As Dim materialised into an unknown situation there was a blood chilling howl. One of the hovels—a mere shack—had been cracked open like a walnut and something large, hairy, and brutish could be partially seen. Dim approached, raising as many spell protections as possible, and rounded the corner of a building with somewhat crooked, leaning walls. Screams filled the night and as Dim cleared the corner, he got his first look at what the ponies of Fancy called loup-garou.

While Dim stood watching, almost frozen in horror, the creature ripped the head off of a writhing, screaming victim held in its claws, crunched the skull once in its mighty jaws, and swallowed. The body, kicking, twitching, thrashed in death and released its bowels. What was this thing? Dim didn’t know. It looked like a diamond dog, but bigger. It was mangy looking, covered in bulbous tumours, with twisted, distorted limbs that looked as though they had been broken and allowed to heal all wrong. Scarlet blood glistened in the wan moonlight and billowing steam rose in panted gusts, curling in the freezing night air.

One still lived; one shrieked among the rubble and partially devoured corpses. A filly, not long for marehood, ran circles in the open, stupid with panic. Though it was a costly move, Dim wrapped his magic around her, subsumed her will—which caused her to go silent, still—and then he teleported her inside of the windmill, which was behind him. The diseased creature, for surely it had to be diseased, deprived of its meal, now turned its attention to Dim.

“Welche Hündin hat dich zur Welt gebracht, du hässlicher Mutterficker?”

The creature snorted, sending vast plumes of steam shooting from its nostrils. Bits of skin and hair dangled from its open maw, wriggling with its jerky, twitchy movements. It was hunchbacked and boney, spiked growths could be seen protruding from its lumpy, mangy flesh. A wet slurp could be heard when it licked its chops in anticipation and its eyes narrowed at Dim, who stood unmoving.

“Widerliche Pissflitsche.”

Sparing no further words after his terse, consonant-heavy opener, Dim opened with a Fenix Fireburst, a deadly barrage that launched homing darts of flame. When he had last cast this spell, he had only been able to summon a meagre three darts; a source of cringeworthy embarrassment for him. Seeing the evidence that he had grown in strength and power emboldened him, and he prepared for what was certain to be an entertaining fight.

Each of the fiery darts struck home, an even dozen of them, and each landed with explosive, concussive force. The creature was rocked back with each blast, set ablaze; the stench of burning hair and flesh filled the night. It was a shame, really, the fight was almost over before it had progressed to a worthwhile distraction—or so Dim thought while he prepared another spell, a finisher.

But Dim’s initial assessment proved incorrect; the scorched lupine creature made a startling recovery and as it turned out, wasn’t nearly as injured as was believed. Even as Dim stood watching, the burnt flesh seemed to be knitting itself back together. New bulbous growths appeared, new tumours, and the charred skin—still smouldering—now looked like old cracked leather. The regeneration was remarkable, even more so than the pseudo-alicorn, and was comparable to a troll.

Why hadn’t fire stymied the regeneration?

When the creature lept, Dim teleported because his body was still too stiff to move—he was still recovering from his injuries—and he reappeared almost one-hundred yards away with the hopes of leading the monstrous creature away from the buildings. The creature lept again and somehow managed to close forty feet or so of the distance in a single bound. How? What terrible brute was this? Even after watching it happen, his brain wanted to doubt what he had seen.

Distractions could be fatal so he forced himself to focus.

With the creature closing fast, Dim let go with The War Maiden’s Seeking Skull. The glowing phantom skull crackled into existence above him and its howling, riotous laughter flooded the night with sound. It flew unerringly towards the approaching beast, collided with the creature’s face, and detonated—The War Maiden’s Seeking Skull transmuted living tissue into an explosive mass on contact and there was a lot of living tissue on the tumorous, lumpy wolf-monster.

An eyeblink later and it was raining smoking bits of meat, hair, and bone.

Much to Dim’s shock and disbelief, the creature, little more than a pile of formless meat, began to recover. Shattered bones formed jutting spikes as new bones gave form and definition to rapidly regrowing limbs. Visible ribs protruded from the beast’s torso like clawed fingers and bony ridges of its skull formed a helmet of sorts while a new skull took shape. It was horrifying to witness and Dim cursed regenerators, the apparent bane of his existence.

While he had a few precious seconds—the monster was busy regrowing itself—Dim fashioned raw aether into a wisp. It was a costly move, creating a summon, but a worthwhile distraction might help and the wisp would do damage. This wisp was electrical in nature and it buzzed like an angry hive of disturbed bees whilst it generated a static charge. After a moment, it went streaking off towards the monster, an insubstantial mass of raging electrical fury.

Dim’s summons never lasted long, but typically they lasted long enough.

The wolf-monster danced an electric jig while raw, arcing lightning poured into its body from the wisp. It smouldered, caught ablaze, and Dim considered his options with great care while he had a few precious seconds to spare. By all rights, anything being zapped by the storm wisp should have died outright, so Dim was at a loss for what to do.

“Gebratene Wolfsnippel, genau wie Mutti früher gekocht hat!”

He cast Clover’s Conflagration, his most reliable offensive spell and one of his favourites. Not only did it ignite a foe, but it slowed them as well. Much to his relief and surprise, the magical slowing seemed to work on the creature’s regeneration, which was helpful. Stopping the regeneration was his top priority and there had to be a way. The creature, howling with pain and fury, tried to attack the wisp, but its clawed paws passed through the insubstantial form, receiving hefty electric shocks for its effort.

Still, the creature was recovering, and this was bad indeed…

“Deine Großmutter war die Dorfhure!”

Teleporting away to gain more distance, Dim began flooding the area around the creature with hydrogen, summoning stray bits of matter so that they could be ignited. A glowing nexus appeared over him, swirls of magic both amber and pale pink as he wove two distinct streams of magic. For added potency, he spoke the ancient words of power.

“Incertus pulcher imperio!”

The nexus shrunk, becoming a tiny thing, something almost harmless in appearance, a miniscule mote of vivid orange light. Held in magic, Dim hurled it like a pebble and it flew for the wolf-creature that was still trying to destroy the wisp. The fiery missile trailed purple-blue light behind it while it flew unerringly right at its target. Around Dim, the air reeked of ozone and smoke. Gritting his teeth, Dim readied himself for impact and ignition, knowing that this would be spectacular.

All around him, the world was awash with heat and light, with night becoming as bright as day. The physical force of the explosion would have been enough to pulp Dim, had he not been protected from his own blasts. His power had grown considerably and he delighted in his wanton destruction.

“Schmutziger Furzlecker!” he shouted, his words drowned out by the roar all around him.

When the rampant destruction cleared and Dim could see again, there was nothing left. The grass, brown with autumn, was an ocean of flickering, dancing flames. Several trees had been ignited. Jittering motes of magic danced in the shimmering waves of heat. Of the nightmarish wolf creature, there was no sign. It was gone, dead, blown to smithereens, and Dim heaved a sigh of relief. Even his wisp was gone, consumed by the blast.

It was over. Overwhelming, overpowering brute force had won the day. Might had made right and all was good in the world. When regular explosions failed, bigger, badder explosions were needed, and there was no such thing as overkill in a world with crazy regenerating creatures. Just as Dim was about to have himself a cigarette and relish his victory, he noticed movement in the epicenter of the blast.

“Verdammt, fick mich.” His victory cigarette would have to wait, it seemed. “Unmöglich.”

And then, for emphasis, “Unmöglich!”

A burnt, blackened figure rose from the smouldering, scorched earth. It was almost skeletal, little more than a slender silhouette in the flickering firelight, and watching it while it jerked about like a seizure-ridden marionette caused Dim’s nethers to suddenly become moist with terror as his fear went flowing out of him in a steady, acrid-scented stream. The blackened bones grew lumps, these lumps grew more lumps, and the collection of lumps took on form and definition.

“Was sagst du jetzt, Feuergott?”

The sound of wings made Dim’s ears prick and a terrifying shadow manifested in the darkness, a phantom harbinger of spectacular doom. An immense form seemed to take shape as it dove into the light and the flapping of Blackbird’s wings caused the smoke rising from the scorched grass to roil in beautiful eddies. In her talons, she held the long ten, the impressive ten gage of elephantine proportions, a weapon crafted for titans, gargantuans, and behemoths.

At almost point-blank range, she fired and caused the wolf-creature’s regrowing skull to disintegrate. She fired again, severing a forelimb at the shoulder, and then again, blasting off the opposing limb. Afterwards, she took careful, steady aim, and removed both legs at the hips. With the creature dismembered for a moment, she flapped her wings, rose upwards, and retreated, all while reloading the revolving cylinder of her long gun.

“Keep going for the limbs!” Motte’s commanding baritone rent the night, his quad-barreled shotgun held at the ready. “We can only slow him down! Recover Dim and retreat! Blackbird, keep him occupied if he gets up!”

Bombay stepped out of the shadows and into the light, with pistol in one paw, glowing wand in the other. Dim realised this was a tactical retreat—Motte’s words rattled around inside of his head—but the fight wasn’t over. The monster wasn’t dead. It was already recovering from Blackbird’s downright surgical dismemberment and when it got up, it would only continue to terrorise the night. It had to be put down like the rabid, mangy dog that it was.

“We have to kill it!” Dim’s own voice was ragged, almost wheezing from his efforts.

“No can do,” Bailey replied, barking out her response. “The only way to kill that thing is to boil its heart in moonlight-refined silver. Now let’s go, Dim. Hurry, before we have to put it down again!”

Dim balked at the idea of an unkillable enemy; he hesitated for a time and then was overcome with a seething rage that made his heart ache. This is what the peasants lived in fear of? This… this thing preyed upon them and the only protection was some alchemical whitewash? For a second, Dim was certain that he would either have a stroke or a heart attack and the whole of his body seized while his hind hooves trod in the puddle of his own urine.

A violent, contemptible protest exploded from his lips: “NEIN!”

With an accelerated burst of teleportation, Dim surged forwards, his mind racing for solutions. He closed the distance between him and his regenerating, recovering foe, not knowing what he would do next. Fine control had given way to chaos and this suited him—sometimes chaos was the only light of hope that could be found.

“Blackbird! See if you can grab him! I don’t care if those claws of yours make him bleed! Recover Dim at all costs or Eerie will have our heads on pikes!” Motte’s command was a screech of frenzied panic as he too closed the distance, his quad-barreled shotgun raised and ready. “Bombay, stun him if you can! Use magic! I don’t care what it takes!”

Acting in desperation, Dim crushed the recovering wolf-creature and then teleported the compacted, smashed remains inside of a tree. A second later, before Dim could even congratulate himself on his quick thinking, the tree exploded, showering the area with splinters, and the Tartarian nightmare burst forth, a furious lump of bone, rage, and gristle. He needed something stronger to contain the beast—he needed stone! A stone sarcophagus might do!

“Motte, Bailey, I need stone and lots of it! Enough to put a body inside!”

“It won’t kill him!” Bailey cried.

“No, but it might trap him!”

“It’s worth a shot,” Motte said while he took careful aim, but held his fire.

The two earthmover unicorns went to work, calling up rocks from out of the soil while Dim kept the creature subdued, while Blackbird hovered overhead with her reloaded surgical shotgun at the ready. Bombay flanked, ready to react if needed, but she kept her precious bullets and magic withheld in reserve. Through the chaos, the companions actually worked together, forming a cohesive, copacetic, functioning team. Where before, they had scattered, leaving them weak, they now had a shared strength.

Like clay, the stones were pressed into one another, gaining mass. More stones came, summoned up from the depths of the ground, they broke the surface of the soil and came rolling over to join the ever-growing mass. Dim used his telekinesis to keep snapping limbs and to subdue to the quivering mass of tumorous, lumpy growths, pounding upon it like a baker did dough. Dim could see the problem; he could only do this for so long before he became exhausted, and then the creature would run rampant. Subduing it somehow so that it could be ritualistically destroyed in moonlight-refined silver would be quite a task—a task made easier by a blessing of unicorns working together. His thoughts strayed and he thought about the unicorn collective he had witnessed in Istanbull—but his distraction only lasted for a second.

With the massive lump of stone now finished, Motte nodded and said to Dim, “Put it in there and let’s see what happens. Everybody, be ready to beat a hasty retreat!”

Dim teleported the quivering mass of tumours and bone-spikes into the stone—and then waited with bated breath. A groaning sound could be heard, a most curious sound, and then cracks began to appear on the surface of the shaped stone. Backing away, Dim summoned the Spear of Chantico, which burst into pink and black flames at his magical touch. The stone shuddered, there was a grinding sound, and fine spiderwebs of cracks appeared, growing in length with alarming rapidity.

“Get back,” Dim commanded while he waved the spear around over his head.

His companions scattered without requiring an explanation, much to his relief. Dim divested himself of his gear, vanishing it into the distant windmill, and then he ignited himself. He was now a terrific sight, a horrible flaming form that blazed, sending spitting, crackling embers into the night around him. With a whoosh, he subsumed the fires around him, the grass, the trees, the everything, and his own flames burned ever brighter. His fatigue melted away and he felt his strength returning to him while he devoured the flames in the general vicinity.

Reaching out with the spear, he stabbed the stone and there was a sizzling hiss. In no time at all, the stone was glowing; first a dull cherry red, then a bright, vivid orange, and then the surface began to bubble. The cracks vanished as the stone temperature climbed towards the boiling point and began to liquify. Dim stood amidst the blazing inferno, unscathed; if anything, he felt invigourated.

Like hot wax, the stone gave up shape and form to become a puddle that spread out over the earth. Soil ignited, sending up wisps of flames as it became a blazing carpet. The liquified stone bubbled like a stew, sending white-hot globules of stone flying with every simmering bubble that popped.

“I think the beast will be contained,” Dim said, his voice the crackling roar of a well-fed fire. “Even if he lives through this, there’s no part of him big enough to displace matter with his regeneration. He’s finished.”

“We’ll see about that come morning,” Motte replied. “Now come away, Dim. Let us get inside. There are packs of these creatures roaming the countryside.”

Hearing this, Dim was disheartened. Was all of this for naught? Could nothing else be done? Was this all the peasants of this land could hope for, a fresh coat of alchemical whitewash? All of this effort, all of this fire and fury for just one creature—and there were packs of them. How could a nation function with monsters like these at large in the countryside? He shuddered at the thought of them invading a city; the carnage would be almost unimaginable.

He stirred the molten rock with the spear, unsure if it did anything beneficial, but doing it anyway. Tonight was not a victory, but at least he had made the attempt and thinking about that made him feel better. His thoughts turned to the Bard, his fallen friend, and he wondered if Pâté au Poulet would have appreciated the attempt—or if the grumpy earth pony would have called him a reckless fool. Still… what noble bard did not appreciate a heroic effort, even if it was a foolhardy attempt? This was the very essence of songs… ballads… stories… tall tales… the very things that had once inspired him.

The knight errant was not always victorious, but his valiant efforts became storied legends. Retreating from the simmering mass of boiling stone, Dim accepted that this would have to do—this was his best effort. Perhaps with time and better preparation, this was a foe that could be killed, but what an undertaking that would be.

There was nothing left to do but to check on the peasant he had rescued…

Author's Notes:

Sometimes, being a hero means making futile gestures of idiocy goodness.