Chapter 49 Part 2: Thaw
“So… You say this magical ice melted when in contact with Young Miss Dash’s magic?” Peachy Keen hummed while rubbing at her chin and sitting in a crosslegged stance with a cup of tea in her other hand. Even in the body of a 12 to 14-year-old, some things like regal poise just didn’t quite go away. And in the privacy of a home, she didn’t have to pretend as much.
“Yep, got some major bad vibes from being around it too,” Rainbow noted as she experimentally tried some of the tea and found herself nodding a bit approvingly.
“Same one that tried to get into my head,” Junior grunted, touching at his chin while the monster king was seated on the couch.
Thankfully any dourness was quickly killed when Applejack and Dash promptly plopped down beside their combat instructor and elbowed him in the sides.
“Well ‘til ye’ kicked its sorry rump so much it could barely scare an old lady.”
“Yeah! Don’t sell yourself short, Teach. Sugar Frost was having a 'daymare' about tea parties of all things! First time against something we didn’t even know was there and you sent it packing!”
Notus pretended to not feel insulted as it lurked behind Flash Sentry's eyes.
Junior grunted but chuckled, unaware as to the stiff look he was getting from one in the room. Flash Sentry, but not himself in consciousness, gave the kaiju a wide span of room. It was the night after the concert, where the Rainbooms and company had all fallen back to Sunset Shimmer’s abode to swap notes, observations, and stories about everything that happened. The girls were more than a little surprised, and in Fluttershy’s case slightly bummed, to find out their song and dance number wasn’t just canceling out the influence of a siren but also serving as distraction for a giant monster appearance. Dash and Junior had also brought a few town record books from Sugar Frost. The mention of that name had caused some clear pondering by Godzilla that Peachy Keen was quite aware of, especially after a passing look at a very old photograph with Blueberry Frost, clear as day at the age Junior would have expected her to be around; but the date placed her at over 80 years prior. A curiosity, but it seemed the two of them understood that curiosity could wait for now.
In the room they were gathered up most of the group in a ring, the only exceptions being Mothra Lea, who was upstairs in the quiet as she’d been since returning from the pier. Flash Sentry was also present and had stayed for longer than most would’ve thought he would, not only dropping them off but remaining to help wait for Godzilla and Dash to catch back up.
“And, the same kind of sensations Junior described, Rainbow here tells me some of you girls had when you were little kids during a particularly bad blizzard,” Peachy Keen started as she pointed to the history record books on the table, which were turned to a particularly bad blizzard some years ago. The Big Freeze, exactly what Eventide had mentioned.
Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy stilled and looked to one another, the former messing with her bangs absentmindedly while the latter inspected her feet as she kicked them back and forth slowly as she remained seated in her chair.
“Sooo.. I am to presume that means you had a ghastly spell of thinking truly horrible thoughts and dread? Ones that made you feel-“ Rarity started and Fluttershy finished, “Horrible… So frigid but not numb.”
Phantom sensations making the poor girl rub at her arms to soothe some goosebumps, “So very cold…”
Nearly freezing to death and just the age of five was not a pleasant memory for anyone, and it wasn’t at all surprising it had been pushed to the back of their mind until jogged free.
“Town use’ta have a lot of weird goings on some years back, right up ‘til the time of that blizzard,'' Applejack nodded with pursed lips and a contemplative glance, “... You know, now that ah' say that in the company of two ponies an' a pair of kaiju, I guess Canters' always been a bit weird even ‘fore Sunset and Twilight came in. What with the ‘Tree Angel’ and everything.”
“The ‘Tree Angel’, I remember that was the other thing Eventide talked about. Who is she?” Anguirus grunted before looking at Peachy Keen, as if wondering if this was something else from Equestria he just wasn’t privy to, only to get a shrug and a shake of the head from the former Alicorn.
“That was indeed the name Eventide Hymn noted to me, but I can’t recall anypony or anyone named that in Equestria,” the former alicorn shrugged before looking back to the old newspapers Ms. Rose had collected over the years as the township archivist, “Seems sightings of her dropped off right before that big blizzard.”
Sunset Shimmer had seemed poised to say something for some time but was almost pleasantly distracted by the change of subject. She furrowed her brow after perking up, some old memories getting jostled free slightly, “Oh, she was a bit of an urban legend about a decade and a half back. Flash mentioned how you and he used to swap stories about her back when I first came here.”
“Never around trees, apparently he thought she could hear you through them,” Rarity noted with a roll of her eye.
Applejack pouted, “Well hey now, she wasn’t just some myth. Me and Flash saw her up close with our own two eyes!”
“Yes, yes; we remember the story,” Rarity nodded along, “We also remember that you were a toddler and it was late at night. You could’ve just seen some stranger in a weird outfit.”
“Coulda been a hobo,” Rainbow Dash shrugged, “… In cosplay… Well that’s what I woulda said before finding out magic was legit.”
“Ye, a stranger who was a ‘Tree Angel’! Flash, back me up here buddy!" Applejack huffed to her male compatriot, whom put his hands up defensively.
Notus leered internally. His grip on Sentry's mind was tenuous and he was kept out of the more positive memories. Evidently, if this fool had meet that blasted Retainer in his youth, it was a happy enough recollection that it was out of Notus' grasp. Still, deflection could suffice.
"Hey, band rules 101. Debates in a band must be settled within a band," Flash snarked coyly while holding his hands up, "I ain't getting dragged into another one of you and Rarity's debates. I stopped keeping track of that mayhem in 3rd grade!"
Applejack growled in annoyance before snorting, "Seriously Rares, with all the craziness going on is she really that much harder to believe in?
“Not at all!” Rarity quipped, “In fact I might have glimpsed her myself. Back in that blizzard in fact. Not like anyone believed me, Dash, or Shy when we said so. Whoever she was, she never showed herself outright much and no one ever saw her again.”
“Describe her?” Junior muttered inquisitively.
“Taaall!” Applejack started while holding an arm about her head.
“Cool glowy green eyes. Spooky cool, but still cool,” Rainbow Dash continued, curling her fingers into circles around her eyes.
“Red mask on her face, domino-like,” Rarity chimed in while tracing a shape around her cheek and orbit.
“Very pretty,” Fluttershy whispered with a small smile, “Or, at least I kinda thought she was. I’d always like someone who’s like a tree.”
Applejack chuckled and glanced to Flash Sentry, expecting him to continue on given she vividly remembered his childhood recollections of a certain car accident, only to feel mildly perplexed at his silence. Godzilla didn’t notice, only focusing on the mental image forming in his head and humming approvingly.
“So, she stopped showing up when you were all young children; right after the blizzard that involved dark magic similar to what we encountered today,” Godzilla hummed contemplatively before looking to Sunset Shimmer and Peachy Keen, “And if she was real, could she have possibly been somebody who used the mirror to get here before Sunset got here? Somehow kept her magic?”
Peachy Keen shook her head after some thought, tapping her finger on her tea and seemingly taking more than a little amusement at having so many digits, “No, I don’t think so... Starswirl and I used the mirror to get here a few times when I was... well...”
She motioned to her current young body, “About this age during our last jaunt. But it was sealed up tight since then. We had only recently brought it out when Sunset got to it and everything seemed to show it had been untouched in the over 900 years intermediate between uses.”
“Well if this Angel was real she might’ve known something about what’s attacking us…” Junior lamented as he nodded towards the books, “The disparity of time between here and Equestria is… Difficult to quantify. Some folks I know are very old back in pony land and are much younger here. Some others are less extreme, but a disparity is there.”
Anguirus grunted affirmatively, studiously looking over the text and thankful the writing system was identical to Terran. His creators had plenty of foresight with those spells for linguistics, “The Rainbow Jennifer Dash Jr. back in Equestria is in her twenties for example. Here, she’s a squirt who hasn’t graduated high school yet.”
“Heeey!” Rainbow huffed with a pout.
Anguirus perked his brow before motioning his head to Peachy Keen, “There are far more extreme examples I could bring up… Point is, counterparts do tend to crop up here though. It seems that the Siren’s counterparts lived a few hundred years ago based on these old census records. Only mention I can find for an ‘Adagio Dazzle’ and the like is as far back as the time of the township’s founding era, so long ago anyone from that time is dead bones by now.”
He motioned to the aged print, which was a reprint of an already archaic text, “And their counterparts here didn’t have any listed children. Records are incomplete there if they had any or not. But this does narrow down the search.”
“And are we positive that they’ve got something to do with Twilight getting nabbed?” Rainbow Dash quipped with a shrug.
Anguirus only shrugged back, “Weirdness attracts weirdness like a magnet. If they’re involved and active at this time, and are as attracted to magic as it seems they were back in Equestria, I would be shocked if they somehow weren’t aware of the kaiju or Twilight getting taken. Will pursue this lead and pick up at the other.”
Rarity hummed as she looked at one of the old documents, “So if we find the sirens, we might find where Twilight is.”
Peachy keen nodded while looking at the census Anguirus handed her, “Given some of the identity registration you ran me through in these town records, I would presume they would be registering as descendants of their own human world counterparts. We start looking there and then we can start figuring out where they are… the other records confirm what I was suspecting: Magic has indeed been here much longer than Sunset Shimmer’s arrival.”
Fluttershy affirmed that train of thought with her past recollections, “I guess all these years we just kind of figured the Tree Angel was some childhood imagination warped by time. The only one who ever got a good look at her was Applejack and Flash.”
“And if magic has been here and active long, figuring out where the sirens are might help us find out more,” Peachy Keen stated, passively registering how Sunset shimmer had stayed quiet this last leg of the conversation but deciding not to prod.
“You said Eventide Hymn got you started on figuring this part out. What did the other siren do on stage again? The one that remained behind?” Junior grunted to Sunset and company.
“… Oh,” Sunset Shimmer stifled some older memories and felt now was a decent time to enter the discussion.
“Adagio? Well, it waaaasss… weird…” Sunset muttered as she started pacing, touching her fingers together in a subtle gesture that anyone who hadn’t at one point been a pony wouldn’t have recognized, “The singing was competitive for a while, but we started our number without much issue. Even when we found they were influencing the crowd it wasn’t nearly as bad as we thought it would be. But then suddenly right after that purple siren, Aria Blaze, left; Adagio Dazzle acted up.”
“Acted up?” Rainbow blew a raspberry while shooting a thumbs down, “She was totally trying to hog the stage! Didn’t even get any help from her partner that was still around!”
“Her partner seemed way nicer. She had a lovely singing voice that worked so well with us,” Fluttershy smiled as she kept watching her feet kick back and forth while thinking back to the stage, “But Eventide Hymn isn’t a real siren, right?”
“She’s something alright,” Peachy Keen hummed contemplatively, “I almost caught up to her after the show, where she told me about the words I sent Dash to go fetch town records for. She even seemed to be wanting to get Adagio simmered down.”
“What’s your guesses on who she is?” Sunset Shimmer, forcing other thoughts aside, reoriented herself at her shrunken mentor, “When we sang together at the concert, I could really tell she had magic compatible with our own.”
Peachy Keen puzzled and tapped at her cheek, “Yes, your powers certainly seem to get along very well. She isn’t using dark magic, or at the very least wasn’t in that instance. Good or evil doesn’t really matter, but making dark and light magic mixed together perfectly like that is extremely difficult because often they involve contradictory emotions. Once again, another point for her not really being a siren…. Hmmm…”
She thought back to any of the very few times Starswirl had ever spoken about the sea sorceresses, as well as the scattered bits of information she could get over her centuries of friendship with the successive Mermare Queens of Mako Island. Starswirl seemed to be deliberately evasive about the sirens, like he didn’t want to talk about it or risk bringing up that horrible time of her life, and over time most of the Queens knew a little less and a little less; save for some like the most recent.
“I’m good friends with the current queen of the place the sirens’ family came from, so they would naturally know more than when the sirens were in Equestrian soil for a few months. She’s apparently quite learned in their history, but it was 1000 years ago… If this Eventide is with them, the only way she could be that old would be if she somehow slipped through the cracks. The sirens were hybrid children born to two princesses, it’s possible they had a non-hybrid child or maybe some extended family like a cousin who had a child. They’d be a normal mermare, able to disguise as a land pony and travel with their kin,” Peachy Keen shrugged as the second route was brought to light, “Or… she’s someone they only met recently. Someone they want to pass off as family.”
“Adagio did call her a cousin,” Sunset muttered as Rarity tilted her head, “Why would they want to do that?”
“Maybe it has something to do with the blue siren being missing? Sonata Dusk I think,” Rainbow Dash quipped as she scratched at her scalp absentmindedly, “Some of the other students said they saw a concert by those three, and there were only three; not four.”
“So, Eventide Hymn appeared the moment Sonata Dusk disappeared,” Anguirus huffed while putting pieces together as they lay, “Does sound like she’s someone who only recently stepped into the picture.”
“Stepped into and demanded the focus of,” Rarity noted with some bemusement, “She certainly got a lot of the boys’ and plenty of girls’ attention with that outfit. Much as I am to bemoan precious fabric getting destroyed, the shredded-shirt on the rocker outfit suits her.”
“Still doesn’t quite explain how she got magic if she’s a human,” Peachy Keen lamented before looking back to Sunset, “But human or migrant, if your two magicks mesh together so well, she might even be another Element Bearer.”
“You really think so?” Applejack piped up, “Ah’ thought there’d only be six?”
“Six Elements of... Harmony,” Flash Sentry chimed in while something else drew upon the few memories of Sentry he could, “Six Rainbooms… Heh, unless, somehow one of you has lost an Element and we didn’t notice?”
He spoke with a humored snark, as if he was jokingly saying one of them could misplace something like an Element in the manner someone could misplace an arm. It did earn a chuckle from some of the girls, even as slight glances were cast to a noticeable absence in their midst. One who usually occupied the pink beanbag chair in the corner. Tiny slivers of doubt started to crop up.
“… That’s eh… that’s not possible right?” Flash Sentry grimaced while looking to Peachy Keen, Notus perfectly emulating casualness.
Had there been any other subject at the moment, the former Princess Celestia might have noticed the young man she once thought of very approvingly was looking at her in a very subtly different manner. Studying, curious. If any part of her mind registered it she pushed it to the back of her mind, writing it off as just the young Sentry still getting used to her looking like a miniature version of his principal. It had been fortunate, unbeknownst to so many, that she’d lost most of her magic in the transition to this world. Or else what was driving Sentry might have reacted… poorly.
“Hmm, not without severely compromising one’s morals perhaps,” Peachy Keen shook her head slowly before getting an incline as the unspoken missing party, “I highly, highly doubt a familial excursion made Miss Pie lose her moral fiber… This is a different world than Equestria, so even if a comparable position of Elements of Harmony Bearer exists here, some things might differ. We can work out the semantics later. For now, we can tell she is a potential heroic spirit, much like all of you. Not an enemy.”
Fluttershy nodded along with the rest but did catch a thought that deflated the optimism slightly, “Didn’t seem so with the company she keeps…”
“Yeah, Eventide was all too happy to go back and forth with us; but for a spell there that lead siren seemed to, well,” Applejack shrugged dismissively, “Try to put everyone under a literal spell. Talk about competitive. ‘Specially when she went solo.”
“Would you say then, perhaps, that Adagio saw you lot as a threat?” Godzilla quipped with crossed arms.
“She certainly got very competitive right after the Rainboom’s big opening piece. She was whipping the crowd into a frenzy and could’ve caused quite a lot of damage had she the time to spread too much strife,” Flash Sentry grunted, the room taking the very minuscule chill as he said that and the thought was placed in the many’s head. But before he could take hold, conscience of his company including the miscreant reptile that denied him, Notus reigned back in his powers and lightened his visage to jovialness that could have fooled Sentry’s own mother, “Good thing you girls took her down!”
“Eheh,” Sunset Shimmer, momentarily distracted from what had been plaguing her head, “Well… more like ‘talked her down’… with song.”
“Oh, come now Darling, I think your and our achievement should be more acknowledged! We matched her melody and redirected the song sure, but you’re the one who really reached out to her with the music and quite literally!”
“Well, Eventide helped especially with the first front. She was practically on our side during much of the song number once Adagio acted up. That Dazzle though,” Sunset Shimmer lamented while rubbing at the back of her head, some of the old worries regarding the kaiju fight at the pier taking a backseat for however long it lasted, “But despite her going all out, I don’t think she was really trying to hurt anybody… Just kinda- showboat. It’s weird but...“
She took at glance at the hands that had touched and held the siren’s for a short time, some of the sensations still palpable even though she could somehow ascertain those words. It was a lot like how she could almost physically feel Rainbow Dash’s distress after she came running to her abode for help after the confrontation at the school, “She didn’t seem.. totally ‘evil’. There was a lot going on in that head of hers. A lot of confusion and negativity but it was almost more like… Worry? If that makes any sense. Her actions were focused on the concert, but her mind was elsewhere. Like she was afraid for or of something.”
“Or both,” Peachy Keen muttered solemnly with a nod, “Starswirl might have banished the sirens, but he told me in his later years it was less because they were outright evil like King Sombra or Chrysalis. They didn’t have a body count, morose as that topic is to lament. It takes a truly closed off heart for bonds like love or friendship to not happen, so it’s not impossible Adagio Dazzle had someone on the mind when acting with such bluster,”
Junior’s eyes widened slightly in a way that made it all too obvious there was a lightbulb going off in his head, “…It was a distraction.”
He paced slightly back and forth, rolling his shoulders while his eyes darted back and forth in thought, “She acted up right after the other siren left. And right as I was going to see if I can get anything out of that Aria character, that’s when I got attacked…”
Everyone else perked up a bit more.
Applejack rubbed at her arm with obvious tenseness, more than a little guilty at not having been around to help like Dash was, “Y’all just got back from all that mess and Lea didn’t talk much about what happened. Who exactly attacked you?”
“It was…” he glanced to Anguirus and paused until the Guardian Beast of Flames gave him a nod to continue, “A gyaos. She’s a kaiju that fought my team a few times before. This one though is a bit different than-”
“Wait, a gyaos?! Them things that tried to literally eat all the ponies back in Equestria?” Applejack piped up with widened eyes, “One of them is runnin’ about too? It’s like a right up Monster Convention ‘round here!”
Sunset Shimmer felt a piece of glass crack between her eyes in the sound of her mind, her eye twitching. Flash Sentry, or rather Notus, took notice and looked upon her, then at the Rainbooms on one side of the room, then the kaiju on the other. He started to get an idea.
Junior’s face turned sullen, “I was trying to restrain her…“
“Given how Lea and Dash were, you were pretty torn up. Excuse me for asking, but why just go for restraining her?” Flash said with a very honest looking frown, like how a hunter might imitate the call of prey. The windigo was being very careful not to use any overt magic, least his biggest challenge recognize the sensations and figure out something was amiss, “I mean, I think we’d have forgiven you for fighting more seriously if your life was on the line. Really, if she could do that to you, imagine if she got to the concert!”
“S-She wouldn’t do that,” Sunset Shimmer started, gulping as she struggled for words but went unheard.
“An’ if she’s here... no telling who else is,” Applejack rubbed at her arm while tensing a muscle, phantom pains from when her fist collided with X’s causing a stinging sensation within her fingers as she tested them. A wary eye was cast to the window. Many others felt an unease and discussions were opened back up about the prospect of yet another rampaging kaiju on the loose.
“She’s even more of a threat if she’s with the ones who took Twilight,” Notus continued through Flash's voice, using Flash’s face, manner, and voice to stir up more doubts and fears from any who might have trusted him. The discourse he could smell coming off Sunset Shimmer in particular was very palpable.
Seems he'd found a nerve and intended to keep striking subtly. If these chosen by that horrid goddess needed harmony to function as a threat, removing any pieces would be more desirable.
Junior stiffened as his frown deepened. Especially when he looked around and noticed some sense of unsureness across the group’s visages. Not outright condemnation or what not, he knew they didn’t at all blame him for having yet another enemy to worry about, just unease and confusion. Risks of paranoia due to what Flash had said. Notus however, did take notice. Especially at how much was festering around the young woman next to him. One who was unconsciously leaning towards Flash Sentry as if seeking comfort. She almost touched his arm when he pulled away, smelling Harmony’s taint on her. Sunset Shimmer, still on her previous train of thought, almost shouted.
“Irys wouldn’t hurt us!”
She hadn’t realized how loudly she’d shouted. There was a stillness, the sensation of all eyes in the room suddenly looking towards Sunset Shimmer.
She stilled, quivering as her eyes darted back and forth with a myriad of thoughts. There are many ways to try and confront the situation. Most of them involved words. She chose the one that involved action.
To the confusion of many, Sunset Shimmer bolted up her stairs and ignored the confused uproar by her friends inquiring where she was going. She practically flew to her bedroom and retrieved a small lockbox she kept near the side of her bed. There was something she kept with her ever since the fateful day last winter. One that destiny seems poised to remind her of time and time again. The group, eyes trained on the stairs, were almost ready to come up them and inquire about Sunset’s recent actions when she started to come back down the stairs. She held something in her hand, steeled her nerves, and unfurled her fingers to reveal a white strip of cloth with an amethyst embedded in it. One that Anguirus especially could detect small traces of familiarity in.
“I…” she felt drowned in pressure and despair, tears starting to bite at the corners of her eyes in contemplation about how long she had kept a secret and why.
The image of a nuclear fire-charred gyaos skeleton in the Canterlot Museum was so fresh in her memory that it was like she practically saw it but a minute ago in her mind’s eye. It was overlapped with the phantom sensations of Irys hugging her, purring quietly in honest gratitude for helping rescue her lost friend. The same friend whom Sunset later figured out was responsible for kidnapping Twilight.
“… I made a friend, and a mistake not telling you all about it.”
She looked to the confused visages stenciled on her local friend’s faces, to the curiosity on Anguirus’ and Junior’s expressions, and to Peachy Keen. To Princess Celestia even with her body so short, Sunset felt so small in front of her as Peachy got up and approached her. The look on Celestia’s face, even behind a pair of false glasses and girlish cheeks spoke volumes.
It spoke of knowing as she put a hand on Sunset’s.
“Can… you all leave us be for a moment?” Peachy Keen, Princess Celestia muttered as she addressed but didn’t look at anyone else.
Sunset Shimmer’s pulse raced once again, off thoughts of fear and dread kicking up with the idea of being alone with a dissatisfied mentor. The sensations of letting them down, of lying to them, of being yet another failure in a string of failures that had been her tutelage under the princess, it dug at her mind! It-
Peachy Keen’s fingers curled over Sunset’s as her hand was put on her shoulder. Sunset Shimmer opened her eyes and realized they were indeed alone, even if the abode was so small the others could almost certainly hear them still if any conversation broke. However talking seemed remote given how dry her throat was.
Princess Celestia, because there was no other way but to think of her as such with how much poise and calm was about her visage, guided Sunset Shimmer to the couch and sat beside her; never letting go of her hand. It was almost comical, how she kept her hand on Sunset’s shoulder before coaxing it up to stroke her scalp in a motherly way; given the size disparity between them.
“I have known since the museum you were keeping something close to your heart… But, I also know you would only keep it for good reason.”
Sunset Shimmer was assailed by memories and doubts, “If... If I had known anyone would get hurt, I would’ve said something the moment everything went wrong. I-I almost did when Twilight was taken and I figured out by who... B-But if I said anything at that time, Lea might have gone rampant with how distressed she was and I was-“
Celestia shushed her with a finger, “You were afraid for your friend… And you’ve been so afraid all this time… Sunset Shimmer, I’m very proud of you.”
There was again almost the sound of glass shattering between Sunset Shimmer’s ears, her eye and lip twitching as she tried to enunciate any way to talk coherently.
“Wh-What? How could you be?! Why aren't any of you screaming at me when I put so many at risk?! I d-defended a monster!” Shimmer cried out, wobbling and almost toppling over as she looked about at both her mentor and where he friends had gone. To her, the very idea she could be anything resembling a bearer of harmony seemed outlandish with the secret she'd been keeping.
Celestia kept her upright, “A monster is a subjective term… To some, I was called a monster once… Now you listen to this old mare. I know you, and I know you’d never be so callous as you think you are right now… But look at what you’ve done even while carrying this on your back! You’ve become an Element Bearer, Sunset! You’ve become greater than you ever could have been just with me teaching you! And I can’t wait to see…”
She touched at and rubbed Sunset’s scalp, beaming with pride, “...what kind of heroine you can become once you are free of this burden.”
Sunset Shimmer weakened, leaning forward as the stress got too much even with its release. The dam was finally breaking. She would have fallen over had Celestia not caught her from the front… and the Rainbooms who’d been trying not to listen from the kitchen now swarmed forth and caught her from behind. They all corralled around her, patting and hugging her as Sunset let the tears fall.
Princess Celestia sighed as she looked to Godzilla Junior. Her contentment and appreciation looking back at his fondness and awe. The alicorn sisters, with their capacity for might for right, their assuredness in their morality, and the capacity for benevolence under a crown had inspired him since he’d arrived in Equestria. And the monster king, with all of his struggles and traumas, being able to move past it all to embrace such an ideal as forgiveness had moved her.
The full explanations and insight Sunset could offer would come, and Celestia could handle it with an appreciative and curious Anguirus agreeing to stick beside her. With a nod, the kaiju pair split, Anguirus remaining downstairs as Godzilla went up to the only occupied room in the second story.
Flash Sentry remained in the kitchen, unable to get closer to the horrific outpour of benevolence and Harmony’s aura… but curious, nonetheless. Not just about these girls’ capacity to emulate the Goddess’ virtues… But at the identity of this young one Sunset Shimmer sought guidance from. There was something very unusual about the magic she gave off…
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Camp Everfree
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Megalon was the first to approach the van as it ambled down the trail heading to camp, coming through the tree line bordering the lake. For the first few steps he bore that hopeful smile he so often sported and made a note to always keep on his face when he could. But after clearing the cabins and letting the van approach, confusion spurred to falter slightly. The van wasn’t totaled like he’d noticed it had an uncanny penchant to be, what with X having caused the first one to crash into a river and Irys slicing the other in two before ripping the door off; but there was damage. The driver door flapped about uselessly, the handle conspicuously missing and evidently having taken any locking mechanism with it, given the door was jostling and waving every time the van rolled over a bump or depression.
The other source of perplexation was at Aria not being the one driving, despite being the best at it. Though driving was almost generous given how extremely slow the van was going. The path from the highway to the backroads to the camp wasn’t especially hard to navigate, and even with a grand total of 5 minutes behind the wheel when Gloriosa let him try out an old buggy; the cyborg felt he could have handled it just fine. But the van was barely going faster than an idle crawl, taking multiple minutes to reach the campgrounds.
-If they’d been going that slow, no wonder it already got dark by the time they got here.-
Megalon paced forward to meet the van curiously as it came to a stop, still smiling jovially as he put his arms behind his back.
“Goood evening team! How’d it-“ he paused when Eventide poked her head out of the driver’s side, looking paler than she normally did under her make-up.
Her eyes met Megalon’s and the cyborg had to freeze up lest he drop his smile from the uncanny sense something was very wrong with the mission. He’d had high hopes for today. If all had gone to plan, ‘Nata would get her necklace back, they would discover the power the Master had sent them here to investigate, and maybe his brother would finally own up to some things.
His expectations did drop marginally when the backdoor to the van let out a loud, sharp screech of bent metal and plastics not a second after the van slowed to a halt. Megalon’s eyes glimmered yellow and he snapped to attention, his gloves pulling back to expose the metal underneath in case he had to rev up the drills. He flinched in perplexion when a black and gold form came staggering out. At first he thought it was X in his alternate form, and all the questions of why would he be taking such a state in the current situation; but the red jeweled necklace, horns, long hair, and feminine figure quickly told him it was someone else. X had conveyed the account of what had happened when he’d wound up in this world a second time, and the state Aria Blaze had undertaken when she copied some of his powers; but Megalon hadn’t been expecting to see it.
The cyborg stood up, a bit dumbfounded at seeing his teammate’s significant other stumble out of the van; having torn off the interior door latch that was still clutched and bent in her hands. Aria for her part glimpsed Megalon’s confused but-still-trying-to-smile form and grimaced with evident fangs bared. She looked to be on the verge of tears despite her state of rage.
“Miss Aria? Are you-“ he was cut off by her bark of rage.
“No!” Kaizer Aria panted with a huffing snarl, shaking all over for a moment before realizing who’d she’d been addressing. Golden energy crackled across her form like some sort of power surge.
She scowled, slight remorse evident as she clutched her arm and stumbled away, the energy-based wings appearing on her back again to let loose a powerful flap. Loose dirt and rocks floated up through distorted gravity in accompaniment. With a boost of graviton control as she’d been taught and as was natural to whom was in her head right now, she launched off the ground and flew off into the wilderness at the edge of the camp.
“Wait! Miss Aria, what happened!?” Megalon cried out as he started a few steps after her with an outstretched hand, his gloves re-covering his limbs.
“Megalon!” a familiar voice cried out from behind him and the cyborg whirled back around, trying to keep his smile going despite his mounting bewilderment.
Hearing her voice, he hoped to see Irys approaching alongside X and Gigan. He only got the tearful former as the gyaos rushed forward and practically tackled him. Megalon blinked in surprise at how Irys seemed to simultaneously clutch him and check him over, as if fretting to make sure he wasn’t hurt. Or as he didn’t know, also hurt as well. After her once over, she tightened her grip and it was only then Megalon could tell how distraught and trembling she was. Doors to the van fully opened, showing two forms still laying flat out on the backseats, with Gloriosa and Twilight swiftly moving to their sides.
“Careful! C-careful! Don’t jostle them,” Gloriosa whimpered as she tried to guide a mostly unresponsive, stiffened Adagio to her feet.
Megalon had never seen the confident, self-assured siren like this. Oh, she was haughty for sure, barely ever paid anyone a compliment; but he could tell she often had a soft spot for his goofy antics. Likely on account of knowing how good a friend and bodyguard he was to her sister. Sonata’s big sister was a lot like his own big brother in that way. She usually was quite passively jovial to him upon greeting her after another day spent around Sonata while they’d been out.
She didn’t even seem to notice him, not anyone else. Eyes blank as she stepped out of the van like she was in shock. Megalon’s jaw flattened.
It finally broke upon seeing his brother sit back up with the aid of Twilight, sparks still flying out of his neck and one of his arms looking completely ruined. And X was nowhere to be found.
“We lost,” Irys whispered as she shivered, “We lost.”
Inside her cabin, a very pale Pinkie Pie did her best to try and comfort a near catatonic Sonata Dusk. The siren and her companion were both deathly pale, and the bags under Pinkie’s eyes spoke of how little rest she’d gotten even with Megalon’s insistence. She’d still help up a brave smile and a happy face up until now, for the sake of Sonata who seemed to require it least she slip further. The siren’s ugly chest scar siphoned off the negativity that seemed to cling to Gigan and Adagio especially, almost like it was sampling familiarity. Considering whom the dark magic influence came from, that was probably exactly what was happening. For both the youngest Nebulan Cyborg and the Element of Laughter; the campground, the world, felt a lot colder.
A few hours later, they were hardly better off. Aria Blaze had gone off to the wilderness to vent her frustrations and power surges, Irys had busied herself trying to do constant patrols, Adagio Dazzle had been totally mute and lost in empty space as she sat on the edge of the docks, Gigan had been guided into the garage but turned around and locked himself in the moment he was within, and Megalon had jumped down a burrow and not come back out yet. All that was left in a camp full of emotionally and physically spent monsters, was an alicorn princess and the sole human occupant; sitting on the steps to the mess hall with two bottles of root beer that Adagio hadn’t made off with.
“So, that’s how it all went down?” Gloriosa frowned, “Windigos. Cause of all this mess.”
Twilight Sparkle sighed and nodded slightly before sipping Wysteria’s root beer for any stimuli to help distract from the dour mood, “Only things that make sense… Demons of frost and strife-“
She caught how Gloriosa twitched at those words, and how the camp director’s hand migrated to her necklace to hold onto it. She could tell Gloriosa was experiencing… something. Something was going on behind her eyes. But before she could press on, Gloriosa swallowed a breath and continued their talk.
“Tell me more.”
Twilight’s lips twitched but she steeled herself while kicking her legs back and forth, “They live only to perpetuate fear, strife, and pretty much anything else you could classify as very nasty. Most of the ones around in the modern era aren’t exactly cerebral or really that big of a threat. The more ancient variety, though... they were beyond bad news. But, they hadn’t been seen in 1,000 years… Then again, neither were the sirens. And why they would affect the sirens like this so badly, I don’t know.”
Gloriosa glimpsed it as Twilight spoke. Glimpsed a blizzard within the town, a half-frozen forest in the middle of town. Glimpsed seeing the towering, gaunt finger rush at the door to the family car as she and her baby brother cowered in the backseat. She couldn’t tell what really were her memories or not anymore.
“Twilight, be honest with me. What do you think our odds are?”
Twilight shrugged and started to count off on her fingers, "... Weeell, we’ve got one siren practically in a coma, Aria has become supercharged but at the cost of mental and emotional stability, Megalon of all pon- kaiju is distraught and Irys has been on patrol constantly while clearly struggling to keep it together."
“And yourself and I?”
Twilight let out an exasperated laugh as she drew out the purple glowing gemstone from the locket Adagio had given her, “Well given certain things I’ve seen up close, I’m definitely convinced those crystals you found are indeed a version of the Elements of Harmony, and this one is Magic. It bonded to me quite well, thank you very much for trusting me with it- BUT!..."
She visibly deflated, "It’s not exactly like I can do much alone. These elements are meant to be used in a group.”
Her admission caused Gloriosa to similarly lose some wind in her sails. She drew up her necklace that bore the other crystals with a frown stretching over her features, "Well.. guess that means this is further proof they weren't meant for me anyways…"
The former alicorn bit her lip before patting the human on the shoulder, "Never said you can’t use them. There’s a lot of great people in the world but there’s only six… er... I guess in this world, seven, physical Elements. I’ve been studying magic since I was a little filly, but I learned the best kinds of it only after I met my friends. Chosen or not, everyone is stronger together. Just because you’re not a bearer doesn’t mean you’re not important. I-“
She was about to say more before clearly retracting her train of thought, words dying in her throat as she looked away uncomfortably. Gloriosa gave her a gentle nudge with her elbow while motioning with a tilt of her head to shoot Twilight a pleading look to continue.
"You and I both know you have more to say about this. You went along with the current plans, but you always had some of your own. Twilight, I want to hear them in full."
"As would I," a third but familiar voice chimed in. It was really telling how used to the current circumstances the two had gotten when they didn't at all jump at the pale form suddenly dropping from the roof upside down. With immaculate balance before her deceptively strong hands let go of the cabin's edge, twisting around mid-air to get her feet underneath her, depositing Irys on to the ground next to them.
“You’ve been wanting to say something since before the concert, and I know how smart you are my little pony,” Irys huffed, trying to remain firm but clearly struggling to keep it going as she raised up and let her pale eyes look about their condition.
Gigan locked inside the garage in the dark, Megalon tunneled underground and not coming out while trying Pinkie to watch over Sonata, and Monster X out of grasp in possibly the worst way yet. Her flock hadn’t looked so strained or distraught since the moment she’d made herself the last gyaos in existence by fang and claw. Her gaze was hardened, but not necessarily threatening to the former alicorn she’d once towered over. The plea, the hope, wasn’t expressed but not dismissed.
“You’ve got a plan,” Irys noted as if it was plain as saying water was wet.
Twilight bit her lip briefly as her eyes darted back and forth in contemplation, but she sucked in a breath and steeled herself, “I’ve had a plan really. One I proposed almost immediately after I literally got roped in with a certain mix-up….”
Irys frowned but only slightly, “You want us to get your friends’ help.”
It wasn’t stated as a question. Twilight Sparkle, for her part, stood up to the being that once tried to eat her and nodded affirmatively.
“I said at the time when we were driving over here, and I said it to Adagio and Gigan when the plans were getting drawn up. They turned it down because…” she sighed sadly while shaking her head at the memory of denial, “Old wounds.”
She didn’t need to clarify, especially not to Gloriosa. The plan had been shot down because Adagio was no friend of Equestria and Gigan was no friend of Terra, the same places they had caused plenty of problems for and been given plenty of problems by. It didn’t matter what the motivations were for or against them, old wounds had been and were still old wounds.
“They didn’t want to risk any exposure or more fights, not when both of them knew there were some other problems out there. Gigan knew how Lea would move heavens and earth to find me unless she and whoever the Mothra might summon for help was held back somehow. And it wasn’t until recently Adagio even knew about the time distortion between here and Equestria. As far as she knew, the same wizard whom I idolize that banished her pod here was still back there waiting on the other side, along with all the others who’d wronged and been wronged by their family…” Twilight shrugged her shoulders while taking light of their current circumstance.
Irys rubbed at the back of her head with a sideways pout, “It’s not like Equestria or Terra had a warm relationship with either of our groups… And, if they’re even half as good as you are, Princess Twilight Sparkle… I have regrets on making it that bad.”
Twilight nodded slightly, “I get why they were wanting secrecy, even if I didn’t agree to it. I just don’t think either of them would’ve suspected how bad that problem would be.”
“It’s not like we’d ever expect them to help us. After what we’d done…” Irys lamented quietly at the pit in her gut that got a bit deeper.
A small hand helped to keep her from slipping too far into it. Twilight had the gall to put her hand to Irys’ shoulder and pull her a bit closer, “And you want to know something an enemy of your kind told me he learned that very much is an Equestrian ideal?... Forgiveness. And forgiveness doesn't mean not atoning or remembering for what happened, just the first step in moving past it.”
“Who was that?”
“Godzilla.”
Irys winced. Not from the name, but from memory. Memory of how she’d sprung at him from the shadows, how she’d made the lunge, and how she’d been the one to draw first blood at the pier… And how that same enemy who could have killed her multiple times overstayed his hand when it counted. The mercy that had been granted was a potent recollection as her hand shivered until it was balled into a fist.
“Some would say others aren’t deserving.”
Twilight only shook her head, “Not up to the guilty to grant it… and the ultimate enemy of strife is forgiveness. The ultimate enemy of fear is unity. And the ultimate enemy of wrath is compassion. And you’ve already gotten some of that with how much you’ve changed. I think so, and I’m very sure… your brother thinks it.”
Iris thought it over for a spell, her eyes darting back and forth in clear contemplation as she took inventory on all the possibilities presented before her. In every scenario she could think of on what to do next, there was only really one that had any chance at success. Adagio and Gigan were the team planners, but both of them were incapacitated or not in their right mind at the moment. And so far their plans, while not nonsensical, had not panned out. Maybe it was desperation, maybe it was looking for the one confident voice to follow, and maybe it was the leader of a dead flock never wanting to lead again; but the most illogical choice a week ago was the only sane one right now.
Irys looked to the former alicorn, their kidnapped captive, and knelt to her just as the gyaos did her master. Twilight Sparkle’s eyes widened and she almost backstepped before Irys pulled the girl’s hand to her forehead, letting out a low, almost purring coo of both agreement and admission.
“Whatever you choose, if it helps my flock; I will follow without question.”
“H-Hey, no need to be so theatrical! Eheh,” Twilight chuckled awkwardly as she patted at one of her bangs and rocked back and forth on her heel and toes.
“You are my leader for now, so this plan of yours has my full support,” Irys continued with a quiet, slightly downcast tone that began to waver with her desperation showing.
For Twilight Sparkle it was downright surreal, her first memory of this kaiju being a towering white monster poised to devour her contrasting spectacularly with her now most recent memory of a scared young woman basically pledging her allegiance to her own captive. Still, the smile that stretched across her face was honest.
Gloriosa watched as Twilight gently indicated for Irys to get back up, patting the former giant bat on the shoulder and nodding contentedly to her.
“We’ll save your friends- er, flock. And we’ll do it with the help of my friends, not without them,” Twilight Sparkle assured before glancing to the docks at where the shadowed figure of Adagio watched the lake and then the machine garage where sparks jolted past a window to indicate Gigan.
“We just have to get everypony else on board,” Sparkle noted.
Gloriosa Daisy felt at her necklace, felt that the thing that she got her sense of worth from. Without it, she worried she’d just be a single, unhappy, reclusive, stressed-out failure of a camp director who could even keep her birthplace afloat. Someone pathetic. The crystals, the power that seemed to offer the promise that she was something bigger; that something had chosen her and she mattered because of it. That discontent and worrisome part of her mind never wanting to risk anything that would separate her from what made Gloriosa Daisy not a nobody. That she wasn’t just some means to an end to get someone else their power.
But, the red crystal flickering on her neck and the gentle glow of the purple crystal within Twilight’s locket helped beg to differ. As did the flashes of visions she kept getting that weren’t her own.
If a wayward bat monster could find common ground with a missing magical princess, then that was all the proof she needed. The occupants of Camp Everfree as of late were nothing alike in origin, and yet if they could be guided by a common thread then perhaps...
Gloriosa looked at the necklace, looked at it really hard. She saw her reflection in each crystal’s smooth face… But maybe because she was looking in such a way for the first time, she thought she could see the faces of six other young women; a different one in each gem. There was that tugging sensation again, a pull. Like a call to action.
“Adagio and Gigan are gonna need convincing, think you can help with that?” Twilight muttered to Irys as she scratched at her scalp with some awkwardness.
Gloriosa’s fingers curled around the Elements of Harmony, conviction on her face.
Everyone always saw themselves as the hero of their own story, and a fear that had been gripping her sense of self-worth all this time was that she would end up just a bit player in somebody else’s much more epic tale. Or worse if she continued to hoard the power. Maybe, just maybe; this story wasn’t just about one group deciding to be heroes, but maybe.
With determination she had pretty much never shown before, Gloriosa Daisy strode past Twilight and Irys and made her stand.
“I’m with Irys. Twilight, as far as I’m concerned you’re calling the shots now. Let me handle getting Adagio and Gigan onboard.”
“W-Wha- really?! I-I mean I’d need a bit of time to draw up the final draft of the plan!”
Irys and Gloriosa looked to her, the three women standing in a triangle.
“How much time?” Irys poised, “I’ll see to rounding up Aria and then Megalon.”
“Um... maaaybe 10 minutes? More is fine. I kiiiinda already sketched out some ploys for a while now, so I'd just be sorta picking which one to use... eheh,” Twilight sheepishly rubbed the back of her head as she pulled out a piece of paper that proceeded to fold out at such length it touched the ground, notes and lists crisscrossing the whole of it, "Went through a few pens."
“Since when?” Gloriosa quipped with a raised eyebrow.
“Siiiince Gigan grabbed me,” Twilight chuckled sheepishly, “Hey, it’s not like I thought I’d go from captive to cooperative to commanding, okay?”
“Why am I not surprised?” the gyaos groaned while chancing the smallest of hopeful smiles.
“Aria’s in no condition to make plans, and Adagio is going to have to capitulate,” Twilight sighed while looking to Irys and then Gloriosa, “Looks like Eventide Hymn is gonna need some taller boots, as she’s about to take center stage.”
Gloriosa and Irys nodded in affirmation, the former stepping away towards the docks as the red crystal around her neck started to flicker again.
"As for getting our resident schemers onboard, leave that to me,” Gloriosa grunted as she strode first to the docks while already plotting a course for the garage, “I’ve got this!”
================
There was no one else in the room. Not because no one else wanted to be. If they’d asked, support would have been surely offered by friends, new and old alike, but privacy was at request. This was a special matter, one decades in the making. Between the first alliance Terra had ever seen of their kinds, and between two individuals who’d relied on the other far more than many would know. The room was dark, but not a blackout; the midday sun glimmering through a drawn window; illuminating some falling dust particles as glimmers of light that blew between them.
It took some time for her to finally raise her head and meet him eye to eye. The silence was to allow their breaths to sync together, and he used such to coach her out of the heaving spells she’d been struck with. There would be no panic, no shouting, no distractions. Just them.
Godzilla Junior looked to his faction’s co-leader, the sickly Mothra Lea at last closing her eyes and lowering her head.
“Talk,” he whispered, eyes steely, “… What did you think or feel, out there?”
Lea was as quiet as a breeze, bangs shadowing her face, “… Why aren’t you shouting at me?”
He shrugged dourly, “That's because we know each other better than anyone else. And I know you’ve been shouting at yourself ever since your mistake.”
She visibly wilted and almost seemed to shrink. Her face was obscured by her hanging, haggard looking hair. A cornucopia of emotions crisscrossed her eyes and it seemed like a chaotic frenzy of hot and cold was surging through her head. Trying to find a way to articulate was the greatest challenge Lea had ever been put up against and she was losing badly. As badly as when she tried to fight Ghidorah on her own when not even three years old.
But just like that fight, she wasn’t actually alone.
A hand rested on her scalp, gently patting added as the fingers nestled in between the strands of hair. It wasn’t just an attempt at a comforting gesture, but an exploratory one. Their bodies might be very different now and how they usually were, but some things did carry over. And he knew where to look.
His fingers crossed over a large scar obscured by her hair going across Lea’s scalp. She froze and shivered slightly as his finger traced over it across the whole length.
“Remember when you got this?” His voice came through as but a whisper.
Lea shuddered and tried to speak even if the question was a bit rhetorical, the only three beings on the planet knew about that scar were all aware of the story. One of them was in the room with her. With the mixing emotions and differing memories fighting for space in her mind, being forced to recollect just one vision that had come to her sight and hers alone; not any of her ancestors, helped to focus everything.
The fight itself wasn’t easy to remember, no doubt because of the damage she suffered. But it was brutal, it was in a chaotic melee, it was against multiple opponents, and she was completely alone.
“I found you crashed into a shore, a whole fleet of invading ships completely destroyed, five dead war beasts the Kilaak brought, and Gigan’s blown-off arm,” Junior muttered as he looked at his hands and held them out in front of her with the palms up to motion like he was cradling something.
“I carried you through the night to get back to Infant Island… I didn’t even really know what praying was but I was doing it hoping my best friend would survive,” he frowned, closing his eyes as the edges of them quivering slightly from the biting sting of the memories.
His calloused fingers were touched, very cold and quivering digits lightly wrapping around the tips of several of them. Even without opening his eyes he could tell she had come closer.
“… You saved my life,” Lea whispered with a slight quiver in her voice, “But then you got hurt rushing back into the fray to save Gomora and others.”
His fingers very gently held hers, gripping them just enough to carry them to his face. By his indication, he lightly made her touch a jagged scar on the side of his neck.
“You got so badly hurt because you had Moll and Lora focused on healing me from my previous battle, which I rushed in alone,” he grumbled lightly, sighing when she caressed the old wound.
“You were in a hurry…”
Junior shook his head, “Lele, I was always in a hurry… I was always rushing off into the next fight. The only one who ever did it is much as I did was you. And we were at it for years before the others even woke up… How many times did I end up on your island, ba-ttered and.. bleeding all over the place?”
There was a hitch in his voice as he lowered his head and looked at the floor, looked at it and remembered all the times he had come limping back to Infant Island. He knew Lea was remembering all of them as well. The near-innumerable occasions she had come back from one of her own ventures only to find her best friend bleeding out on her shore as Moll and Lora did the best they could. Just as many times if not more he had saved her life by charging into the fray or spiriting her to safety, she’d saved his by frantically burning through preciously rare mana or her own reserves to mend a potentially dying Saurian as fast as she could. Both because of her own worry but also because the very next day something else catastrophic might happen in the world would need them both.
It had needed them both so many times neither of them could keep track at this point.
“What you did was wrong, very very wrong and you’re gonna have to make up for it,” Junior grunted quietly as his hands curled around her own. After steeling himself with a deep breath, he mustered up the courage to raise his head and look at his best friend.
Looked directly at her as tears ran down her eyes once again. The frown on his lips grew as a slight wetness grew into a trail leading down from his own eyes.
“But me not giving a damn about my own life put you in so many situations… You were always the one trying to get me to live for something. You were the first one to think I could still do good without killing myself to try and prove something… How many times did I get reckless and you had to save my life?”
Lea closed her eyes and leaned in, Junior met her motion and their foreheads bumped together lightly and stayed as such. Her hands shifted forwards and wrapped around the back of his head and shoulders, as he also held her comfortingly. An outsider might take them for being intimate or romantic, but that would be a mistake. The cards just didn’t fall that way. But even without romance there was no doubt the two loved each other. There was no way they could have been as close of allies and for so long without such a strong bond as to love one another. And any who thought platonic love couldn’t be potent hadn’t fought, bled with, and bled for another as much as they had.
“.. 97…” she sniffled wetly at all the recollections, all the heart aches and attacks, “I patched you up 97 times…”
“You mean you saved my life up to 97 times?” Junior grunted, stating what he felt they were both thinking.
Lea’s silence gave him his answer, and she shrank back. Godzilla sighed in mild exasperation, pulling closer again while shaking his head.
“Damn Mothra and your kind’s keen memory. Not surprised I couldn't remember given how many knocks to the head I've gotten,” he chuckled weakly, stroking her back slightly before shifting to let her slump against him more, “97 times, and it took that many for me to finally listen to you and want to actually live my life. Not go gallivanting off again on some stupid quest to redeem myself thinking I had to throw myself at danger to prove I wasn’t something I never was.”
He could remember one particular instance clearly, and somehow got the sense she was recollecting it as well from her own perspective. What it must have looked like being roused from her own recuperative coma by a frantic Moll and Lora when someone intruded upon her island in the dead of night at the birth of a new millennium. The new era was ushered forth on the roll of bloodstained waves. The fear, the unease, and the panic that no doubt ensued when the moth hauled herself across her island, guided by a recently returned Belvera, and discovered the only friend she had in the world slumped over and staining Infant Island's beach red. The weakness within her was already palpable in how the younger Lea wasn't flying, but crawling to his side. Broken dorsal spines, fractured and missing teeth, horrid gashes that cut to the bone crisscrossing the limbs, and the his obscured chest smelled of char. Red and amber orbs peaked out to look upon her as the Mothra approached and that sign of life only made her pace more frantic.
Neither could have known at the time how the usual span between kaiju events during the 1990s years of their parents would multiple a hundred fold in the 2000s. Neither could have known the original plan Junior had, to rest for some weeks on the island to recuperate, would leave the world wide open for attack by Megaguirus not long after. None of that mattered to the frantic Lea hobbling up to her fallen friend and putting her wings across his span. The brilliant patterns on her wings pulsed with a light that trickled down upon the prone Godzilla via shimmering scales. The mana she'd been amassing to mend herself, speed up her own recovery, was dumped in an instant like there had ever been any debate on the matter. Scales began to close back up, broken dorsal spines stitched back together or were replaced entirely, and dim eyes regained their color. Flashes of blue flickered across the length of his back as larger wounds ceased to bleed and started to regenerate from the loaned energy. Eventually, only two things were left. The most recent set of Godzilla's most recently garnered scars, and Lea's scaless, ruined wings.
The saurian whimpered less at his own pain than he did at his compatriot's self sacrifice. As Belvera, Moll, and Lora watched on, he staggered to his feet and picked up the flightless, exhausted moth. He'd had his turn looking helpless and exhausted, now it was her own. And it brought a frown to the saurian's face as he lifted up his smaller friend, that he couldn't return the favor. A jagged, ugly scar on his left shoulder was gently tapped by antennae as he carried her back to her chamber to heal.
The Monster King whimpered, but the Guardian of Mortals cooed reassuringly. Between helping herself and saving a friend, there had never been a choice to make.
And that had been on a night he'd been victorious. A big reason why the world wouldn't even fully realize the newest Mothra was still with them for another year was because Godzilla's fight record was heavily on victories, but not entirely lacking in defeats. Even now, in the human realm and in human skin, he felt regret bubble up when she tapped at his left shoulder. His crusade to try and counter his fears that he was a monster had been a tax upon someone he never wished ill towards.
And yet, as stubborn as he was to keep at it; she'd been just as stubborn to keep him sane. All the way from Terra to Equestria with her checkings-in after the gyaos battle. Pair of stubborn dolts they were, it was little wonder they became friends.
"It's not fair..." she wept, "You never had to almost die so many times. The burden was never supposed to be yours... It's not fair."
Her fingers touched at several other scars, ones she knew the exact cause of even without looking at them. Sometimes he was still coherent enough to tell her while patching him up, other times she had to ring it out of him when he finally came to post-operations that might have been life threatening. One she tentatively poked at was at his elbow, where a sonic slicing ray had burst out from. That one was still very, very fresh. Junior glanced down in its direction to acknowledge it, shifting his elbows slightly to pull it away and hold her hand. He let out a low, tired groan.
“And at the pier, you thought it was happening again…”
Lea tightened her grip on him slightly more, shrinking down and getting under his head to lightly bury her face in his shoulder.
"... I was terrified, I'd lose you… To problems I couldn’t... I-didn’t stop!”
The cause of the scar on his elbow and her scalp, Irys and Gigan. He knew what she meant and sighed.
“I had run off alone, again. I hadn’t trusted the Rainbooms to protect themselves without one of us around them, so I didn’t take Anguirus,” Junior grunted incredulously, “And… I hadn’t trusted you with the secret about Irys… If I had done either of those you never would’ve been put in that kind of situation.”
“You have to blame me,” Lea whimpered, “I didn’t exactly make it easy for you… I didn’t stand down... I escalated it. And I scared my own friends and if they didn’t trust me.”
“You’re right,” he muttered after a few seconds, nodding his head slightly to his own affirmation, “You’ve been fumbling for a while now and you did it again…”
Lea wetly sniffled, no doubt possibly messing up her friend's attire, “W-e… Really got to work on your etiquette Goji, your deliveries are blunt enough to work as a bludgeon…”
When she tried to pull away he pulled her right back, right back into the warmth and his presence physically shielding her from the outside.
“You’ve also been extremely stressed, isolated, distrusted, and were put in practically the perfect situation to make you snap…. You thought your best friend was about to die. Lele, I was covered in my own blood; and without any seawater or scales to obscure it I know I looked way worse than I was,” Junior shrugged, picking at his own sleeve, “Downsides of attire… Surprised Rarity had a similar get up to whip this up for me.”
“I-I still… I betrayed your trust, I terrorized you! M-ore than anyone else I know what you’re afraid of and I just… shoved the very fear I’d been trying to help you with for twenty years, right back in your face!”
“And when I snapped and lost control due to an outside influence on top of me, I leveled a town and became that exact fear!” Junior griped back, “You hurt me… But you did it out of misplaced love. And my betrayal of your trust is what caused that situation in the first place…. Lea, try to remember exactly what caused you to snap, what was going on with your head.”
Lea still whimpered, sniffling as she tightened her grip on him at the bad memories. The fizzling, chaotic mess of thoughts or memories within her mind were once again surging back in force. Short sights and sounds she herself didn’t immediately know were assailing her senses, making all of consciousness as a navigable as a hurricane at sea.
“I… I think,” she whispered, “My powers are making this worse. Memories, thoughts not my own… I-I couldn’t think straight. I thought only about how I could fix a problem, help you, save you and…... Kill them…”
Junior frowned, “And what do these things make you think, now?...”
Lea tensed and shivered, feeling so very cold as tiny bits of her eyes shifted to orange and her hair darkened slightly under the low light of the early sun.
“… That Lea is a failure after a long line of Mothra… Lea failed to protect Twilight Sparkle… That Lea was about to fail to protect her oldest friend,” she whispered a known truth. Aside from maybe Moll, Lora, and Belvera; it had been the son of her predecessor’s foe and killer that had become the closest to being family to her, "That Lea is a disgrace of an heiress..."
Junior listened well, sighing slowly while pursing his lips. He nudged her forehead with the side of his.
"Hey... You told me once what it was like losing your mother, relating it to how I lost me father," Junior quietly lamented as he thought back to conversations years gone by, "And how we both agreed she was a great Mothra."
"Saved the world from a warping meteor strike..."
"And both of our out-of-control fathers," Junior corrected before the late Guardian of Mortals could be sold short, "And when the world was in harm's way and I couldn't wake up to stop it, she engaged DesGhidorah despite being exhausted and taxed from giving you life."
Lea's hold loosened as tremors shot up and down her arms, "She was remarkable... You'd have liked her if she'd lived."
"That's two more things we can agree on... But my point is, your mother was active for four years and saved the world three times over before she fought to the bitter end...." Junior shifted and looked his best friend dead in the eye, "You telling me, after over four times that many years and saving this sorry saurian who knows how many times, you're throwing in the towel because you screwed up once?"
His grip on her tightened until she was practically pulled into his chest and shoulder. A very quiet rumble came from the depths of his lungs, almost sounding like a purr even if it was coming out of a human rather than a multistory reptilian. It was a strange noise, not one she had ever heard in any of her memories from ancestors recent and ancient. There was only one source of memories in all of recollection that knew what that sound was and meant. The rumble, moving slightly up and down in pitch, was an emulation of an antique windup music box. One that played a very old, soft lullaby. The song was called a Beautiful Dreamer, hummed by a monster. By her closest friend that was in some ways her sibling.
It pulled her free of the chaos to an extent, not canceling it out or organizing it; but letting her own consciousness and memories come to the forefront. Being held in giant arms sporting talons without any sense of fear or harm. Spending a rare peaceful night under the stars at Infant Island with him next to her.
And in the quiet of a guest room after she felt she’d committed a horrid sin against her best friend. Yet she was still loved.
Lea rubbed her forehead against his collar affectionately, quietly crying until the lullaby helped her fully calm down.
Junior held her as his mother’s lesson was reminded of him once again. When he first heard her advice and guidance on how he could differ from his predecessors in the most profound way, he thought forgiving his enemies would be the hardest part about learning virtue. But forgiving a loved one like a best friend was somehow both even harder and... extremely easy.
And he succeeded.
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What an incredible chapter.
The sirens and the Dark Hunters finally have woken up to the fact that their actions have done more harm then good. By listening to fear and letting past grudges consume them, they only made things worse.
Irys acknowledging Princess Twilight as being in the right was a tremendous step forward, and now Adagio and Gigan must swallow their pride in order to save the day.
But I wonder what kind of harm the possessed Flash might end up doing.
This was a beautiful chapter, Tarb. It’s nice that the teams are planning their counterattack against the Windigos. Twilight Sparkle uses the leadership skills she earned as a Princess to plan an alliance with the Rainbooms and the Defenders, even earning Irys’ loyalty, and we finally get confirmation that she’s Eventide. The Rainbooms catching Junior up on the story of the Windigos winter was entertaining, especially with Notus trying to raise distrust via Flash Sentry and Celestia giving support to Sunset and encouraging her friendship with Irys, which would actually help Twilight’s plan later on. Junior and Mothra confiding in each other and sharing memories together was definitely one of the fluffiest parts in the series as it reaffirms their bonds as close friends and provided Lea with the warmth she needed to move out of her depression. This chapter was lovely, Tarb. Keep up the good work.
I want to see Godzilla and his brother Luna and blade dancer get new forms like the one twilight got in daughter of Godzilla and for them to get married
Fantastic work on handling the pathos here in this chapter, Tarb.
Well, I will say this chapter's a nice wind-down from the chaos of the past few involving Wendigo conflict... I look forward to seeing those bosh'tets melt.
A lesson Mothra Lea must learn:
All mortals make mistakes. No one is perfect. We all mess up once in a while.
The true measure of any person, be they Human or Kaiju, is how they react to their mistakes. The best of us fix them. The worst ignore or compound them.
She messed up. She has been offered forgiveness. Now, if she makes up for her mistake, then all will be well. It's up to her to take that step.
Meanwhile, Princess of Friendship is Best Princess, and friendship, or at least cooperation for the win...
This chapter is well done. It's got a lot of good character moments, it further hammers home that team Hunter/Siren can't defeat the windigos on their own, and things are finally moving towards the proper team up. I do however have a small critique of the Junior and Lea scene. I think it tries a little too hard to try and throw equal blame around. Junior's not completely blameless in what happened, but claiming that he "betrayed her trust" is a little iffy to me. Lea is extremely unstable right now, and honestly, leaving her behind is fairly sound. I wouldn't trust her to make the right call either. Could Junior have maybe clued her in on Irys being Anguirus' sister? Maybe. But ask yourself this: with how she is right now, would you expect Lea to react rationally to that information?
But that's small potatoes. This chapter is still great, even if it has a slight blemish that makes it a little shaky for me.
Noctus is going to make this difficult
Lots to unpack here. We've got a wolf in sheep's clothing hiding amongst the heroes, Sunset confessing her connection to Irys, the Dark Hunters in shambles, and finally Goji and Lea mending the hurt between them. Superbly done.
Took a break for awhile away from Fimfitcion. Came back and had to read this whole fic over again. Still one of the best crossover works on here. Glad to see its still going strong.
Top gear style recap 49 Parts 1 and 2 (from Goji's POV:)
Tonight, Flash gets a new mental roommate, Aria struggles with hers, and I give mine an eviction notice.
God the Lea and Junior talk is so warm and fuzzy. It'd give me diabetes, but in a good way. It really contrasts the doldrums the Dark Hunters are going through. Twilight is a beacon of hope there though, her kindness towards Irys really sticks out. And I haven't even mentioned Sunset and Celestia either! Definitely a lot of good feels this chapter, might as well be called the very much needed emotional therapy chapter.
Nice to see pony Twi is about to step up and take a leadership role to help both the Sirens and Dark hunters. Lea's mention of how many times she's had to help speed up Jr's return to fighting shape made me chuckle.
Was just watching a short video about how irresponsible Scootaloo's parents are. Considering that she was left alone in the house, it wouldn't be a stretch that the town had her move into the orphanage when they discovered Scootaloo living by herself in the home.
Maybe having her aunts show up to take custody might be a good idea. As I bet they don't even know that Snap Shutter and Mane Allgood had a foal.
I'm going to be honest here, I deeply enjoy the story, and I love the character interactions. But I really hope this arc ends next chapter. There is nothing inherently wrong with this arc, I'm just exhausted with the whindigo conflict. I don't find it enjoyable like the ghidorah conflict and get frustrated any time they are "on screen".
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I don't know if it's going to end next chapter, but we are winding down. And Tarb has told me that the next arc is going to be a lot more lighthearted.
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That's good to hear. Like I said there is nothing wrong with the arc, I just dislike the wondigos as antagonists. They are extremely effective as villans but they are missing the "magnificent bastard" element that made ghidorah and bagon enjoyable to watch. I'm glad that we are soon to see their comeuppance. I'm eagerly waiting for the next chapter.
Lea and Junior are a very touching pair, and the sibling vibe works well with them. They've basically been in the same foxhole together for so long, this is pretty much the kind of brotherhood fellow soldiers form together. That bit about how the cards didn't fall that way for romance I also get. I think part of why Junior was able to start opening up romantically to Luna was due to the amount of peaceful downtime Equestria provided, and letting him live like a normal person (or "pony" in this case) for a time. I almost think that if him and Lea had lived through a similar period of peace and downtime, instead of constant battles (97 times!? Holy crap!) that their relastionship could've gone the romantic route. Not that the sibling bond is inferior to a romantic one, just speculating on the how's and why's behind the way these different bonds form.
And yay, finally Twilight is going to get everyone from both sides on the same dang page! Hopefully this means a united front of heroes can deal with Grogar's Abominiable Snowjerks, and free Wallflower and human Twilight from their influence. At this point I'm keeping track of the number of face punches Grogar needs before this story is over. Dude needs a reality check delivered asap, preferably by a combined smack from both Harmony and Bagan (assuming he ever gets over his own issues, but Harmony seems to be chipping away on that front. Hang in there Harmony! You can do it!)
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Yeah, while the Sirens and the Dark Hunters did have a right to be angry at Sci-Twi, this chapter has shown how their approach to her was the ABSOLUTE wrong way to go about things.
In Friendship Games, Sci-Twi wasn't stopped with angry threats. She'd been getting that from her fellow students and her teacher. Sunset talked her down and gave her a bit of kindness.
While you understand why Aria was so vicious to Sci-Twi, if Aria had just giving the poor girl a warning or an explanation, rather than a savage beating, a whole lot of the mess could've been avoided.
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Well Jr's obliviousness to romantic gestures and flirting in general is a little bit different. It's explained later on in the story why he is this way and why that eventually changes, but I won't spoil anything.
To be fair, a good amount of Kaiju, even in the more "realistic" films, tend to show a lot of human-like emotion, so it doesn't seem like much of a stretch that they would try to find companionship of any kind with other species, especially other last/only/first of their kind Kaiju.
Bahahahahahaha
Eventide being a Bisexual Queen.
Notus, you dick. I need a flamethrower!!
Fiiinalllly, the truth is out!
Oooooh Tiiiiaaaa
Aaaaaaaaaaaah
Curse you, you Floridan Doofus!
<inhaaaales> ooof not looking good on our Hunters and Sirens side.
Oh. I was wondering where the hell you,Twi. Granted your Human counterpart had more screen time than you.
HA. Catch phrase!
….The last bit with Junior and Lea…your making it so hard for me to think they are “friends” while all I hear is https://youtu.be/6RKpCbmemZQ
I’m not being mean about it. I’m just saying it as I read it.
So, the Windi-fuckers got at least one kick in the nuts, the back up plan involved turning Brad into a meat puppet so.... no great loss there, and while Wallflower is continuing to make everything worse through her own idiocy, because that's more or less her defining trait, both side now know the Winidgos are in play at least...... now just need a certain somepony to stop messing around and let both sides be clear they don't need to fight each other!
Deal with it bitch, you'll get way worse by the end of this!
Yeah that tends to be the point where you stop trying to reach for 'logical' reason for unnatural events.
I'd say that would end up getting you caught in the end but... well.... it's Brad..... he's such a non-entity it's hard to really call him being more dull and unresponsive a give away of anything.
That's an understatement.....
Like two nigh-immortal, millennium old demi-goddess...... being middle age school administrators....
With about as much luck as 'How do you do fellow perfectly ordinary, non-possessed humans?"
.... yeah can't blame her for this one.... it's Brad, he's very easy to dismiss.
Okay Shimmy Shims, time to kill a bit more of the "This stuff is only happening because people are being idiot and not talking about what they know" plotline.
Well, he knows so very, very little about what is going on, but yeah, this really is reaching "How do you do fellow kids' level of trying too hard.
Yeah.... ya think!?
Ah............ Alright, you have a point there.
So, where was the other one this whole time? One was clearly on stage, but the other just... sat in the van doing nothing at all for hours without even being mentioned as being there?
And it better be "Let's tell the people you have been wasting energy fighting that there is a bigger threat to both, and can we please start focusing some middle of the sun level nuclear fire on them instead of each other.
You really do not know who you are talking to.... at all........
Given what you've dealt with already, it can't hurt to try and get Drama Dog to like you right now.
And hope nothing screws that up from happening. But yeah get them out here, get the rest of this group a Harmony dousing, and then make with the Fart killing!
Given the scale of the ACTUAL threat....... yeah, this is bigger then even Godzilla.
Book Horse gotta Book Horse
And this is the reveal? Yeah I... sorry but I'm baffled at the lengths the story went to try to keep this a twist, like the 'remember this for later' note a chapter or so ago, having the same character call her both Eventide, and Twilight in the same scene at different times, how hard they went into keeping up even thinking of her with that name even when alone, the whole disappearing Gloriosa whenever it needed to keep both absent to avoid giving it away....... it's not the idea in and of itself is flawed it's just, the level of narrative manipulation needed to keep it hidden kind of feels overly complicated for little gain.
Plus he now knows there are gaseous assholes out there floating around messing with everyone's heads.
Do not discount the powers of Fashion Not-Horse.
D'awwwwwwwwwwwwww
So out of the many, many plot threads and conflict generators.... the Lea one feels the one that suffered the most from just how much wasgoing on. There are a few I dislike more but they tend to be ones I'd rather have seen cut to focus things better or reduces the amount of 'WILL YOU PEOPLE JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER!?" frustration, this one, had a lot of great potential but never really felt like it was allowed to really reach it becuase of how little focus we got on what was going on beyond the external problems it was creating for everyone else.
Still, everyone is clues in on the real threat, and Twilight is about to do what she should have done from the start, and especailly at the concert when the rest were right there, and get both sides to team up to kick some ass!
Another chapter down. That end part with Godzilla and Lea was rather heartfelt and again reminds me of how well these two get each other. They are fundamentally siblings at this point. Their interactions and understanding is touching, in character, and well placed. I do like how Lea's issue is being handled and how much Junior is willing to help her with it, even if he fumbles in social cues. He kinda has to make up for all the times he worried Lea and yeah, a bit of this is his own doing but they can make it work. I really loved it.
The rest of the chapter was good as well. A little ominous with Flash being invaded but not getting all the right cues down for his charge. As well as showing how Twilight is now the 'defacto' leader of the Hunters in a way. A good bit to them to show Irys' growth and really put in her atonement for what she did before, helping the pony she started the story trying to kill.
An excellent chapter.
Good scene of the heroes bouncing off of each other to put the clues together. Banter is solid, and I like the heart to heart that Celestia & Sunset have at the end.
Uncoloured.
It’s always a poignant scene when the Protag Team has to limp back home after a crushing defeat. But Twilight taking charge, and planning to make a comeback by bridging the gap between our two hero teams is great to see. The bit of her inspiring Irys to take the chance was sweet.
This was a great heart to heart between Junior & Lea. Pathos, and Dialogue was on point for the scene. And the dynamic on display was touching to see.
Overall, a solid character chapter.
I've been critical of the forgiveness scene for a while now. And, while I still have some issues with it, I acknowledge that it did need to happen this way. While Junior might have made himself feel better if he yelled at and berated Lea, he chose to be the bigger man and forgive her. That being said, it is acknowledged that what Lea did hurt him. But he's choosing not to dwell on it because her mistake was already abundantly clear. And I get wanting to show that their friendship was stronger than just one mistake. Even if it was a big one.
If I had any critiques, it would be that I think the "Junior's past is unhealthy" bit has worn out its welcome. I understand what the point was, to show that his life had affected more than just him. But I think the 40+ chapters of self-esteem issues and self-loathing said that more than enough.
But whatever. In the end, the scene was ultimately meant to show that Junior and Lea were still friends despite what happened. Lea is going to have to make it up to him and things might not be the same for a while. But they're going to be okay.
I have a suspicion that Lea mastering her Battra half and fully incorporating it in harmony with her Mothra half will be what leads to her Eternal Mothra form.