were choking off all his air.
Karma ran exuberantly up to her Met.  “Did you see that?  That Troopa of yours has more brains than I-” She stopped abruptly when she saw Ludwig choking Dart.  “What are you doing?!” she demanded, then ran up and knocked the Troopa out of Ludwig’s clenching hands.  Dart crumpled to his hands and knees, gasping.
“I’m executing a traitor,” Ludwig responded.  “He knowingly and willingly let the line be breached, almost letting us all be killed.”
“No!” she cried.  “He’s innocent!  He just saved all out lives!”
“By letting the demons through our lines?”
“No, by leading them into an ambush!”
“Yes…I knew that eventually…there would be many small breeches, too many…to handle, so I alerted Karma’s forces…to my plan…and it worked,” Dart gasped from the ground.
“You must see how the pressure has been relived a bit.”  Karma gestured to the barricade.  The defenders had managed to push the demons back a few feet and had managed to draw a few weapons that they stabbed through holes in the wooden fortification.
Ludwig scowled.  “Fine, fine, I believe you.  Just don’t do anything crazy like that again.  Now back to work.”
***
Ludwig had just gained a temporary respite from the demonic offensive, advancing his and Karma’s armies to the edge of the hill, meeting any demon that came up with either an arrow in the chest or a sword in the gut. He knew that if the demons ever organized a charge they would be forced back again, but they had succeeded in diverting the flow to the south.  Now all they had to do was defend this position and wait until…
Green command!  Yellow command!  Phase three!  Commence! 
Ludwig jumped up and shouted orders to his command.  It was time.  In minutes, the groups were lined up and ready to go.  Ludwig heard Karma give the signal to advance.  He waited until she was about fifty feet ahead of him, then ordered his own group forward.  They moved in a disciplined step, striding in perfect formation.  Within minutes, they could see the main force of demonic forces flowing from the pipe.  Ludwig called a halt just behind Karma’s forces and dropped them behind a ridge.
“Jays,” Dart muttered from beside him.  “It looks like a river.”
Ludwig nodded.  The infernal forces were crowded so closely that they couldn’t even distinguish individual demons from the mass of flash that was surging towards Kamek and Celeste’s forces.  Just beyond the infernal army was the glint of metal and blood, the warp pipe.  The demons coming from it finally seemed to be slackening off.  Unable to know weather his Met could see that, he sent a strong thought towards her.  She quirked her head to one side, getting his message, then nodded.  She got her Koopas and Yoshis into a charge formation while Ludwig organized his ranged attackers.
Though he tried to resist it, he could also feel the dark joy of bloodlust come upon him.  He looked down upon the field, seeing demons killed at the beginning of the battle, and for one black moment he saw a feast.  His troops were given over completely, salivating and licking their lips.  Only he, Dart, and the Magikoopa student he had were unaffected.  It was all the three could do to keep his troops from charging right into the invaders.

Finally, the signal came.  A bolt of fire came sailing from the east and erupted into a burst of multicolored light, bathing the battlefield in a pool of shattered fragments of light.  With a collective roar, Karma’s forces poured down the hill, Ludwig’s army in hot pursuit.

Well, so much for surprise, Ludwig thought ironically as he was swept up by his troops and practically carried down towards the demons.  The demons, swept up in their own bloodlust, didn’t notice the charge until the Koopas and Yoshis of Karma’s army were mere yards away.  Then it was too late.  Watching from a slightly higher elevation, Ludwig got the impression of an axe chopping through soft cheese.  Within seconds, Karma’s forces had sliced through the infernal army and were stampeding towards the warp pipe, leaving a splintered and confused demon army in their wake.  A perfect situation to exploit, whispered the tactician in Ludwig’s mind.  A perfect situation for some butchering, responded the berserker that had been evoked by the bloodlust.

Ludwig’s forces filled the gap that had been left by Karma’s attack in a wedge shaped formation meant to cut through, much like Karma’s, and meant to break through the reorganizing demons.  For about halfway through, they encountered no resistance.  A hammer or arrow cut down any demon that stood in their way, that was then crushed underfoot.  It seemed nothing could stop them.  Then, when they were in the midst of the splintered army, the demons fell in upon them from the sides like a steel trap.

Seemingly recovered from Karma’s charge, they swept in upon Ludwig’s army, surrounding them on three sides, left, right, and back.  The forward charge was still unbroken, though.  Nothing short of a stone wall could halt the sheer force of bodies that was Ludwig’s army.

But they could try.  At the demons closed in from either side, Ludwig felt like he was trapped in a vise.  He strove to maintain his balance as the outer soldiers were pressed inward by the demons, and they, in turn, pressed the next layer inward, continuing all the way to the center, where Ludwig’s troops were being milled about as if in a giant tumbler as they were jostled by opposing forces.  Several tripped and were trod on by their companions for several moments until they dragged themselves up again and continued the charge.

Slowly, the direction of the pressing was established as more demons arrived on the side of the warp pipe and demons retreated from the other site to attack the rest of the island.  The charge continued, but Ludwig now feared that they would be shunted out of the way.  But the determination of his troops was too strong.  As the demons pushed at them, the assorted Koopa troops struck back in passing, killing many, but not without losing more than a few of their own.

Finally, they broke through.  As he glanced behind him, Ludwig half-expected to see pursuit.  But the demons seemed to be under some kind of charge spell.  They were so absorbed in the southern offensive that even if a lone soldier was standing two feet away with a no weapon, the demons would not attack unless attacked first.

Ahead of them now was a tall ridge.  It seemed that their course had been altered slightly, but not significantly.  The warp pipe should be over this ridge.  He could see the last of his fiancée’s troops disappearing over the top.  Without pause, the command of Koopas charged up.  When Ludwig reached the top, he could see the warp pipe in the distance, the only obstacles two more flows of demons and a burnt forest.  Karma’s force was charging into the first flow, the one before the dead trees.  Having little choice in the matter, Ludwig was carried down the ridge and into a charge of his own.  As he could see battle looming again, he drew his sword and let his berserker lusts take over.  He licked his lips, almost tasting the blood upon them.  Those infernal parasites weren’t going to have this island again, not while he, Ludwig Von Koopa, eldest son of the great Bowser Koopa, still drew breath.

As Karma’s troops broke the demon advance with their own attack, Ludwig’s charge accelerated.  Soon he was passing his own soldiers in his lust for demon blood.  He passed Dart at the head of the army just in time to meet the enemy.  He ripped into the demon troops, sword cutting a pathway through his enemy, slashing, hacking, stabbing, until his blade, hands, and arms were slick with his opponent’s blood.  Suddenly, he was through again.  His rage not satiated, he charged into the forest, followed by his troops.

The forest was not dim, as it was little more than a plain of tall poles that once were trees before Xyron’s troops had destroyed them.  He easily dodged between them, intent on only finding more demons to destroy.  He could see the traces of Karma’s pass, branches lopped off, entire trees knocked over, rocks beaten into the ground so hard that they would be impossible to dislodge without a shovel.

Abruptly, he was through.  Ahead of him was the warp pipe, from which demons still flowed, though not nearly as heavily as when he had retreated at the beginning of the battle.  Karma’s troops had split into two groups, grasping the pipe in a pincer movement, cutting off the route of expansion from which flowed the rivers Ludwig had seen, as well as one more which Ludwig had not noticed.

But this was furthest from his mind.  Karma had left the side nearest the forest completely open.  Ludwig charged into it, his bloodstained sword claiming more demonic lives.  With his troops nearly ten yards behind him, Ludwig charged at the pipe.  Nothing would stop him.  Nothing could.  Demon after demon fell to his blade.  When he finally made it to the warp pipe, he leapt over it, chopping deep into the skull of a pit fiend that poked its head out of the pipe at that instant.  He landed on all fours, leaping up to swing his sword in a vicious circle that killed three surprised demons before they realized he was there.  Then they turned in on him.  It seemed that soon he would be cut down.

It was then that his reinforcements arrived.  Led by Dart, half of Ludwig’s command charged after their leader and quickly formed a three-circle formation around the pipe.  The outer circle, which Ludwig merged with, attacked the demons around them with their hammers and other weapons, though they were not as effective as what the demons wielded.  The middle circle, with Kamek’s Magikoopa student, fired spells, fireballs, and hammers over the other circles’ heads. The inner circle, including Dart, turned inward at the pipe, killing any demon that emerged, much like at the beginning of the battle, except for the infernal forces were coming through much slower.

Slowly, the demons surrounding the pipe were overwhelmed.  Surrounded on all sides, the other half of Ludwig’s command closing the gap Ludwig had charged into, and unable to receive reinforcements from the pipe, they soon fell.  Ludwig turned his attention to the pipe again.  A dead body had just been ejected from it, a knife in its back.  Another demon emerged.  A young hammer brother, barely old enough to be able to throw his weapon dashed in and hurtled a hammer, sidearm.  Though it was not a very powerful throw, it was aimed true and the hammer crunched into the demon’s eye.  It fell, wounded, and a fireball finished it off.  Everyone tensed for the next entry.

No more came out.  The troops surrounding it waited for a few minutes, then relaxed.  It seemed that that was the extent of the demon horde.  Dart strode up to Ludwig from one side, and Karma pushed her way through Ludwig’s troops and the dead demon bodies to his other side.  Dart turned to face them, his spear bathed in blood, and saluted.

“The demon horde has been exhausted, commanders.  We have regained the warp pipe and stand ready for your next orders,”

“At ease,” Ludwig ordered.  He laid an arm on Karma’s shoulder and she willingly sank into his embrace.  They would have some time together for now…

Suddenly, the warp pipe activated again.  A demon popped out, brandishing a knife.  Ludwig gaped and Karma screamed.  Dart, confused, began to turn just as the demon sunk its knife into the back of the Troopa’s neck with such force that as Dart gasped in pain, they could see the knife tip protruding from the back of his throat.  Dart dropped his spear and his hands went to the back of his neck just as his eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed to the ground.

“Dart! ” Karma and Ludwig screamed in anguish at the same instant.  As one, they drew their swords and swung them at the demon, from opposite directions.  They met in the center of the demon’s body, blazing with green fire, bright enough to blind.  There was a mighty flash and the demon’s body was suddenly nothing but dust covering the ground.  And as they glanced down, they noticed that their swords were shattered, sheared off at the hilt as they intersected with each other, the magic of each sword destroying the other.

Karma shuddered and the hilt of her broken sword slipped to the ground.  She buried her face in Ludwig’s shoulder and cried.  Ludwig absently embraced her, numb with shock, his own sword hilt dropping to the ground.  They had captured the warp pipe and won this part of the battle, but oh, what a cost it had demanded…



Chapter 31



Smash sat at the table in the Yoshi Island headquarters.  In front of him were scattered countless maps and battle reports from all fronts of the battle, shifting as the battle progressed.  He pulled out a piece of blank leather and burned words into it before banishing it to Kamek’s hands.  He sat back and moaned, massaging his temples with his fingertips.

Argh, why am I stuck here?  I should be out on the battlefield risking my life with the rest of the troops, not lazing around here playacting as a general!

After the group of six had arrived at the island, Smash knew that they would be forced to prepare for a battle.  Zydar wasn’t one to leave a campaign unfinished.  He had exercised all the influence he and his companions wielded to force the varied groups on the island into a functioning army.  He had expected to be a common soldier, working with his Spirit Twine, maybe be a commander if he was lucky.

However, the other islanders had different plans.  As soon as the army was organized, Kamek had nominated Smash as the general.  Smash had attempted to resist, but the votes were overwhelming in favor of Kamek’s idea.

And therefore, I am trapped here.

Smash glanced outside at his Spirit Twine.  Gillian was the most beautiful thing to his eye.  He watched as she proceeded through a set of stretches and his desire surged again inside him.  After her come-on in Zydar’s castle, his resistance was weakening, knowing that if he tried to take her this instant, she would not even try to resist.  And he wasn’t sure he would be able to resist if she succumbed to her desires and tried to take him.

She straightened up and came into the tent.  Smash swallowed as she came close and sat next to him.  She buried her head in her claws and groaned.  Smash placed a hand on her thigh, concerned.  She turned to him, her face a mixture of emotions.

“This is so maddening!” she cried.  “I need to be out there, helping our side.  I can’t stand sitting here wondering what’s going on and which of my friends are dying!”

“I know how you feel,” Smash gritted, facing the table and the maps upon it again.  “I should be there as well.  I’m a fighter, not a general!”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that my sword could do a better job leading this army than I could!”

She sympathetically laid a claw on his dark clothed back.  He turned to her, his hand traveling up her thigh and encircling her about the waist, pulling her closer.  She responded eagerly as she threw her arms about him and ardently pressed her mouth and body onto his, her tongue probing his lips as she sought to explore him in other ways.  Her robe shifted as she locked her legs against his.

And again, just as passions began to overpower reason, a distraction presented itself.  Gillian pulled away from Smash for a breath of air before attacking his lips again, and saw, reflected in his eye, one of the maps altering, red demon troops marching on headquarters unopposed.

She pulled away so suddenly that Smash, deprived of his object of adoration, cried out in almost physical agony, urgently groping for her again.  She grasped him by the shoulders and shook him with all her strength, trying to reassert sense into him.  He still grabbed at her, managing to get a hand upon her belt and begin to pull her in.  She desperately brought her claws down upon his face, slashing open his skin, causing blood to gush forth.

The instant her claws pierced his skin, he shouted, taken aback, his glazed eyes beginning to clear.  “What-” he sputtered.  Gillian sighed in relief, tugging her robe back into place over her chest and legs again.

“The map, lover,” she murmured in his ear, gesturing to it before moving behind him and casting a minor healing spell on his face, closing the cuts she had torn in his flesh.  He ignored her, his earlier attention forgotten as he concentrated on the maps.  His mouth fell open.  He grabbed at another scrap of parchment and scribbled a note on it before blasting it to one of his commanders.

Smash stood up and grabbed his sword.  He motioned to his Spirit Twine.  “Technically, I should be fuming now.  Ludwig and Karma have just let a sizable demonic force through to our headquarters while capturing the Warp Pipe.  But it interrupts the boredom and frustration, so I’m ecstatic.”  He licked his lips.  “I’ll eat well tonight.”

Gillian looked askance at him, but he looked so eager for blood that she didn’t say anything.  It must be something about the Black Robes.  She followed him as he grabbed his sword and strode out. She paused only to send a message to Kamek that Smash was away and to assume command until further notice.

Mewd and his retainers were set up in a basic defense pattern surrounding the camp, with a ring of spears around the outside as a makeshift wall.  Mewds were dozing against trees, conserving their energy in the heat, while a few were standing watch.  Also present were Yoshis, Mushrooms, and Koopas that Smash had plucked out of the other forces for defense of the center of operations

Smash strode into the midst of them.  “Mewd!” he bellowed, “Attend me!”

A Mewd dozing right outside the tent jerked awake and scrambled up.  “I am here!” he barked.

Smash smiled grimly.  “There is a force of some four hundred demons on the way here.”

Mewd gulped visibly.  “When?”

Smash conjured a map into the air.  “Here.  They will move south, skirt Kamek and Celeste’s forces, and encounter us from the southeast.  With luck, some will be taken out by out two southern commanders, but there will still be many surviving.  I expect them to arrive in no more than twenty minutes.”

The feline nodded.  “We’ll be ready.”  He ran off, shouting to the troops to get up and get ready.  Smash watched as makeshift walls, about seven feet high, were forced up from the ground, set in a rough hexagon, tied together, and frozen in the corners and to the ground by Mewd’s ice gem, fusing them together with more strength than iron chains.  Platforms were set near these walls about four feet up so that Mewds and other creatures could see and fire over them.

Children and those unable to fight set up stakes outside the wall, pointing outwards.  They climbed into baskets and were lifted up before being herded off into the center of the camp and told to stay put.  Each was given a dagger to either fight with or assure they were not taken alive.  They accepted these gifts with solemn faces, knowing what was expected of them if headquarters was overrun.  Mass suicide.

Smash stood atop the wall facing the southeast.  He had volunteered, no ordered, to be on the front lines of this engagement.  The twenty minutes he had allotted were almost up.  He drew his sword, admiring the way the sun gleamed off its blade, and tried to imagine what it would be like bathed in demon blood.  He opened his mouth slightly, dozens of different destructive spells ready to tumble forth.  He hated the anticipation, and yet, he reveled in it.

The first creature to appear was a Devil, teleporting up the field in blasts of infernal flame.  Nothing could touch it, as any projectile fired was either burnt up or missed as it teleported further ahead.  Until Smash began to take an active role.  He hissed and chopped a hand through the air.  A lightning bolt split the clear sky and blasted the Devil.  It flew apart into hundreds of pieces, burning into ash as it did.

The remainder of the demons appeared.  Though just a few fast ones at first, more and more appeared.  Though no more than four hundred, they vastly outnumbered the small force of defense.

Fireballs flew from the demons and exploded upon the wall, sending flames licking up the sides until Mewd’s ice gem sent out blasts of frost, dousing the fire easily.  Arrows flew from the battlements, skewering demons that fell, dead.  But pit lords cast minor spells and summoned more demons from the dead bodies before Gillian mouthed a few words and a bubble of anti-magic formed around the red creatures, the absent power being drawn into the Koopa girl’s body.

Gillian clenched her teeth as she fought to control the power flowing into her and still continue to drain until the rest of the forces could take care of the pit lords.  Her scales began to heat and move apart as her body tried to dispel the magical warmth.  When the final lord fell, she released all the energy built up.  A beam of light burst from her hands and into a group of demons.  It hit the first one and almost looked like it bounced off to strike another, and another, and another.  The first demon was obliterated, the second slain instantly, the third mortally wounded, and all after suffering varied degrees of wound, from fatal to a mere scratch.

Gillian dropped behind the wall to catch her breath and restore energy.  She wasn’t like Smash, who could cast dozens of spells without even pausing.  Not yet.  She pulled out her longbow and strung it.  Best to get some mechanical defense in while magical was still recharging.

The demons arrived at the spike barrier.  The unlucky front ones were impaled upon the spikes, shoved by their own companions.  Those that managed to survive began to dismantle the barrier, yanking spikes out of the ground or breaking them to widen an avenue for attack while death rained about them.  It seemed horribly wasteful to Gillian as she watched from above.  Slaughtering a whole troop of soldiers just to get into a small fortress, when they could have waited until surrounding it and setting it alight.  Mewd and his ice gem couldn’t be everywhere.

The Koopa spied an opportunity.  A normal-sized demon was pulling a spike from the ground with some others working behind it.  Gillian readied an arrow, and just as the demon pulled the spike from the soil, she loosed her bolt.  The demon, stricken, toppled backwards, sending the spike it was holding plunging into the chest of a huge demon behind it and two others behind that one.

The infernal forces broke through to the wall.  They lit torches and attempted to set the wall on fire, as well as hurtling them up to light the platforms.  Mewd fired bolt after bolt from his ice gem, but the fires always stayed one step ahead of him.  Eventually, after putting out a particularly vicious flame, his ice gem sputtered.  When he tried to use it to douse another fire, it wouldn’t respond.

Mewd shook Smash by the shoulder.  Smash glanced over and scowled.  “Why didn’t you tell us it only had a limited charge?”

“Because I didn’t know!” the feline flared back.  “I’ve never had to use it this much!”

“Well, it’s no matter,” Gillian snapped.  “If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t and arguing about it won’t help.”

Smash glared at Mewd, then signaled.  Gillian gave a start.  It was the order to retreat.  She didn’t question his orders, but did hesitate slightly before jumping off her platform.  Smash turned and kneeled, holding both his hands in front of him at a slight angle to the ground.  “Support me,” he said, not turning.

Gillian kneeled behind him and placed her claws upon his shoulders, opening her power to his.  He shuddered and cringed as her white magic merged with his black.  She felt a heavy weight descend upon her soul as his darkness pervaded her bright.  But the power was still there.  Taking a deep breath and focusing their power, he spoke some magic and traced a symbol in the dirt.  Gillian tensed for a blast of power.

Nothing came.  She opened her eyes.  Everything was still.  Smash was still muttering and sending power somewhere.  The Koopa girl looked around.  Everything was the same.  But the fire that was lighting the walls wasn’t there.  And all the fireballs that flew up dissolved instantly.

A Yoshi whooped and ran back up the wall to attack the horde.  But the instant it made it within three feet of the wall, it faltered.  Its paws clutched at its throat as it turned a beeper blue and collapsed.  Only its companions’ speed saved it from suffocation as they held their collective breaths and dragged it out of the affected area.

“Ah,” Mewd muttered, “A suffocation spell.”

Gillian smiled slightly.  This was indeed a formidable countermeasure.  But a slight shuddering underneath her claws alerted her to a problem.  Smash, powerful as he was, couldn’t protect the entire fortification and still have power for the rest of the battle.  She concentrated, letting more of her power flow into him, and he stabilized.  But soon, her power too was exhausted.  Smash was forced to let the spell drop.

Fireballs smacked into the surface of the fortress again, setting it alight.  But the defenders took the time to change to a shielding formation for when the wall came down.  It would take some time.

But then there was a shudder and a crash.  Soon, there was another and a dent appeared.  “Great,” Smash muttered, “Of all the ten thousand demons in the invasion force, we get to fight the one with a brain.”

He motioned to Mewd and the catlike creature came over.  The two leaders held a hurried whispered conference while another two dents and a crack appeared in the wall.  When they parted, Mewd ran to the other side of the soon to be created entrance and set the soldiers there into a line formation that was mirrored by the other side, with Mewd and Smash on the ends.

One more crash sounded upon the wall.  Another pause ensued while the demons were backing up and charging again.  Just before the usual crash, Smash smacked one fist into his palm and spat at the wall.  The entire fortress erupted into blue flame.  The demons finally appeared, many on either side of a dead tree they were using as a battering ram.  They managed to crash through the flame wall and into the headquarters quickly enough to only loose the first six on the ram.  They charged into the camp.

And were met from either side by Smash and Mewd.  Smash let loose a cone of flame from his hands that incinerated half of the ram and the demons on it.  Mewd’s ice gem, having been recharged during the suffocation, emitted a swirl of blue mist that froze every part of the ram and its holders that it touched before they fell to shatter on the ground.

The remainder of the siege force charged in through the new hole.  The flame killed many as debris fell on them, but more still came through.  However, the defense was ready and fell upon them from both sides before they could make it twenty feet.  Though numbering less than half the remaining demonic force, they fought with enough heart to more than make up for that deficiency.  Maybe it was that they were fighting for their homeland and everything they had, or maybe it was that Smash was standing behind them with a drawn sword and would cut down the first one to turn and run.

Eventually the demons were pressed back to the battered entrance.  Now the demons were forced to come at them only five at a time, and five of the defenders were more than a match for five demons.  But the wall could not hold for long.  Minutes later, the blue fire engulfing the wall left it little more than a pile of glowing cinders with uncanny quickness.  But Gillian flicked her fingers and a headwind sprung into existence, slowing the demons attempting to flank to half their speed, delaying them until another defender could arrive and slay them.

With the cooperation of Smash, Mewd, and Gillian, the defenders finally pushed the demonic force into nothingness.  Smash destroyed the last one himself, shooing and knocking away all the defenders around it to engage it himself.  He smiled cruelly before knocking it spinning with the flat of his blade.  While it was down, he brought his sword down hard and chopped off its horn.  After doing this, he watched as it struggled upright again, then cut its hooves out from under it.  Following this, he chopped off its hands, legs, arms, and tail, before cutting open its abdomen and disemboweling it.  Only then did he drive his sword into its wicked heart.

On the way back to the command tent, Smash remarked to his Spirit Twine, “Well, that was exhilarating, but now it’s back to boring generalship duties for me.”

Exhilarating! Gillian mentally snorted.  As if torturing a helpless demon could be considered a sport.  She loved him, but his evilness was worsening.  If she couldn’t turn him away from the Black Robes, he might very well join Zydar, or worse, overthrow him and conquer the planet himself, like her Test had foretold.

A note was on the table when Smash entered the tent.  He snatched it up and read it.  His slight smile and lighthearted attitude disappeared instantly.  He frowned and gave it to Gillian.  She read it.



General,

Our southern lines have fallen.  We were overpowered by the sheer numbers of the demonic assault.  We shall fall back and regroup, defending your headquarters at all costs.

~Commander Kamek



Gillian instantly turned grim.  She turned to Smash who was walking out of the tent.  She ran after him and caught up.  “Where are you going?” she demanded.

“Well, I said in our meeting that I would create a distraction at this point.  So I’m creating a distraction.”

Gillian could only stare after him as he turned away and walked out.   What could his plan be?  It would have to be something big, as if the rest of the horde was anything like the small fraction of it they had just fought, nothing short of a holocaust would stray them from their purpose.

And it seemed like a holocaust was exactly what the dragon had in mind.



Chapter 32



Celeste could only admire how her Mushroom soldiers fought.  When leading them to battle, she expected them to panic and flee.  But instead, they fought with determined vigor completely uncharacteristic of all she had seen of Mushrooms before.  Each had been issued spear and a hand weapon of choice as well as a shield almost as large as his or her entire body.  By interlocking these shields, the Mushrooms formed several very effective phalanxes.  These phalanxes formed a wall of sorts against the demons, advancing and retreating as the situation allowed, but more retreating than advancing.

Celeste watched from a nearby grove of trees that had amazingly survived the Burning, watching.  Her sword hilt rested easily in her palm while she waited.  There was nothing she, or the dozens of other Mushrooms hidden somewhere on the field, could do until the phalanxes failed.  Sylon, her second-in-command, marched up to her and saluted.  She waved him into relaxed posture and looked at him questioningly.

“Well, the phalanx tactic Commander Kamek suggested is working.  We have suffered virtually no losses, but we are being steadily pushed back.  Once we reach the forest, I expect that we will be able to hold them off for some time, but any further and our lines will be stretched too thin to stem the tide.”

Celeste sighed.  “Send a message to Kamek informing him of this situation.  See to it yourself that it arrives safely.  After that, you are to take complete command of this army.”

Sylon backed up a step.  “But Commander, General Smash put you in charge of this troop.”

“And I’m putting you in charge.  I know virtually nothing about battle and in the middle of a demonic invasion is no time to learn.  I shall stay behind the lines, tending to any injured we might have.  You may consult with me at any time you wish, but you have free reign over the troops as long as you do not countermand any orders I may give.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Celeste watched Sylon run off to find a messenger before turning her attention back to the battle.  Fireballs were arcing over the demonic heads, attempting to scorch the defenders, but Kamek had set up a shield that deflected most of the flame and the few that did get through were blocked by the shields.  A fireball had to have perfect aim and incredible luck to even touch a defender.  So far the only injuries were minor enough to allow the combatants to continue fighting.  Unfortunately, the shield also prevented Kamek’s forces from attacking, but he had decided that her Mushrooms could handle this part of the battle with the protection.

The demons came at them again, throwing themselves at the shield wall and retreating before anything could be brought to bear on them.  They were not the relentless tidal wave that was coming at them before.  Now that the entire southern half of the island had been captured, the demons could afford to be more cautious about their attack, though it still gave her the impression of an irrepressible flood.

Celeste was bored.  Though the scene of a battle, one that could spell the salvation or destruction of the entire planet, filled her with a suppressed terror, the steady surge back and forth caused her eyes to glaze over as she descended into a trancelike state.

Minutes later, she was snapped out of her stupor by an inhuman scream right in front of her.  She came awake in an instant and on instinct, grabbed the sword next to her and plunged it forward with all her strength.  A blast of green light flashed across her vision.  When she came alert again, a charred demon corpse stood impaled on her blade through the solar plexus.  The lines had broken enough for one demon to squeeze through to her.

She cursed herself for drifting off, not letting herself settle against the trees again for fear of dozing again.  She tried to stay awake, but as her adrenaline rush wore off, fatigue overcame her again.

This time she was saved by the first Mushroom casualty.  A lucky fireball hurtled over the lines and blasted between two soldiers.  The first one was lucky enough to get his arm up and shield himself from the blast.  That one received only slight burns and would continue to fight.  The other was not so lucky.  That one was facing away and turned just as the fireball blazed into the line.  He had no time to even know what hit him, much less defend himself.  The blast tore across his face and chest, searing the skin and burning the leather clean off his body.  He tumbled back, stricken.

Celeste barked an order.  Five Mushrooms sprang from the forest around her and bore the injured soldier back to the commander while one took the place of the fallen combatant.  Celeste ordered the Mushroom back to the trees and followed, motioning the others to keep watch after they laid the body of their wounded comrade on a bed of soft moss.

Celeste grinned in spite of herself.  Now she was back in her element.  She declared a minor sleep spell on the soldier and, while he snored gently began to work.   With deft fingers, she plucked herbs from a pouch and ground them between her fingers, sprinkling the dust on the burns.  Then she pulled a small vial of liquid from her pouch and poured it into a canteen of water she bound on the Mushroom’s body and poured half the resulting mixture into his wounds and the remaining half down his throat.  She waited, biting her lip, hoping that he was not too far gone.  She heaved out a sigh of relief as new pink skin sprouted from the remnants of his former hide.  She leaned over him for a few seconds, making sure he would be okay, then pulled a Mushroom female from the side forest and assigned her to guard the casualty.

Outside the grove, Sylon had called several phalanx leaders and some of the hidden troops out of formation and was holding a conference.  He gestured with his cudgel at a drawing he had made on the ground.  The leaders nodded and went back to their commands.  Sylon waited until his instructions had been broadcast clear down the lines then raised his cudgel.  The middle two Mushrooms in the phalanx formation locked their shields at an angle and pushed forward, stabbing at an angle with their spears.  The two on either side locked shields with the first two and advanced as well.  After a few minutes, a V was formed, looking like two huge phalanxes angled against each other facing outwards.

There was a rustling from the forest and her hidden troops came into the open, grouped into twos, one with a shield and stabbing weapon, one with a cleaving weapon that was wielded with both hands. Celeste saw axes, halberds, two-handed swords, even pickaxes.  She also caught a glimpse of Mario and Luigi pulling two Feathers from two pouches and transforming into their Caped form.  These troops moved into the empty space of the V, also facing outwards.

Celeste turned her attention back to the demons.  They were attacking the V with all the force they could muster, but it continued to cut into the demon army.  Actually, the Mushrooms were still retreating, but the demons were advancing much quicker, attempting to surround them, but never quite managing to.  Sylon gestured with his cudgel once more and the wedge formation stopped retreating and charged into the infernal forces.

It took several minutes to fight through so many demons, and several Mushrooms fell, but soon they had penetrated the main group of hand to hand, though a thin line clung to the phalanx lines, and were in the midst of the Gogs.  A break opened in each of the lines and Mushrooms poured out, breaking through the thin line of hand to hand demons and tearing into the fireball throwers, splitting the lines of demons in half.

The V split as well, pursuing the demons, pressing them back into the chaos of the Mushroom/Gog battle.  Celeste caught a glimpse of Mario and Luigi fighting side by side, Mario spinning his cape to take out several Magogs, while Luigi intercepted any fireballs with his cape and smothered them.  And when Luigi was caught in the face by a lucky shot and lost his cape, he pulled out a Fire Flower and repaid the demons with fireballs of his own while Mario began to block whatever was incoming.

She also caught flashes of Mushroom caps as the diminutive creatures fought much the same way as their heroes.  The Mushroom with the shield blocked any fireballs coming and stabbing with his or her blade while his partner slashed and swiped with the two-handed weapon.  Minutes later, every demon was eradicated with few to no casualties among the Mushrooms.

Celeste lead a team of combat medics out onto the battlefield.  What injuries there were were minor.  A burnt hand from holding an overheated shield.  A slashed arm from a demon claw.  A broken finger from a blade parried a bit too far.  The medics tended the minor injuries on the field enough to allow the soldiers to continue fighting while carrying off the dead or grievously injured.  Celeste, on the other hand, went straight to the Mario Brothers.  Both were unhurt, yet had lost their powers and were sitting on the ground, gasping for breath.

As she approached, she could hear Mario saying to his brother, “Phew!  And I thought Bowser was bad.  These guys fight like, well, like demons.”

Luigi forced out a small smile. “No argument here.  And to think that was just a tiny part of the invasion force.”

“Tell me about it.  I’m not sure I can go through that again.”  Mario turned.  “Well, hello, Princess Celeste.  What do you need of us?”

Celeste fished out a Cape Feather and handed it to Mario.  “I need you to fly up and take stock of how many demons are left.  Be careful, you don’t want to get fireballed down in the middle of their army.”

Mario nodded.  “You’d better believe that.  I’ll keep a safe distance.”  He found a clear lane, got a running start, and was up and away, flying high to get over Kamek’s shield.

Celeste turned to Luigi.  “I need you to take a message to Commander Kamek.”  She scribbled some words on a sheet of paper and pressed it into the younger Mario Brother’s hands.  “This must get to him as soon as possible.”

Luigi saluted and was off like a shot, leaping over several Mushrooms in his hurry.  Celeste paced nervously for some time waiting for him to get back.  She tried to tend an injured Mushroom, but her mind was elsewhere and she couldn’t concentrate on her potions.

Finally, Luigi appeared from the burnt forest riding a brown Yoshi.  He rode up to Celeste and hopped off.  “Message delivered, Commander.”

“Good.  And who is this fine creature?”

The Yoshi spoke up.  “Commander Kamek sent me in case you need to send a message again.  I’m the fastest and smallest of our command.”

“Very well.  I’ll call you when I have a message to send.  Meanwhile, grab a spear.  We need all the help we can get.”

She turned back to Luigi, who was waiting next to her.  “Something else?”

He shifted nervously from foot to foot.  “Well, Commander, I’m curious about that message you sent.”

“You read it?” She asked suspiciously.

“No, I’m just wondering what’s in it.  Unless it’s too secret for the common troops, that is.”

“No, it’s not too secret.  I sent a message saying Kamek should take his shield down.”

“Take the shield down?  But that’s the only thing protecting us from the fireball barrages!”

“Do you see any fireballs now?” Celeste asked.  At Luigi’s shake of head, she continued.  “Lowering the shield now allows Kamek to conserve his energy and prepare for more effective spells.  Also, our Yoshi backup can’t make it through the shield either.  If too many hand-to-hand demons attack next, we’ll need the air support.  And your brother.  He had to dodge to get around the shield the first time.  If he’s falling or out of control, we need to get right below him and not wait for a rebound off of any shield.”

Luigi bowed to her logic.  “You’re right, Commander.  I was just confused momentarily.”

At that moment, there was a scream from above.  The eyes of Celeste and every other soldier, medic, and messenger on the field turned upwards.  Mario was hurtling downwards from midair, his cape on fire, fireballs flying past him.

Celeste froze.  But Sylon was up in an instant and shouting orders.  “Line up!  Form a landing platform with your arms!  Back!  Back!  To the left!  Now brace!”

Mario tumbled head over heals, flailing his arms and legs, trying to slow his fall.  One arm went up to his collar and he unhooked the cape that fluttered in midair for a second before dissolving into flame.  Seconds later, he landed with an audible thump into the receiving arms of the Mushrooms.  Celeste came alive again, running up to the form now lying on the ground.  She tested his pulse and checked the burns on various parts of his body.

While she was testing, he gasped, struggling to sit up. “Demons, thousands, millions!  I couldn’t even see the ground!”

She pushed him forcefully back.  “Lay down.  You can tell me anything after you calm down.”

Mario obeyed, fighting the rush of adrenaline.  Slowly, he managed to spill out the whole story.  He had flown over the demonic troops in a line roughly to the northwest.  There were so many under him that he couldn’t even get a semi-accurate guess of the numbers.  Several fireballs had been thrown at him, but from such a great distance that he always had ample time to dodge.  He assessed that, from the direction he had been bombarded, that the ranged attack demons were in the southern part of the island.

After some time of flight, he had come upon Karma and Ludwig’s troops surrounding the warp pipe.  They were fighting off a swarm of demons in an attempt to retake it, but were being forced inwards.  Mario has flown in just as they had managed to gain a temporary respite.

“They were using a Bullet Bill cannon and a Bob-omb launcher to barely hold the demons off.  They nearly shot me as I was coming in for a landing.  Apparently Ludwig hasn’t quite let go of his Mushroom/Koopa war reflexes quite yet,” Mario said, chuckling.

After he had taken off, heading back towards Celeste’s troops, he had been surprised by fireballs being hurtled up from right below him.  Though managing to avoid several, he had been forced to swoop lower to get under the shield that had, ironically, just been lowered.  A fireball had ignited his cape fringe and he had managed to fly maybe fifty more feet before he began to fall.  Fortunately he was near to Celeste’s Mushrooms then and they caught him.

“Their attack lines are already in position.  The only reason they stopped assailing us now is that they’re moving another line of Gogs up to attack us.  It would be suicidal to try to attack now or any time.  Our only hope is General Smash and whatever magical powers he may have.”

Celeste nodded and went off to find the Yoshi messenger.  She found him and sent him off with a message saying that they would need air cover during the next attack.  The brown dashed off through the forest, its skin offering almost perfect camouflage.  She went next to find Sylon.

She found him organizing the troops.  Pulling him off to one side, she shared her new information.

“The demons are gathering again, Subcommander.  We have driven them off once with your tactics, but I think we may need to alter them now.”

Sylon interrupted.  “Yes, Commander.  I am organizing an advance already.  We shall take these demons by surprise.”

“Wait a minute,” Celeste interjected.  “Have you talked to the scout yet?”

“Who, Mario?  No, but-”

“Have you any idea how many demons are out there?”

“Well, no, but-”

“Then let me tell you.  While Mario was flying over the infernal forces, he couldn’t even see the ground because so many demons were in the way.  And they spread out in every direction.  If you think we can take on that entire army with just our little band of fungus?”  She continued, “No Subcommander, we are waging a defensive war.  Our purpose is to buy time until the general can destroy the armies arrayed against us.”

“But if we advance, it leaves more ground for them to retake,” Sylon argued back.

“And it will be very easy for them to retake if we are all destroyed!” she snapped, temper suddenly flaring.  “The opposing armies have been arranged in such formation that each line is ready to advance the instant the former moves away.  Lord only knows why they don’t all attack together, maybe it’s because they expect an overconfident leader to order a charge and get slaughtered!”

“Did you see us take that last line?  We destroyed them without losing any of our own!  If that’s all demons can do, we’ll shove them back in no time!”

“Trust me, Subcommander.  I’ve seen demons fight, and you don’t want to.  These were more like a suicide squad, something to soften our defenses.  If all demons were like these, New Castle Koopa and the Mushroom Kingdom would never have fallen.”

“I still think-”

“It doesn’t matter what you think.  I’m the Commander and you must obey my orders.  If my orders are to go into a defensive position, then that is what you do.  Get the picture?”

Sylon tensed, gripping his cudgel.  Celeste fingered the hilt of her sword, glaring at him warningly.  Finally he submitted.  “As you wish, Commander.”

She dismissed him with a nod and sent him back to the troops to organize them in a defensive formation.  When she came back to the grove, the Yoshi messenger was waiting for her.  He handed her a note and waited for her to read it.

We will move up behind you and attack from overhead, attempting to take out the Gogs first.  ~Commander Kamek.

Celeste pocketed the message and motioned the Yoshi towards the other Mushrooms.Behind her, she could hear the rustling of the trees as Kamek’s troops began to take position.None too soon, she thought wryly.  From the front, she could see the first demons just coming towards their little group.

“Move the injured back into the dead forest,” she ordered the Mushroom nearest her.  “It seems we may be in for a bit more than we thought.”



Chapter 33



“Commander, the egg supplies are at maximum.”

“Commander, archers are standing by.”

“Commander, the Mushrooms have engaged the demons.”

These three reports came in simultaneously from all different points around Kamek, all demanding his complete and immediate attention.

“Continue to stockpile.  Advance past the edge of the forest.  All units, open fire,” the Magikoopa ordered.  His orders, though softly spoken, were broadcast throughout the entire Yoshi force.  Moments after the words issued from his mouth, a barrage of eggs was hurtled through the air and into the demonic troops.  Fireworks exploded all along the demon line as eggs detonated, splattering the stunned demons with yolk.  Celeste’s forces surged forward and cut down the demons before they could recover, only to be forced back by the next wave.

“Next line, forward!” Kamek ordered.  The next line of Yoshis came forward, aimed their eggs, and fired.  These eggs ricocheted off demon heads and into other demons, bouncing around until hitting something yielding, such as a demon’s stomach.

The demons then managed to organize themselves.  A line of pit fiends set themselves up at the front, their whips surgically precise in finding the gaps in phalanx shields.  The whips were too long to allow any Mushroom to get in close enough to use any weapon without losing an eye.  Fireballs flew over the fiends’ heads and shattered against the ranks of the Mushrooms.  Several troops shouted in pain, dropping their weapons.  Celeste was forced back again.  Eggs flew at the fiends, but the whips popped them out of the air even before they hit.

Kamek considered for an instant; then called for his reserve group of Yoshis, ones that had proved to be expert sharpshooters.  As his messenger scurried off, Kamek gathered his power and, raising his wand, cast a spell.  Instantly, the number of Mushrooms crying out reduced and fewer were forced from the shield wall.  Kamek sighed in relief as his troops stopped being forced back just shy of the burnt forest edge.

The called Yoshis appeared out of the shadows next to him.  He jumped in surprise as one popped up right next to him.

“Orders, Commander?” the green leader said quietly.

“How-” the Magikoopa spluttered.

“Sneaking through forests does wonders for stealth,” it said.  “And you get really good really quickly while looking for and eliminating your archenemies, like you.”  The Yoshi and his companions all shared a soft snicker.

Kamek glared at them for a few moments before continuing.  “Get out the yellow eggs.”

The Yoshis glanced at him as if they thought he was slightly crazy.  “Just do it,” the Magikoopa sighed.  The Yoshis looked at each other and shrugged, pulling yellow-tinted eggs out of the satchels around their shoulders.

“Where shall we aim?” the leader asked.  “It will likely be hard to hit any of them with those whips between us and them.”

“So you don’t even try,” Kamek said.  “Toss the eggs directly at them.  I want them to be shattered right in front of their faces.  Can you do that?”

The leader shrugged.  “Hatchling’s play.”

The Yoshis moved back into the shadows and lined up in a slightly twisting row, curving along the contour of the dead forest.  Kamek could only see them because he knew exactly what he was looking for.  Several yellow eggs flew from throwing arms and at the pit fiends.  Whips sizzled out and cracked open the eggs in midair.  Out of the shards of the egg came a shining object that caught the hot sunlight, drawing the eyes of everyone near it.

The golden coin fell into the dirt between two pit fiends.  The two saw it at the same instant, each diving for it.  The one to the right was slightly faster, diving on top of the coin and shoving the other away.  The other one picked itself up and lunged at its companion, claws grasping at its throat.

As more eggs cracked open, more scuffles broke out at all points along the line.  But soon they evolved into more than scuffles.  Fists, knives, and whips were brought into play.  Eventually, the demons were doing more damage to each other than to the defending forces, their short term greed overpowering any loyalty to their demon king.

They saw the Mushrooms coming too late.  One looked up while holding off two neighbors with his whip and saw the Mushrooms charging to meet them.  He shouted out a warning-too late.  The Mushrooms swarmed over the struggling demons, slaying them before most even knew they were being attacked.  Kamek caught a glimpse of Celeste fighting her way into the thick of the fireball throwers, her sword flashing green as demon after demon fell under her blade.  Such a difference from the meek, delicate princess he had taken from New Castle Koopa.

His fiancée broke through the demons completely.  She whirled to launch herself at them again, but something caught her eye.  Her eyes visibly widened and she stood in shock for a few seconds before turning and running back through her troops, screaming something at the top of her lungs.  Her soldiers surrounded her and all the Mushrooms retreated.  Celeste continued to retreat until she was next to Kamek.

“The entire army!  The demons are sending their entire army against us!  I saw them; they’ll be here in less than ten minutes.”

Kamek swallowed.  “There’s no way we can hold out.  Listen, you retreat to the edge of the forest.  I’ll try to give you air support, but prepare to retreat to Headquarters and make a final stand there.”  He turned away, but turned back again when Celeste laid a hand on his shoulder.  “Anything else?”

“Yes,” she said.  She took his head in her hands and gently pressed her lips onto his mouth.  Kamek tensed for an instant before relaxing into her grip.  Her lips felt like sweet honey on his mouth and he knew now that no matter what, he adored her.

At length, she separated.  “I just wanted you to know that I loved you.  In case…”

Kamek touched a finger to her mouth.  “Don’t talk about it.  I will see you after the battle.”

“One way or another,” she agreed.  She moved off, back to her soldiers.  Kamek gazed after her for a long moment; then shook himself back to reality.  He gave a shout to prepare for combat, made sure his wand was charged, and went off to find his student.

This student was a rarity, a female Magikoopa.  Her name was Zara.  She had passed the exams Bowser required and joined the Koopa Troop mere days before New Castle Koopa had fallen to Zydar’s horde.  She had long brown hair, piercing green eyes, and enough inherent power and beauty to make Kamek sure that, in the future, she would be a very powerful Magikoopa and would likely be wed to a very powerful sorcerer.

Zara was practicing her spells in a clearing, setting fire to dead trees and putting the fire out again with an ice spell.  Kamek watched for a bit at the edge of the clearing before quietly teleporting behind the student.

“Hi there,” he whispered to his apprentice.  Zara jumped, throwing her reserve energy into a fly spell and a shield.  She twisted about in midair, trying to see his assailant.  Kamek floated up to her.

“Demons coming,” the Magikoopa teacher said.  “Get whatever spells you have ready; this part of the battle will be the turning point, either for or against us.”

The female Magikoopa nodded, slowly descending back to the ground with her teacher.  She sighed.  “Right.  I wish I had more time to prepare, but I think I’ll be of some use.”

“Well, we need all the help we can get.  Let’s hope it’s enough.  I’ll meet you in the clearing.”

Zara bowed to him slightly.  “Yes, teacher.”

The final thing to do was send word along to his general.  He scribbled some words on some parchment and sent it off to Smash.

He spread the word of the attack along the rest of the troops.  There was little else to do afterwards but wait.  It was the worst time in his life, waiting for an attack that would likely end an innumerable amount of lives.

The waiting was suddenly broken by a blast of flame right beside him.  For the first time, he saw a Devil.  He froze with fear at the red skinned creature, at least twice as tall as he.  He barely saw the scythe whistling towards him.

But suddenly the Devil screamed and shrank into ash.  Zara stood behind the Devil’s remains, grinning impudently.  “Watch yourself, teacher!” she called.

He turned back to the scene.  The demons restricted to foot were still out of sight, but Devils had teleported into several key points of the formation of defenders.  They were being dealt with rapidly, but many Yoshis had been taken out, either by destroyed weapons or by death.

Another wave of Devils appeared in the camp.  But these were not like the others.  Instead of only wearing a robe with unholy symbols etched on it, these wore armor, the same unholy symbols etched in the metal, and the scythe was blazing with infernal fire, like, like some kind of Arch Devil.

Zara caught sight of it and her jaw dropped in a wordless scream.  Kamek, acting quickly, shouted a few words and an ice bolt blasted into the creature’s back, mixing with the flame that burnt as it died.  Kamek smiled at his apprentice.  “Just wanted to keep the score even!”

After the Arch Devils were dealt with, though at a great cost to morale and lives, there was a short lull as wounds were bandaged up and weapons repaired.  Then the next assault came into view.  Kamek stared.  They looked like some kind of genie from Earth legends.  But these were red and an aura of unmistakable heat surrounded them.  Deadly heat.  They were efreets; like that Xyron Ludwig was talking about.

“Keep them at egg throw’s length!” he shouted.

His order was rapidly spread throughout his army, but some looked reluctant.  These were the ones beginning to succumb to bloodlust as their eyes began to blaze red and they were obviously struggling to not charge at the approaching horde.  But they eventually obeyed, and not a second too soon.  Down came the efreets.

Eggs flew at them, knocking several spinning.  But the rest continued downwards, swooping at the Yoshis and scorching several with fire that appeared in their hands before flying back up, spinning around, and swooping down again.  Zara was already engaged in battle with several, a shield protecting her against the heat of their passes while she summoned up energy to knock them out of the sky.  Surprisingly, Kamek had not been attacked yet.  The attacking creatures just seemed to ignore him, focusing their attacks on his apprentice.

An efreet made its way through Zara’s guard from behind.  She screamed in pain and shock as her blue robe was set alight.  Kamek wasted no time in summoning a spear of ice and sending it flying at the efreet.  The creature didn’t even scream as it dissolved into a fine black dust.  There was a violent hissing and a cloud of steam as Zara conjured up several bucketfuls of water to douse her robe.

There was a scream of descent from behind Kamek.  There was practically no time to react, his shielding instincts barely saving his life as wave upon wave of the fire creatures swooped down upon him.  The Magikoopa master was flung onto the barren earth, a barely adequate shield protecting him from the fiery attackers.  Through the smoke, he saw Zara desperately trying to destroy the creatures surrounding him while holding off her own attackers.

Kamek struggled to his feet, gathering energy for a final spell, one that would destroy the enemy, but completely obliterate himself, Zara, and likely much of his force.  But he saw no other choice, as without a leader, all his Yoshis would fall in minutes.  He felt the power gathering in him.  Oh, yes, this was going to be a most destructive blast.

But suddenly the power growing in him evaporated.  His shield fell.  He expected to be destroyed instantly, but the fire in the creatures’ hands also disappeared without a trace.  He glanced at Zara, but she was staring at her hands, wondering where her power had gone.  For a timeless instant, there was no action; even the outside battle had instantly stopped as the efreets lost their fire.

A black tear opened up in reality next to Kamek.  A black figure strode out and with it came a wave of darkness that engulfed the entire battlefield.  Kamek and Zara were untouched as the darkness surrounded them, but the efreets it touched shuddered and dissolved.  The wave engulfed the entire battlefield, destroying all the enemy, though a few Yoshis staggered and fell as the darkness touched them.

The wave dissolved, leaving the battlefield empty of the enemy creatures except for the line of still advancing demons on the horizon.  Kamek stared at Zara.  Zara stared back, unconsciously shaking off the layer of dust that was the remnants of the fire creatures.

There was a soft noise behind Kamek, the rustling of cloth upon cloth.  He half turned before a strong arm locked itself around his throat.  He struggled for air for a few seconds before something hard connected with the back of his head and everything went dark.



Chapter 34



Smash stopped suddenly in his tracks.  Gillian, who had been following him, plowed into his back, sending both staggering.

Gillian grabbed the arms of her lover, preventing his fall.  “What?  What happened?” she asked.

“We’ve lost Kamek,” the dragon said, his eyes staring into the distance.  “He’s alive, but I don’t know for how long.”  He shook his head and continued.

Gillian chased after him.  “Wait!  Aren’t you going to do anything?”

“I am doing something.”

Gillian decided she would have to accept that answer.  Her Spirit Twine didn’t seem to be in a very talkative mood.

Smash arrived at the center of the camp.  There were panicked screams as Yoshis emerged from the dead forest, dashing top speed into the protective line of Mewds.  A fewer braver souls helped the now visible line of Mushrooms hold the advancing demons back while retreating into the lines as well.  And a good number of either berserk or suicidal soldiers raged within the main demon body, cutting swaths of corpses into the demon horde before finally being taken down with blood running from every part of their bodies.

“Now for the distraction,” Smash said.  He sighed, sticking his sword point down into the earth.  Gillian placed her hands upon his shoulders, preparing to channel her power through him, but he shrugged her hands off him.  “No.  This spell is the blackest, most evil magic that can exist.  If your power joined mine, the evilness would rebound through me, and you would either be destroyed or corrupted so completely that nothing could retrieve you.”

Gillian recoiled in horror.  Smash smiled grimly.  “But this spell is the only thing that can possibly win this battle.  Though I may be damned for all eternity for using it, my first responsibility is to the world.  I have recanted my hopeless attitude from earlier and now know that these demons must be stopped at all costs.  Now step back and watch the Savior of Plit work!”

Smash plucked his sword from the ground and held it out straight in front of him.  He focused on the sword with such intensity that Gillian could practically see the power radiating out from it even without her second sight.

Her lover began to chant softly and slowly walk in a circle, centering around his blade, which he held with his left hand, but changing hands and directions occasionally.  Then the simple pacing became a bit more complex.  Gillian stared as realization burst upon her.  He was dancing!  Like some shaman from the stories, he chanted, his steps blending into a syncopated rhythm as power gathered around her sword, which, when seen with her second sight, has been transformed into a vision of something most foul.

Now she could actually see the energy being channeled into his blade.  It looked dark as a stormcloud, even to the extent that there were little jags of power streaming down it.  It was almost hypnotic.  Gillian had to shake her head several times to keep herself from being mesmerized.

On the other side of Smash, the demons had engaged their final defenses.  Mewds, Yoshis, Koopas, and Mushrooms all fought alongside each other in a desperate effort to stave off the oncoming demon horde for just a few more minutes.  A Yoshi fell, critically wounded.  Gillian picked herself up; her hand automatically going to her ever-present bag of healer supplies and ran to help the poor being.  Just as she arrived at the creature, she practically collided with another person.  Celeste!

“What are you doing here?” the Koopa shouted over the din of battle, pulling some roots out of her pouch, crushing them, and spreading the juice on a chest wound, which slowed bleeding.

“Running away!” The human responded.  “When Kamek disappeared, the troops lost all heart and I wasn’t able to hold them together!”  Celeste smeared salve into several cuts along the soldier’s arm.

“Disappeared?  How in the Abyss could that happen?”

“I don’t know!  The only one who saw it was his student and we haven’t been able to make any sense out of her!”  Celeste finished tending the soldier.  “Brave soul!” she murmured, helping it to its feet.  The soldier took one look at the demons, grabbed the sword of a fallen enemy and launched itself at the enemy with renewed ferocity.

A noise behind Gillian attracted her attention.  Smash’s chanting rose to a crescendo and his dance stopped.  He raised his sword high above his head and with a final shout drove it with all his might into the ground.  A virtual bolt of darkness blazed across the ground, under the defenders, and deep into the ranks of demonic attackers.  Smash was left leaning heavily on his sword, his chest heaving.  Gillian ran over to him, grabbing him under the arms just as he collapsed.  Wrinkling her snout at the stench of evil still clinging to him, she helped him over to a nearby rock.

He sank down gratefully, totally oblivious to the battle still raging about him.  After a few seconds he rasped, “Call a retreat.”

Gillian was taken aback.  “Retreat?  Why?”

“I don’t have time to explain.  Just do it.  Get everyone out of the southern part of the island and away from the demons.”

Gillian didn’t stay to ask why.  She ran to their main tent to get the message parchment.

***

Karma drove a knife into her demon opponent’s chest.  The evil creature collapsed with an unearthly scream as she yanked her blade free.  She was tempted to go after another one, but Ludwig had the rest easily in claw.  She merged with her lines again, cleaning her blade on one of the few non bloody sections of grass.

One of her Yoshis ran up to her, a bit of parchment clenched in its fist.  “Message for you, Commander,” the creature said, handing it to her.  Karma took it and read.

Commander Karma,

General Smash orders an immediate retreat.  Do not engage demons; do not stray into the southern part of the island.

~Supreme Commander Gillian

The Koopa/Yoshi was tempted to ignore the missive, but she trusted the judgment of the dragon general.  She shouted a retreat, and, just as she turned to go, an explosion of blackness erupted in the center of the island, expanding to swallow the entire island, blotting out the sun.

***

Celeste stared at the black vortex in the center of the island.  Even only with her tiny bit of mage talent, she could tell there was a great amount of energy focusing there.  Sylon, beside her, whistled softly.  “When the general creates a diversion, he doesn’t fool around,” the Mushroom murmured.

The sound tore Celeste from her reverie.  “Run!” she shouted, suiting action to word, spinning and dashing for the dubious safety of headquarters.  Seconds later, Sylon was hot on her heels.  The rest of the troops around her had already followed her advice.  Behind her was phenomenal implosion of energy, literally dragging her back a few steps before she could reestablish her footing.  Risking a glance over her shoulder, she could see the tiny forms of demons being pulled, arms and legs flailing, into the black maw of a tear in reality.

While she had been just glancing at the tear, she had been dragged back another few feet.  She turned and, fueled by fear, ran.

***

Ludwig, perched atop the warp pipe, watched the demons being pulled into the black hole.  He was reasonably safe at this distance, though he still thought it was too close.  No help for it though.  Both Karma’s and his armies were crowded as far north into the island as possible.  The entire island was shrouded in total darkness except for the violet radiation escaping the tear in reality.

Karma, beside him, could hardly contain her elation as she watched their demonic foes disappear into the abyss.  Ludwig, on the other hand, could feel only relief and a lingering sense of fear as he watched the destruction of the enemy.  He was happy that the end of the battle was in sight, but what a horrible way to go.  He shuddered involuntarily.

In front of him, the black hole swallowed up more of the enemy.

***

Smash watched with grim satisfaction at the depleted demon force that was getting ever smaller.  He watched several demons clinging to a dead tree, only to fall screaming into the maw of the abyss as the tree was uprooted.

Gillian’s claws were tangled in his robe as she clutched close to her lover.  He tenderly pulled her closer, supporting her courage while drawing off her strength.  She relaxed into his grip and rested her head on his shoulder, sighing deeply, at peace while held by her love.  Smash only wished that her faith in him was justified.  He wasn’t sure he could close down his spell when he needed to.

The final demon disappeared down the hole.  Smash pulled himself upright, disengaging Gillian from his embrace and straightening his robes.  Facing the tear, he spoke a few sharp words.

Nothing happened!

Gillian fell back from him, now truly afraid.  Smash grabbed his sword and pointed it at the hole, shouting.

Still nothing!

A scream got his attention.  Celeste and a Mushroom were being dragged towards the hole, struggling to pull away.  But it was clear they were fighting a losing battle.  Within minutes, they would be lost.  Smash delved deep into his soul, gathering all the willpower he could muster, deep into the earth, harvesting all the energy his body could contain.  As power coalesced about him, his skin began to blend with his wing color.  To someone watching, his eyes would have become blood red.  He screamed out the words again, putting all the power he could behind them.

Celeste and Sylon were mere inches away from the point of no return.  But as Smash’s words echoed out over the island, the portal began to shrink.  It started to fluctuate, twisting about, slowly expanding.  Then it collapsed into itself, screaming impotently at the magical forces acting upon it, getting smaller and smaller.  Then, with a tiny blink of white light, it was over.

Chapter 35

Karma sighed.  It had been a long day.  The entire day had been spent calculating losses from the battle.  It was incredibly depressing tallying up the damages of one part of her army and send it off to Smash only to be immediately confronted by another barrage of information from the other parts of her troops about how many losses they suffered.  According to her calculations, she had lost about one-quarter of her troops to death and the remaining part was decimated with half of the remaining being injured, some fatally.
There was one good stroke of luck, though.  It turned out that both her parents had survived the battle.  It was only when she was reviewing the regiment they were in that she discovered they had been under her command.  So far she had not been able to talk to them, but reports from others had described their battle methods were amazingly like Karma’s herself.  There were reports of Atara throwing herself right into the teeth of the enemy, knives flashing in both hands with Raymond close behind, wielding a war hammer with such ferocity that he intimidated all the demons around him into freezing in place while their companions ran over them.
Ludwig, having resisted the blessing or curse of the bloodlust, had been struck much harder by the battle than she.  He was still mourning the senseless loss of Dart to such an extent that he began to write music again.  But from what Karma had heard so far, this was much better than all of his former works.
A Yoshi came up to her, supporting a wounded Koopa on her shoulder.  The Koopa was staggering on his left leg.  Karma could see a stained green bandage on the Koopa’s leg just below the knee.  He winced when he trod on it, but he was still smiling and chatting animatedly with the Yoshi.
Karma sighed as they came up to her and snapped off a salute.  “Yes, what is it?”
“Battle statistics, as ordered, Commander.”
Karma snatched the paper from the Yoshi’s hand and read it.  Her eyes widened.  “But this says you only lost ten with twenty-five injured!”
The Koopa spoke.  “Yeah.  We came through pretty well off.  Not bad for two species that have been at almost constant war.”
Karma looked the report over again.  There was no mistake she could see.  What had happened?  Well, it didn’t really matter much.  She would have to speak to the subcommander of that group when she got the time and figure out what happened, that’s all.
“Well, must be off,” the Yoshi said.  “My friend here was just telling me about his part in the Smithy war.”  She giggled as the Koopa nuzzled the side of her neck and cuffed him lightly across the head.  “Not in front of the commander,” she scolded lightly.  “Have you no dignity?”
Karma had the feeling that the two were in for a bit more than story swapping.  She smiled as she watched them go.  Even though she was a product of such a relationship, she was still amazed that Koopas and Yoshis were cross-fertile.  She speculated that after this war was over, there would be many more of her own half species running about.  Facing death at each other’s side had done absolute wonders for the two groups working together.  Romances between soldiers of their own kind, and even between species were sprouting all over her command.  She tolerated these good naturedly.  When they started to be a problem, that was when she would do something.  But for now they only encouraged unity.
Speaking of romance, she had to go see Ludwig after she was finished collecting information.
***
Ludwig was sitting on a blackened tree stump, humming a tune under his breath as he scribbled down notes on a sheet of parchment.  Karma snuck up behind him.  It was easy, as he was too engrossed in his music to hear anything.  She suddenly covered his eyes with both her hands.
He froze for a second before twisting out of her grip and turning.  “What do you think you’re doing?” he snapped.
Karma feigned shock.  “This from the Koopa who slept with me on a whim.  My, we’re being a bit regressive, aren’t we?”
Ludwig grumbled.  “I don’t see what you have to be so pleased about.  Half the island had been completely obliterated.  The rest of the planet has been changed to lava wasteland.  We are but one fortress while our enemies have set up dozens of castles all over the planet.  And all the senseless slaughter is making me sick.”
Karma changed her expression.  “I know.  I know.  But sitting there and getting depressed until you’re suicidal won’t help any.  You should mourn, it’s natural.  You can not, no, should not, try to suppress what is natural.  But don’t let it completely dominate the rest of your life.”
Ludwig nodded.  “You’re right.  I know.  But I just can’t stop thinking about it.”  He grit his teeth.
Karma was afraid for her lover.  His grief was becoming an obsession.  She had to help cure him. But what could she do?
But a bugled call from the main part of the island interrupted her thoughts.  Another meeting.  Sigh.
***
Smash paced back and forth in the command tent.  Karma was getting dizzy from the constant movement of the black shadow.  In the tent were all the commanders save Kamek, Mewd, and Zara, who had been promoted after Kamek has disappeared.
Smash finally turned and spoke.  “My commanders.  We face a grave loss.  One of the chosen bespoken by the Prophesy has disappeared, and thus has also vanished the salvation of the world.  We must retrieve him like you have retrieved my lover and myself.”  He glanced at Gillian.  “Through my scrying, I have determined that he is somewhere in the unexplored zone of Plit.  I cannot tell for certain where he is, and this may cause a fatal delay in our war.”
“Excuse me, General?”  Zara raised a hand.  At Smash’s glance, she continued.  “I have here something left behind after Kamek was taken.”  She held up a small book, dirty and battered.
Smash snatched it out of her hand quicker than thought.  He held it up in triumph.  Then he looked at her, a strange expression on his face.  “You said you found this?”
“Yes.”
“This book would make the pinpointing easy.  But I find it hard to believe that it just fell.  This is Kamek’s grimiore, his spellbook.  He wouldn’t just let it fall.”
“There’s an old quote about not looking a gift dragon in the mouth,” Gillian murmured in his ear a quote barely audible, but Karma heard it anyway.
Smash muttered something about walking into a trap unprepared.
***
Karma glanced down the black hole of the warp pipe.  She wasn’t sure she wanted to go down there.  When she had come through both times before, the trees were still green and the air was still fresh.  Now that a demonic army had moved through, she was afraid of what she would see on the other side.
Smash and Gillian came up, both arguing with the female Magikoopa student, Zara.
“You need a Magikoopa!” she was saying.  “We have a special kind of bond with all the others of our order.  I can reach him easier than any of you can.”
“You’re nowhere as strong as Kamek is,” Smash snapped.  “We can’t rescue him if we’re constantly bailing you out of trouble!”
“You think I can’t take care of myself?  Well, let’s see how you feel after this!”  She gathered power and suddenly there were two Magikoopas standing there.  Then four.  Then eight.  And so on.  There was an army of Zara duplicates surrounding Smash.  Her voice come from somewhere in the circle.  “How do you like this?  And they each have the full power of me.”
Smash nodded.  “I’m impressed.  But you forget one little detail.”  He snapped his fingers.  There was a crack of power and all the illusions disappeared.  Zara was out flat on her back, gasping.  Smash moved up to her.  “You have great natural talent.  But you have little of the discipline needed to exploit it.”
“Then I’ll learn quickly,” the student gasped.  “I’ll learn by fighting you if I have to, but I’m going.”
Smash sighed.  Here was a will as potent as his own.  “Very well, you may come.  But the first time you delay us, I’m sending you straight back to the island.”
“When that happens, I’ll be dead.”

Chapter 36

Smash sat, gazing at the pool of unidentifiable liquid as it swirled.  A vision was coming to him, but he had to be calm.  The previous three scryings had all been interrupted by the encounter of a demon patrol.  They had all been hit and run attacks, quite strange for demons.
Smash pushed the thought from his mind and spoke the words of the spell.  The liquid had just begun to swirl into a recognizable formation, when suddenly the screams of battle shattered his concentration.  Smash roared in frustration, smacking the surface of the liquid with his hand, shattering all magicks placed on it.  He seized his sword and stalked out to meet the demons.  As he saw Gillian take one down, he recognized another with a very familiar scar across its chest.
“Gods!” he bellowed.  “They’re following us!”  All the frustration and anger that had been building up in him to that moment merging into a black rage that blotted out everything.  He screamed out words he wasn’t even aware he knew.  Power blazed through him.  He pointed his sword at the enemy and a blast of dark energy exploded from it.  As the energy touched the demons, they were instantly slain, expressions of utter terror on their faces.
As the dumbstruck expressions of his five companions stared back at him, Smash’s fiery rage dimmed to an icy calm.  “Tear up camp.  We’re leaving.”
***
Smash tore through the brush, not talking to anyone.  Zara got the feeling they weren’t going anywhere, but she wasn’t going to question the General until his temper dimmed.  This didn’t seem to be coming any time soon.  But when they had passed the same area for the third time, she couldn’t take it anymore.
She went up to Smash and pulled on his sleeve.  He started, spinning around, beginning to bring his sword up, but stalling when he saw her.  “What do you want?” he demanded.
“With all due respect, General,” she began ironically, “I believe that you haven’t the slightest idea where you’re going.”
She expected him to explode, but she was wrong.  He smiled every so slightly.  00“You’re right.  I’ve been relying on my gut, which is not my most accurate organ.  But I trust my gut more than anyone else’s.”
“Then trust my mind,” Zara said.  “I told you that we Magikoopas have a special bond with each other.  And since whoever’s tailing us doesn’t want you to scry, our bond is the only thing that will help us find my master.”
Smash stared impassively at her for a few minutes.  Then he turned and curtly gestured for the Magikoopa to move to the front of the group.  Zara jogged up to Smash and continued onwards in the lead position.  She closed her eyes, focusing on the blue robes and slightly weathered features of her master.  Slowly, as her powers focused, she could almost feel a tugging on her arm.  She followed it slowly, closing her eyes to help her focus.  She took a few steps, but halted when a hand grabbed her arm.  She turned to see the General holding her sleeve.  She turned back forward to see her face three inches away from a tree trunk.
“Oops,” she muttered.
She pulled her sleeve out of Smash’s grip and continued to walk, but keeping one eye open for any obstacles.
***
Gillian watched the Magikoopa lead the group to the edge of a dense jungle.  The Koopa mage was astounded.  She had never seen anything like that before except for the illusions during her Test.  But this was real.  The trees grew together so thickly that she couldn’t even see past the outer edge.  A dirt path wound past the entrance, the only entrance.
Smash grimaced.  “This can’t be natural,” he said.  Zara nodded wryly.  “I don’t suppose that he’s on the other side?” he asked.
Zara shook her head.  “Nope, right in the middle.”
Smash’s grimace turned to a scowl.  “I suppose that it’s safe to assume that it’s dangerous in there.  That means that it’s best for me to lead the way.”
“Of course,” Gillian sighed.  “And as usual, that also means I get left behind.”
“Not this time,” the dragon said.  “Rear guard.”
“Close enough,” she sighed.  “Well, arguing about it will only waste time.  Fine, go on.”
Smash needed no further encouragement.  He turned and marched down the path.  But as soon as Zara, the next one in line, attempted to set foot on the path, the trees suddenly shifted, bringing branches down and blocking the pass completely, cutting Smash off from sight.
All was still before an agonized “No!” came from Gillian’s lips and she launched herself at the trees, clawing their bark into strips as she tried to get at her lover.  They didn’t budge.  She tore until her claws were bleeding and she finally collapsed.
Zara moved near to the other Koopa.  She placed a hand around Gillian’s shoulders and helped her to her feet.  “There’s nothing you can do.  He’s alone now.”
Gillian hung her head.  “Yes, I know.”  She sighed.
But a sudden sound interrupted her melancholy.  It was like a dull thud.  She turned just in time to see Karma flung at her feet, a lump the size of an egg growing on the back of the Koopa/Yoshi’s head.  Zara’s mouth dropped as the scene unfolded.  Celeste and Ludwig were also out cold, victim of the figure that was now turning to face them.
Gillian’s jaw dropped as the figure come into focus.  It was so well known to her that her mind didn’t let her accept the fact that it was turned against her for a few seconds.  It was almost completely identical to her dragon lover, Smash’s, face.  The only difference was that this face was more lean, hardened, and instead of the twinkle of amusement or the enigmatic shine behind his deep blue eyes, she saw a gleam.  The gleam of insanity.
Gillian gasped.  “Damacon!”

Chapter 37

Smash felt the jungle seem to close tightly in about him.  There was barely enough room to stand upright, much less move with any comfort.  It was so dark that he couldn’t even see his own hands in front of him, much less his black robes.  He turned to wait for the others, but the entire path behind him was dark.  He couldn’t even tell if there was anyone behind him at all.
That sparked a disturbing suspicion in him.  He quickly sent a mental probe into the forest.  Nothing.  There was no living thing here other than himself.  Smash turned around and attempted to leave.  The past wasn’t there.  It wasn’t obscured by the darkness, the trees had moved and the path was no longer there.  Smash cried out in rage and leapt at the trees, sword swinging.  But his sword blade, unbreakable, doubly enchanted by spells, with all the strength of a quarter-dragon behind it, bounced off.
Smash hacked again.  It was the same result.  “Oh no,” he groaned.  He had fallen into a trap.  He should have been expecting this.  In fact, he had been expecting a trap, but not in this manner.  He had been tricked.  Tricked by someone who knew how he thought.  And that was the worst enemy of all.
He turned towards the path again.  Well, he had signed on for the trip.  Might as well finish it.
To avoid ambush, Smash heightened his sensory powers to their maximum.  That let him sense everything in the forest.  Except that there were two curious barriers.  The first was a blind spot right in the center.  The other was that he couldn’t sense anything outside of the forest.  Another trap.  He now couldn’t even tell if Gillian and the others were all right.
The trail led him on a winding path all throughout the forest.  He sometimes couldn’t even tell which way was up or down.  He traversed the entire thing without incident.  That was odd.  There should have been ambush parties waiting around every corner.  The path finally opened into a small clearing, in the blind spot of Smash’s senses.
The clearing was roughly oval shaped with six trees on the other side of the path entrance.  Sunlight dimly filtered through the treetops above him, making Smash squint after the dark forest.  He could see some very odd blurs against the trees.  As his sight came rapidly into focus, he gasped.  It was his companions!  All five of them were chained to the trees, helpless, their weapons sitting in a pile to one side.  Karma, Ludwig, and Celeste were knocked out, hanging limply in their bonds, while Gillian and Zara still thrashed in theirs, fighting the gags in their mouths.  Another person was also bound to a tree.  It was Kamek.  The Magikoopa was also gagged and bound.
Smash ran to the tree will Gillian on it and tore out the gag.  The first words out of her mouth were, “Smash, look out!”
The dragon warrior stared for an almost fatal half second before throwing himself to the side.  A sword blade chopped into the tree right where his head had been an instant before, inches away from Gillian’s fiery hair.  Smash rolled to his feet to get a look at his enemy.  The sight was enough to make him stare for a second.  His enemy was…himself.  The human standing there was virtually identical to the dragon himself.  The only differences were that instead of the golden trim on Smash’s robes, his twin had blood red.  Instead of wings, there was a deep violet cape fluttering about his shoulders.  And, finally, instead of Smash’s short-cropped hair, the stranger’s hair was longer and bound into a ponytail.
“Damacon,” Smash gritted.
“Sumashi,” the stranger said lightly, almost insultingly.
For a split second they stood there, but then Smash yanked his sword out of his scabbard and the battle began.  The two flew at each other, both chopping at the other from overhead.  Their swords clashed.  Both jumped back and swung again.  The blades clashed again.  Smash backflipped backwards a few feet, bringing his sword up in a swift disemboweling move while he righted himself.  Against most other opponents, they would have pursued and gotten killed for their trouble.  However, Smash’s sword swished through empty air.  The swords clashed again as the stranger lunged forward after Smash completed his maneuver, his blade just barely blocked.  The two closed again in a flurry of thrusts, cuts, parries, and blocks.
“You can’t defeat me,” the stranger gloated as they both leapt back.  “I know you better than you know yourself.  Every one of your moves I invented.  Every block was thought of by me.”
“Maybe so,” Smash replied, “But I have one advantage you don’t have.”
“Really?  What’s that?”
“You’ll know later.”
The stranger then began to press the attack.  Though Smash was able to block every blow, he was driven back a few feet from the force of every blow.  Normally, one would not use so many powerful attacks in a row, as they required a lot of energy and tired the muscles quickly, but Smash knew his evil doppelganger must have some kind of plan in mind.
Smash didn’t give him time to execute that plan by putting his own plan into action.  He had retreated to near the trees where his companions were chained.  Though the methods varied, Gillian had been attached to her tree by a simple chain around her midriff and arms.  Unlike the others, Smash’s replica had actually let her feet touch the ground.  No matter how evil or insane he was, he couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her.
His advantage.  Smash backed up to her tree and waited, fending off attack after attack.  Then he spotted his advantage.  His opponent became arrogant and inattentive.  And just as the right strike came along, he made his move.
Smash focused his energy and sprang in a leap upwards, spreading his wings to get more lift.  He flipped over his enemy’s head and swung around backwards in a surprise attack.  It didn’t work.  He didn’t expect it to.  The other Smash just spun around with a block and the combat continued.  But something escaped his notice.  The chop Smash had leapt over severed the chain that was holding the Koopa mage to the tree.
Gillian struggled to get out of the remaining chain.  It fell around her feet, tangling them up as the battle surged across the clearing.  She bent to get free, tearing at the links around her ankles and wrists.  It took many valuable seconds, but she managed to get them free.  Then she made a dash for the pile of weapons piled by the side of clearing.
Smash saw his Spirit Twine go, and something in his eyes must have betrayed him.  His clone took one glance over his shoulder and began to run towards the trees.  Smash pursued, praying that Gillian would make it before his clone did.  She didn’t.  The other Smash slammed his sword hilt into her head and she collapsed with a whimper.
Smash felt a splitting pain explode in his temples.  He gasped a short cry of anguish and saw that his clone was wincing too.  But within seconds, the unsettling insane grin returned and he attacked with much more vigor.
Smash was forced into a retreat again.  It was obvious he was getting tired.  Kamek could see muscles straining each time his heavy blade lifted and fell.  But the Savior of Plit rallied and went on the offensive for the first time, driving his clone back with what strokes he could muster, driving him right towards the limp body of Gillian.  It seemed he meant to trip his enemy on her.
But just as his heel touched the limp Koopa, the enemy Smash leapt over her and atop a nearby rock, striking in a downwards chop at his twin.  Smash blocked with an upraised blade and the screech of metal made Kamek and Zara wince as sparks flew off both swords.
Smash now stood astride Gillian’s body, one leg on each side.  Smash didn’t seem inclined to move from that spot and Kamek was sure that the battle would end there.  But Smash was tiring and the battle seemed to be going to the other.  Finally, fatigue took its toll.  Smash was an instant late on a block, and with a blinding flash of metal, was disarmed, his sword flying to lodge, quivering, in a tree.  Now the battle seemed to be decided.  Smash backed slowly from over Gillian, hands raising in surrender.  The other Smash moved triumphantly forward, raising his sword to maim the defender, stepping over Gillian, still dazed on the ground.
The Koopa’s claw shot up upwards at a blinding speed into the other-Smash’s robe from below, catching him right under the loincloth.  The other-Smash doubled over, an expression of surprise and pain evident on his face as his sword dropped from his hands.  Smash, not one to waste an opportunity, leapt forward and caught the other with a double        uppercut right into the chin.
The other-Smash staggered backwards before rolling onto the ground, stunned.  Smash grabbed the blade that had just dropped and, whirling it, stepped in to attack.  He was startled out of his wits as, while he stepped over Gillian, she shot out a claw, wrapping it around his ankle, sending him crashing to the ground.
He leapt up an instant later, glaring at the Koopa with battle light in his eyes.  “What did you do that for?” he roared.  “I was just about to-”
“Kill yourself,” Gillian answered sharply.  “And, in doing so, kill me.”
Smash knelt by her.  “Oh, come, lover.  You know I would never do that.  Even if it was to defend myself.  I was just going to maim him.  Like he was going to maim me.”
“Well, I won’t have it anyway,” she said.
The other-Smash struggled to his feet.  He groaned, rubbing his jaw.  Smash stood up and offered him his shoulder, though he didn’t let his confiscated blade anywhere near those hands.
Some noises by the trees alerted them to the fact that the other companions who had been knocked out were coming to themselves again.  Ludwig groaned mightily as he opened his eyes and tried to focus.  He could only see the two black-robed Smashes as a blur and Gillian’s white robe.  Beside him, Karma dizzily shook her head as she also came to.  Celeste was still out, not having the hard skull of the Koopas.
Smash tossed the sword he was carrying to Gillian.  “Go cut them loose,” he said as she fumbled it and bent to pick it up.  It took a long time as she tentatively hefted it and clumsily chopped at the chains holding the companions to their trees.  The metal shackles parted easily before the enchanted blade.  Meanwhile, Smash limped with his other-self to the tree his sword was in.  The other-Smash was still dizzy and did not make a move to grab the blade.  Smash pulled it free and slipped it into his scabbard.
Gillian finished chopping them free.  Celeste was slumped against the side of her tree, being kept watch on by Kamek and Zara, who were struggling with their gags.  Karma and Ludwig shuffled through the pile of weapons, giving the two Wands to the Magikoopas, Ludwig having again left his on the burnt Yoshi Island.  Celeste’s sword was placed next to her as she began to stir, and Gillian grabbed her battleaxe while passing the other-Smash’s sword to her Smash.
The other-Smash was now getting over the double strike to groin and face.  He shook his head and moved away from Smash, though trying to grasp for his sword held in Smash’s hand.  Smash snatched out of the way.
“Oh, come on,” Kamek said, rubbing his wrists and ankles to restore circulation.  “If he’s anything as much like you as he said, then he would have more sense than to take you on when surrounded by six of your allies.”  Smash scowled at Kamek, but tossed the sword to the other.
Karma glanced at the two Black Robes for the first time since she woke up.  She blanched.  “Am I dreaming?” she asked.
Smash shook his head.  “No, there really are two of us.  Allow me to introduce Smash Damacon.  He’s me.”
“No,” Damacon interrupted.  “He’s me.  I’m the real one.”
“No, you’re a different one, not the real one.”  Smash turned to the others of the group.  “He’s…well, for lack of a better term, me.  Except from a different timeline.  In his time, he was captured by evil forces and lost his sanity.  When he escaped, he was little but a twisted and battered husk with nothing but a flaming, and futile, desire for vengeance on the forces that did this to him, me.”
“You’re talking like I’m not here,” Damacon grumbled.
“Well it’s true, isn’t it?” Smash asked.
“Yeah, but there’s something you don’t know.  I have lived out everything you have except for one difference.  Zydar was the one who captured me.  When he caught me and my Gillian in the battle on the path, we were never rescued.  I soon lost all my willpower and became a member of the horde.  But I was too rebellious.  I began to assassinate my superiors one by one, advancing easily in rank.  Soon I became second in command.  Then I challenged Zydar.  The battle was immense.  Half the planet was leveled.  But when it was over, Zydar was dead and I was the demon king.  But I had neglected one thing.  A rebellion had sprouted, led by my own Spirit Twine, who had escaped while I had not.  The worst part was the fact that she, having grown into the mightiest of mages, challenged me and defeated me.  I was about to be killed when I cast my final spell, one that took me back in time.  Then I appeared here.”
Gillian assumed that her other self turning against him was what had cost the mage his sanity.  She couldn’t quite stifle a surge of sympathy for him, but the thought of him killing everyone she knew stopped the sympathy cold.  If even her Smash had become like Zydar, she would go against him at any cost, even her own life.  Her Test had shown that.
“Okay, okay, this is fascinating,” Kamek said.  “But if you’re bent on revenge against Zydar, which it seems you are, why were you delaying us?”
“Yes, I am bent on revenge, as you so graphically put it.  And I did this because it was the only way to get your attention.  Now really, if I had come up to you on the path and told you I was going to help you, would you believe me?”
“Not really,” Ludwig said.  “But we don’t really believe you now either.”
“True, true,” Damacon said.  “But it seems to me that you need all the help you can get.  If I turn around and stab you in the back during a hopeless battle, then you’re really no worse off than if I kept my nose out of it.  And you’re already in a hopeless battle.”
“Now wait a second,” Smash said.  “We’re not hopeless.  We can still defeat Zydar if we make it to his citadel.”
“Well, then what do you want from me, the blood oath?”
“Yes, that would be nice,” Smash said, smiling.
“Tao chic-pah! ” Damacon grumbled in a crude imitation of a draconic snarl.  “Okay, okay, fine.”  He grabbed his sword in his left hand and stood up.
“No need for such fowl language,” Smash chided, doing the same.  With a quick, decisive movement, they both turned the blades and each sliced open their own right hands.  As the other companions started, shocked, the two grasped each other’s hands.
They chanted quickly.  “Blood, life, truth, del-roc! ” There was no visible scene, but Gillian could sense a subtle increase of power around the two.
“I swear upon my blood that I am against Zydar the Devastator and that I am not lying to you in that I wish to be on your side during this war,” Damacon snapped before snatching his hand back and sprinkling some powder on it from one of his pouches that healed the cut.  “Okay, do you believe me now?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Smash said, giving his hand to Gillian, who worked magic to mend his wound.  “But you’re only one person, no matter how powerful you may be.  How do you expect to make that much difference?”
“I am one person, true.  But I intend to make a difference.  You see, I have gained control of a large regiment of Zydar’s demons.  I can put these demons into your unholy alliance you’ve pulled together.”
“Demons?” Zara asked disbelievingly.
“Yes, demons.  I joined up with the horde in the beginning without Zydar realizing who I was.  I assassinated all the commanders above me until I commanded as large a group as I could without too much risk.  I’m in a low-action zone, so there haven’t been many inspections and besides, they’re too lazy to do much more then look to see if no one’s drooling on the floor.”
“But we’re fighting against the demons.  How are you going to turn those to our side?”
“By telling them that they’re fighting another cell of demons resisting Zydar.  They’re dumb enough to believe it and if any of them have any doubts, they’re scared enough of me to not say anything.”
“Scare tactics, hm?” said Zara.
“Well, it works.”
“So those demons we were continually fighting while approaching your lair…”
“Were sent by me.  I couldn’t let you scry out your Magikoopa and see me.  No, don’t give me that horrified expression.  I know they’re dead, and I don’t care.  Demons are trash, and the death of one or one thousand won’t make any difference to me.”
A groan interrupted the conversation.  Celeste was now awake and, supported by Kamek, was now staring at the two Smashes.  As one, they said, “You explain,” to the bewildered Gillian and turned away.

Chapter 38

Gillian was wandering around Smash Damacon’s enchanted forest.  Now that he had joined their side, at least temporarily, the forest had lightened up and was actually an almost cheerful place.  The only thing missing was the animals.  Not even birds were chirping, leaving the entire place deathly silent.
She saw a shadow in the trees to the side.  She glanced at it, but it disappeared quickly.  Somewhat unnerved, she continued.  Behind her, a rustle of leaves caught her attention, but when she turned, there was nothing there.  Again, now in front of her.  She yanked her longbow off her shoulder and spun, applying an arrow.  But her arrow was pointed at nothing.  She lowered her bow, staring.  She then decided it would be best to get out of there as soon as possible.  As she turned to run, a shadow loomed out beside her.  Quick as thought, she snapped out her battleaxe and sent it in a violent arc at it.  Inches from the shadow, her axe blade clanged off a sword, embedding deep in the ground.
Smash Damacon stepped into the light.  He looked her over, smiling that piercing smile of his.  “Goooood,” he rumbled.  “You have become great in strength.  You shall soon be even mightier than you of my time.”
Gillian scowled at him.  “What do you want?”
“I suppose that I could say that I just wanted to see you again, lover.  You must remember us together?  The good times we had?”
“With my Smash.  Not you.”
“I said that I could have said that.  In reality, my mission is a much more serious one.”
“Okay, what is it?”
“I have seen what happens if Zydar succeeds in this takeover.  This world becomes an utter wasteland.  Every creature but the demons is either killed or enslaved.  What farmland there is will be either burned or turned to feed the demons.  Even if the demons are finally destroyed, there will be mass famine.  Starvation as Plit is pulled into a devastating civil war for the remaining resources.  I need not go on.  And I can see that this path is being taken.  My other self senses it too.  But he does not see that all the power he wields, which is considerable, only adds to the might of the demon king.”
Gillian understood.  “So I somehow have to make him change back to his neutral standing.”
“Yes, but you have one thing wrong.  You will not.  We will.”
“You?  Why?  You’re evil; you don’t want your side to get weaker.”
“Yes, but I realize that Zydar must be stopped at any cost to either side.”
“But what do we do?  Smash has told me that the one spell he cast in the battle corrupted his soul beyond all redemption.”
“His corruption will pass to me.”
“That’s…quite a sacrifice.”
“Not at all.  I’m already cursed beyond even a hint of redemption, even this spell.  I already sold my soul, and, even though I don’t have the power, my soul is still forfeit.  Put it out of your mind.  The hard part will be to get him to allow his corruption to leave him.  And that’s where you come in.  Now here’s what we do…”
***
Smash growled menacingly as he stalked around the central clearing of Smash Damacon’s enchanted grove.  If one had the courage to get close to hear him, one would hear a grumbling litany under the dragon’s breath.
“I can feel it happening.  Zydar’s power grows by the minute and all that I can do is stand aside or my power makes him all the more formidable.  But if I stand aside, our only chance at freedom of the planet will fall apart.”
A stone flew by his ear.  He rolled his eyes, sick of it finally.  The demons Damacon had commandeered took great delight in taunting him to his limits, as he knew that he couldn’t kill them.  But now he was ticked.  He drew his sword and stalked off into the bushes to teach them a lesson.  But no, he wouldn’t kill them, just make them wish they were dead.
But when he looked into the bushes where the stone came from, nothing was there, but a trail of clawprints much like a demon’s.  They led off into the underbrush.  Confident of his tracking skills, Smash followed them.  The forest this time was very much like the time he went in the first time to rescue Kamek.  The dragon didn’t notice any, as he was too bent on revenge, but the trees had already closed completely about him, cutting off almost all light.
The trail led on a convoluted path through the forest.  Then the prints stopped suddenly.  Smash glanced to both sides, backing up a few steps.  It seemed that demon that had left these prints had just suddenly disappeared.  Smash began to back up more, looking around for anything that could have accounted for this disappearance.
But then a figure dressed all in black dropped from the trees, striking a stinging blow on his hand, causing him to drop his sword.  The figure picked it up and was away with it in less than a second.  Smash had to take a few seconds before he realized what happened.  Then, bellowing in rage, he charged after it.  If he had looked a bit longer, he would have noticed that the prints this creature left were exactly the same as the ones he had been following.
The forest ended suddenly.  Smash was out in the open air, the brightness hurting his eyes.  Just meters ahead of him, the black figure, who he saw now was encased in black battle armor, stood, having placed his sword in the dirt to the side.  Smash snarled and whipped a knife out of his belt but paused when he saw the black form reach a hand up to its helmet and pull it off.  Blazing red hair spilled out the back.  A green face appeared.  Smash gaped as his Spirit Twine stared back at him.
Gillian dropped to her knees, murmuring, in a pose that almost looked like praying.  Suddenly a blazing beam of white erupted from her hands and sped straight at Smash.  He had no chance to duck or dodge.  The beam impacted right through his heart.  The pain was incredible.  His knees buckled, but he was held up by the pure power of the spell his Spirit Twine has cast.
The beam stopped, but the pain didn’t.  Serpents of light now spun throughout the Black Robe’s body, flowing through every part of him, a deep pain spiking through him at every touch.  He was still held up, head thrown back in screams of pain, arms and legs flailing wildly.
But a gentle touch upon his arm stopped it all.  Smash collapsed, almost hitting the ground if not for supporting arms that held him up.  A soft wetness touched his mouth as he was slowly righted.  It felt good.  Slowly, Smash gained control of his body, staggering to his feet, now able to support the rest of him.
Then he noted what was happening.  Gillian was right in front of him, her arms twined about his shoulders as she leaned close to engage him in a passionate kiss.  Unconsciously, his arms slid down to her lower back, pulling her closer, and he felt something deep inside him change.
All the rage inside of him was slowly being eaten away.  All the grief.  All the need for vengeance.  Slowly, he felt himself descend into a deep peace with himself, for the first time since he was captured by Zydar.
Gillian finally broke the kiss, looking into Smash’s eyes with a look of adoration tinged with satisfaction.  She pulled his hand up to her lips and kissed it while calling attention to his sleeve.  It was changing color.  Blackness was slowly being washed out, leaving the cloth pure white.  He looked down at himself.  The rest of his robe was fading.  The hem began to change color too, being bleached out to white.
Out of the corner of his eye, Smash saw the companions of his group emerge from the forest.  Kamek with Celeste by his side, both smiling.  Karma and Ludwig from the other, Ludwig with his arm around Karma.  And behind him, Smash Damacon with his arm around Zara.  The Magikoopa was smiling, more at Damacon than at Sumashi and Smash’s other self had but a small smile of satisfaction.
Smash looked back at his robe to discover that all the blackness had been washed away, leaving it a shining white.  It stayed like that for a few seconds before slowly darkening to its normal, customary, red.  Smash looked in shock at Gillian.  “How?” he asked.
She touched his lips with a claw.  “You ask too many questions.”  Then she pulled him in for another kiss.  He responded eagerly to her advance, pulling her closer.  As soon as they separated, the dragon threw his head back in a triumphant laugh.  At last, at long last, they had a chance.

END of Part 3



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