Lance grit his teeth as Pestilence tried to strike at him again. He barely moved his head to the side in time; even then, his cheek had been grazed, and the fresh cut stung as his opponent drew blood. Wincing, he retaliated with another swing of Accelerator, but the attack went wide as Pestilence backed off. Both hovered in place, sensing their impasse as their eyes locked onto each other. The lock was briefly broken up by Natalie's radio-chatter, but reaffirmed itself as soon as she relayed what was happening on her end to Lance.

Pestilence scowled, the bark making his mask twisting and splintering with the effort. First the Void had shown up, and now Greenwood had been torched. He surmised the day couldn't get any better than this, even as cogs began to spin in his head at what all this meant. "So you're one of the Catastrophe Children," he hissed, comprehension flickering in his fiery orbs. "Or, rather, their leader."

Lance idly nodded, slowly and with as much apathy into the motion as he could muster. "Took you this long to figure that much out," he spat. With a blaise shrug he added, "I assume word never reached you?"

Pestilence ground his wooden lips together, the grating sound making his leafy mane rattle slightly. "Oh, it had years ago… but that was a turbulent time," he answered, a shaky smile rigidly affixing itself upon his mask. "I saw those chimerae and the shapeshifters overhead from my house, both then and now. I even considered intervening then… but decided not to."

"So why now?" Lance asked, readying the Accelerator once more.

"Because that time, the Envoy wasn't present," Pestilence replied, his smile stiffening just enough to do away with its shuddering. "She is but an omen of the disasters ahead, colt. A symptom of a much larger problem. That is why she'd been locked away—because with her reemergence, the problem would once more resurface."

Lance flew over to strike again, but Pestilence twisted out of the way, careening quite a distance backwards on one flap and a twirl before stopping to charge another magical volley. "Back then, I knew Greenwood would recover from whatever brought the chimerae and shapeshifters—but the Envoy's arrival heralds the disasters of ages past once more befalling Fantasia!" he growled, smile faltering as dark energies began pooling around his horn once more.

Lance's eyes narrowed a bit, and anticipating a blast of magic he flapped his wings harder to gain some altitude. He rose, though his wings began to ache at all the constant flying and antics—a dull ache, but an ache nonetheless that would grow if something wasn't done soon. Pestilence didn't blast him, instead opting to trail him with his orbs as yet more mana crackled and charged.

A thought hit Lance, and he smirked at the absurdity of it. "Then why aren't you fighting the Envoy?" he asked. He stopped ascending with the question, and internally laughed his ass off at seeing Pestilence grinding his wooden lips again. "I mean, let's stop and think this out—herald of problems buried fuck knows when, said problems resurfacing with her… why fight me instead of her? Wouldn't that stop the problems in their tracks?"

"Because that wouldn't stop those calamities, you feathered buffoon!" Pestilence yelled, flailing his forelegs at the surrounding Void. "They've already struck here! What's the point?!"

"Touché," Lance thought, though still something bugged him about this whole sordid affair—especially Pestilence's reluctance to act on what he'd just spouted. So he popped off with a different question, "Then why not try to avert the disasters, or rebuild after they've passed? I mean… I was there when Akron awoke, and I helped kick his ass back into the seven hells."

That earned him a barrage of leaves from Pestilence, which he twisted around with a few flaps of his wings and some swings of Accelerator for added momentum. One did manage to nick his cheek as it veered from the other leaves however, its edge sharp enough to etch a thin and precise line under his eye that stung with his movements, millimeters apart from the first cut. The pain from that first cut flared up because of this, though he ignored it as his adversary opened his barky mouth again.

"You, a pegasus, helping stop Akron himself?!" Pestilence barked, orbs widening at the mere notion. Then, he started to slowly clap with his front claws, a bemused smirk emerging on his mask as he noticed the thin cuts now oozing blood on his opponent's face. A mirthless laugh left his wooden lips, wheezing and guffawing before dropping into a flat crescendo. "Don't make me laugh! You'd need at least a fleet of ponies with enough magic to twist Fantasia as they see fit, simply to defeat that monstrosity!"

Lance arched an eyebrow, wincing as that drew a little more pain from his wounds. "... I do, indeed, have my own fleet," he said, completely deadpan. Pestilence's smile fell at this. "And I brought ponies with me who could fuck up Fantasia if they wanted to."

It didn't take Pestilence long to connect those dots. His scowl reaffirmed itself when the completed pegboard fell into place. "... the Children…" he muttered.

Lance nodded. "Only two out of three, though. Was more than enough for Akron to be ground to dust," he stated. For a fraction of a second, his vision tilted, but he shook his head to stop it from spinning too far. With a slight wobble his sight reoriented, and his ears fell back as he realized what Pestilence had done. Alarm bells rang in his head, and panic tried to take hold, but years of experience with an army and all the bullshit the job entailed took control and punted the panic back in its cage. "... you're trying to whittle me down, aren't you?" he hissed, chest clenching the slightest bit with that realization.

Pestilence's insufferable smile returned, twisted by his scowling. That little gesture reinforced Lance's suspicion as his vines writhed in anticipation. Leaves twitched, shifting on lopsided tilts as those wings flapped. At once the world began to spin again, and Lance squinted his eyes to try and minimize it. It steadied after a longer moment, whereupon he felt strange pulsing from his cheek. A hoof parted from Accelerator to feel it, before his eyes went wide at what he discovered.

Veins. Bulging veins. He felt veins writhing beneath his skin. Pushing up, slithering around, digging into his flesh—and not one at a time, either. An entire crop was spreading to the rest of his head, from those two little wounds. The hoof dropped and returned to the gun, and Lance trembled as he glared at his adversary. "What. Did. You. Do?!" he spat.

Pestilence's smirk did not falter even slightly. The leaves of his mane twitched, and his tail lashed erratically. "Seeded you," was the blunt answer he gave. "Soon enough… you'll be just like me."

Lance's mind reeled as he felt veins inching their way through his mane and down his neck. Everything he had seen the last few days flashed before his eyes. Pegs fell, cemented into place. Budding rage started to shoot through his blood, pulsed across his wings with angry mana, and made his eyes glow much more fiercely. Yet through it all, his head shook and another squawking laugh parted from his mouth as realization dawned.

The weight of everything that could and did go wrong with Ash and Greenwoods slammed into his chest as Pestilence charged him. Lance let himself be pushed back by barky claws; he did not wince at the gashes those claws left. The source… all this time, he'd been arguing with and trying to strike down the source of Greenwood's woes. It was little wonder the ectoplasms up above took special issue with this place; they, too, had their own way of warning all to stay away, and he didn't listen!

That realization made him want to bash Pestilence's mask in that much more now. "Seeded me, huh?" Lance challenged, a bit more smugly than he'd have liked. Rage started to cloud his senses, increment by increment as the pulsing veins reached his collarbone and withers. "... is that what you call it?"

"I could hardly call it anything else; ponies are but crops to this curse," Pestilence retorted, tail still lashing as his horn continued to glow with those shadowy tendrils.

A third laugh left Lance, the barest tinge exasperated but mirthless overall. The comparison that Pestilence made did little to ebb that exasperation. Indeed, it did not help at all. "And you assume—" He wasted no time lifting his chest a little to show Pestilence the claw-marks he'd received prior to this fiasco, scarred over with white fur by now and visible through the tears in his clothes. "—that this is my first run-in with being seeded? That it would affect me as it has your children and brethren?" Mana started to pulse across the forming veins, as red as his mane and as swift as his wingbeats. The anomaly stopped shy of the scarred claw-marks, and green magic warred with crimson power.

Pestilence faltered at the sight. His barky mask contorted around his mouth, trying to show confusion but instead widening into something horrified—at least, as horrified as one like him could get. "Impossible! Not one cursed tree has left Ashwood, for any reason!" he barked, confusion flickering in his orbs. That merely caused Lance to lift a questioning eyebrow. His chin tipped, and a ghost of a smile spread across his now-shifting face.

"If not one has left Ashwood… then were they, perhaps, forgotten?" Lance challenged, feeling his own magic fighting the power that tried to force itself deeper inside his body. "Or… deliberately left to its own devices?" That earned him another strike from Pestilence, though Lance dodged it with a backflap before then circling around his opponent in a tight circle.

"What are you prattling about?!" Pestilence shrieked, his lack of comprehension twisting his wooden mask into something slightly less equine and more perplexed. The shadowy magic launched off, aimed for Lance, but he merely turned around to take the hit between the wings. The runes activated once more, absorbing the foul magic without harming the uniform's wearer.

Lance resumed flying around Pestilence in his circle, keeping his smirk hidden and his wings fully exposed for a moment. His magic continued to fight the fell power, slowly but surely pushing it back out where it belonged. "You mentioned… that the last time you used your power, it was against foals." The statement hung heavily in the air, a horrible condemnation from one adversary to the other. It was like a judgement awaiting to be cast, the verdict already decided but staying in the realm of the unspoken.

"And?!" Pestilence barked, charging more viridian magic around his horn as he waited to see what Lance was trying to convey to him.

Lance whirled around and charged first, managing to strike Pestilence across the face with the brunt of Accelerator's weight. This sent the barky stallion spinning back with his magic dying down, falling down a bit before regaining his aerial balance. He glared at Lance the moment the dizzying tumble had ground to a halt, wings propelling him upwards once again. Claws outstretched, eager to rend flesh, but clashed with steel instead as the strike was blocked. The cursed stallion could now see the crimson magic still rallying, putting up a struggle, gaining back lost ground.

What Lance uttered next made him hesitate once more. "What became of those foals?" he asked.

Silence lingered, barely broken up by wingbeats as the two hovered there, eyes and weapons locked onto each other. They regarded the other with the same measure of contempt, though Lance had to fight to keep his smirk from dropping or widening; even then his lips knowingly twitched. Pestilence, however, trembled slightly, as did his dimming orbs. His magic started being cast anew, before it sparked and popped for a moment, then reasserted itself around his horn.

In the darkness of the Void, silence was the ultimate damnation. An affirmation of suspicion. A reason to distrust the other. The shadows that devoured the light, until nothing but ruin remained. Existence itself, merely waiting to be denied. It regarded the combatants with equal measure; indeed, it seemed to hold them with rapt attention and veritable contempt. Lance's unanswered question still hung in the air; a last word that had stopped the fighting dead in its tracks between them. There wasn't even the faintest bit of a struggle; claws locked onto Accelerator, and that was that. Magic had yet to fire. The pulsating bits of Lance's flesh did not gain further ground, but his natural magic did.

Nothing else in the Void mattered to them at the moment. An eternity passed, lingered, then passed again as the silence reigned with an iron grip. Even the timberdrake was but a distant memory, here and now—its roars had long since perished. Its stomping had ceased. Its spittle ceased to glow. Ashwood lay still below, in tattered remnants that went ignored. The radio static had fallen eerily quiet—as did those on the other various ends of the communications' links.

If time had halted, the airborne pair would have dropped. But it didn't, and so let them continue to hover. Two minds fogged with static, one of them still awaiting an answer to be given, the other wondering how his opponent hadn't yet been overtaken.

Both seemed suspended for some uncounted bit of time, contemplating what they knew.

The lock was broken when Lance angled his hinds and kicked out, the strike connecting with Pestilence's stomach. It crushed vines and internals alike, and sent him careening backwards with the claws shrieking against metal plating for a brief moment. Pestilence span once more, though only once and with his front claws shifting to defend his otherwise-prone stomach.

"My vines! They should have stopped your kicks!" Pestilence gabbled, orbs widening in confusion.

"But they hadn't. Gee, I wonder why…" Lance muttered darkly, flying over with Accelerator raised high above his head. He struck down, but Pestilence regained his wits and twisted under, then above and behind his opponent to dodge both the strike and his hind hooves as they lashed out to intercept the maneuver. With a sideways swing of one of his wings, he caught Lance and sent him spinning back as he made to turn around. More nicks and cuts appeared in fur and clothes, and further veins pulsed erratically as the curse mounted another assault where the wounds had appeared.

But Lance was having none of it; the moment the tumble had ceased, he reoriented himself and launched right back towards Pestilence to return fire. This time, he angled the barrel as he charged, ascended high enough to strike from above, aligned his primaries behind the gears and let loose a torrent of violet plasma that crackled as it sailed towards its target. Pestilence got out of the initial volley, only to catch a purple shockwave that erupted from the projectile with a loud crack battering his eardrums as the air suddenly buffeted him.

Lance followed up with another volley, this one of flame accentuated by a hail of bullets, upon his prone opponent before he resumed flying when his altitude started to dip. He watched as the second shot exploded violently upon Pestilence, sending embers and shrapnel everywhere within the blast radius. Smaller, less deadly explosions rang out from that same impact, further clouding his adversary in crimson and superheated metal.

And despite everything, Lance found himself smiling even as the torrent of fire cleared to reveal a slightly-burned tree-alicorn with shriveling leaves, curling vines and bullets wedged in his mask. Fires ate away at his legs, withering the claws steadily into ash. Even as more plates formed and rushed to replace the damaged parts of him, Pestilence continued to hover like nothing had happened—though his scowl had returned, complete with twitching eye.

"How… the seven hells… are you able to do that?!" Pestilence demanded, watching Accelerator warily as his plates began to evict shrapnel and bullets with their reformation.

"I would give you the answer, but that would be stupid of me," Lance retorted, tensing slightly as he felt more furrows forming in his flesh. He flew back when Pestilence released an angry cry and charged, claws shifting to pikes that were ready for impalement. The world tilted again, and Lance tilted with it as his vision began to blur. While he was able to dodge the strike, the maneuver was clumsy and unbalanced; his wings paying dearly for it as the air suddenly slipped out from beneath them and flailed uselessly. "Fucking hell!" he thought, eyes narrowing as he felt pain flashing across his nerves. "Have I already exhausted my mana?!"

A dark chuckle met his torn ears as he felt wood wrap around his stomach suddenly. Vines writhed against his coat and wings, searching for chinks to work around. Accelerator hung in a tight grip, but held as he was now, Lance was certain it would be next to useless. "Your magic will do you no good here, colt," Pestilence muttered ominously, his tone soft and almost despairingly sweet. "Whoever seeded you first merely set the course for your own gruesome transformation."

Lance's eyes widened, and a grunt came out of his throat as he felt vines puncturing his wounds, ready to lay down the foundations of the curse. His vision fogged as he felt an unholy force move to part pieces of his hide away from muscle, inch by painful inch. He could feel the blood running down one foreleg, and soaking in his chest-feathers as a terrible burning began to settle within.

He looked up, about to scream in pain, only for the noise to die in his throat as he detected a glowing green aura racing in his direction. "Get your fucking hooves off of my superior!" an angry mare cried in the distance, causing Pestilence to jerk up to see what was about to hit the scene.

His wooden brow furrowed, and his orbs shrank as a bright viridian magic seized his vines and forcibly yanked them out of Lance before tearing them off of Pestilence outright. The aura in the distance vanished, then reappeared in front of them before seizing Lance and the Accelerator and vanishing with such haste Pestilence had to shake his head to confirm what had happened.

He did not have the chance to process this, however; the moment the head-shaking stopped, he found a floating arrow perfectly level with his face. It stayed afloat for a second, and promptly wedged itself between his orbs the second he saw it. Worse, it forced itself into his face with a force that sent him careening a few feet back, as it had managed to part the shifting bark and hit the vulnerable flesh beneath.

His left pike-leg shifted into a claw, reaching up to dislodge the arrow when he felt the distinct sensation of something foreign sprouting from his flesh, forcing his mask apart plate by plate as it grew. The claw seized the arrow, but not fast enough to prevent angry red from overtaking his face. "What is the meaning of this?!" he yelled, glancing around fitfully to try and find the source of the mysterious third party that had intervened. Yanking roughly half the arrow out, which crumbled in his grip, he called out, "Show yourself!"

But he received no further answer, other than the intruding red that spread to the rest of his skull.

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

Lance, baffled, reappeared on the ground alongside the third party who had decided to save his hide. Still feeling a foul power trying its best to violate his body, he turned to find Anna looking back at him with a reddened, determined face and her horn awash in magic. Strangely, her sclera had blackened. "Hold still. I need to check the damage," she said, horn dimming to a faint, steady glow.

Lance didn't argue, and shifted so she could see the wounds in full. Accelerator plunked to the ground barrel-first, and as her claws came to rest outside the wounds, he leaned against it with a wince. Anna scowled at the pulsating flesh, frown going lopsided as she contemplated what she saw. "... fuck me…" she grumbled.

"Why'd you come now?" Lance asked, seeing kudzu weaving itself along her claws. He backed off a bit, not particularly keen on having more plants violate him in unpleasant ways. Though unfortunately for him, green magic wrapped itself around him to cement him on the spot.

Anna faltered for a moment, scowl fading. "... I just saw that assmunch grab you, and… well, I wanted to stop it," she replied. As gently as she could manage, she thrust her kudzu into the wounds… and winced in what Lance guessed to be empathy. "I can still remove the seeds… hopefully…" Lance grit his teeth with a hiss as, once more, plants proceeded to dig into him with grim purpose.

Lance looked up at the Void-shrouded sky, trying to gauge where Anna had taken him. He noted he could not see Pestilence anywhere, and made mental notes to cave his face in for the stunt he tried to pull. He looked around, and saw the timberdrake still struggling with Matt and his motley crew of misfits, though it seemed to have taken notice of the fact he was currently grounded. With a roar it started to charge towards them, though Lance noticed right away that it favored its right front over the left, with the claws dragging against the ground in its mad dash to pick up what seemed to be easy prey.

The reason for the limp forced itself out of that leg with a heave that made the beast's wrist snap as it flopped against the ground, and ice formed at the break point with a visible chill that distorted the air. A grey blur dashed up the limb with a distinct canid howl that caused shadows to materalize in front of the monster. The blackened mass seized the beast's face and congealed into a dome that caused it to thrash its head from side to side in an effort to dislodge it. Outside of that, Twilight teleported from that blur to the orb and set to work crafting light sword after light sword, setting each one on a slanted angle as she started using them like a flight of stairs.

Lance whistled at the sight, then cried out as he felt kudzu grabbing something wedged in his cheek. The plant twisted and pulled for a moment, careful enough to not break his skin and muscle tissue further, before pulling out of the wound entirely to reveal a writhing seed caught in some leaves. Its roots, powered by foul magic, flailed about uselessly before the kudzu crushed it between its coils mercilessly. "One seed down," Anna reported, tossing it to the side where it bounced and landed with a distinctly un-plantlike rattle. She summoned an arrow and stabbed the seed with it to be sure it couldn't take root ever again.

Left with stinging pain to contend with, Lance could only wait for further extractions before jumping back into battle again. He turned to the impaled, foul body-invader just in time to see it consumed by flaming crystals. A thought struck him, and he turned to Anna as her kudzu delved into his face again to wiggle its way down his neck. He noticed that, besides that, he didn't feel anything but pain lingering where the roots had managed a foothold before being evicted. "So… I've heard about this 'seeding…'" he began, trying not to be awkward—a difficult feat, considering that plant matter was under his skin at the moment.

Anna nodded for him to continue, face focused but eyes dulling at the mere mention of it. Lance took that as his cue, "... and now I know these seeds can be removed… so tell me, have you been seeded and can yours be removed?"

Anna sighed. "Yes to the first one, no on account of cutie mark," she answered flatly, with a resigned huff that did not go unnoticed by her superior. "But your mark… your mark helped you fight it. If I work quick enough…" She left the statement unfinished as she continued to work.

Lance nodded dejectedly, and grunted when the kudzu slithered back up and pulled out of his cheek-wound. He could feel the blood welling up now, and frowned as kudzu in the gashes on his chest began getting a tad more explorative to compensate. He glanced around again, trying to gauge where his adversary went when a green glow from above snagged his and Anna's attention.

Viridian power, laced with tendrils of shadow, was racing towards them. Anna pulled her kudzu out, grabbed Lance with a claw, and teleported them both out of the attack's way. Bamboo and ivy ruptured the ground where they stood the moment the spell connected with the dirt, jolting straight up in sharp and bristly spikes to skewer any caught within the afflicted patch.

Seconds later, Pestilence himself raced down to that patch of land to see if he had snagged that annoying pegasus that decided to fight him, barky masked frayed and blackened. He was met with immediate disappointment; only a few burnt orange feathers lingered, but no blood or bits of shrapnel were on the plants he summoned. Not even the hat was present. He stomped onto the ground, power pulsing through the soil as he landed, head and orbs turning to scan the landscape fitfully. He gnashed his lips when he saw his timberdrake was still having a fair amount of trouble with its fair share of miscreants, but brushed that off—such resistance would be futile, of that he was certain.

Credit where it was due, though, the miscreants were putting up an admirable fight. He returned to scanning the landscape, when he spotted another green burst of light in the distance. One claw scraped the ground, and his eyes narrowed as teeth of wood and vines began to line his mouth. Wings flared wide, joints visible and spread in a frontal arc.

From afar, he could see more green light trailing along the ground, etching new cracks that could barely contain that power. Kudzu and ivy grew together, worked in tandem, and formed a thick wall that rose to be taller than he was. He surged forward in a gallop with wings flapping to boost his speed, claws scraping the ground as he went. A deranged smile formed on his mask, toothy and twitching as rage began to override confusion and calm.

This battle had drawn on long enough. It was time to end it. One way or another, he would see it through, and the blood of his enemies would water the new seeds to come. The impaled seed's ashen remains did not escape his notice, and he picked it up with his magic as he passed it, raising it high above his head as he drew closer to the wall. The moment he reached the wall, he grabbed it with his front claws and ripped it open with an unholy amount of strength to discover… nothing behind it, except another impaled seed that writhed helplessly against the ground, spattered with blood.

When the distinct lack of nothing registered to Pestilence, the vine-wall coiled around him, seizing his hind legs and wings before his front claws and head. The arrow he had seized fell and clattered onto the ground as vines wrapped around his horn, wrenching it and breaking his concentration in one fluid motion. For a moment, anger faded to confusion as the vines tightened into a ball that started squeezing him immediately. His orbs darted around once he noticed his impromptu prison, but by then the hole he had rent through the vines had closed, giving way to darkness.

He began to fight the crushing might of the kudzu and ivy, his horn alighting again in shadows that encircled him. The darkness pushed out, scraping away the intruding vines and freeing his limbs for just long enough to tuck them against himself. The plants seized him again afterwards, struggling against the sable as they applied more pressure. Then, red crystals grew upon the whole mass, spreading inside and out before dissipating in waves upon waves of fire. More of his bark burnt up, and his leaves shriveled as his mask fell off in pieces.

Once the last of the plants had fallen in heaps of ash, all that remained was him and his rather misshapen orb of shadows. For a moment, the orb hovered before breaking away in motes of ember and foul magic to reveal exposed bone and torn flesh where vines and wood once were. His head was even less equine; his own horn barely clinging to a sinewy skull dripping with blackened blood. What were once ears but now tattered remnants swiveled rather limply, trying their best to gauge the situation.

Even scraggly bits of mane clung to an exposed neck, hugging the pale flesh with a death grip as those crimson orbs once more scanned Ashwood. His rational mind screamed that he'd been baited into a trap, and the very thought irked him in a way that rattled his wings and shook off more loose, ashy bits of bark. It did not take him long to find another wall a few yards off, forming from that same green power he had pursued.

A smirk formed on what remained of his face as he felt more wood growing to replace that which was lost. It seemed the interloper was expecting for it to work a second time. He waited until his wooden mask had reformed before even approaching that second obstacle, and only then he took to the air to go around it entirely. He soared several feet above the ground, and rose even higher to keep the wall from snagging him as he neared it. Going over that with ease, he spotted his targets and could not fight the smile that spread across his mask.

He was about to launch at the interloper and rend her flesh, but was instead met with a hail of arrows that plunged themselves into every inch of his body as said interloper vanished in a burst of light with his quarry. Some severed vines, others frayed the bark in a myriad of places, and even a few newly-formed leaves were clipped with prejudice. This time, more arrows hit him after that first volley, spreading ice with each impact across his body. Frozen mid-air, all he could do was crash behind the wall with limbs snapping on impact.

A strangled howl left his mouth as pain flooded his senses. He saw the shattered ice second, and glowing blue arrows immediately after that. Twisting his head about, and willing his magic to lift his body, he tried to scan the landscape again, though agony and the roaring of the timberdrake both blurred his vision. His legs hung limply, as did one of his wings, and after the pain in them passed he noticed he could feel nothing in them at all. He scowled as his vision focused, and his head shook to ensure it would remain that way.

With a series of cricks and cracks, his magic set to work straightening his limp extremities and assessing what was wrong with them at the same time. Moving them a few times to ensure they worked, he spotted another viridian burst of light a ways off, accompanied by the glinting of arrows poised to strike. "Just how many traps is the interloper going to lure me into?" he wondered, wooden brow furrowing as he felt sensation return to the damaged parts of his body.

He moved his legs and wings, to make sure everything was back in order. He magically yanked out the arrows perforating him just to be sure, weighing his options as he tossed the spent projectiles carelessly over his withers. Charging wouldn't do the trick, and nor would flying around the obstacle. He toyed with the idea of teleportation, considering the fact that the defenses were already erected and waiting for his arrival, before dispelling the thought to contemplate another avenue of assault. No, the interloper would have likely prepared for that too, which left…

A cruel smile affixed itself rigidly on his barky mask. The ground pulsed with his fetid aura, breaking into miniscule islands with a stomp and a flicker of his horn. The cracks spread out, thin at first as they formed an angry web haphazardly across the dirt and ash all around him. Viridian energy seeped into those cracks, widening them the farther they travelled away from him. Vines snared out of the sickly glow, thorns gnashing and twisting onto themselves with a series of scrapes that echoed throughout the area.

If the interloper hadn't anticipated this… oh, the dark, dark thoughts running through Pestilence's mind at the possibility made him a mite giddy for what was to come. He watched as his web began circling around the interloper, almost veiling her and his adversary in an unholy light that closed in on them.

That little rain of waiting arrows wouldn't stand a chance now. He even saw a few impacts into the ground as that little bastion of brown began shrinking. It wouldn't matter—his power was already upon them, for he and he alone ruled the ground here. His smirk grew triumphant as he continued to observe the bloodbath just waiting to happen. His wings flapped once, then twice, and he stomped his legs and let his horn wash itself in his magic before pumping more of it into the dead landscape. Wouldn't take much for new life to sprout, really; he'd just need some fertilizer to help the process along, and the interloper and his opponent could make a great addition to the new forest forming in his mind's eye…

After all, most battles ended in some sort of trophy being gained. His would be the carcasses of his enemies, and—a brighter glow, a dome of pure light, snagged his attention. It was… it was forming in the bastion, that shrinking safe haven he had surrounded and capitalized on. Perplexed once more, Pestilence took to the air to see what was happening from a safer vantage point in case more arrows decided to pelt him.

He saw no such thing. In place of his expectations was a whole runic circle scratched into the dirt with tendrils of its own power, forming a bow and arrow woven entirely of vines that itself was framed by the arrows floating earlier. Dead-center stood the interloper and Lance, whose outfits buffeted upwards from their hind hocks in an invisible wind. The interloper was kneeling upright, clutching a bow that had one of its ends stabbed into the dirt, pulsing with her power. Her mane, too, was whipped up by this wind, long and flowing with some energy of its own.

For a moment, the dome she created shrank, almost caved in against itself as his tendrils lashed against it. Shrinking further, it only managed to encompass her and that blasted pegasus. Pestilence studied her features as the dome threatened to collapse, sparking wildly and flickering in and out of existence in patches that barely held back his onslaught. Her horn was also flaring and dimming with this channeled power, and her eyes were screwed tightly shut.

Pestilence scowled upon seeing her wooden claws. He lifted his front claws to clap them together once, and sharply enough that Lance looked up whilst his companion winced, concentration faltering farther. The dome almost caved in, but stabilized within seconds. Peering closer, he could see that Lance's flesh was not pulsating anymore.

He did not have time to ponder the specifics of why. The dome brightened, turned uniform in color, and began to expand as that interloper cried out in a sharp, warbling keen. Pestilence teleported away to watch what would happen from a far safer distance.

He did not like what he bore witness to as he reappeared miles away.