The rather half-baked plan that Lance had put forward was not without its flaws. To disorient the drake, Twilight had to stay constantly in its sights even as she went into a teleporting frenzy—left side, back away from massive stake-lined jaws, head up a few feet, teleport back down, rinse and repeat with a new direction that hopefully didn't lead to Greenwood. The vines covering the thing kept regrowing, no matter how many times Katie hacked at them with her claws, and some deliberately started to move just out of her pitiful range to goad her into following them.

Neither part of said plan accounted for it spitting what may as well have been acid, either. But both Katie and Twilight had, and when the drake horked up another burning bundle, they simply flew behind its neck to get out of its range. Once the spittle ceased being evicted, they then resumed what they were doing before—simple, although both found it a waste of time after repeating the process a few go-arounds, given the sheer enormity of the beast they were tackling.

Lance was having as much luck as a snowball would in hell; Pestilence kept himself out of immediate bone-breaking range, only staying in it for extended periods to turn his front pikes back into claws and shove the Accelerator aside. This, however, was the very least of Lance's mounting worries; every time he got blocked, he risked having a stake-for-leg piercing through his stomach, and so had to back off whenever a pointed hind even twitched in his direction.

The vines were another problem too; he couldn't risk flying too close to the drake, or else he'd be tangled. And a mid-air firing session was impossible at this point; he missed the first shot, and had no more chances to use for another round. All he could do was attempt to bash Pestilence, being mindful of his own shortcomings.

In short, the trio were having many things going wrong all at once, and the shenanigans were getting to be a bit too much for them. Twilight found herself grateful she at least had a cavalry on the way, and the raw magical power needed to keep the drake's attention at bay in the meantime. Though, she backed off and flew to the beast's spines when the drake spat out more acidic bile, and so did Katie. For a few seconds, they watched as Lance kept pushing his luck to its limit, and Katie shook her head. "You think there might be a way to dry this monster out?" she asked, turning to Twilight.

Twilight shook her head, contemplating that strange proposition for a moment. "If I try that with what little fire magic I know, I'd just get entangled before I even started," she grumbled.

Katie's brow furrowed as she flew along the back of the drake's neck, Twilight following after her. "You know any earth-based magic?" she asked.

Twilight pressed her lips into a thin line, mental gears spinning into overdrive. She recalled the last timberdrake she ran into, and the fate it suffered—before she recalled a peculiar aspect of that fate that made her reconsider the problem she now faced.

The drake she was trying, and failing, to dissuade from its rampage was partly earth. It had to be, just to stay together as one relatively cohesive body, formed of individual parts that were speed-grown on raw magic.

Take away the earth, or at least what held that together…

But her mental gears screeched as she and Katie found themselves face to face with the behemoth again, and it paused just long enough to size them up with its beady orbs. Then it opened its mouth and roared directly at them, the sheer force of the air current enough to send Katie tumbling down in a backwards roll. It spat acid right after, hoping to strike both in one shot, but Twilight teleported out of range and reappeared at the beast's barrel, just low enough for Katie to land on her back belly-side down with the very distinct sounds of bones breaking.

"Ow… that was a rib…" Katie groaned, eyes squinting as she stopped flapping her wings to ease the pain.

Twilight teleported again, reappearing above the drake's backside before scanning for Pestilence and Lance. She found them moving to the lashing tail of the beast, the former seemingly leading the latter on, willing the vines to catch Lance to no avail. She aimed her blade of light at Pestilence, maneuvering the tip farther ahead than where he was going. If she could time this right…

The tail moved first, curling on itself as it kept lashing at both, until it managed to hit them with its tip. This was enough to knock both tree-alicorn and disgruntled general out of the air, and both were sent hurtling to the waiting ground. Pestilence seized his chance; he righted himself, then dove towards his opponent and shifted his bark into claws that he then used to grapple him by the throat. The only thing blocking him from that exposed stomach was the Accelerator, which Lance had wedged between them with an admirable amount of strength.

Pestilence chuckled dryly at this resistance, but his laugh had a distinct note of annoyance about it. "Foolishness, disguised as vigor—you lack an ounce of courage, young colt," he hissed, lips twisting into a disconcerting grin. "Though, your attire is odd… and does not help your body a single bit." He started charging more of that sickly miasma around his horn, and it shifted from bright green to pitch black as they rolled through the air, wings flapping in an attempt to delay the inevitable.

Lance gave a grin of his own, teeth glinting in the not-light. It was enough to make Pestilence's grin falter. "Dark magic? Against me?" he taunted with eyes glinting dangerously, seeing the crackle of red and purple roiling about in the blackened aura. Both span again, a tangle of leaf and feathers that struggled to stabilize the altitude and establish dominance between the warring pair. Lance lifted a hoof and snagged his hat before putting it in his teeth again, and took the chance to thrust that hoof at Pestilence's left eye while he was at it.

Pestilence shifted his head to the side to dodge the blow. He beat his wings harder, spinning both of them once more, that time stopping only when he hovered over Lance with his enemy's back facing the approaching ground. "You know nothing of dark magic! You're just a pegasus with a peculiar weapon!" he spat, and launched himself out of the tangle, shifting his claws and using the Accelerator as a fulcrum for the shove.

Before Lance could even react, he launched a bolt of shadow-like magic at him, hitting him right in his smirking face as he continued to plummet. The attack embraced him in shadow, as all-consuming as the Void itself, and exploded in a black not-light that formed coiling runes and twisting patterns dancing upon a sphere that pulsed with red and purple power. The patterns span for a few moments, then cemented in place and fell perfectly still.

Coalesced darkness, suspended in the blackened air of more of the same all around. One could not get much more ridiculous than this, Pestilence mused.

Pestilence did not smirk nor make any other effort to rejoice when he realized Lance hadn't screamed through his hat or the spell. Nor did he attempt to block the hit with his oversized gun; he just took the hit with an insufferable smirk of his own in foolish stride. The spell suspended him in that sphere in mid-air, the runes starting to swirl around again as though they tried to find purchase. The sphere contracted on itself for a moment, but then expanded erratically as a pair of wings burst through out of its back, flapping madly.

Pestilence stared for a second longer, and sent another bolt of black magic towards Lance to contain his flailing feathers. Shadow wrapped around them, turning the sphere into something disproportionately stretched, before it compacted into perfect round form again. He did not notice, nor care, that the timberdrake he had made was slowly being led away from him thanks to Twilight teleporting in front of its face and egging it on.

Right now, he was going to contain and grind this feather-laden upstart into a particularly perforated pile of pegasus paste. He channeled more fell power around his gnarled horn, and scowled when the Accelerator burst through the sphere, gears and clock hands whirring in tandem, the solidified darkness being somehow pulled into its barrel. How the hell was his opponent countering his spell? He had no horn; just machinery and wings with which to charge it!

Another lashing of dark magic enveloped the weapon again. The sphere contracted, and distorted as wings spread as wide as they could go within the tightening mass. The runes faltered, the channels of red and purple mana faded as the Accelerator pushed from within with all of its owner's might. It twisted further when freed hinds joined in the effort, forcing themselves as far down as they could go, while Lance straightened his back and forced his skull up at the same time.

The mass of shadow shifted to accommodate its struggling hostage, but that just resulted in it being twisted further upon itself as Lance shook every limb he could in a daring maneuver to get out. Within, Pestilence could see him still smirking, the gears and hands of the blaster spinning faster and faster, feathers straining as best as they could without breaking.

What sort of defiance was this? The runes broke apart completely with one final push from Lance, and the darkness dispersed from him to allow him free flight once again. But that wasn't the main problem Pestilence took with the upstart, oh no; it's what happened immediately after that really had him scowling. Runes went aglow all over Lance's uniform, drawing that solidified darkness to the fabric with threads of power that shimmered gold and red. The darkness let itself get drawn in, adhering to the fabric seamlessly, smothering the runes as quickly as they'd activated and leaving behind perfectly ordinary-looking cloth.

Lance lifted a hoof and settled his hat back on his head, torn ears twitching knowingly. "You think I didn't come prepared for that shit?" he scoffed, readying the Accelerator in both front hooves for round two. "I've visited Ashwood before; it reeked of dark magic!" He lashed his tail in an attempt to wave it at the remnants of a once-cursed forest down below. "What else, short of the gods who forged Fantasia and Mythos, would have kept those trees alive all this fucking time?"

Pestilence gave a wordless snarl in response, eyes narrowing balefully low and lips twisting into a toothy, sharpened grimace. He underestimated this upstart, and that fact got under his bark and irked him in a way he had not felt for a long while. A thousand burning splinters ignited under his twisted flesh, and that fire pulsed in his writhing vines and beating leafy wings with sickly magic that wanted to get out into the world and tear into his airborne adversary.

Lance's sclera turned black, eyes glinting as his own smirk turned thin and strangely wicked. His outfit glowed and pulsed with the not-light, and so did his weapon of choice whose gears still span with fervor. His wings pulsed with crimson mana, and with one beat he rushed headlong towards his twisted opponent. Pestilence magically ripped every single leaf off down to the tiniest mockery of pin feathers and tail strands. He angled them at Lance, and new leaves rapidly grew in to keep supporting him as he fired away.

Lance simply sailed below the torrent of leaves, keeping Accelerator to his barrel as he drew closer, eyes still glinting with some sort of power his opponent could not pinpoint a name to. "You wanna play that game?" he hissed in a challenging tone that had an unmistakable timber in it, the reds of his eyes deepening as he edged closer. "I've played it twice already."

Claws reared up and grasped the gun the instant its owner came into reach. Vines splayed wide, sprouting thorns with an organ-like pulse, twisting onto themselves in preparation to strike. But Pestilence held the urge back, instead taking the opportunity to study his adversary up close and personally to discern what had suddenly changed about him. The blackened sclera tipped him off immediately, and those burning reds seemed to pulse with that latent power.

Something was wrong with this particular pegasus, Pestilence deduced. It was best to put the bastard out of his misery; but how was he to do that, when he casually shrugged off dark magic and launched back into the fight like nothing was going on?

Lance flashed him another wicked smirk, seeing the vines retracting to aim at him. He swung his hinds out and connected with Pestilence's stomach to launch himself back, swinging the Accelerator free with a sharp jerk of his fetlocks. The maneuver sent both darting away from each other, one spinning to reorient himself and the other curling up on his stomach as he felt and heard something breaking with the impact.

Both shot glares at one another, and both sets of eyes flickered as they sized up their enemies again. Some sort of wild spark gleamed in Lance's eyes, almost burning like a flame that did not give off light. For a moment, they hovered in place, waiting for limbs other than wings to twitch to make the first move on.

Lance let a low and deep chuckle emerge from his throat, mirthless and almost deranged given the situation. Pestilence did not flinch as the strange noise reached his ears, and seized all of his willpower to keep his vines and bark as stiff as he could manage. "You almost remind me of a stone-masked cultist I ran into a few years ago," Lance spat, with the faintest bit of admiration somewhere in his scathing tone. "Mad as fuck… mangled inside and out… and yet, still willing to fight for that which you believe in."

"Shut up!" Pestilence howled, grimacing a tiny margin as Lance continued to study him. "You understand nothing of me!"

Lance barked out a squawking laugh, one that started with a keening wheeze, descended down sharp trills, and ended with a distinctly leonine growl. "Then what explains your thorny mask?" he challenged. In the distance, he spotted a pillar of red light homing in upon the timberdrake from above and the Void closing an opened hole behind it, who itself failed to notice thanks to Twilight keeping it busy. He charged Pestilence, Accelerator raised, but his advance was halted with a parrying of the claws and a pushback as his opponent darted away.

Pestilence charged forward before Lance could retaliate, using his massive wings to pump in extra force needed to shove him back. His horn glowed a vibrant red, and fire that charred his barky mask swirled around the twisted spire. He made to clasp Lance's neck with his claws, but the massive gun swung outwards and towards his face, nicking his snout with its gears and hands as he backed off.

They had another staredown, both trying to gauge the other and capitalize on every fault they could. Matt's voice came in through the portable radio, loud enough for Pestilence to hear him, "Can't bring the Oak down yet. Have to take care of the drake first. Gathered some help for the task; sorry I couldn't arrive sooner, somepony held me up."

Pestilence whirled around with his fire dying, orbs landing on his monstrosity and widening as he spotted the charging light approaching it. In the act of turning away, he missed Lance's devious smirk and quiet reply of, "Copy that. Make it… flashy. I want to see the fireworks from my current vantage point."

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

Twilight's horn was starting to turn red-hot with steam wafting from the tip, and the timberdrake showed no signs of slowing down its rampage. Now, it raised its claws again and again, flailing them every which-way in an attempt to swat her into the ground. She narrowly dodged such a strike that came in from her left, teleporting just before it could hit her and reappeared behind its head. She felt Katie cringe as the impact of a newly-formed crater rang throughout the battlefield with a crash like thunder.

The drake swiveled its head backwards as if on a pivot, the wood and dirt and vines bending and shifting to accommodate the motion. It sized up its prey with a malicious spark in its beady orbs, and opened wide for another sizzling retort of spittle. Instead of teleporting, Twilight formed a shield around herself to take the hit, and for a moment her barrier held against the burning onslaught. But when the acid touched the backside of the beast, it jerked its head away and pulled as many vines into itself as it could, though not fast enough to avoid disintegrating a few of them. This in turn led to it stomping about and thrashing madly, and something from behind smacked the shield with more than enough force to first ripple, then shatter it in a fraction of a second.

That same object that crashed through the shield hit Twilight before she could act, knocking her and Katie some impressive two-hundred feet up into the air and at the drake's left. Katie, who was still recovering from her first landing, clutched Twilight's barrel on instinct and froze herself on for good measure. She looked around as they reached the apex of their surprise launch, and chittered nervously when she realized she did not see the sword of light flying with them. "T-Twilight?" she yelled, setting aside the enormous pain in her barrel for the moment.

Twilight did not respond. Katie tilted her head to look down and gulped. A pool of leftover sizzling pain waited below, ready to melt them as it had done with the vegetation. She glanced back and saw the drake's tail sweeping across its withers prior to descending, the soil lining its earthen spine sealing itself up, and its head turning in her direction.

That was when gravity started to assert her horrible presence once again, and within seconds she and Twilight started to careen sharply back down. Katie began to beat her wings as much as she could with the air working against her, but all she managed to do was turn herself and Twilight upside-down. "Twilight?!" Katie cried again, louder this time.

She still received no answer. The drake kept its eyes on its falling, helpless quarry, opening wide to scald and dissolve them in mid-air. It seemed to wait for the perfect angle at which to fire, muzzle slowly tipping down in tandem with the falling duo, teeth glistening in its acid. Katie kept flapping her wings to no avail, spinning herself and Twilight once again as she tried with all of her might to get airborne. They kept twirling, swinging left and right with manes and tails battering at them as Katie struggled and struggled to salvage the situation; all while the pool of acid widened and widened below.

The pair continued to plummet, with Twilight seemingly oblivious to the fact. Katie looked up to spot the red meteor… or something that looked and fell down much like a red meteor coming along to make everything that much worse. The second she saw it, she concocted a horrible mental image of the surrounding landscape being trashed beyond all possible recognition—and her and everyone that was still stuck here along with those remnants. It didn't matter that it would take down the timberdrake, because she'd end up joining it very shortly after the meteor-thing impacted.

In that instant, the inner nymph broke free. With its release, all of the seven hells broke loose. The ice melted and flew out of the hole in Katie's body, followed by the ice gluing her to Twilight. Her wings ceased beating, and she slipped off, hanging above her acquaintance by a few feet of distance in seconds. The shoes came off, though Katie lashed out her tongue to secure them. She saw the drake's mouth widening further and further with the glow in its throat brightening substantially, heard the wood cracking and the new acid bubbling more and more fiercely, and felt the air sailing through her wounds and mane with a strength that tried to rip her wings out of their sockets.

Sparing a glance below, she saw why Twilight had failed to respond. A massive, ugly bruise formed along the whole right side of her body, blackening more and more by the second. Her eyes were screwed tight, and her horn was now hot enough to start pouring copious amounts of steam that wafted up and up. It glowed an angry red, and that red stayed firmly upon the horn even as they fell. It should have cooled, but didn't.

Even if she flew, saved herself, she would not be able to do anything to help Twilight. She stood little chance against the drake.

She did the only thing she could; she let her orbs shrink and her body continue on descending. Katie inhaled deeply and screamed for all it was worth, voice echoing and distorting as a multitude of emotions surged forth to add their undertones.

Her cry was answered in only five seconds, for something she did not expect had occurred. The meteor stopped above the timberdrake's head, coalescing into a ball of red energy that then launched itself at her. Shadows lashed out at the beast in formations of four, parting from the meteor and compacting into bulbous shapes as they homed in right at its face. More raced out in serpentine configurations, seizing Katie in mid-air and pulling her into itself before the whole glowing mass darted for Twilight.

The shadow-clad being had more weight to it, far more than Katie could hope to attain even at this altitude. It caught up with Twilight effortlessly, circling under her to let her land on its back. Then it vanished in a burst of blue light and reappeared on the ground, away from the acid as the bulbous forms screeched and cried with ghastly and echoing wails that made the drake snap its wooden jaws at them.

Katie found herself plopped on the ground, and scrambled to put her shoes back on as the shadows of the new arrival dispersed to reveal a sight she would have found amusing outside of these circumstances. NoLegs stood proudly on Matt's head, whose mane and tail were now nothing but shadow at their most primal form and with his horn awash in blood-red magic. On his back sat Fenrir, his coat a little puffed out and one arm wrapped around Matt's neck whilst the other precariously cradled Twilight close to his chest. Also adorning Matt's body was a tattered black longcoat sporting faded white cuffs. The cloth was fashioned with dark grey armor plates running from shoulders to croup, and a red undershirt resting beneath.

NoLegs and Fenrir both jumped off, and Matt flashed his horn before summoning a strange skull-shaped mask also made of black metal with a tuft of false red hair affixed between two pale horns that pointed at an angle. It had sharp fangs jutting down, tapered to twin points. It had beady eye-holes and nostrils, ear holes on the sides and a central hole for his horn to slip through. This was completed by a covering that would fit on the back of his head and was topped off with a slit along that covering for him to pull his mane through.

He rose it up high and slid it down his horn to affix it on proper, keeping his eyes on the timberdrake as it tried to disperse the shadows still pestering it. But darkness was not as easy for it to dispel, and the size of the amorphous blobs only meant it had a harder time striking at them. A few times it managed to clamp them all in its mouth, but the darkness simply seeped out through the gaps in its several teeth before returning to bothering it some more.

The mask snugly landed upon face and snout, false fangs only further highlighting his white jaw. His eyes gleamed through the false sockets, burning brightly with enough light of their own that one could have mistaken them for fire. Matt's horn flashed again, and with his magic he willed shadows to carve runes and a circle into the earth at his side. It was small, only about the size of a standard hoof, but it glowed with power as he worked to complete it.

The timberdrake kept snapping uselessly at the summoned shadows, spitting acid with its head turned away from the group. For a moment, the shadows dispersed as the acid struck upon another patch of wood-tarnished soil that it turned barren before they reformed and resumed with their distraction. Matt waited, chin raised as he completed whatever spell he had inscribed upon the soil. He struck the carved earth with a hoof, nodding to NoLegs, who nodded back and teleported over to float in front of the drake's mouth as it turned to face the grounded lot.

NoLegs raised his sword and the screeching shadows gathered around it, pulsing with red power. The earth trembled as the timberdrake shifted to watch its new, even tinier adversary. NoLegs's eyes flashed crimson, magic turning black for the barest of instants, before he rushed forward with blade twirling in a dizzying blur at his side. The drake reeled and backpedaled as NoLegs started hacking at its face, his strikes dragging shadows across the bark in a sharp skitter and series of repeated thunks. A few lacerations in the bark formed, but vines and soil filled them in even as more were added to the monstrosity's snout in short order.

Fenrir laid Twilight down on the ground as she started to stir. "Ugh… what's…" Twilight grumbled, sitting up and lifting a hoof to her temples.

"Backup's here," Katie piped up, willing her magic to seal her gaping chest-hole shut once more. She raced around Matt, who nodded and summoned a cupcake with a flick of his horn, even as a small portal opened at his side and a thick, jagged sword hewn of obsidian rose out of it. He willed his magic to weave around the portal and pull dirt into it until it was closed. Once the runic circle lost its power he wasted no time taking the sword, as long as he was tall, in his mouth by the hilt. He turned to Twilight, angling the blade carefully to avoid losing his balance, a bright red pentagram that was carved into its hilt pulsing with a latent power.

Twilight shook her head, which was aching something fierce, before turning to Matt. She took a second to recognize that curved horn and white jaw, as well as what now adorned the rest of the body. "Is… is that your… military gear?" she asked.

Matt nodded and plopped the cupcake upon her raised frog just as it parted from her head. "Eat that. It'll help," he spoke through the hilt, the growling echo lacing his voice once again. Twilight looked at the treat after pulling it to her muzzle; it was chocolate-brown, with white frosting drizzled with the chestnut brown of caramel and a rather hardy slice of apple wedged neatly atop. It didn't have a wrapping, but the tell-tale mottled texture that indicated it was very recently stripped of that. She stuffed it into her mouth and chewed, smearing her lips in frosting as she made sure the apple slice went in and stayed there. She ate swiftly; she could not afford to savor the sweet and buttery taste with danger still running around and trashing everything in its path.

Upon swallowing, she turned to Matt again, feeling her headache ebbing. "Wh-who gave you… the cupcake?" she asked, somewhat exasperated, but smiling in appreciation just the same.

Matt smiled beneath his mask and through his mouthful of handle. "Pinkie did. Would not let me leave until I took a whole baker's dozen of the things," he answered. He glanced at Fenrir and nodded. "You ready to initiate combat with something twenty times larger?"

Fenrir nodded, face hardening as he lifted his paws and rolled his shoulders. "What would you suggest that I do?" he asked, turning to the drake as Twilight got to her hooves with a wince as pain seized half of her body. She knelt on her front knees, and Katie lifted a cold claw to touch her horn. Upon contact, both sputtered and hissed with steam. That caused her to yelp, then collapse the rest of the way as shock and agony raced from her horn down her spine.

Katie did not pull away from the distressed noise. Her expression hardened as Twilight started kicking her legs out, and she buzzed her wings to get airborne, keeping the rest of her claws tucked upwards. Slowly, with the contact, the red-hot glow dissipated as Twilight's horn cooled without cracking. "Shhh…" The thrashing slowed as Twilight heard the noise and registered the numbing cold of ice, and Katie rubbed her head with a shoe consolingly, keeping her claws pointed away from vulnerable flesh. "Let my magic do its work. Your hornache'll be gone in no time."

Fenrir turned to the pair, lips pursing into a thin line for a moment. Matt had done the same, even as NoLegs continued to whale on the drake's face for all it was worth. "... you're… absorbing the heat?" Matt muttered, smile falling as a bemused glimmer of awe glistened in his eyes.

Katie nodded, pulling away once Twilight's horn was the same mulberry as the rest of her coat. She turned to Matt and crossed her forelegs across her barrel. "Kinda been doing that for a while now." She glanced at the timberdrake as NoLegs started to teleport around its head, adding new scars with his feverish slashing.

Twilight rose to her hooves, headache remaining but now something ten times more manageable. She glared at the giant beastial golem, tail lashing. "We'll have to take care of the dirt. That's what keeps it together," she grumbled.

"And the vines," Katie added with eyes narrowing.

Fenrir grinned a toothy, gleaming smile and his ears twitched in time with the corners of his lips. "The soil, you say? I can help you with this… belligerent gardening project gone awry," he said, tail wagging in anticipation.

Matt smiled again, levitating himself even as his own tail started to pool around and under his hooves. "And I'll help keep cover. Seems things have gotten… interesting around here," he mused darkly, his mask glinting with his own magic. He grasped Twilight in his magic and gently levitated her up to rest her upon his back, making sure she sat upright. Fenrir then proceeded to clamber back on, also upright, and leaning forward to wrap both arms around Matt's barrel and Twilight's sides.

Katie chirped and chittered, parting her forelegs to clap her front shoes together with a series of muted thunks as a chuckle left her torn mouth. "I'll help NoLegs then. You three do the rest," she said, and with that, she took off in the direction of the beast's swinging mouth as it tried again and again to trap NoLegs in its wooden teeth. Matt nodded and embraced himself, Twilight, and Fenrir in a cloak of shadow that then raced up to the behemoth's back. Still distracted, the drake could do naught but thrash and snap at NoLegs with all of its might, acid still burning in its throat as it waited for an opportunity that was slipping out of its massive grasp.