"Are you sure of this? Surely we could-"

"Luna you heard him. It's either I fight him and run the chance of winning and even if I lose I'm expendable, you fight him and if you lose then the Equestria Empire will collapse without you, or we send someone else off to die. He isn't willing to negotiate, and I'm the only being with power to match, if not pass you, that is expendable. The Equestria Empire will have its army ready as a backup, I have no doubt that they can hold the lines if  fall, and if the King pulls a fast one then you can be there to take my place. but I won't risk any other life for this except my own if at all possible."

Luna nodded, and then sighed. I spoke up again.

"Hey, even if he tries to use power from the Marker then I have my wraith's eye and my own training to clear madness away and then my swords. Tharn's Fang can take the punishment and besides that I have my cutters and Lunar Steel swords. Not to mention the fact that I have Finis."

The reason I bring up Finis is the fact that... Well, Finis was an anomaly. It never showed any signs of damage or aging, it was able to nullify any magic that impacted it (to the point where Luna could go full force and it wouldn't even be warmed), and no matter what it was cold to the touch. I used Finis regularly with Tharn's Fang, but most of my battles hadn't really given me any chances to show what Finis could do. I thought at the time that Finis would be useful because I was fighting an elder spirit. By elder spirit I essentially mean beings such as Celestia and Luna that were interwoven to the natural forces of Equus. Just as Luna held the moon, Graaf and his line steered the winds. Of course, Graaf wasn't an immortal. His family was very long lived, but not eternal. Somewhere back down the line his family learned how to control the winds, and with every new generation of the family all of the knowledge, skills, and power of those before were passed down. After a few hundred generations of constant improvement Graaf, a griffin with the strength and power of an alicorn. And if this continued then his child would be even stronger. I hoped that with Finis and my own necromorph abilities that I could even out to the point where I would be able to make up for having less blade skill (five hundred years of training versus a being with the memories and skills of a few thousand) with my own magical skill. By this point I was a master of elemental and combat spells, and even an adept at the other schools. With enough magic charged up I could even perform a teleport, though it's a massive mana drain and renders me unable to do magic for a short while.

I looked at Luna with a comforting grin.

"I won't lose Luna. I swear it."

With a slight bow and a final look, I was off.

---

The sound of the train, rhythmically puffing and chugging along, did little to relax me as I rode towards the border station. The whole train outside my car was filled with Guardstallions, even a few f the recruits and I was trying to steel myself to go against Graaf. He was a true threat to Equestria, and if I failed then we could fall straight into a war torn wasteland. This would be a pivotal moment, if I could free Graaf from the Marker Amulet then it would not only give us a chance to get Griffica under the rule of someone who know the evil of unitology firsthand, but it would show that we could do the same for Celestia when she returned. If I failed then I would be killed, and unitology could overwhelm Equestria. I had to beat Graaf, no, I would beat Graaf!

When we arrived it was worse than I thought, around the back of the outpost was a massive battalion of Griffins adorned in armor made of a light blue metal. From what I had been told, the metal was known as Wind-Silver. It was a metal that had a recipe known only to the Griffins. It was enchanted so it could touch and manipulate clouds, and it was light enough to the degree where it would barely inhibit the speed of the Griffin wearing it. I could see the group of guards stationed here being held by Griffin guards, and with them I could see Graaf himself.

A large Griffin with a light brown coat of feathers, with those around his head of a slick black coloring. He glared at me when I stepped off the train, as if he could tell I was the one to fight him. His body was covered in a suit different than Celestia's, made of interwoven Wind-Silver and the same crimson metal of the Amulet, which I had nicknamed Crimtane. On his wings were large wingblades of wind-silver and his claws were still covered in the same golden gauntlets. The ruby Marker symbol on the chest of his armor glowed faintly, sending power into him. He spoke.

"So you are the Champion of The Equestrian Empire?"

I nodded.

"I am Jack the Slasher, and I will not allow for you to harm my country."

He nodded with the same glare.

"Very well then, Jack the Slasher. I am King Graaf, ruler of winds and King of Griffica. Follow me, and we shall begin our duel."

---

The chosen arena was a place on the border known as the Crag. It was a massive canyon that ran along the border and had no life in it. The two of us would both remain in the Crag and not leave, so as to have a limit to the area we would effect and so that our forces would be outside of the crossfire between us. The two of us stood a good distance from each other, both of us waiting for the other to make the first move. He took it, surging forward in a small wave of wind towards me, claws bared. I brought out my Lunar Steel sabers barely in time to defect the blows as he went into a flurry of strikes. I jumped back and tossed my sabers to my top arms and then grabbed my mana plasma cutters in my lower and then started blasting as Graff's gauntlets started crackling with pulses of lightning. He flew back and started launching bolts of green lightning at me and I intercepted them with shots from my cutters. I looked up at him as he charged energy onto his wings along with his claws and rushed past me, extending out with his wingblades. I caught them with my sabers, blocking the actual strike but still getting shocked with the lightning. I yelped in pain from it but managed to recover in time to dodge from a lighting pulse from him. I rushed after him and swapped my sabers back to my lower arms, and brought out Tharn's Fang and Finis. He flew up started surging me with gusts of wind, pushing me back from him until I channeled some of my own magic through Tharn's Fang and sent out a bolt of my own lightning at him.

"Fear me heretic! I will be your end!"

He grabbed the sword off his back and drew it, lunging for me and bringing it down in a heavy strike. I held Tharn's Fang and Finis to block the blow, still grinding back. In my lower arms I brought up my sabers and went back and forth against his wingblades. I decided to pay back the lightning he blasted me with. I sent a pulse of electricity along his sword and he flinched back, waving his sword and blasting me with a torrent of wind. I sheathed my sabers and conducted magic through my Cairn gauntlets and summoned a magical shield in front of me. He summoned a mass of cloud above him, the entire thing sinking into a deep black color and crackling with power.

"Uh oh."

He flew out of the cloud and out of sight. I opened a hole in my shield and dashed out, just barely avoiding the massive bolt of lightning that shot down and shattered my shield and left the spot beneath a blackened smear. I looked back at the cloud and started dashing along the ground to avoid the blasts of lightning coming down. I sheathed all of my swords, until he came down they wouldn't be any good. I grabbed my plasma cutters in my top hand. With luck I could get a shot on one of his wings and bring him down, but that'd be useless until I saw him. I charged mana in my lower gauntlets and started casting spells to modify my vision, hoping to find him in the clouds by his magical signature. I figured that would be best since someone with his abilities would have a massive amount of mana around him. I finished the spell as I ran and then started gather ice magic in my hands. I looked and saw him at the center of the cloud.

"THERE YOU ARE!"

I unloaded my cutters around him and he started weaving around the cloud to try and avoid being hit. He finally dropped below the cloud, drawing the rest of the magic in the clouds into a massive bolt of green lightning. I sent out the pulse of ice magic I had charged up and the two clashed in a wave of energy. Graaf flinched away and then continued weaving through the air in a tornado of wind to avoid the shots from my cutters. Finally he drew his sword and surrounded it with a small tornado of powerful winds. I braced my self for it. I finally got a look at his sword as he charged me. It was a pale blue color, made from some sort of alloy of Wind-Silver, and held an aura of ice magic about it. Now that I had a look at it seemed almost... Familiar? Wait a sec! That sucker looks just like the Skyrim sword Chillrend! Uh oh. Chillrend was more powerful in the game depending on level, and now it was being wielded by a Griffin with the collective knowledge of hundreds of years. That meant that the enchantments on the sword would increasingly be...

Uh oh.

I drew Finis and managed to block the blow, the arctic wind about it buffeting me. I brought Finis around with Tharn's fang and wrenched the sword from him and he hopped back from me. He gained a look of rage at this.

"Enough of this! I will not be opposed!"

The Amulet sent a wave of energy over him, and his eyes gained the same glow as Mercer's. He gained a manic grin, and then made a final charge for me. I sheathed Tharn's Fang, holding my sabers out to the side and then Finis two handed. His claws lashed for me, and my sabers locked against his gauntlets. Energy surged down them and shocked me, and in a final push I rushed him and sank the tip of Finis right into the gem on his chest, watching my sabers shatter against his claws. Red energy crackled from it, only to be nullified by Finis as cracks spread across it. I watched him as he lurched away from me and into the air.

"GYAAAAGH NO! YOU FOOL!"

The gem on his chest crackled and glowed with power a final time before shattering in a wave of power. Graaf collapsed to the ground, his armor completely destroyed except for the Wind-Silver patches. His wingblades and sword had fallen to the ground around him, and his crown had rolled a few feet away. I walked over to his unconscious form and stuck a health potion into his beak and one into my own mouth. He sputtered and slowly opened his eyes. He looked at me in uncertainty.

"What the- wait. I  know you. You are the one known as Jack, correct? What am I doing here...?"

I nodded and held out a hand to help him up. He was able to recall me from the collective memory passed down from his forefathers. As it was, a similar political coup to what was attempted with Celestia and Equestria. Unitologists lurking in his kingdom had tracked him and gotten him to wear the Amulet, and he had actually agreed with it at first, but by that time he realized it was possessing him it was too late. He agreed with me that a war with the Equestrian Empire wouldn't end well for any of those involved. He seemed concerned when he saw my broken sabers.

"Hmm. It would seem that the blades of the night which you have worn through the ages have been broken by me in my madness. Aha! Here,"

He picked up the Chillrend-look alike sword and held it out to me hilt first.

"This is the sword held by my family for generations, crafted of Wind-silver and the same Tartarus Ebony used for the binding of the gates of Tartarus. It bears the power of storms and can bear the force of any wind, any form of material produced in a cloud, and even the arctic and scorching might of the frozen north and southern desert wastes. It holds the name Ultima Ventus. The Final Wind."

The magic seemed to fade from it and the blade shimmered into a deep gray color, with the golden hilt fading into a silver color. I reached out and took it. He spoke out again

"I can see through my family the fact that those blades have been with you for as long as you have lived among the Equestrians, and so I hope this can make up for it. The Ultima Ventus has great meaning in Griffica, and it bears the nickname of The King's Talon. May it bridge the gap between our people."

I nodded and took it, placing it into the sheathe at my right hip with my lower right arm.

"Thank you King Graaf. i hope it may do the same as we keep our respective people from harming one another."

He gave me a small smile, and I took his claw and shook it. With a final move I levitated the broken pieces of my sabers and placed them in my knapsack. I spoke up.

"Alright. Let's go tell everyone, and hopefully we can remove the unitologists from your country."

He nodded, and we both crossed over the hills to where our armies had been gathered. Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw next. We both froze in place. I managed to speak.

"Oh...Oh Gods..."

Scattered around, some still fighting, were the fallen, bloodied bodies of our forces. I looked and saw the Griffins screeching like mindless beasts, their eyes held in the burning yellow glow of necromorphs. Then I heard it. A low, hollow laugh. I turned slowly to the left, and there he stood with a manic grin. Mercer. Hundreds of years, and yet he seemed unchanged other than being slightly taller and thinner.

"Nice of you to arrive heretic."