Prologue: End
#1 of Convicts Shouldn't Get Second Chances
Sometimes decisions get forced upon us we don't want. Our inability to fight back against the results of the poor choices we make condemns us to a a lifetime of playing catch up. Or worse, being thrown into a pivotal event. For Orion, one bad choice lead to a complete upending of his life. As he struggles to redefine who he is, and what he is, he will come to know the price of a choice.
Fuck. He hurt all over. His horn was throbbing painfully, his skull felt like Mike Tyson went ham on it for an hour. Where was he? Trying to lift himself up he discovered his left arm was gone, again. The metal stump looked like it was melted. "How did that happen....oh yeah, lightening."
His hearing had started to return, the sounds of battle, the sounds of people dying filled his head. That's right. There was a literal war going on. Trying to stand he realized his right leg was missing just above the knee. The fur had been burned away revealing a ragged stump, blackened from fire. The femur just poking through at the end. He couldn't feel it. Must have burned the nerve endings out. How did that happen?
Rising to his one good knee he looked about, the dead were everywhere. Griffons, looked like they had been barbecued. Minotaurs had been crushed. Several shamanistic Zebra were scattered among the still living, trying vainly to get the wounded off the battlefield. The air above them all was filled with fighting flights of Pegasus and Griffons. They were tearing each other apart, dropping like stones to lie among the dead.
Then he spotted her. She was slowly trying to get to her hooves. He wasn't going to be able to beat her. Already the wounds in her white fur were sealing themselves up. Arrow heads that had managed to hit her were popping out. She was on her hands and knees like him, shaking her head groggily.
Her head lifted and they both looked at each other. She grinned. Those teeth much like his own now. Her mane was still limp, the magic that overflowed had yet to return to her in full force. But that fiery red was beginning to glow again. Those eyes. Fuck but they were terrifying. Gold iris gleefully stared back at him in a sclera of blacked red.
He had no way of winning now. She was on the up and up while what was left of his magic was barely keeping him together. Shit she could just grow a new appendage it seemed. Her left wing had been sheered off but was already growing back as well.
He couldn't beat this bitch. There had to be something to put her down. Something he had to try.
Could he pull it off?
"I didn't ask if I could live through it. I asked if it would be possible that I could do it. Answer me. Can this be done, by me?
"You have to understand. You will die even trying this. The amount of magic you would need would have to be astronomical. The spell would feed on you till you died which would, if you're lucky, be fast. Knowing your luck it will take a few days. And the agony you will experience will be unlike anything Anypony has ever experienced before." He was pleading with him.
He sighed, "We need a Hail Mary. If I can't put her down she will kill us all eventually. It will be a battle of attrition. One we can not afford. So, we need every option available to us." Taking a deep breath. "Can I learn this spell, Sombra?"
"....Yes, but it will kill you."
"So be it."
"So be it."
Igniting an intense flame from his right hand he used the improvised propulsion to launch himself into Celestia, no Dawnbreaker now, knocking them both down. He had managed to stay on top of her, straddling her torso.
"Well now, maybe I won't just outright kill you after all. If this is what you had been after this entire time." Her voice pissed him off. Everything about her pissed him off. He headbutted her with everything he had in himself. Her head rocked back slamming into the broken cobblestone street.
Somehow they had ended up in Ponyville. Twilight was gonna be pissed he broke her town.
"I like it rough colt, but I am the only one who gets rough. Now what are you going to do, hmmm? Your toys broken, your allies dying. Give it up. You can be my little pet. I promise I won't do anything that will be permanent to you."
He smiled, shit he was missing some teeth. "Yeah, no no. You can go bounce on a cactus. But I don't think your gonna be happy with the results of that. Tell ya what-"
He grabbed her horn and forced another burst of his magic through his still good hand. The high pitched frequency ripped into her skull through her horn. And she screamed, a scream that deafened him, and silenced the battle field. His hand was broken by now. The vibrations had seen to that. Still he grabbed the Hail Mary in his pocket.
It had taken twelve unicorns to make it. They were still unable to fight in this battle.
Slipping it on his horn he grimaced. This was so gonna suck.
Dawnbreaker looked up, her unfocused eyes trying to align themselves on him. "You certainly are full of surprises. But we both know you can't keep....what are you doing? What is that?"
He had never been religious, he was agnostic after all. That was his grandma's shtick.
"Hail Mary,
Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now,
and at the hour of our death.
Amen."
She would have been so proud of him.
"You'll kill yourself! You can't contain that much power!"
While he had been saying that prayer he had been charging his final spell, the complex algorithms falling into place almost as if it was just as eager as he to end this. Her eyes were beginning to focus, his was fuzzing out, he knew she didn't know what the spell was. Hell it had only been cast once before.
The pain was staring to eat at him all over.
He smiled.
"So be it."
He touched his horn to hers. And he thought she screamed before.