The surge of raw, channeled power could be felt throughout all of Ashwood, and its light could be witnessed from the decks of the airships within the area. The resultant tremors it created touched Greenwood, and up close that power blazed so brilliantly, even the timberdrake had ceased its thrashing upon sensing its presence. Twilight and her group turned to it at the same time as their massive adversary had, gawking at what they saw. The cursed trees that had, up to that moment, fought with Natalie and her group merely paused to stare in the fire-wrecked distance. Rainbow and Zecora, still tending to the prone Sarah, could do nothing but gape as they saw that distant dome and wonder where it had come from.

Pestilence could only stare as his own vines were absolutely shredded by the summoned power, their remnants flung aside before disintegrating into nothingness. The dome expanded to roughly Greenwood's size, whereupon it fragmented itself into a shower of glass-like shards that themselves turned into glowing dust that managed to land on the snouts of the group closest to the blast. A crater hadn't been left behind, merely the etchings which had called it forth, pulsing with a dimming but lingering aura that made fresh shoots of grass start to grow upon and around the area despite there no longer being any light to supplement them.

For a moment after that, silence descended once again. None of the combatants could move. None could muster the strength to speak. They could only stare and ponder as bafflement took hold. Shock had seized their bodies, and it seemed to linger for a damnably long moment thereafter.

Then, with her gait wobbling and the silence breaking with her movements, that damned interloper rose onto her clawed hinds, bow in barky talon and fire in her eyes. Lance rose to join her, parting one hoof from the gun to clutch her withers. The cat teleported over, gave that bastard pegasus a blade, a strap and a satchel, then returned to his feeble attempts at gouging out the timberdrake's eyes.

At once, the fighting picked right back up where it had left off. Pestilence noted a strange fervor in the gathered opposition that hadn't been there prior to that blast of power, in addition to a very faint aura of viridian coating their bodies. He turned to the one responsible for that power as Lance put the satchel on, strapped Accelerator in and twirled the blade away from the interloper a few times.

Then Lance flew up into the air, wings missing the surprise helper on the downstroke, face oddly beaming with a wide smile that revealed sharpened teeth. Seconds after, the helper levitated up to join them, staying close enough that Pestilence could see her and she could see him, but well out of close-quarters range.

Gunblade in hoof again, and Accelerator strapped on his back securely, Lance took a second for his opponent to soak in this new development before grabbing some bullets from the satchel and loading them one by one into the chamber. He did this slowly enough that Pestilence's eyes caught it, but not so slowly as to risk dropping them in the open air in case he was attacked again.

When the last bullet slipped in with a click, Pestilence snarled with leaves bristling and vines lashing across his own body as everything proceeded to hit his mind full force. His eyes narrowed, ember-like motes burning as fiercely as his mounting rage. He studied Anna, forelegs trembling and bark shifting erratically as though it couldn't come to a consensus on whether to rip and tear her or skewer her body on a pike.

He only saw bark on the legs. Very few vines decorating them, and flesh far less twisted than his own, strangely scarred over and with scabs marking elbows and gaskins. A mane of hair instead of leaves, full and vibrant and with a spring to its mass he couldn't ignore. A horn that hadn't yet been defiled in any manner whatsoever—not so much as a spiral out of place.

A power that could only be his, now wielded by somepony else.

This wasn't an interloper anymore. She was a challenger to his claim here.

With an angry cry, he surged towards her. Lance darted in front of her, raised and leveled his gunblade, then pulled the trigger in one swift motion. Pain danced across Pestilence's face as the bullet pierced his wooden hide and struck vulnerable flesh beneath, and spots popped up in his vision as the attack caused him to careen sharply downwards.

Before Pestilence could salvage his charge and redirect his course, an arrow wedged itself between his wings with a fleshy thunk. Lightning danced around him, and sparks flew to immobilize him there and then. White hot agony coursed through his veins, singing the wood once more as the leafy wings went completely slack. Down, down, down he went, tumbling helplessly to the waiting ground.

Yet before he could turn into a mess of gore upon the battleground, the timberdrake charged towards him and caught its master with vines anchored to its neck. It then thrashed about, hoping to shake aside its adversaries as its vines coiled protectively around Pestilence's body. Pestilence himself tried to will his limbs to move, yet thanks to the static still flooding his system, he was unable to manage so much as a twitch of anything save the head and neck.

That was before he heard the sound of a teleport, then found himself stabbed yet again by claws slashing away at his backside, sinking into his withers and haunches with a cold sensation that cast out some of the static even as it spread to his prone wings. He turned his head as much as he could, finding himself staring at the Envoy of Cocytus's permanent grin. She chuckled ominously. "So you were there… when I was sealed, huh?" she asked. When nothing save silence answered her, she shrugged blithely even as vines moved in to pull her aside.

A blade of light leveled itself with Pestilence's snout, and his eyes followed its length to find Twilight levitating in front of him with one fetlock around its hilt and her mane igniting in places. Vines moved to her as well, only to shrivel as white fires danced around her hocks and mitigated their assault.

"Yes or no?" the Envoy prodded, digging her claws deeper into vulnerable flesh.

"No!" Pestilence replied in a sibilant hiss, lashing his tail as the fires batted away the vines clutching him. The leaves struck the Envoy's hinds, but she didn't care or notice in the slightest. The timberdrake roared, its cry shaking its body as multiple flashes of light exploded all around it, leaving a myriad of floating arrows in their wake that then thunked into its body.

Twilight floated behind Pestilence, pried the Envoy off his back with magic that worked just slowly enough that her claws slid out easily, then proceeded to float a few meters away with her in tow. There hadn't been time for him to wonder why; crystals of angry red sprouted here, lightning coursed there, and ice spread in between the gaps with vitriolic fervor. The gargantuan monstrosity thrashed about, roaring once more as three different elements worked in perfect tandem to damage it.

It was impossible to fully stop it, given its sheer size, but the assault managed to slow it down enough that it wasn't further destroying the landscape everywhere but directly beneath its lumbering frame. Twilight watched as the head was coated thoroughly in red crystals and lightning, before ice swept over both in a thick rime that managed to reach the back of its throat. Even semi-frozen, the beast continued to writhe, and with one front claw broken, it was only inevitable for it to fall down face-first in the battlefield. That broken leg snapped clean off with a sickening crack the moment it twisted aside, its fragments rolling away uselessly and kicking up clouds of ash on its lonesome path.

Though, before it fell, she saw Matt's shadows dart away from it, followed by a larger blob of crimson-tinted darkness. After the collapse, the ice broke and so did much of the red crystals, though many of the latter and a fair amount of the former stubbornly clung to wood and vines. Red enveloped Twilight's head before Matt's voice echoed into her mind, "Got Fenrir and NoLegs; now what?"

Twilight's horn flashed and she responded in kind, "Seems we got help on this Faust-forsaken wasteland. I say we strike now, while it's down."

Red seized her immediate vision once more, and she heard Matt telepathically grumble, "Good call. Let's regroup first." She watched as the shadows changed course, shifting from moving parallel to the ground to an upwards slant that wound in a corkscrew headed her way. As Matt hurried to rendezvous, Twilight saw more flashes of light exploding around the fallen behemoth en masse, followed swiftly by another pelting of arrows that spread even more crystals and ice to compensate for those that had broken. Twilight could've sworn she saw a few more pelting it in the back of its mouth, as if the source just wanted to be sure.

A distant cry met her ears as fire began to sprout from those crystals, faint but filled with such rage that Twilight's blood ran cold just hearing it. Katie parted from her back, wings buzzing and body shuddering as the behemoth's new coating kept growing.

Silence held once the coating seemed to finish growing, though only for a moment.

Twilight wavered in her own magic as an ear-piercing cry shattered that silence, rising up from the timberdrake's maw as fire and static erupted all across its prone body. The fire failed to melt the ice and dissipate the lightning, though it left behind scorches and burning vegetation just the same. Its head suffered worst; the damage it received from NoLegs merely amplified its suffering a thousandfold, for the crystals were able to seal up those meager cuts and widen them before setting them and their delicates ablaze without the dirt getting in their way. The ice melted to wash off some dirt from the patches it coated, save the throat that instead formed a thin funnel thanks to the fire crystals also working to clog up that orifice.

It tried to melt the remaining ice with its spittle, but the moment it did, the spittle didn't spray as it had done so effortlessly before. Instead it pooled and trickled down its neck and chest, melting parts of itself that were once protected by a layer of dirt. The withering, dissolving body parts sizzled under its own attack, even as fire raced down its throat and the ice melted to coat the inside of its toothy maw.

It continued to wail and thrash, trying to stand on its wobbly three legs and slashing its tail haphazardly at the air to no avail. Twilight noted, with some dread running gauntlets through her blood, that she could not see Pestilence anywhere in the resulting confusion. She looked about, catching nothing in the darkness save for the thrashing monstrosity.

From above, a howl of fury reached her ears. "Where is the challenger to my claim?!" Pestilence roared, loud enough to halt the timberdrake for a few seconds before it returned to its pitiful attempts to quell its pain. Twilight looked up; hovering overhead was a viridian light racing towards her, front legs twisted into their thin and sharpened points as he drew closer.

Twilight teleported away before the attack could land, reappearing a mile off from the aerial arena with Katie still at her side. Pestilence, ever-persistent, redirected course to instead attack Matt as he came too close. However, the shadows merely darted out of the way, parts of them opting to wrap around the enraged alicorn in a sphere of all-consuming darkness. Within Pestilence struggled, the sphere warping to accommodate his flailing, while Matt pulled away to a safer distance.

He spotted Twilight and raced to regroup, his head poking out of the mass of darkness. "... so, that was the tree-alicorn," he began slowly.

Twilight nodded. "He's one piece of work, lemme tell you. I'd stretch my legs and guess he's nutty, even by your standards," she said, muzzle scrunching up as distaste welled in her mouth.

Matt heaved a sigh, lifted one leg out of the concentrated darkness, and facehooved with his masked head shaking. "I would say that's a low blow, but you've seen how low Fantasia has stooped," he grumbled, a hint of dismay somewhere in his rather blunt tone. He turned about, retracting leg and head into his shadows, to watch intently as Pestilence still thrashed about within his confines.

Twilight caught a glint out of the corner of her eye, and turned to the source as Lance flew over to them, gunblade catching the faintest spark of light as he drew near. Anna was levitating next to him, bow in barky claw. A long, suffering groan came from Matt's shadows, and Twilight could almost hear his head shaking and hitting an invisible wall.

Katie looked at Anna and proceeded to pipe up, "Um, aren't you… y'know, not allowed here?"

Lance huffed and snorted, face hardening. "She saved my ass, and Ashwood's toast anyway," he retorted. Anna turned to the struggling, twisting ball of darkness and waved her horn once; a myriad of arrows flashed into existence all around it and proceeded to sail past that darkness to hit their immobilized target.

Then, the group waited for a moment. NoLegs floated out of the shadows, his blade at the ready. Katie raked her claws together, creating tiny sparks that fizzled out seconds after forming. Lance spun the chamber of his gunblade with a hoof. Anna watched the sphere hawkishly, gently thrumming on the drawstring as a few of her vines started to layer themselves on top of her barky plates. Twilight's mane and tail still sparked in places, but she was nowhere near incendiary yet. Fenrir opted to stay put in Matt's shadows, though Twilight had a sinking suspicion he was waiting to pounce.

Only when the timberdrake ceased its flailing with a final, despondent howl did that sphere of darkness yield. Pestilence flew out, pikes poised and over three dozen arrows thunked in various places of his body. He raced right toward Anna, who oddly made no move to get away. He made thrusts towards her lungs once he was in range, but a small drop in her altitude proved to be lifesaving.

With eyes narrowing coldly, he instead impaled both of her shoulders very close to the joints. This did not tear the dress, but it did rend flesh and scrape at bones. Anna lifted her hinds to kick, striking at his prone midsection just as he made to do the same for the sudden miscalculation. She grunted as he was pushed back a few feet, enough to dislodge his front legs and render the second attempt null. Bark and vines raced to weave the new, bloody wounds closed even as Pestilence's hind pikes scraped her stomach, and oozed more rivers of red as she nocked an arrow and pulled it taut.

He had just finished reorienting to make another strike when another arrow added itself to the collective by wedging itself in his left socket. This was immediately followed by a bullet being shot into his right socket, and more crystals erupting all across his body. The very mangled tree-alicorn barely had the chance to scream in anger and abject agony as fire and ice swirled around him in elemental fury.

Even then, however, neither managed to get his wings, and on he kept flying despite his now-hampered vision, stiffening fronts and smouldering hinds. Horn glowing with darkness of his own, he made to call forth his fell power on someone—anyone—when Fenrir made his move. Leaping from the shadows with a howl, he reached Pestilence just at the apex of his jump and proceeded to punch him in the face with enough force to break the bone beneath the wood.

Sent staggering back, Pestilence could do nothing as Matt moved to snag Fenrir before he could fall, bringing his pentagram-marked blade to bear on an upstroke as his darkness pulled the dog back to safety. The blade cleaved the twisted stallion's head and neck in two clean halves, leaving a gaping hole in his chest that NoLegs was all too happy to further widen. His blade erupted in lightning as he carved deeper wounds into the tree-alicorn, then into light that exposed his internal organs. His heart in particular pumped wildly and sprayed blackened blood as vines erupted from it, trying to reach the edges of the massive wounds to seal them shut. NoLegs backed off; Twilight then rushed in to fill the new cavities with her sword of light.

More fire erupted around Pestilence inside and out as she went to work searing him much more thoroughly than the arrows had done. Once he was fully charred, she slid the blade out and sliced his wings off to let him plummet to the torn Ashwood below. She growled as his head and neck pulled themselves back together with fresh vines and wood to seal the wounds shut, and exploded into flame as she called out in exasperation, "Augh, Faust-damnit! Why won't he stay down already?!"

Katie raced over to the falling tree-alicorn without a word, face hardened and claws aligned. Letting her wings close midway through her drop, she was able to reach him faster despite her lighter weight and sank her claws into his chest and hips as soon as she was able. Before the rest of the group could protest, she twisted her head vertically upside-down and rammed the stub of her broken horn into his prone, scorched heart. Letting loose with her out-of-control magic, she shrieked to the heavens as ice swelled up all around her regenerating adversary. Tendrils of a wispy, pinkish-green miasma wafted from Pestilence to her torn mouth, making her glow even as he froze into a solid hunk of frost.

The pair began to drop faster now, and magic crackled around them as they continued to plummet. The ice continued to expand in mass, only anchoring the prone wraith to its true victim as she continued to discharge all of her power into the onslaught. The miasma continued to float into her mouth, pooling at the back of her throat, with a power that pulsed across her body. Coldly, carelessly, she could do nothing but absorb that miasma as her discharge still coursed inside and out of her enemy's flesh.

Even under the ice and his own impending crash landing, Pestilence withered. The wooden plates splintered and greyed, and his vibrant leaves shriveled up into dessicated, discolored masses that would no doubt crumble once freed from their prison. His already-emaciated body further tightened on itself, showing the outlines of his delicate organs and bones as they, too, did the same. His heart blackened like his blood, collapsing inwards and slowing its spray to a trickle. The vines, still working to close open wounds, could barely hold the edges of the weakening flesh, much less pull them shut. His ember-like orbs dimmed and dimmed as the ground came closer and closer to them both.

The chance for him to scream had been stolen from him. There was nothing he could do but wait for the inevitable. He couldn't see the mass of shadows racing to him, reaching out for that damnable Envoy. He couldn't see her magic dimming and stopping as she yanked her horn out.

He couldn't see anything at all. Just the darkness that heralded his own bitter end.

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

One of the cursed trees had seized Natalie's scythe with its barky claws, pulling and pulling as she struggled to yank it out of her enemy's grasp. The other two were zeroing in on Lazarus and Rarity, both trying to keep a safe distance as claws swiped at them and the ground again and again. Greenwood still burned around them, though now much of the town was nothing but smoulders and ash. The pair slashed where they could, but after seeing Natalie's weapon get seized, they were wise to keep their distance.

The cursed tree who was presently engaged in the tug-of-war was reaching to Natalie with its roots slowly, grinning horribly as the skulls of her dress rattled in alarm. Without warning, Natalie let go and backed off with crimson fire swirling at her horn. The tree twirled the scythe, making to strike down with it when bursts of burning energy exploded all around it. The fire scorched its hide, striking some vulnerable flesh; that was enough to make it scream and let go of the weapon, allowing Natalie to levitate it back into her claws effortlessly.

The other two turned to the cry and away from their quarry to march up to Natalie, roots and claws outstretched. She turned around and opted to levitate higher above them, well out of their reach even as their roots stretched in an attempt to meet up with her. Natalie let loose more fire upon them, levitating to her companions as the trees were distracted by her exploding fireballs. Tenderly alighting next to the wary pair, Natalie flared her wings as sparks danced around her crystals.

Lazarus watched the trees, his spear glinting in his magic. "You know it's been forever since I had a serious fight," he noted, seeing Natalie idly nod out of the corner of his eye.

"My last big fight was Godcat," she confessed with a blaise shrug. She waved Rarity off before she could open her mouth and added, "Don't worry, Godcat's not going to destroy us all. Me and my friends saw to that." Rarity heaved a silent sigh of relief, before turning her attention back to the trees with a mental note to consult Natalie about Godcat at a later time.

The trees, having heard the idle banter, barked in laughter once the waves of flame had died down. Turning to their adversaries, they could only smirk wickedly even as pieces of them fell in smouldering heaps. "You? Best Godcat with friends?" one scoffed, wooden chest shaking and heaving in a budding fit. "You've probably convinced Her that we're not worthy of Her presence! You probably don't even have friends, you apocalyptic waif!"

Natalie's head dropped and shook, the motion laced with a tiny string of curses that her partners could only barely make out. "Oh how you're wrong about that… so, so very wrong…" she grumbled under her breath.

Rhinoc's voice came in through the portable radio, laced with the chatter of dozens of ponies and gryphons, "Starcovert, we've secured the villagers and jewel."

"Oh good," Natalie replied, perking up and lifting her head. Her relief swam in her no-nonsense tone, but it was minor in regards to the situation. "Keep them calm and safe, we'll reimburse them for the damaged town, yadda yadda." She paused, just long enough to let the cursed trees soak that information in. "Once the Void lifts. If it ever does sometime this century."

"Roger that," Rhinoc answered.

"Oh, and watch out for any who spontaneously sprout wood and vines. Just in case," Natalie added, horn crackling with flame as she lifted a clawed hoof and sent the trees the rudest gesture she could.

The trees took the bait, and rushed over with surprising speed given their size and ailment. Natalie and the others backed off, before a winged serpent made of flame coalesced into existence from one of the still-burning buildings. Surrounded by a red glow, it was guided to the cursed trees and opened its mouth wide to emit a terrible roar before ramming face-first into the leading tree, dissipating into a wave of yet more fire that barely singed the other two.

The leader screamed, orbs alighting in its sockets as it charged again with claws outstretched and eager to rend flesh from bone. The ground tore thanks to its flailing roots, and more bark peeled from its twisted flesh as rage coursed through the mangled body that was, once, a pony. Natalie collected darkness around her horn, gathering black-red-white power and launching it at her would-be attacker, pushing both it and her group back with the resultant shockwave.

The tree staggered, tilting dangerously back on its roots as it struggled to regain balance. "Now!" Natalie barked.

Lazarus needed no second invitation. His eyes gleamed and he lept forward on his hind hooves, spear in his fronts and raised high for the beatdown. He made a downward slash, cleaving the tree's front plates and exposing flesh beneath. A diagonal upwards strike followed, further knocking the tree off-balance, but not quite sending it to the ground yet. A series of swift jabs, slashes, and impalements followed, further carving flesh from wood and bone and splattering blood between them, when the tree managed to start leaning towards its opponents.

Lazarus backed off with a dainty hop, spear glinting with reds and golds from the fires and the fresh coating of blood. The tree managed its footing at last, though it nearly collapsed upon landing as its body registered the lack of severed and missing muscles. Another howl, more gargling than rage, left its wooden mouth as it started up another charge with claws windmilling in the air as its roots tugged it forward.

Rarity galloped forward and jumped, using both momentum and magic to plant her front hooves squarely in the tree's face. Wood cracked and flesh squelched with the force, once again knocking the tree back. She jumped off, seeing plates shift to cover the grievous wounds when her daggers sank back in to make new homes where they had failed the first time. Magic tugging them down and down, the blades tore through bark and flesh with ease, carving jagged paths to the internal organs with pure and condensed rage fueling their actions.

The tree halted its course and turned its claws inward, scrabbling to remove the daggers as its guts began to spill out from the incisions made. Lazarus charged forward again, launched into the air, span body and weapon so the spear pointed down, and thunked solidly on the approximate location of the back of the tree's head. The tree crumpled, still feverishly digging as more serpents wrought of flame launched from the burning buildings to home in on the weakened link of that chain.

Fire erupted around that tree as Lazarus and Rarity withdrew their weapons and backed off. The other two watched as the first shriveled under the withering onslaught, torched inside, out, and sideways as more and more serpents rushed to join in on the frenzy. Natalie gave her companions a nod and a smile of approval, before briefly reminding herself that there were still two trees left in the vicinity that needed to be dealt with expediently.

The first tree turned to ash, flesh and all, within moments. When that pile of ashes dropped, so did the broken bones of the pony host, blackened and smouldering in places. The orbs still glowed for a few seconds before dying altogether. The other two bristled, branches and roots wavering uncertainly as they stared at the mound that was their comrade.

Natalie's smirk broadened. One tree stammered, But… but we're supposed to be immortal! Undying! H-how is this even…"

The other tree's face hardened as it replied, "We hadn't undertaken the immortality ritual, you buffoon! We should've offed that bitch when we had the chance!"

Natalie's smirk fell. Immortality ritual? Before she could ruminate on this, a green-and-tan blur shot past her so fast some of her feathers snapped off her left wing and drifted to the ground with a twirl preceding their descent. The blur keened sharply as it impacted another tree, clung to its head and went to town pounding and scratching with a barrage of claws. The tree reached up to pull the offender off and tossed her to the ground, and made to stab her with its roots when Rainbow flew in and started whaling in a frenzy of speed and pain.

The tree, staggered like its brethren, was pushed back even as it tried fruitlessly to swat Rainbow down. Rainbow nimbly dodged its attempts at any strike, moving in tiny but vital increments that only further distracted it even as she delivered a series of horseshoe sandwiches where it was bound to hurt.

Natalie turned to the interloper as she got to her hooves and joined back in on the smackdown without an iota of trouble. "Sarah! Are you sure you should be fighting like that?!" she squawked, confusion creasing her brow and flashing in her eyes.

"Zecora got the vines off! Now she's madder than Tartarus!" Rainbow answered for Sarah, breaking apart wood and turning it into fine splinters with her repeated assault. Even as sticky flesh and blood began spattering on her hooves she kept at it, only stopping to grab a massive branch-claw bare-hoofed when it made to grab her. She flew up with the claw, wrenched sharply down, tore the limb off and started to bash the neighboring cursed tree with the severed limb as it came over to intercept.

Zecora galloped over to Natalie, panting a little and saddlebags askew on her backside, but secure enough to safely hold the potions. Natalie noticed one concoction was missing and asked, "What brew, what did it do?"

"Thistleroot and azalea mixture, used to remove more parasitic fixtures," Zecora answered, lifting a hoof to gesture to Sarah with it. The group watched as Sarah changed positions, climbing onto the tree's head to grasp its horn with her claws as she began to jerk fiercely and violently. "Ivy withered under the brew as most parasites do, but she awoke after with a rage that runs true."

Rarity watched the bonanza for a moment, then turned to Zecora and asked, "You still have that poison joke mixture?" At Zecora's nod, she gestured to the trees with her daggers. "See if it reacts to them in any way." Zecora didn't argue, merely lifted a blue concoction from the saddlebags with a deft hoof and rose to stand on her hinds. "Sarah! Rainbow Dash! Get out of the splash zone!" Rarity warned.

Rainbow dropped the severed tree-limb and flew over to wrench Sarah off her target just as the wooden horn gave way with a sickening crack. She dragged Sarah to the group as Zecora aimed and threw the bottle towards the cursed trees. It hit them between their roots, splashing all across their barky sides and, more importantly, where bits of flesh were still exposed even as plates shifted to cover them up.

Those shifting plates weren't fast enough. In seconds, blue polka dots burst all across their frames and spread upwards upon the bark, even lacing what few vines the trees could produce as the poison joke brew sank in. The trees screamed as their bark peeled off of its own accord, tinted blue and taking flesh with it as they fell with bloodied gracelessness. The vines, morbidly and curiously, grew mouths, screamed shrilly to the uncaring heavens, then de-rooted themselves from their hosts to flail helplessly upon the ashen ground.

The hosts themselves, though, suffered worst of all. The poison joke went to town on prone muscles and organs, saturating inside and out as the bark was replaced by a whole host of colorful mushrooms with caps' undersides facing upward and spreading spores. The mushrooms pulsed with dark power, then… grew mouths and started to sing even as the hosts screamed to no avail.

The hosts could only flop and weakly kick as the singing mushrooms drained sustenance from them. Rainbow wilted and landed with Sarah, paling as the fungi started doing a cutesy little bounce to their tune. The tune started as a slow thrum at first, before the accursed fungi gained high-pitched, almost squeaking voices and the capacity for speech.

"We're going to wage a war against death, hi-ho!

We're gonna topple ailments galore, hi-ho!

We're gonna go up the mountainsides and
down through the riversides and we're gonna
conquer death and its woes, hi-ho!"

The song went on for a moment longer before Natalie lit up her horn, shook her head, and put the fungi and their still-ailing hosts out of their misery with another storm of flame. The mushrooms didn't scream, only kept on singing even as they withered away until mere ash remained. "Ugh, just like the mushrooms that sprang up when Akron got awoken…" she muttered in dismay. "Song and all." She lightly bashed her head against the shaft of her scythe for a moment, grumbling about mushrooms with faces and jaunty tunes that made no lick of sense.

Rainbow lifted a hoof and patted Natalie's withers consolingly. "That… is the stuff of nightmares," she agreed, gesturing to the mushrooms' remnants.

Natalie carefully wrapped one of her wings around Dash's withers. "That makes two of us," she agreed. It was then a wadded up piece of paper, tied to a balloon no less, floated down and landed with a bounce at her hooves. She magically picked it up, separating string from parchment and uncrinkling the paper to see what its contents were. The writing was hastily and sloppily done, and further smudged by the crinkling of the paper, yet its writing was just legible enough to make out what it said.

Twilight or whoever else manages to find this, we're gonna need to use the Elements of Harmony on this place. It's mean and nasty and that just won't do! Can you girls get into Greenwood or near it so we can do our thing?

-Pinkie Pie

Natalie groaned and hoofed the paper over to Rainbow Dash. Rainbow took it and read it with a nod, then turned to Natalie as she hoofed the paper to Rarity. "Looks like you guys are going to get a front-row seat of how the Elements work," she muttered, a hint of resignation somewhere in her voice.

Idly, Natalie nodded and fiddled with the radio for a bit, using a claw instead of her magic. "Oi, Lance, have you approved of Elements of Harmony usage?" she asked.

"No, and I don't care if they're used either way," Lance spat on his end. "After all the shit here? Some color would be a nice break in these parts. Less cursed trees and more life for once!"

"Oh, Twilight, can ya come down to Greenwood?" Pinkie was heard asking on Lance's end.

"... yes?" Twilight ventured.

"Oh goody!" Pinkie cheered, followed by a few whooping noises that faded in the background.

Natalie heaved a sigh and turned to Dash. "Should I get the popcorn for this?" she asked rather casually, leaning against her scythe a little. The dark crystals began falling away, leaving behind welts in skin that her magic washed over, turning from red to white as it worked to heal. False primaries went out last, leaving behind masses of feathers that folded rather awkwardly at her sides.

Rainbow mulled it over, her own wings fluttering for a bit. "Not so much popcorn as you might need sunglasses," she replied with a shrug. "The Fix-it Beam might hit you and yours."

"Fix-it Beam?" Natalie pressed, frowning slightly. Her echo began to recede, Rainbow noted.

"That's what I call it, anyway," Rainbow replied with another shrug. She looked about the burnt village and added, "And as for that reimbursement… maybe the Elements could fix that, too."

"How so?" Natalie asked, waving a hoof about the destruction. "I'm gonna have to tear Anna a new one for this! Asshole villagers or not, we don't usually allow this sort of destruction!"

Rainbow nodded, recalling the arrows that flashed and started the blaze. "Well… you do know what Discord did before he was turned to stone, right?" she retorted.

Natalie scrounged from memory, before reluctantly nodding. "I heard the nutshell of it from Celestia," she answered.

Rainbow gestured around them again. The mayhem spoke for itself, even though the worst had passed. "Kinda the same deal here," she said simply. "Except I'm not so sure it could repair everything here this time."

Sarah snarled, tail lashing before Rainbow spread a wing and wrapped it around her. "Easy there. The cursed trees can't hurt anypony anymore," she said.

Rarity turned to Sarah, eyeballing her false horn. "Erm, yes… we might need to address that, actually…" she pointed out.

Rainbow nodded, also turning to the false horn with the motion. "Let's hope the Elements can fix that and… the others who might still be here," she said uneasily, noticing the sound of flapping wings encroaching from the distance. She rubbed Sarah's back with her wing, earning a tensing of the shoulders before the reluctant slump of acceptance over the fact that, yes, the battle seemed to be over.

Natalie fiddled with the radio once more. "Major Rhinoc, are the villagers calm?" she asked.

"More or less. Grouchy, but none are sprouting branches," Rhinoc reported from his end. "What do you want us to do with them, ma'am?"

Natalie sighed, exchanging looks with Rainbow and Rarity. Both shrugged and mouthed 'go for it' under their breath. She turned back to the device and ordered, "Bring the whole sorry lot back to Greenwood. I have a feeling we're going to witness… something special shortly."

A lull of silence held on Rhinoc's end for a moment. Even the clamor died down for a few seconds. "... alright, we can do that… ma'am," he answered uneasily, accompanied by a buzz that probably came from his wings.

"Excellent," Natalie replied simply, sitting on her haunches as the fires around the group slowly, but surely, dimmed to faint embers that barely sparked and spat at the air.