The group of ten slowed down to a brisk trot, eyes scanning every nook and cranny of the hall they had found themselves in, though they froze when an echoing laugh bounced down the hall tauntingly. Katie made unnatural hisses, ones that sounded something like a mix between a steaming kettle about to explode and the mating call of a cicada, in response to the laugh. The group stilled entirely as the sound reverberated down the hall towards what they guessed was the source of the laugh.

Silence fell upon the hall, and all sets of ears fell flat against their owners' heads. Fenrir took the opportunity to sniff the air, and his brow furrowed as a faint stench accentuated by a highlight of cloth and several more of feathers tickled his nostrils. A tight frown graced his muzzle, the corners twitching slightly as he sniffed again.

The guards turned to Fenrir, and Zephyr piped up, "Got anything?"

"A faint, acrid stench… had it been stronger, and without notes of other aromas, I would have curled my snout upward," Fenrir replied, taking a few steps ahead of the group. He stopped and turned around, turning towards Katie. "How good is your hearing?" he asked.

Katie's ears stood up immediately, and her orbs shrank. "Uh… I can hear a stampede miles away in a winter wonderland, if the entire perimeter is dead silent otherwise. Why?" she answered, her withers twitching as if something poked at them constantly.

"I ask because we're going to need to utilise most, if not all, of our senses and wits if we are to corner and subdue our specter," Fenrir replied, an ear twitching. "Can you hear cloth rustling, or something galloping?"

SIlence fell, and Katie's orbs dimmed as her ears began swivelling again. Then, she heard something, though it was very faint—the muffled sound of hooves softly landing against crystal. She strained her sense of hearing, tuning out all else as another sound graced her ears—a clip-clop of hooves so faint it was as if a phantom had come and gone right under her snout.

Slowly, she turned her head a little to the left and rose a hoof to point at a corner marked with a crystal column. "It's coming from there," she whispered. Her eyes narrowed. "Can't see much further than that column, though."

Flash immediately turned to Katie, a brow raised. "Your eyesight's poor?" he asked.

Katie glumly nodded. "I can hardly see shit in this darkness," she affirmed.

Fenrir responded by slinking back to the group and scooping Katie up with a paw, cradling her to his chest with his arm like she was a newborn. "Let's not dally any longer than necessary," he said, turning around and looking towards the same column Katie had eyeballed. "From there, correct?"

Katie nodded, but not before pressing her head up to his chest so he could feel her do so. "That's the one," she chirped. With that, Fenrir dropped to all threes, making sure not to drop her as he crept towards the corner. The others followed with soft hoofsteps, stopping behind the dog when he poked his head to look into the hall the column marked.

Fenrir lifted his free paw and repeatedly curled two digits for a few seconds. "Devoid of life, specters and otherwise," he whispered. He sniffed the air, and frowned when the scent of clothes, feathers, and rot intensified just a little. He took a few steps just to get around the column, slowly and cautiously should the specter still be in the hall.

Then Armin came up behind him and around him before pausing to scan a lengthy hall that led to a set of stairs winding up. "Nothing," he said. "It's empty."

"Nothing?" Zephyr piped up.

"Nothing," Armin tersely repeated with a slow nod of his head. He turned to Katie. "Did they go up or down?"

Katie's ears twitched, and after some seconds she tilted her head until her muzzle pointed straight up. "That a-way," she answered. With that, Armin stepped in front of Fenrir and cantered over to the stairs, with the others following in step behind him. As he went, NoLegs caught up to him and jumped to land squarely on his head, letting off a soft mew as he settled between the changeling's ears.

Armin merely shrugged and rolled his eyes as the cat claimed his head as a perch and reached the stairs, pausing to glance over his shoulder to confirm that the others weren't far off from his position. When they caught up to him after a few seconds, everyone nodded to him in unison, and he turned around and took the first few steps up before they even moved.

Slowly, silently, Armin moved up the stairs, his ears twitching partly because of NoLegs brushing up against them and partly because the guards made minute clip-clops as they followed him and Fenrir. Minutes passed by before they found themselves standing on the next floor, and they paused to scan the new hallway. Armin's brow furrowed as he immediately saw there was nothing to find, save scant traces of moonlight illuminating two crystal columns that faintly shimmered ahead.

Silence lingered, but only for a couple of seconds before the sound of a door opening and closing filled the soundless void. Katie instantly jerked her muzzle squarely to the right, eyes narrowing just as Armin turned to her. She silently lifted a hoof and carefully pointed it in front of her, and to a mistaken soul it would have looked as though she simply stretched it as far as it could go.

But Armin knew what it really meant. He turned around and tiptoed to the end of the hall before looking both ways, finding nothing on the left, only to then discover a door just barely hidden to his right. He motioned with a hoof for the others to catch up, and his wing muscles went rigid as a peculiar glow embraced an almost-invisible doorknob. When it flung the door attached to said knob wide open with a loud slam that briefly rang in his ears, he held out a hoof again—this time, to signal for the group to halt.

Fenrir lifted a paw and just barely grazed it against Armin's back leg to let him know he was there. He accidentally shoved him forward when the door slammed shut again and flinched as a result, forcing Armin into the hall and almost causing him to fall over his own front hooves in the process. The hapless drone nearly landed on his face, but a blue aura pulled him upright and kept him still until he got himself steadied.

Then NoLegs gave an almost-silent mew, instantly garnering a cross-eyed look from his makeshift perch. "I'm fine, thank you," Armin replied in a whisper with a smile. At once, the glow that suddenly grabbed him vanished as it had come, though not fast enough for him to avoid seeing that said glow came from the cat's tail. Then he turned his attention back to the door and watched as an aura grabbed it and swung it open once again—like it dared him to approach it.

Fenrir poked his head around the corner, resting most of his weight on his free paw so he could tilt just enough for Katie to do likewise. "That may be a trap," Armin warned, briefly turning to the two and slowly nodding to them.

"I volunteer to see whether or not it is," Katie stated. Her remark caused Fenrir to look at her with widened eyes. She looked up to meet the alarmed expression and calmly added, "I can probably take it if it is a trap. Worst that could happen is being whacked with the door if it isn't one."

Fenrir gave her remark some thought, and his lips pulled into so tight a frown Katie could've easily sworn she saw a fang or two jut out slightly. "Have you considered that we most likely do not have a medic with us presently?" he asked.

Katie nodded. "I have," she tersely answered, her response punctuated by the door closing of its own volition again.

Fenrir's frown deepened a smidgen. He wordlessly knelt down and let Katie clamber out of his grasp, and both he and Armin followed her with their eyes as she trotted over to the door. She carefully moved just out of reach in case it suddenly swung open again, though for a few tense minutes it remained shut.

For those tense minutes, Katie stared at the door. "Open sesame, I fucking dare you," she hissed as if expecting the door to do just that.

The door in question failed to comply. At this, Katie's eyes narrowed.

"It's probably some sleeping unicorn opening and closing it with his magic and not even realizing it," Armin piped up, garnering the attention of the wraith who glared at said door. "Let it alone; it's probably nothing." As soon as he said that, the door swung open again and a hail of blue arrows darted out of the room it closed off from the hall. Fenrir and Armin's eyes went wide as arrows stuck themselves in the floor, the wall, the door, and Katie's front legs and barrel.

It was only thanks to her small size that she was able to avoid most of the sudden onslaught. But the few arrows that had managed to impale her started glowing before frost coated them and some patches of her body. Yet Katie didn't flinch in the slightest; she just stood there staring at the door without paying any heed to the arrows that managed to perforate her form.

Then she took a step forward, her orbs burning like balls of azure flame. "You can come out now. I won't bite," she beckoned without a hint of pain in her tone, and contemptuous emphasis on bite.

"Make me! I'll have you pinned faster than you can flutter a wing!" a hollow voice called from within the room the hail of arrows shot out from.

Katie took another step forward, her movements slowing just a bit as frost started forming webs on the fringes of their growing patches. "Do it, coward," she shot back icily. Her remark caused the guards to dart around Fenrir and into the hall, just in time to see another hail of arrows emerge from behind the door and pelt everything past it once more.

Most of the arrows merely nicked Katie, but one caused her to stumble back all the way to the wall opposite of the door. She jerked her head up at the same time as this one arrow landed squarely upon the stump of her horn. Yet she still stood even as her rump connected with the wall, her muzzle only pointing upwards for a few seconds before she leveled her gaze to the room with the opened door.

Frost formed on her face, all the way along her forelock line and along her split grin to the snout, even going so far as to cover her eyes like some sort of transparent mask that made her orbs take on an almost demonic look.

"H-how… how are you…" the voice that came from within the room managed.

"I thought you'd have me pinned by now. Pity that it seems you've run out of ammunition," Katie taunted, taking a third step towards the door that caused small bits of frost to break away and fall to the floor. The others took that as their cue to flank her, and when they did seconds later, they looked into the room to find the barely-visible source of the rain of arrows.

A shaking cloaked figure with a twisted front hoof, an empty quiver strapped around their middle, and a bow floating next to them in a shaking magical grip stood in a dark room. Only now, though, it trembled to the point that its hood slipped off just enough to reveal a glowing horn whose color the group couldn't make out. In addition to that, it had golden orbs poised right at them, narrowed but likewise also trembling. A rattling sound like a thousand bottles clinking together filled the air, but whether it came from the bow or the quiver the group didn't know.

"Y-you…" the figure spluttered before it threw the bow at the group and fled deeper into the room for a few seconds. Then it shot out before the guards and Fantasians could react, darting past them like a bullet prior to going down to the end of the hall and vanishing around a bend.

Katie turned to the bend for a second, and then to Fenrir. "See? I told you I could take it," she chirped.

Zircon's horn glowed, and he embraced the arrow-riddled wraith in his magic. "Hold still for a few," he warned. "Gotta get the arrows out of you."

"Make it quick. We got an attacker to catch," Katie replied with a nod of her head.

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

The group trudged through the halls of the palace at a sluggish pace after Katie's arrows were removed and her layers of unwarranted frost peeled off. The bunch moved slowly, though only to keep an eye and ear out for any more surprise assaults.

Katie took to resting on Zephyr's backside, occasionally tapping his withers with her snout before lifting a hoof to direct the group towards a sound if she managed to hear one. Fenrir would also help if he caught a wayward scent or two, further beckoning the others onwards. Armin also spotted fleeting dark forms quicker than the rest of them, and chipped in with his two bits whenever his eyes failed to deceive him.

Yet after an hour of slow but thorough searching, no sign of their unwelcome guest turned up. "It's like the bastard's leading us into another trap," Katie hissed, eyes narrowing as she scanned the hall the group wound up in. It was one marked by many crystal columns; a sort of convergence point for many other halls that lead to various locations.

Spike turned to her, a brow raised. "Are you gonna walk into it again?" he asked, his query causing her to turn to him.

For a few seconds, Katie remained silent. Her brow furrowed, forming thin but visible wrinkles. "What would you do if you had a hunch that danger was nearby, and you were a wraith?" she retorted at last.

Spike frowned. "Still wouldn't just walk into the trap. Even if I were a wraith," he replied, punctuating his response with a snort that caused smoke to eject from his nostrils.

"I see," Katie sighed, her expression easing a bit.

"Unless I manage to set the arrows on fire before they leave the quiver. That's about the only time you'll probably see me walking into a trap," Spike added, his frown morphing into a small grin.

"If such a thing happens, I'll develop an appetite," Katie scoffed, her ears twitching as she spoke. She stiffened when a very faint sound of something that sounded like the floor was cracking echoed, and for a few seconds it lingered.

At first, she simply ignored it with a shrug when it faded, thinking it to just be her imagination. Then she jerked her head to the left, towards a hall that Zephyr just trotted past. She poked him with her muzzle and directed him to it with a hoof when she heard it again. "I heard something," she whispered.

"You sure of that?" Zephyr asked, craning his neck so she could see him frowning.

"Positive it came from there," Katie answered with a nod.

"But it could have come—" Zephyr began, but stopped when another object that produced metallic clangs hit something from the same hall Katie gestured towards—this time, the noise was loud enough to cause everyone to turn to the hall in question. He instantly turned to it and trotted up to it, poking his head around the corner and blinking as darkness greeted him. He turned to Zircon. "Hey, can you shine a light here? Our little changeling heard something!"

"I heard it too," Zircon replied, trotting over and letting his horn glow with a soft light that took on a round shape. He reached the hall and cast the glow down the hall like an impromptu flashlight, revealing nothing more than two overturned buckets at the midpoint, stationed well before a slightly-ajar door some distance behind. His brow rose when he saw that the buckets had objects pouring out of them, clumped up together like crude rubix cubes.

He exchanged looks with Zephyr. "Just some buckets," he reported.

"Well, let's see if our garbed rat left anything else behind," Zephyr sighed. He turned to the others and gestured them over with a wing before he and Zircon made to start trotting down the hall with the buckets without waiting for the rest of the group to catch up. When they reached the dual buckets a little under a minute later, Zephyr knelt before the objects to get a better look at them.

He found that they had straps tied around them, in addition to an emptied quiver. The objects that spilled from the buckets were ring-like accoutrements, all engraved with symbols barely highlighted by Zircon's light. Slowly, he picked one up with a hoof. "By Celestia… the rat had a gazillion magic inhibitors on them?" he asked with widening eyes.

Zircon's eyes also widened. "So that's what the bastard did…" His eyes then narrowed as he turned to the others as they came into view. "He must've had a spell to hide it…"

"Hide what? What're you babbling about?" Armin asked, a brow raised high.

Zircon shined the light on the buckets, quiver, and motherload of magic inhibitors. He picked up an inhibitor in his magic and made it vanish in a flare of orange light. "The garbed pony may have access to illusion magic. They hid buckets and inhibitors on them," he answered upon turning back to Armin. "And it flashed orange… not my usual green. Damn things are enchanted."

Fenrir's brow furrowed when the words 'access to illusion magic' reached his ears. "That would certainly provide an explanation, regarding how this figure has thus far evaded apprehension," he piped up. "And considering my first encounter with such arcane tomfoolery on my first morning in Canterlot…"

"Bad, I take it?" Zephyr interjected, turning to Fenrir with a brow quirked. He felt Katie nod against his neck, and briefly turned to glance at her to see her eyes were narrowed.

"Worse," Fenrir replied tersely, his eyes narrowing to slits. He took a second to sniff the air, immediately finding a smell of rot that lingered about. He turned to the buckets and quiver before approaching them, kneeling down, and scooping up the strap with his paw to then bring it to his snout and see whether or not that was the source of the stink.

Upon sniffing it and getting a scent so strong it managed to assail itself on his tongue, he dropped it and reeled back, causing the buckets tied with it to clatter noisily against the myriad of magic inhibitors already littering the floor. He stood up, his nose scrunched so much it looked like it was trying to upturn itself. He growled lowly, an eye twitching as the sound left his mouth.

"What is it?" Spike warily asked, his brow slanting as Fenrir rapidly shook his head.

"I refuse to sniff that particular band a second time," Fenrir growled, using a paw to gesture to the damned thing like it insulted his mother. He turned to Spike and added, "I could taste the scent on my tongue. It is as if somepony flayed a bear, added onions to the carcass, then let it rot for a few days prior to submerging it in acrid swampwater. It is that atrocious."

Spike flinched, his tail twitching as he imagined the taste that Fenrir described. "That sounds nasty. And I've eaten things that everypony in Ponyville called 'baked bads' before," he groaned. When Fenrir rose a brow, he elaborated, "Uh, Applejack didn't get enough sleep one time and botched a recipe. Lots of ponies got sick, but I was able to eat the botched goods like it was nothing."

Fenrir nodded and made to speak further when NoLegs meowed, jumped off of Armin's head, and scurried over to the pile of inhibitors. He sniffed them for a bit before grappling them in his magic, hissing when they started glowing and pulsing a soft orange in color as he lifted the whole mound up. The cat then snarled at something that was beneath the pile, which likewise also pulsed with mana seemingly of its own volition.

Zircon shined his light on the object and gawked, finding a small crystal formation just jutting out of the floor like a thumbtack. "What's this doing here?" he asked, gently nudging the formation with a hoof as everyone turned to him to see what he was going on about.

Aquamarine snorted upon seeing the crystals, in addition to the pulses of mana they gave out. "I think one of our earth pony fellows had an accident," he stated.

"Under a pile of inhibitors, buckets, a quiver, and a smelly strip of leather?" Katie scoffed, eyes narrowing as she stared at the formation. "That, I'd hardly call an accident."

Aquamarine's horn glowed, and he trotted closer to the formation before kneeling down and letting a soft blue aura embrace it. His brow furrowed after his magic embraced the crystals for a full minute, watching as the orange mana then turned to simple hues of gold and red before he dispelled it and stood up straight. "That's… odd," he said tersely.

"What're we dealing with?" Zephyr asked, turning to Aquamarine with a brow raised.

Aquamarine's eyes narrowed. "It's… it's a mix. It's not just earth pony magic," he answered.

"Then what is it?" Katie demanded, turning to look at Aquamarine. The others did likewise, and with brows raised high—it was as though he spewed gobbledygook.

Aquamarine turned to the wraith, took a few seconds to lift a hoof and hit the bridge of his muzzle with it, and then groaned in exasperation. "Put it like this: innate magic has specific colors. Usually, innate and pure earth magic is gold, unicorn is red, and pegasus is blue. The crystals glow orange, like copper or the mane of one of your acquaintances. This batch is a mix. Do you see what I am getting at now?" he asked.

Katie's orbs widened and her ears fell back for a second. "Oooooooh." She nodded frantically. "I see." Her ears sprang up again. "And you said… usually, I believe?"

Aquamarine nodded back. "That's how it usually goes around here, and by 'here,' I mean the whole of Equestria plus the Empire. Sometimes innate pure magic sports different colors, but not often," he answered. "It might not go like that in Fantasia, though."

Katie sighed. "Let's go back to finding Wise Guy." The others turned to her, and she waved a hoof before adding, "But if he can make crystals grow out of the ground, then maybe we should… I dunno, fly or self-levitate or—" Words died in her throat as the entire hall itself, floor and all, suddenly pulsed with blue mana for a few seconds, during which time it briefly turned a sickly orange before fading away.

"The fuck was that?" Armin asked, looking around once the mana pulse had gone away.

Zephyr scowled. "Somepony must be trying to mess with the mana that's flowing throughout the castle. Let's get a move on, before something worse happens!" he barked, punctuating his order with a stomp of his hoof. He turned to the door and raced to it, with the others falling into a stampede behind him.

He saw Aquamarine's aura grab the door before he reached it and flung it open in one smooth movement, enabling him to start going up a set of stairs winding further up along a great teal column that rivaled the other columns in sheer size. Instead of another floor, though, the stairs kept on spiraling up and up without pause. Zephyr flared his wings and flapped to boost his speed, causing Katie to wrap her hooves around his barrel and activate their enchantments with a swell of pulsing blue mana.

The mana swell started making ice grow along her front legs and, before too long, effectively froze her shoes to his armor. "Say, why does the palace have mana in its walls?" she asked as he more or less carted her on.

"The Crystal Heart and everypony in the Empire provides it. Think of it as a subset of ancient unicorn and earth pony magics," Zephyr replied, slowing a bit without fully stopping his mad dash. After he ascended a few steps, and craned his neck to find that the others were catching up to him, he added, "And some pegasus magic too."

"Long story, I take it?" Katie asked, a brow raised.

"Yes," Zephyr replied, turning back ahead as he continued to gallop and flap his wings without actually flying. He frowned. "Damn, I think we may be going up to the highest point of the castle."

"Huh? Is there, like, a flat top or something? Last I saw was a pointy tower," Katie questioned, spreading her wings and then buzzing them to provide an additional boost to her makeshift mount's speed.

"That 'pointy tower' is the flat top—it's just that, really. It's just too high up for non-flying-pegasi to see it properly," Zephyr hissed, brow furrowing. Then the inside of the palace started glowing again, a bright orange that pulsed from above before fading.

Katie nodded against his neck and buzzed her wings harder, pumping as much strength into the beats as her emaciated body would allow. As a result, the two managed to outgallop the others, gaining distance with each and every step.

It took minutes to reach the top, and when they did, they found themselves in an observatory-type construct with slender columns forming thin windows that a foolish soul would be able to trot out of with relative ease, all capped off by a circular ceiling. Out through these windows, Zephyr and Katie could see the entirety of the Empire, right down to distant tilling fields and far-off mountain ranges.

But mana flared around them through the roof, columns, and floor, and orange—hideously orange gemstones burst forth between the columns like it was growing from the empty space the windows didn't take up. The crystals of apricot grew and grew, slowly closing off the windows until it sealed them entirely once the rest of the group caught up.

And in the center of this room, standing on a decorative circle in the floor that had a star motif centered within, was the cloaked figure they chased the entire time, its back turned to both them and the stairs. Magic, orange-tinted like the gemstones blocking off the windows, grappled at its body and undid the cloth wrappings it had concealing its features.

What looked like orange-tinted growths of glass sprang up behind the group and sealed off the stairs near-instantly, blocking off their entrance and leaving them trapped with their target. The light of the moon barely shined through the new, ugly additions to the tower, further casting a sickly umber light throughout the now-dismal room. One by one, cloth garments fell to the floor in heaps, releasing a strong stench of rot into the closed space.

Once it was naked, an orange light came from in front of it before it slowly turned around, first revealing a mangled front hoof that showed bone and tissue which flailed like a pendulum as it moved with the rest of its owner. Fenrir snarled, and Armin and Katie hissed in unison as they saw a skeletal-thin, brown unicorn stallion with multitudes of lacerations that exposed muscle.

He had a distinct tear on his right cheek that stretched up to his ear, showing his gums and teeth on that side of his face, in addition to a black mane and a half-buried gemstone cutie mark. On top of that, seemingly grafted to his forehead under his horn, a twinge of black crystal jutted outward like the beginnings of a secondary horn. A familiar voice, but one distorted and hollow, came from this cut-up pony.

"It seems you fell for my trap. Pity that Windwood isn't with you presently," the unicorn hissed, eyes narrowing balefully as their orbs zeroed in on the group. He cast a wicked grin and added, "But I should consider myself lucky. The weakest of guards and Fantasians alike, standing before me… heh, I think finishing you all off will be a cakewalk."

"Who's he?" Spike asked, turning to Katie and gesturing to the stallion for emphasis.

Katie turned to meet the drake's gaze. "Stooge number two of Shitty Hotel Service. Chocolate… something. Shitstain sounds appropriate," she cursed. She deactivated her enchantments and pried herself off of Zephyr's armor and back once the layer of frost melted away, taking into the air with a mad buzzing of her wings and hovering over the group. She crossed her forelegs and turned to Chocolate, whose horn still glowed in a bright orange.

"You think an arrow to the head will take me down? Listen here, bitch, you got another thing coming," she scoffed, breaking the cross to wave a horseshoe-laden hoof dismissively.

Chocolate's smile took on a sly cast and his orbs turned blood crimson for but a moment, and he slowly turned to Katie with a bemused brow raised. "Really now, Rubywing? Really?" he jabbed sarcastically, as if she could do no more than poke at him with a flimsy twig. "I believe you have it backwards. I can manipulate crystals and make them grow. I have you all trapped."

Zircon warily eyed the bit of crystal under Chocolate's horn, his pupils dilating as his orbs turned a twinge of red again. "Have… you been touched by Sombra?" he asked sincerely.

Chocolate chuckled, shaking his head as he turned to address Zircon. "I refuse to confirm that absurd inquiry—let alone deny it. Why should I humor you?" he scoffed, his tone icy in spite of his grin. "But I'll tell you this: my mana was once green—an impure green."

Katie's eye twitched. "So… death has changed your mana color?" she queried warily.

Chocolate glanced at Katie and snorted. "I'd suggest you'd zip it, Rubywing," he scoffed.

"Whatever the case may be, I care not for miniscule details. As it stands, you've evaded law enforcement for far too long," Fenrir snarled, one paw twitching as if he were resisting the urge to ball it into a fist. His lips pulled back when Chocolate threw his head back to laugh, the sound echoing all around in the closed-off space.

Only to cease altogether when Spike spoke up. "You realize you're messing with the wrong ponies and Fantasians, right?" he asked.

Chocolate turned to him, and his smile only grew. "I am trifling with a ragtag gaggle of weaklings, and nothing more," he replied in an amused, if malicious, tone.

Armin responded by standing up on his back legs and using his front hooves to detach the Accelerator from his side. Then he shifted a bit to holster the massive gun properly, making sure to point the muzzle right at Chocolate. "I'm afraid I have to agree with Spike. You don't seem to get just what you've waltzed into," he hissed, baring his fangs in contempt.

Fenrir cracked his knuckles and popped his neck. "Us, a 'ragtag gaggle of weaklings?' We're anything but," he stated before he made the first move, lunging at Chocolate with a downward strike. His adversary deftly jumped out of the way, aided by magic that wrapped around him at the exact moment the paw would have otherwise solidly connected with his face.

His smile broadened as Fenrir instead hit the floor, but it fell when he saw a few cracks forming a few inches outwards of the fist that made the impact. "So be it," he hissed, his horn glowing brighter as he spoke.