Vanatos Unisco, elemental demon of vengeance and true master of Chaos, could feel that his destiny and birthright stood inside the nearly invisible dome of magic that had successfully rebuffed all his efforts to enter the snow-free city within. The concentration of Chaotic Elemental energy resonating the Ruby in his hand was so great it could only come from a large number of the Chaotic Gems being in a single place, which meant that those fools who thought they were the masters of the Elements were in there too. In a former life, the thought of being so close to his goal but unable to reach it would have thrown him into a rage. But Vanatos was a patient demon; eventually, at some time on some world, the dice would fall in his favor. The culmination of his revenge was inevitable.
Distracted by his thoughts, Vanatos didn’t notice the three ponies until they were just about to leave the safety of the city’s borders. They were accompanied by two human-shaped patches of shimmering air, and the grey one with the mane resembling flames had five of the Chaotic Gems – Water, Earth, Air, Light, and Aether – orbiting above his head in an orange nimbus of magic. Vanatos was taken aback. Surely, it couldn’t be what it appeared to be.
“Something the matter, Vanatos?” the yellow unicorn asked sardonically. “Don’t tell me you’re actually surprised to see us.”
“Johnten Drago,” Vanatos said, recognizing the voice, and then began to laugh. “What an amusing development; you’ve all gone native.”
“You’re only now aware of this?” Traev asked. “It’s unlike you to not keep an eye on our progress every so often. I notice you haven’t changed much yourself. Peh, enough talk though. Johnten, hit it!”
“Aye aye,” Johnten said, his horn aglow with ethereal blue light, which was reflected in the two ghosts. “Seroh, Carlez, you know the drill. Element Wheel, Kay’mo Shidar, go!”
“Coming right up,” Johnten’s ghostly sister said, building up the four-colored disc of energy between her hands. Carelz merely grunted and nodded, drawing back a fist around which grey-toned power started to gather. At the same moment, they threw their attacks at deliberately intercepting angles so that they met a foot or so in front of the Bipersonality Team. The energies began to meld together at their meeting point, and the Gems hovering around Traev started to glow fitfully, as did Vanato’s Ruby. Just as everything seemed to reach a peak, however, the energy simply dissipated and the Gems stopped glowing, leaving everyone bewildered.
“Wait, hold everything,” Carrie said, somewhat unnecessarily. “How did that just not happen? Everything’s in place, isn’t it? We’ve got five Gems, and Vanatos, you have the other two.”
Vanatos laughed again, spreading his arms and wings wide. “How many do you see on me, Carrie Chen?” he asked. “From where I stand, it looks like the Opal is still where I left it: in the hoof of the desperate queen of a dying race. I was sure she’d raise enough hell to catch your attention.”
“We must have… just missed her entrance,” Traev said with mild dread. He looked up to meet Vanatos’s eyes, steeling his nerves. “Having to face you without Chaos Ultima,” he said, “that hasn’t happened in a long time.”
“Indeed,” Vanatos said, grinning. “I was just thinking that luck would have to favor me eventually, and it looks like that time is now.” He thrust the Ruby of Fire toward Traev and activated it, summoning a geyser of flame beneath the unicorn’s hooves. Traev jumped back as he cast a shield spell around himself using the Pearl and let the force of the geyser send him into a high backflip. At the top of his arc, he launched the Sapphire and Topaz into the waiting hooves of Johnten and Carrie, respectively, and they quickly assumed their elemental forms. “Come on now,” Vanatos said, unimpressed, “you know you can’t scratch me. Just lay down and die.”
“You forgot to notice something,” Johnten the water falcon said, raising his wings. “I am Water, and we’re surrounded by snow!” He swept his wings at Vanatos and the snow heaped up and broke over the demon like a tidal wave. Vanatos gestured with his free hand and the wave split in two, passing him by harmlessly.
“Amateur,” he scoffed. The earth started to crack under his feet, and so he jumped and flapped his wings to maintain a hover. He started to wag his finger at Traev, but the grey unicorn had already switched to using the Pearl and hit Vanatos in the chest with a lightning bolt, pushing him back a foot or two.
“Allow me to remind you why they called me Maestron Brogalio,” Traev said, bringing all three of his Gems in front of him. They spun rapidly and fired a spiraling triple beam of white, blue-grey, and green light. Vanatos had to drop the Ruby and use both hands, but he managed to stop the beam’s progress harmlessly. Undaunted, Traev kept pushing his magic into the Gems, and Carrie the air-fox swooped in to take advantage of the stand-off by grabbing the Ruby.
“No you don’t,” Vanatos said, dropping back to the ground and somehow pinning Carrie’s tail beneath one foot and her head under the other. “When are you kids finally going to realize that I am the master of the Elements? You can’t hurt me. All you can do is be cursed inconveniences.”
“Give it a rest,” Johnten said, his talons turning to ice as he dove to Carrie’s rescue. Vanatos knocked him out of the sky with a scornful backhanded blow. The water-falcon vanished briefly into a snowbank, and then rose up with it swirling around him. With a piercing shriek, he focused the snow into lances of ice and flung them all at once. At the same time, Carrie pushed up against Vanatos’s weight with all her magically-assisted might and Traev shot another lightning bolt at the demon. Vanatos conjured flaming barriers from the Ruby to block the attacks, and all four Elements connected at once and exploded into a blinding snowstorm.
Watching from the top of the Crystal Palace, Princess Cadance winced as the storm washed up against the borders of the Crystal Empire. Shining Armor emerged from the stairs and trotted quickly over to his wife. Noting the storm with grim solemnity, he asked, “Is it trying to break through the shield?”
“No,” Cadance shook her head. “I just fear for those ponies out there, caught in the middle of that. We shouldn’t have let them leave the city to face that monster alone.”
“I don’t think we could have stopped them, love,” Shining said. “Do you want to go pull them out of that blizzard?”
Cadance looked out at the storm, which seemed to be increasing in size and ferocity. Sleet was starting to penetrate the shield and melt into rain along the outermost fields of the Empire. “I want to,” Cadance admitted, “but if they don’t make it back on their own, I fear we may just become lost in that blizzard trying to find them.”
The blizzard was both a blessing and a curse to the Bipersonality Team. Its sudden arrival had stunned and blinded Vanatos long enough for Carrie to escape from under his feet, and the entire team regrouped and fled for cover and breathing room. Unfortunately, they went in entirely the wrong direction to find shelter inside the Crystal Empire and the blowing snow quickly became too thick to see more than a foot or so in any direction. Carrie and Johnten were forced to return to their regular pony forms to share body warmth with Traev so he wouldn’t freeze to death. Any attempt to use the Gems to tame the storm only revealed their position to Vanatos, resulting in many short, fruitless altercations. The Topaz of Air was lost in the snow after one such fight, but in the following one Traev managed to contain one of Vanatos’ fireballs and converted it into a torch feeding off his own magic. They lost of all track of time, simply moving about and laying low, until Johnten finally got fed up.
“If Vanatos doesn’t finish us off, this storm is going to,” he said, sitting down and raising the Sapphire. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’d rather go out fighting.”
“Defeatist,” Carrie said accusingly.
“Realist,” Johnten countered. “We’re short one Gem for Chaos Ultima, and Vanatos is still as untouchable as ever. How about you Traev? Freeze, or die in battle?”
“Death is not an option,” Traev said. “Whatever you’re planning to do, change it to something that can get us back inside that city’s shields.”
“All right then,” Johnten said cheerily, and focused on the Sapphire. The wind kept blowing, but the whirling snow began to fall out of it like lead, piling up around the ponies but clearing their field of vision. Vanatos’s form became discernible after a minute or so, but he merely stood still and watched until the sky became clear.
“I was getting rather tired of the hide-and-seek,” he called out in a conversational tone.
“Ah, shut up,” Traev snapped. “It wasn’t for your benefit.”
“No,” the demon agreed. “I assume you were looking for that.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the Crystal Empire, and then laughed as the Bipersonality Team’s faces fell. “Come on then,” he said, beckoning. “One or two of you might make it past me, and one of you might even make it to safety before I cut everyone else down. And Carlez doesn’t count.”
“Seroh and I can distract him while you make a break for it,” Carlez said to Johnten in a low voice. Johnten nodded in agreement, but before he could act to empower his spectral partners, a shadow passed quickly over the Bipersonality Team and toward Vanatos.
Everyone looked up to see what appeared to a small black meteor or comet screaming a battle cry. “Keeeemoooooo Kiyaski!” The black object struck Vanatos square in the face, knocking him back and dragging him through several feet of snow and frozen dirt. Once the cloud it had kicked up dispersed, the Bipersonality Team could see that the object was Ashen Blaze, who was yanking the Ruby out of Vanatos’s senseless grip, and then came cantering over to the group with a very satisfied look on his face. “Rather rude of you lot to take off without leaving a forwarding address,” he said, casually tossing the Ruby to Traev. “Lucky for us, we have friends up this way.”
“Where did you come from?” Johnten asked, nonplussed by the grey unicorn’s dramatic entrance.
“Canterlot, by way of spaceship,” Ash answered, pointing up. The Lirin was circling high overhead.
“I see,” Traev said. “Look, not to sound ungrateful, but you should get away from here while you can. Whatever you may think you know about Vanatos, I assure you he’s out of your league.”
“He’s out of our league, to be honest,” Carrie said dryly.
“That so?” Ash said, smiling slightly. “Maybe this will change your tune.” He opened his saddlebag and brought out the Opal of Darkness. Traev, Johnten, and Carrie’s jaws all dropped. Ash reveled in their shock, until he took note of the Gems he could see hanging in Traev and Johnten’s magic grips. “You guys appear to be short a Topaz,” he said.
“Oh, it’s around here somewhere,” Johnten said, waving dismissively at the snow banks all around them. “It ought to be close enough to trigger with the others.”
“Trigger?” Ash asked, frowning. “What are you planning to do?”
“Something you probably don’t want to get caught up in,” Traev said. “That is, unless you like interdimensional trips with no end in sight.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Ash said dryly. “Been there, done that, didn’t like the souvenirs. I can’t imagine that you’re enjoying it either. Shouldn’t you consider another-”
“What’s this? There are multiples of you now?” Ash let his train of thought derail as he looked over his shoulder to see Vanatos back on his feet and approaching with murder in his eyes.
“Time for you to go,” Traev suggested to his doppelgänger.
“Good luck,” Ash muttered back, setting the Opal on the ground, “and don’t undervalue help from the locals in the future, m’kay? Fresh perspectives could hold the key.” He then turned around and bowed to Vanatos, saying, “Don’t mind me, sirrah. Just passing through. May we never meet again. Destulf Lirin, Transport!”
Soul Mage looked back into the main cabin when the tell-tale orange flash went off and said, “Ok, I’ll give you points for the impressive dynamic entry, Ash. Now what’s the plan from here? Are we going in?”
“No,” Ash answered, entering the cockpit and wriggling into his seat. “All seven Chaotic Gems are in play now, and they intend to purposefully jump to another reality. For once, I say we take their advice without debate and stay at a safe distance. PC, record everything to analyze later. There might be something worth learning.”
“As you will, sirrah,” the computer said.
“Hold on!” Gold Heart exclaimed suddenly. “What if what they’re doing is anything like Ultimate Chaos? That blast left craters over a mile across, and they’re not that far away from the city! We have to tell them to move!”
“Too late, Heart,” Gale said as the pegasus started to jump out of her seat, “looks like they’re starting.” Heart reluctantly settled down and bit her lip, eyes glued to the viewscreen, as were everyone else’s.
Johnten had already instructed Seroh and Carlez to throw their special attacks together, and the energies were melding together into a multi-colored sphere. The Topaz of Air floated up out of the snow behind Vanatos and flew past him to join the other six in circling around the energy sphere. Vanatos’s fists were clenched tight with anger, but he seemed rooted to the spot as the Gems emitted beams of light in their respective colors that flowed into the sphere. The sphere grew larger with each infusion of light, and the colors swirled about as if trying to overcome all the others and being consumed in turn. It had an odd, mesmerizing beauty about it that demanded that everything around it stop and admire it until its task was complete.
What happened next was indescribable, imprinting itself indelibly on the Order-naries’s memories but defying their ability to find words to explain what was happening. All that they could muster up later was that it was both terrifying and beautiful. PC reported magic energy that nearly exceeded the computer’s limits of measurement, and refused to speculate on the spell’s intended purpose. Down on the ground, the Bipersonality Team, Vanatos, and the seven Chaotic Gems were all gone, and the only sign of that they had been there at all was a perfectly round area of ground about thirty feet across that was utterly clear of snow.
“Bah re…” Ash said slowly once the awe-inspired paralysis wore off. “Skvetch, that was no Ultimate Chaos.”
“It might have been,” Soul said, equally overwhelmed. “Just… kept under perfect control. Controlled chaos. Heh, what am I saying?” He shook his head helplessly, a self-deprecating smile on his face.
“Well, I guess that’s it then,” Gale said. “For our part anyway. It just started all over again for them.”
“For their sake, I hope they didn’t end up in another no-humans-allowed universe,” Ash said. “In any case, we are finished with them, so there’s no reason to keep dwelling on it.” He gave each of his friends a warm smile and said, “So, there’s an Empire down there we haven’t seen before, and Madonna Cadenza would probably like to hear from us. What do you say?”
“Like you really need to ask,” Gale said, rolling her eyes playfully. “PC, find a landing spot.”