Winter War Finale Promo · 4:58am Dec 26th, 2022
Merry Christmas! Sorry for the lack of updates, been polishing off my first novella I intend to publish soon into the new year. Hope you enjoy this bite to read as I toil to polish the finale to this long arc as best I can. Thanks again to Lance for proofing and feel free to leave feedback if you so wish. After all, more polish the better!
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Zephyrus was still hyperventilating when the portal closed and shunted them away from the campground. Even with all their experience with portal magic, having used a modified version of the spell he had been in the process of using when Starswirl interrupted him all those centuries ago, it took much from him. Upon landing next to Canterlot Highschool and laying eyes upon the statue in its courtyard, something caused them to briefly go still in recognition. The windigo himself had seen that statue before with no special tie or importance in mind, leaving the reason why it was creating an uncanny sensation within their mindscape unknown.
Something about this statue created sensations that an abomination like them had no context nor word for. They blinked, Frostbite Sparkle’s eye very briefly becoming normalized as if caught in a camera flash. And something jumped at the brief stirring of the soul within.
The Element of Magic sparked as a power surge came out of it and electrocuted their body, reaching within on a level beyond the physical to try and combat the dark force possessing its power in even an extremely rudimentary form. The body the element was tied to was not a proper bearer, but that didn’t stop a fragment of a benevolent goddess from trying to save them. Slithering through the air essence and spirit, the talisman of magic was not powerful enough to expel one of the most powerful creations of Harmony’s equal and opposite on its own, especially given it was meant to work with a bearer to magnify what was already there. But if the element could perhaps reach out and connect with the good soul this monstrosity had taken over and used as a shell…
Through the spiritual presence, the magenta magic started to reach for and touch the comatose flickers of the dormant girl’s psyche. That psyche started to stir again.
A shrieking, horrid gale pushed the Element’s efforts back.
“GRAAAUGH!” Zephyrus roared, smoke emanating from between their fingers as they clutched the crystal and froze it back over again after it had already started to melt its way back through. The Element of Magic pushed up against and was entombed beside the stolen siren heart and Memory Stone. The former isolated a rapidly dim flickers that grew increasingly dark once again. Its uprising was overpowered, if only temporarily.
And it took several minutes in itself to stop that uprising.
Frostbite Sparkle gasped and hissed, drooling black bile before spitting it aside. An enormous, armored fist touched down on the ground a dozen meters away, Boreas tilting his enormous head in a rare moment of contemplation. Frostbite heaved several breaths before regaining their composure. The glowing aura forming rings around her eyes resembling glasses reformed and they rolled their shoulders whilst snapping their wings back out to their fullest extent.
“We have a limited time, now even more so,” Zephyrus spoke through the roaring winds as the blizzard formed by their mere arrival began to intensify.
They levitated up back into the sky and spread their arms out, focusing on feeling how the magic itself flowed through this area. This was not just the typical exit point of something coming from Equestria at random. What he could magically sense and the once useful Twilight Sparkle had figured out was that this was a ley line, a place where the boundary lines between space and time that created dimension and sectioned off different dimensions was at its thinnest. So many places were now at their fingertips, if only they had the proper time and awareness to find the right doorway…
Closing their eyes, Frostbite Sparkle drew up their arms straight and focused everything they had for a minute. Boreas could not do the same, but he could contribute his presence as a fellow directional wind. Having more of their kind together always made them individually stronger. Frigid gales billowed out of his gigantic maw, Monster X’s jaw distending further than it should have as the screaming winds engulfed and encircled Frostbite Sparkle. Winds whipped about and a cold cyclone started to form high above.
Gathering all of their combined force, Frostbite Sparkle’s eyes shot open, and they cried out whilst swinging their arms down.
The sound of rending barriers in space was like hearing a living thing get eviscerated. Jagged holes were ripped into the open air and showed other locations inside their span. About a dozen openings, some spanning several meters across and others magnitudes larger, started opening up in the airspace around Frostbite, about the school, and across town. Some led to other locations in the very town, others showed gateways into the gawking and stupefied onlookers in Equestria. A pair of stallions and their filly pointing up at the sky in Manehattan’s central park before having to scramble for cover due to the storm billowing out of the portal.
Thundering earth and the echoes of roaring storms opposite his own drew both his attention and ire. The manner of beasts coming to confront them were outside of Zephyrus and Boreas’ known pool of references, though they were not in some ways astronomically different from various beasts of bygone eras or types familiar to them. In some sense of irony, few even somewhat resembled the unthinking, destructive monsters their master had loosed to end the Third Era right before his war with the traitorous goddess. Only this was no back-up, but a nuisance.
The warring kaiju had proven to be both an unforeseen boon for the conflict they carried themselves being twisted to serve the windigos’ ends, and an unexpected foreign thorn in their sides with how that same unforeseen element made them unpredictable. Zephyrus learned that the hard way with that mechanical meddler interfering with his father-daughter reunion. Notus had learned even more so, and the plan would already be going sideways if Zephyrus hadn’t helped Boreas get creative and the South Wind’s spawn wasn’t active.
The Element Bearers and their company were the real threat, no mistake there. But these living titans were their literal biggest enablers.
Boreas snapped to attention and engaged, loosing a quick salvo of ghostly white-hued graviton flares at the center of the incoming formation. As the spiraling pale death rays careened closer to their targets, the two airborne giants reacted to cover their grounded company by flying forward. A creature resembling a bat-like dragon flew forward and her pale body intercepted the blast. Boreas’ thirst for wounds wasn’t sated so soon from the collision however, as Irys did have the time and intent to throw up a sonic barrier and weather the hit. Graviton crashed against projected sound with the smashing of a gong as the second flier swooped in rapidly through the smoke parting around her.
Battra Lea smashed into Boreas’ middle, knocking the possessed kaiju off his feet, and lifting him into the air. Boreas thrashed and kicked, trying to get free of the hold that was secured with Lea wrapping her scythed arms around his back. Weathering return blow after blow against her armored chitin, Lea showed just how much physical force she’d gained from losing most of her spells. Ascending despite the sheer weight of Monster X’s form without losing any speed, she started to pivot upwards into a circular arc, circling in the air whilst still holding onto Boreas.
Looping end over end in a ring, the diameter of the rotation increasing with each loop in tandem with the speed. Boreas tried to counterattack and perhaps Monster X could have with mastery of gravity control defined some means of stabilizing himself. But while the windigo was essentially a spirit and was immune to inhibitions of the body like pain, he was still controlling a physical body that had its limits. Try as he might to fire the graviton flares, the body’s systems were completely out of control due to sheer vertigo.
Lea sharply descended, cold air billowing past her as she suddenly dive bombed towards the ground with her cargo in tow. The Battra’s flight arc snapped upwards just before hitting terra firma, throwing Boreas into the sports field behind the school hard enough that the seismic shockwave was felt across the city and shattered glass for multiple blocks. Boreas was smashed into the ground down to bedrock, throwing up hundreds of tons of debris ranging from sod, concrete piping, blacktop, and building foundation.
Unhurt as he was, Boreas still let loose screams of frustration and spite partially aimed at his attacker and equally so at the stubborn body not instantly obeying him to get back up as quick as he wanted. He had his playtime with the cyborg earlier and his niece, and even he was privy to how there was no time to dawdle in this. He did his best to ignore the mass of white blocking out part of his vision as Irys dove in to engage and try to knock him back down to the ground in order to keep him pinned. By the time Boreas was able to get his body to yield to his will once again, the gyaos had already managed to slam down onto him from behind and above. The albino’s powerful feet secured a hold on the back of his shoulders, and she quickly doubled on the effort by retracting her wings to use her hands in a further effort to pin him down.
By now Lea had circled around from her swoop and landed on to the now thrashing Boreas’ legs. She stomped her own limbs down upon one of the kicking legs and tried her best to both resist his thrashing tail and keep the kaiju from rolling over. Boreas let out a roar of frustration into the storm, ghostly white energy beams flying out from his face uselessly off into the air. He couldn’t turn his head enough to land a shot with Irys grabbed onto the back of his skull with her hands. Thrash as he may, he could not dislodge his attackers even without the third member of the counterattack party having even caught up yet.
Lea called out to Irys and the rest of her group with a sharp trill, affirming her own hold, making sure the gyaos who was once her enemy was alright after another useless salvo of graviton flares ripped the sky apart. Irys was just about to respond when something caught her eye.
Lea’s face right in front of her, despite Irys facing away from her as to keep a hold on X’s upper half. It took her a moment to realize the Battra was not actually before her, but a view of her was. Like a suspended reflection or a…
Boreas grinned and shot the portal Zephyrus had opened up in front of him, the energy beams launching through the terror in space to come flying out above and behind him. Irys and Lea outcried as their backs were blasted and concussed by the white beams of energy that left painful growths of ice on the impact sites. Thrown off of the possessed Monster X, both kaiju were momentarily stunned and sent rolling across the field; Lea crashing through several of the outdoor pavilions whilst Irys was blown backwards with enough force to completely flattened the bleachers.
Boreas punched the ground with both fists and pushed off to help launch himself to his feet. Gravitons warped and churned with his actions, as the windigo ripped a huge multi-hundred-ton chunk of bedrock out of the ground to heft over his head by canceling out its weight. He began to take aim at the downed and stunned gyaos when another force demanded his attention with a roar that sounded like a pack of oncoming freight trains. Anguirus had dropped off his cargo, having been the chauffeur for the elements on the correct assumption his two compatriots would better be able to defend themselves and draw fire on their approach. Now with his other duty taken care of, the ankylosaur charged forward on all fours before pouncing.
Boreas grinned and hurled his lifted mass forwards, shifting its internal gravity to several times higher than it otherwise would have. Obtaining this new stature came with more benefits than just increased size and strength. Limited as X's current memories were, there were enough to get creative with what powers he knew of. Boreas' feet instantly sunk down to their knees into the ground after their burden increased in weight by an order of magnitude.
The weight equivalent of many hundreds of tons smashed down upon Anguirus and would have pinned the dinosaur chimera to the ground at least had he not had help. Purple beams of energy smashed into the stony projectile, crisscrossing its form and fracturing its span. Even if it had the equivalent weight of far more mass, it still had the same density as before; and prism beams from Battra Lea speared through the bed rock handily even if it didn't fully destroy it.
It did soften it up however enough that a spinning thunder ball managed to smash through it despite the weight difference. The rotating mass of spines erupted fully from the shower of debris and continued forward.
Landing in the destroyed field on only his hind legs, the ankylosaur chimera reared up fully to close as much of the gap in height between him and Monster X as possible. Furious, burning hot roars pushed past his fangs as he brought his forepaws up into what almost looked like a readied stance to challenge the other combatant.
Boreas tried to fire upon him instantly, something stirred deep inside the head of Monster X that didn’t come from the windigo. Tiny flickers of some kind of distant recollection compelled the body into muscle memory and it also entered a readied stance against its sparring partner. Boreas snarled and resumed control, but by the time he kept his stolen body from resisting him Anguirus had already closed the distance. The earth shook as the brawlers locked onto each other, feet digging into the ground in the shoving contest of who could topple who first. Boreas angrily fired stray blasts into the air, Anguirus having rammed his crown forehead into Monster X’s jaw to crane his head back; as Lea and Irys regained their wits to re-engage.
Zephyrus was about to try his old trick again when suddenly sparks of energy started to conduct underneath the ice covering up Frostbite Sparkle’s collar. Manic eyes snapped open and looked aside just in time for a cyan blur to zoom past. Had they not dodged backwards at the last possible moment, the knee strike Rainbow Dash launched would have connected with Zephyrus’ gut instead of glancing off of it. Hovering backwards, they were soon assailed by more painful nuisances that threatened to allow their power source to rebel against them.
Not even given a moment to recalculate what was going on, Zephyrus found himself under attack again. Sections of the ground were eviscerated with tendrils of flora shooting up and lashing the air in an attempt to swat them from the sky or grab on to them. One woody limb snapped around one of their wings and suddenly yanked them into the side of the school building, banging Zephyrus against the concrete and glass before trying to drag them down to ground level. Gaea Everfree, the orchestrator of the attack, waved her hands back and forth like a conductor organizing a symphony orchestra; bringing more of the subterranean plant life to bear.
Zephyrus shoved back several tendrils of wood and vines that attempted to swipe and grab at their arms, deflecting a dozen attempted attacks with waves of telekinesis. Amidst the uproar of exploding foliage, propelled by detonations of purple energy, several vines did manage to erupt through Zephyrus’ defense and seized them by the legs. The dark echo of Twilight furiously beat their wings to keep off the ground, as Gaea Everfree landed upon the tethers to try and reel the windigo in.
Frostbite Sparkle slashed at the air, telekinesis extended from their claws to shred the open space. A portal opened up briefly across the width of the tendril that had grabbed onto their wing, before abruptly snapping shut. A long length of what used to be oak tree fibers abruptly dropped across town out the other end of the portal and the windigo attempted to fly upwards to get some space.
Heaving in a breath, the rebelling Element sparking and pulsating with light underneath the ice, Zephyrus was starting to panic. More and more attackers were piling in and they were at the 11th hour with no sign of success as to what they were aiming for. In a blind panic and rage, the possessed Twilight’s body let out an ungodly shriek as they started slashing and swiping at the air.
Dozens more tears in space time, dozens more portals, started to open up. They weren’t big enough for the oncoming storm to be pushed through with any effectiveness, but the sheer number of them was rapidly beginning to pile up around the school. Most led to other areas in the human world, a few others to tangent worlds associated with that dimension. A majority of the remainder showed more and more of Equestria, both empty landscapes and gobsmacked equine onlookers. A few of them even seem to have opened up under the ocean or in the middle of a desert, spurring torrents of seawater or tumbling sand to start spewing out in abject chaos.
One of them, either from the latest batch or the first one, was oddly dormant in the seemingly infinitely dark void it seemed to lead to; looking all the less like a portal into a shadowy realm and more like a physical hole in space.
Distracted in their frenzy, Zephyrus was blindsided once again.
Numerous crystals burst into existence to surround them and pushed inwards, trying to block off their escape paths. Through the crystal’s number, yellow hardened light in the shape of dozens and dozens of city pigeons and gulls, the types of animals one would find around a coastal school, started to mob Frostbite Sparkle. One would think they could barely do anything, but the magic that composed them made touching either the crystals or animal constructs agony. Sparks of magic conducted from each point of contact and attempted to reach out to the captive Element of Magic. The mobbing birds and surrounding crystals covered for each other. Rainbow Dash had grabbed onto someone and spun her about at high speed to build up momentum, flying through the air and hurling the orange blur into the cover Rarity and Fluttershy had made.
Just after back handing a seagull construct out of their face, Frostbite Sparkle was soon subjected to the sight of a very livid Applejack bodily tackling them out of the air. The Element of Honesty, wrapped in a glowing aura that gave her an innate hardiness to resist the freezing cold of making contact with a windigo for at least a bit, blocked an attempted swipe at her face. Applejack responded by grabbing the windigo by their antlered crown and headbutting Zephyrus square in the forehead with enough superstrength to cause a small shockwave. The horticulturalist hit them so hard that Zephyrus was briefly seeing apple-shaped stars as the body locked up against their will.
“This ain’t yer’s!” Applejack hollered as she wasted no time trying to go for the necklaces adorning Frostbite Sparkle’s neck, her own element calling out to its counterpart with her fingers beginning to melt through parts of the ice.
A shock traveled into both the Windigo of the West Wind, and into one of the numerous portals ripped into the airspace around the school. A small, seemingly insignificant one overlooked until now, hovering above the back courtyard. The viewpoint of where it lay was a dark void more unseeable than the richest blackness.
And unlike the others, something was starting to blow out of it rather than into it. An eastern breeze, both contrary and companion to Zephyrus’ westerly one.
The shock sent into Zephyrus spurred their eyes to snap open and they screamed. Instantly their body became alight with power granted by the eastern winds supplying a temporary boost. Dark wings snapped outwards despite their dissent and a massive shockwave of telekinesis smashed into Applejack before she could fully rupture the ice. The ungodly shriek Zephyrus unleashed howled over the storm and carried with it chaotic strands of more telekinesis that twisted power poles and shattered concrete.
In tandem with the uproar, there was a sound of walking thunder as Anguirus called out. The armored dinosaur went flying over the school after being thrown back just as Boreas took the split-second opening he had to kick forward at Zephyrus’ attackers. That one second clearance was enough for his foot to come crashing through the PE hall Rarity and Fluttershy had been in front of. Debris and shrapnel exploded forth in all directions, the thrown-back heroines' flight path hopelessly chaotic and randomized thanks to being grabbed and tossed about further by Zephyrus’ outburst. It was only thanks to the quick actions of a cyan blur being fast enough to rush in, grab them, and get the pair out of the way, did Rainbow Dash get them to safety as the onslaught continued.
Zephyrus screamed over the storm, portals ripping open all around them and intensifying the chaos. Torrents of sea water, gusts of wind, and more all came spewing out. Applejack had to duck and sprint away from a shower of frigid saltwater, before a dark shadow came overhead.
“Ah’ crabapples!” She cringed, keeping her father’s hat affixed to her head with a hand as the mass of concrete the size of a large truck came ejecting out of the portal.
Across town, half of a clocktower’s side sagged and crumbled from the portal being opened up inside it, gravity yanking it through and sending it plummeting at the Element of Honesty. Had she any other power but drastically enhanced strength, it might have been her end. Fortunately two things worked in Jackelyn Susan Apple’s favor. The powers granted and lessons from a Sensei teaching her how to kick.
A gong-like crash sounded off across the schoolyard after Applejack stopped, pivoted, and kicked through the shattering clock face to punt the solid bronze bell back at Zephyrus. The windigo, still surging with an overcharge of power, slashed at the air in front of her to create a portal that swallowed up the bell. Far and away in another world and another place, a changeling was very confused why a dented bell suddenly came crashing into the roof of her hive.
Zephyrus had no time to catch their wits however, as Gaea Everfree was unrelenting in her pursuit. Rootwork and vinery continued to burst from the ground and doggedly chase them no matter how much the windigo cut the foliage back.
Slashing through what used to be an oak tree, Zephyrus called out over the storm as their body crackled and sparked with both the power surge and the rebelling embers of the Element of Magic, “Your mother and you have no calling in this, did you really decide your destiny was the follow her to the grave?!”
“My mother chose to be a hero,” Gaea Everfree, Gloriosa Daisy, retorted as she came bursting through the shattered wood fibers, hands glowing green in a glow that spread to the remnants of the school oak.
The power granted to her grasped hold of the fragments to rapidly germinate all of the seeds the tree would have once had to increase the number of foliage she had to work with, bringing even more trees to use. Just as the worst winters could never stop spring from coming, this monster could never stop heroes from rising to the challenge to face them. They tried once decades ago, and they would fail then as winter failed every year come spring. A venerable forest came bursting forth at her command.
“And she chose to defeat you,” Gaea Everfree extended a hand and clenched a fist, spurring the trees to rapidly remold into a cornucopia of spines and branches all jetting for Zephyrus’ position.
A bubble of purple telekinesis, a stolen and amplified power from Twilight instead of their own, was their only shield and it barely held. Zephyrus snarled as the Element started to damage them once again, smoke rising from their collar alongside the memory stone and Sonata’s necklace.
-She’s on par with a Bearer, stronger than the last Retainer.-
Zephyrus scowled as their shield cracked further.
-The proximity of the Bearers is amplifying her as she does them!-
Energy crackling, the windigo was forced to open up a portal within their shield and dive into it the moment the telekinetic barrier gave way and shattered. Broken wood fibers and a very livid Zephyrus re-emerged in a new portal opened up in the courtyard, striding through a tidal surge that showers sea water from an undersea gateway above them.
Boreas stepped overhead, striding more into the schoolyard and trying to swat at Rainbow Dash, shadowing Zephyrus with his foot. And even so, they could already sense more attackers coming upon them. The ground split and divided, Gaea Everfree emerging from the broken pavement amidst an army of roots.
“And yet you cannot defeat me in time,” Zephyrus sneered as they leaned back towards the portals, many of which surrounded and ringed them as they spread their wings.
“Maybe so, but they can,” Gaea smirked as she launched everything she had at Zephyrus, who reactively tried to launch back into one of the many portals connected elsewhere to the schoolyard.
Predictably too. They hadn't looked back to see if anyone was on the other sides. The windigo had been so busy fighting the most combat adept Bearers and Gaea, they’d lost track of the number of Bearers.
Even with the chaos of Boreas stomping into the field and Zephyrus’ powers flying about erratically, two heroes largely without powers did not stay idle. Sprinting as best they could on the bipedal legs they’d been forced to get used to, two former unicorns tried to take advantage of an opening.
Jumping out of the portals behind Zephyrus, Princess Twilight and Sunset Shimmer latched onto Zephyrus’s wings and attempted to clamber onto the now thrashing monstrosity. Sunset Shimmer, latching onto the back of Zephyrus’ head, activated her Element of Empathy and clenched her eyes shut. The windigo could keep no secrets from her and she could hold their attention whilst trying to pry into their mind.
To call what she saw abject chaos would be a gross understatement. It wasn’t like any other time she had used her abilities before. Rather it was like looking into two different souls at the same time, one of them near shattered and fragmented and the other almost completely incomprehensible.
Camaraderie. The other Twilight and.. was that Wallflower Blush with her at the front of the school?
Conflict. A blue colored Starswirl with purple eyes instead of gray with a yellow gaze, juxtaposed and flickering back and forth with what Sunset could guess was the previous Gaea Everfree.
Corruption. Being held by Wallflower as a stone was brought near, a horrifying presence looming over before she used the Memory Stone on her friend.
Calling. A vast and near incomprehensibly dark void with a gateway opening up into the Everfree Forest amidst a battle of… gods?
The same Twilight, or rather what was left of her soul, crying out as an entity only describable as an abomination to life itself lingered above and chained her in her own consciousness. It was similar to what Sunset saw in Flash Sentry’s mind with Notus, only magnitudes worse. She could see now however, why the first attempt to exorcise Boreas from X's body was more troublesome than it should have. She could see the connections left in this mind that was actually two minds. Ones needed to exploit to get to Twilight's spirit through Zephyrus just like how they'd need someone with a connection to X's past to reach what remained of his.
Names flying by of all those first in mind by Twilight or Zephyrus. Wallflower Blush, Notus, the Sparkle family, Boreas, Spike, Wysteria, and… Eurus.
That last name engendered visions of devastation, frozen corpses of whole countries, and blackened skies from an enormity unlike any other. While it was incomplete, mind-bending, and problematic trying to understand a mind totally different from any other sapient life that could exist; Sunset Shimmer saw what Zephyrus had planned.
In the waking world however, Twilight Sparkle had almost managed to fully capitalize on her friend’s distraction. Zephyrus’s icy shell thrown around her element was melting more and more as she beat on their chest trying to get it free. The magic, she could feel it calling out to her! It felt its proper bearer nearby and was reaching for her as she was for it. The former alicorn cringed and struggled, trying to force through the gales of wind and erratic telekinesis shoving back against her.
Climbing around Frostbite Sparkle’s wing, Princess Twilight sucked in her gut when a stray elbow by the enlarged shadow of herself smashed into her gut and cracked a rib. Holding onto the limb, she strained and reached. Her fingers caught around the edge of the melting ice and just barely scraped the surface of the loosened Element, as well as the Memory Stone and Siren Heart stored alongside.
An enormous foot stomping on the ground behind them averted what could have been the stop to Zephyrus’ ploy then and there, as a massive wave of gravitons spilled across the school and warped gravity as they went. Boreas smirked as the shockwave of his attack jostled Zephyrus, but also their two attackers. Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle were flipped upward, almost weightless from the canceled gravity and relying on holding onto Zephyrus to not be sent flying as they experienced a mass of vertigo. The burst also shifted the pull of the planet across the school, loose debris sent floating upwards as Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Gaea tried to close the distance to assist the two former unicorns. But with their feet skipping off the ground and traction gone they couldn't reach the fast enough; as even propulsion by wing or riding on plant masses was thrown off.
Weightless, Zephyrus, Twilight, and Sunset went tumbling into portal after portal across the many tears the former opened up. Hurtling through the air hundreds of meters off the ground just as gravity came roaring back to yank them down at a frantic pace. A very confused Battra screeched as she flew close to the trio plummeting through the air, only for them to fall into another portal and now be sent skidding across the surface of the half frozen see. Going from falling to now horizontal, the dizzying momentum was nonetheless maintained.
Sunset Shimmer cried out in pain as her shoulder took the hit of the fall, being wrench off by Frostbite Sparkle the moment her grip loosened and the connection via her Element was disrupted.
“Sunset!” Twilight cried as the Element of Empathy was thrown off, her trajectory careening towards a frozen-in-place wave covered in jagged icicles whilst half limp from the impact.
The choice of trying to try and reclaim her Element now and save her friend was not one for the young Princess. Bracing her feet and kicking off from Zephyrus just as the windigo turned their attention towards her, Twilight reached out for and managed to intercept Sunset Shimmer. Their combined momentum shifted and they managed to avoid getting speared on the frozen wave, tumbling over the icy water and into another portal as Zephyrus’ power flew out of their control.
The Windigo of the Western Winds screamed as they fell through a different tear in space, as the two friends fumbled end over end back at the schoolyard.
Twilight and Sunset spilled out near the destroyed library as Boreas tried to continue and track the Element Bearer’s movements and stomped into the courtyard. His tremendous foot crashed through an auditorium and kicked up both a massive pressure wave and avalanche of debris. Rainbow Dash grimaced and tried to dodge it all, but even in her slowed perception of time whilst moving at super speed there was simply too much. A shockwave smashed into her back and she was sent tumbling from the air, desperately fumbling to avoid face planting into the ground or letting Rarity or Fluttershy suffer the same fate. Holding either friend under arm in a sprint, Rainbow was forced to run across the span of Boreas’ other foot, leaping off just as it started to rise up. Rainbow’s pupils shrank in response to the growing light engulfing the world around her, Boreas taking aim with his stolen optic blasts he’d brought to charge.
A dive-bombing Irys proved the Bearers' savior when she slammed into him from the side and forced the kaiju-possessing windigo to re-engage, shrieking over the storm as she tried to drag him away from the girls. Under the roar of the clashing giants, the team of heroines had to scramble through the flying debris to get across the courtyard and towards the main building.
The still falling Zephyrus’ fury tore the schoolyard apart and was like a hurricane of telekinesis, unable to break their own fall. They hit the pool like a meteor, kicking up large geysers of water both from the impact as well as their magic flew out of control.
The Element Bearers in the active fray had to take cover behind Rarity’s shields from the onslaught, with Rainbow Dash grounded and Fluttershy’s projections turned to sparkling dust by Zephyrus’ attack. Still bounding away from the destroyed auditorium amidst a hail of debris, Applejack was caught when several woody tendrils erupted from the nearby trees and shot up to her airborne descent, matching speed before catching and slowing her down to join her fellows. Gaea Everfree, conductor of the saving catch, paused and looked warily in the direction of the unseen portal to the blackness.
Eastern gales ripped free across the courtyard and seemed to briefly silence everything. And every magic user in the area could feel it. Unseen as it was in the void, something was very, very wrong….
A large growth of tree wood and vines Gaea had brought to bear worked to create a mesh dome to shield the party from the crossfire and flying debris.
“Everybody okay?!” Gaea Everfree called out as she reeled Applejack into the cover with a vine and rejoined the group, a wary eye still on the darkest portal.
"We got knocked back, but we're okay!" Twilight Sparkle panted as she and Sunset Shimmer were helped behind cover by Rarity and Fluttershy.
"Did you all feel that?" Sunset shimmer whimpered a bit breathlessly, still clutching her shoulder and feeling like the wind had gotten sucked out of her lungs. And she was shaken even before the multiple near death experiences in the last few minutes.
"That chill just when I thought these frozen jerks couldn't get any colder?! Yeah, I felt that in my bones!" Rainbow Dash griped as she melted off some ice that had started to fester on her wing.
“It’s coming from there,” Gaea huffed as she nodded towards the portal, “Zephyrus is trying something new.”
“Ah that’s great, that is juuuuust great!” Dash whined before they all abruptly jerked down and ducked.
"I saw them!" Sunset Shimmer exclaimed as she stumbled, requiring Twilight to help hold her up, "I saw what he's trying to summon."
They gazed upwards just as the skyline was swallowed up by a span of broad, leathery wings as Irys was thrown backwards after a powerful blow. The gyaos careened through the air, catching herself with her feet to avoid plowing into the ground and bounding down the city main street in a series of great leaps before kicking off to get airborne again. The albino reacted to a telltale glowing mass appearing above the school and summoned her shield to deflect an oncoming energy blast Boreas had fired upon her. Only her attention quickly diverted away from looking head on and instead shifted to her periphery off to the side. Sunset Shimmer detected a shift in the air off to her left and it was the only warning they got when she realized Irys’ attempt to block something had failed because Boreas adjusted his aim.
“DIVE! DIVE INTO THE PORTAL! GO! GO!” Sunset screamed as she rapidly shoved her friends forward and towards one of the dimensional doorways nearest to them and next to the dark void.
Twilight stammered in surprise as she saw the sudden change, “SUNSET?! What- Why are?!”
Shimmer cut Twilight off by grabbing and throwing her into the gateway, “NO TIME JUST RUN! RUN! RUN!”
Sunset Shimmer tried to ignore the presence she detected, the one Rainbow Dash had been talking about, as she passed by that portal leading to the dark void. Her attempts to not look weren’t entirely effective given she had the very distinct inclination somebody, or rather something, was watching her.
Boreas fired into two portals adjacent to one another. While the majority went into one entry way and erupted out beside Irys, a portion of the torrent was diverted off into another that opened up across the courtyard facing the assembled heroines. Not three seconds after the lot of them was shoved into the portal, that entire section of the school courtyard was utterly destroyed.
The sense of vertigo going through the portal was uncanny and nearly debilitating. Like falling through the air several feet. She hadn’t even known if the emergency exit led to the human world or Equestria and didn’t get that answer until she crashed into an earth pony mare with the same general look and color scheme as Gaea Everfree upon falling to terra firma. The heap of assembled mares, two pegasi, two earthies, two unicorns, and an alicorn quickly tried to get untangled from each other.
“Alright, who’s not dead?” Applejack, ignoring her bemusement that somehow her hat of all things carried through the transition, grumbled out as she hefted her entire group onto her back, “Sound off!”
A small chorus of dazed groans were the response. One of which however shouted over the choir as a head of a young alicorn shot up.
“Quick! We gotta get back to the school before-” Twilight Sparkle looked up to the portal they had been spat out of, the rest of the group following her line of sight.
Visible through the tear in space several dozen meters away, the view through the gateway showed the schoolyard near the swimming area. The pool violently erupted upwards in a geyser accompanied by a powerful scream. Zephyrus shot back into the air, beating their wings and sporting a strained, manic visage. An eye snapped over to where the Bearers had been, spotting the enormous scorch match left by Boreas’ blast. Zephyrus fought the shocks their own power source was giving them as they quickly put two and two together as to what happened. Boreas having used his brain for once was a welcome assist, got the meddlers out of Zephyrus’s way for at least a moment. The western wind was not so foolish as to think the biggest threat to the dead without cause however, but the sight greeting him did spur a smirk. He soon saw the group looking at him through the portal upon approaching it.
Several of them had already recovered and were closing in, commendably adjusting to their Equestrian bodies well for all of them who weren’t native. Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were airborne; with Gaea Everfree lifting herself up with several vines to carry herself and the non-flighted party members aloft. They closed in rapidly and were about to make contact.
Summoning every ounce of power they had in the moment, Frostbite Sparkle cried out and slashed the air. Their magical talons shredded the portal, breaking it apart and shattering it like glass. The view of the Equestrian forest was gone, as was the immediate way back for the heroes.
Zephyrus gagged and rasped, collapsing as the shocks the Element gave them began to slowly subside without a Bearer immediately close by to reach out to.
-That will not keep them away for long…-
At the very least, his gigantic partner in crime and their own quick thinking had bought them a moment of breathing room. And now that Zephyrus wasn’t under attack constantly, it was time to return the favor. This was going to take a lot out of them, but it might be worth it to push to their limit and take risks. Convulsing as they gripped at their collar, Frostbite Sparkle gathered up all the power they could and took hold of a few dozen of the portals already opened to be repurposed.
==========
Boreas was being overwhelmed despite fighting back as hard as he could. While he had managed to topple a charging Anguirus, having torn the gymnasium and its foundations out of the ground and clipping the ankylosaur across the face with it in a bash, both of the flyers were on top of them. Irys had one of his forelimbs in her mouth, biting down to both disable and restrain the limb whilst holding the other arm at bay with her prehensile feet. It did leave her wide open for an energy blast, but Battra had sought to defend her teammate. Swooping in and tackling Boreas from the side whilst whipping her thorax and abdomen backwards. She was still figuring out her new abilities, but she was willing to take a gamble on one of them now obtained in her true form outside of a human body.
A recurved dagger of a stinger erupted from the end of her body and was swung downwards, the sharp tip oozing venom as it buried itself into a gap between Monster X’s armor near the abdomen. And like an angry wasp, Battra was not resigned to just one sting, follow-up stabs and injections stitching across Boreas’ side. The venom might not be meant to be lethal, and Monster X had a tough enough constitution even if it was, but the effect of multiple thousands of gallons of poison was beginning to have an effect. Boreas himself couldn’t feel it, but his body could. He could feel some of his nerves locking up and vision starting to blur.
Anguirus’ tail swung out and swept Boreas’ legs, toppling the possessed kaiju and forcing him to the ground. Through his blurry vision however, he could detect two observations. The first was a large shadow indicating Anguirus had gotten back onto his feet and was pouncing forward to body slam the temporarily downed Boreas, with Irys and Battra no doubt right alongside. The second was the westerly winds roaring, indicating Zephyrus was putting everything they had into a desperation move and telling Boreas where it was going to be.
Through his blurry vision, gradually correcting itself as the body fought off the venom, Boreas tucked his legs in and kicked outwards with everything he had. Anguirus grunted as he felt the impact reverse his momentum. Boreas kicked him into the air with respectable, but not overwhelming force, launching the armored kaiju careening off to the side. But just as Anguirus felt gravity should bring him back to earth, the rushing air kept coming. His shell hit the side of a rocky mountain and he was hit with a wave of vertigo that scrambled his sight briefly. The kaiju banged into the stony slope on an incline as Anguirus started rolling down the earthen rise. A vague sense of familiarity came to him as he realized he was rolling down the side of the mountains back at Everfree national forest, catching a glimpse of a giant handprint left in the stone.
Irys and Lea both called out in surprise after seeing the sky swallow up Anguirus, concern slightly abated at seeing their spiny companion quickly recover and charging back towards the portal. The momentary distraction was enough for Boreas to shrug off some of the effects of envenomation to rise. Grabbing onto Irys’ wing, the windigo of the North threw his full weight aside and whipped the bat kaiju at the portal. Irys flapped chaotically to stabilize herself and avoided being hurled into her elder sibling after being heaved through the rip in space and time. The two Guardian Beasts reoriented back towards the portal they’d both been forced through and made to close the distance when the portal shrank away and snapped shut.
Stupefied in the moment as they stood in the national park dozens of kilometers away, Irys and Anguirus didn’t remain idle for long. Anguirus grunted to his sibling and motioned to the skyline. Irys hovered over and grabbed her sibling by his shell, avoiding most of his spines as she lifted him into the air. Carrying him out of the valley, the gyaos set the ankylosaur down before Anguirus curled into a ball. Within a few moments, he was rapidly spinning his way out of the park as she flew alongside to make their way back to the city as fast as they could. They were out, but not out for long. Zephyrus' stunt had bought their compatriot maybe a few minutes.
Zephyrus collapsed after assisting Boreas for potentially the last time, hitting the ground from exhaustion as energy sparked and arched across the body. Indigo magic conducted into their wings and caused the construct to briefly flicker out of existence. Frostbite Sparkle staggered and grabbed at the Element to focus. Working through pain they didn’t feel but could register, the windigo felt themselves battling not just the Element; but the dormant consciousness of Twilight Sparkle’s remnants not absorbed into the Memory Stone as well. Looking to the source, they spied the school statue as latent memories began to flood in. A brief visage of Wallflower Blush assailed their mind, some positive memory the Element was trying to weaponize.
In a moment of desperation, Frostbite Sparkle threw themselves into a portal leading to another side of the school, crashing into the courtyard as far from the statue as possible. Zephyrus heaved and struggled to stand. That last effort assisting Boreas had taken a lot out of them, making this form more and more unstable by the moment. The power of the Element of Magic was the antithesis to their own, trying to burn away at them. It was like trying to smother a flame by dumping a mountain of kindling on it.
A harsh effort, one even harder because they could detect a pull of the Element to another source nearby. Zephyrus snarled, absorbing the influence of what dark magic he could as he snuffed out the Element’s weakening; but not ceasing, rebellion.
-The Bearer was tossed away and banished, what could this be calling out to?!-
They were already on borrowed time, and the countdown clock to when they would be forced out of this body was accelerating quicker than whatever time Twilight Sparkle’s body would have left holding itself together. And if Zephyrus was expelled, he’d come out weakened and vulnerable whilst right next to one of the few things that could actually destroy him.
The super storm above only had two of the four directions in full. Noteworthy but not enough: not nearly enough. Notus’ spawn that would serve as his replacement was en route, Zephyrus could feel her presence as distant as it was. If all had gone according to plan, his bastardization of her rightful desire for revenge would have made Australis spiral and surpass her father. That just left the East to be fully unleashed, which was their responsibility to unchain.
The same winds were carrying with them a warning about another pest to deal with at the moment. If they were to succeed, now was the time for action.
Spreading their wings and flying across the school grounds as Boreas faced off against Battra. For a brief instant the windigo could remember being back in Equestria the last time their master had called them to arms and out of that dark realm they had been waiting in. First Notus and Boreas, then him; summoned to counteract and confront the six heroic mortals representing some kinds of virtues the goddess embodied. Zephyrus had been attempting to further tilt the odds and bring forth the last and mightiest of them when that damn bearded unicorn interfered.
He remembered, burned into his consciousness for what amount of it he constituted, the look in Starswirl’s eyes when he and his compatriots charged forward, a jury-rigged spell at the ready just as Zephyrus was about to bring his counterpart and the most powerful of their kind into existence beyond the void. The amethyst hue in the sorcerer’s eyes at the time…
Frostbite Sparkle balled a fist, knuckles whitening. Beneath them the ground shattered and cracked from restored waves of telekinesis, sheer spite helping motivate and focus Frostbite. The glint and color of Starswirl’s eyes was something Zephyrus was never going to forget, and in some ways the ancient demon was still avenging that setback and defeat.
It helped to steel their grit even as the Element of Magic continually tried to rebel again.
The Western Wind limped closer to the portal that led to the void, standing in the presence of the Eastern gales coming out of it. He just had to hold it together a little longer. Clasping their hands together, Frostbite concentrated their magic. Glowing indigo overtook their eyes and surged across their clawed hands just before the demon plunged them into the dark void. Like rending open flash or tearing open the door, Zephyrus wrenched their arms apart and cut the empty space surrounding the portal to widen the gash. With the swing of their arms outwards, the view into the void widened considerably to a dozen meters across. Far off the edges of the tear in space, several other portals started to realign themselves with the new location, showing the darkness into a beyond that stretched across their span.
Zephyrus sucked in their breath and let out a scream that no living creature should ever be able to make, calling out into the void in a way that was audible from all of the portals.
Frostbite Sparkle collapsed; but deep in the void, something called back as it closed in now that it had proper bearing on where to go.
============
Kaizer Aria swooped down onto a rooftop across from the school and deposited her cargo, Adagio slipping off her cousin’s back and landing on her feet as Celestia let Godzilla catch and place her down. Godzilla glanced at the bizarre skyline and airspace around the school, to the myriad of portals torn into space and showing glimpses into lands near and far, some he recognized as part of Equestria and some that looked completely different. All of which had bits of frost starting to spread across the ground from the gnawing cold whipping about in the winds that flowed into them.
“Zephyrus’ plan has begun. We need to act fast before they can summon what dark magic they need to bring the final windigo into play,” Godzilla noted as he cringed at the dark energies flying about so thickly in the air; all of which he could detect.
“Damn, I’d have liked it if Gigan and I were wrong again-DUCK!” Adagio yelped as she pulled her cousin and Celestia down to anchor them as massive galeforces blew over the building that were not of windigo origin.
All eyes quickly cast themselves skyward as Battra Lea rapidly flew several hundred feet ahead, kicking up wind gusts that forced the group to take cover even before rapid salvos of white, cursed graviton blasts followed her in the air. Lea dove and weaved to avoid the blasts, swooping in a wide arc as Boreas failed to shoot her down but did manage to keep the moth at bay.
Adagio cringed as she rose back up, dusting some frost that had built up on her hair as she looked to the clashing giants, especially the possessed body of Monster X, “Don’t think I’m ever going to get used to that. We’re going to need some big back-up to get close enough to that school to find Sunset Shimmer and finish the plan. If we get Boreas’ attention, we’re dead.”
Aria’s eyes were locked onto the sight of her significant other's true form, having previously only seen it in memories, her expression unreadable. A hand on her shoulder and a gentle nudge spurred her focus and to her mild surprise, she found herself looking at the shrunken Princess Celestia.
“Hey, we’ll get him back to you. I promise. And I for one intend to keep to that!”
Aria chuckled slightly and forced a bit of a smirk, “I see where Eventide-er.. Twilight gets it from. So, think you got enough juice in the magic tank to help him help us beat some sense into my boyfriend?”
She jerked a thumb at Godzilla, who was looking at the former alicorn. As Celestia looked to him in turn, she noticed something on his face just as she was beginning to muster her courage and drive to try and use magic. His eyes were widened and he was rushing forward, yelling something.
Something else had taken notice of their arrival, and was fixated on the shrunken alicorn too.
A strong gale force of wind, one coming from an Eastern direction, suddenly exploded from several of the darkest portals. Shooting across the schoolyard, it blasted the group. Godzilla called out, as did Adagio and Aria, but the fourth member of their party couldn’t hear them. Not as the cold chill coming from the blast of dark magic laden wind sunk into her bones and mind.
The former alicorn froze in place, detecting an overpowering, massive presence bearing down on her. In the dark void of the portals, a howling force echoed out and swam through the darkness.
Celestia saw more than just her party’s expectant eye gazing upon her as they called out. She, of course, could see and recall much. All the training sessions she’d had in her youth with Starswirl and the other founders; directing and coaching her through all three magic races’ magical types and applications. Then on top of that, all of the private practices or studies she’d poured through in the last 1,000 years. It was not a hyperbolic statement to say she was the most experienced and knowledgeable magic user known; enough she was able to rather quickly reorient herself to instructing the Rainbooms to great success despite a completely unknown foundation.
But she also remembered the reason she’d learned so much magic in the past 1,000 years; and she saw the reason why before her very eyes.
A coat as dark as midnight, eyes cast with eerie blue starlight as they bore into her with such rampant, blinding hatred. The glares of death and malice, put upon the very face she’d cared the most for in jarring contrast to the giggling, happy foal her earliest years recollected. How unworthy could she possibly be, if the one she should have never let feel neglected could be devoured by her own sins like that?
The Mare in the Moon was not the omnipresent reminder of what Celestia Alexandria Alicor considered her greatest failure. She caught a glimpse of it every time a strand of hair blew past her face and showed that rainbow hue.
Her pulse started to quicken. Her heart jumped up into her throat. She’d briefly thought herself capable, but how foolish could she have been? It wasn’t just that her own sister, her only family had gone neglected and turned; but everything after. The 1,000 years without family, all of the disasters or struggles that might have been different had they protected the realm together as they were supposed to, all the mistakes and errors Celestia had made that might have been averted if Luna had been beside her. Perhaps Sunset Shimmer wouldn’t have fallen astray? Perhaps these windigos could have been hunted down and destroyed long before they did any of this? Maybe Chrysalis could have been contained or fully stopped with no worries of a strike from the shadows over the centuries?
Through the void, a presence flew through the darkness. Not yet able to materialize, but pacing at the glimpses into his limbo. He let forth a screaming roar of hatred at her very existence, raw power far exceeding his kin allowing him to recognize her for what she was even in this state.
The eastern winds blew past Celestia, causing the shrunken alicorn to grip at her arms as the panic attack started to quicken her nerves in this brief instant. The dark magic gales howled and Celestia could practically feel the force sinking its teeth into her mind.
-So much could have been different if I had been better….-
Not if Luna had been better, not if her sister had been with her; but if she herself had been better. Many contributed to what tragedy had happened, but that didn’t mean Celestia hadn’t spent the last 1,000 years shouldering the blame even if part of her knew it was irrational. The influence from the void tried to prey upon that doubt. The cold teeth sunk into her presence like a bite on her body.
Celestia’s eyes snapped open and she stilled, feeling the agony and twisting emotional pain from this experience; but recognizing it for the first time. Godzilla and the sirens were also calling out to her, and while muted, she could still detect them. The former closed the distance between them, grabbing onto Celestia’s shoulders in an attempt to jostle her from the mental snap she’d been hit with.
He was heedless to the danger and his own fear. There was a gargantuan amount of magic flying around this place, far more than at the concert. And while it wasn’t as readily absorb-able, his body not siphoning it all in by default like it had risked before, the fear of his about reverting to his true size in the presence of others was omnipresent; and forced into his mind when the cold Eastern gales hit him too. Try as he may, he couldn’t physically shield his friend from the dark magic; the wind just blew around him and hit them both. And yet, he didn’t let go; calling out his comrade’s name over the storm.
Celestia didn’t hear him, she still couldn’t hear anything. But she felt her companion’s presence all the same and she forced her mind to work for her. If she was going to be forced to relive her worst, she’d tackle the presence mentally affecting her into witnessing other moments of her long, long life.
The flash of memories showed, by pure happenstance, a fateful day near the School for Gifted Unicorns during entrance exam day. A recently restored-to-his-proper-size baby dragon sucking on his tail as a bouncing filly hadn’t even noticed her marked destiny had arrived. Smiling, beaming even, as the first Wonderbolt flight team took to the sky. Attending the first grand opening of the pegasi’s new capital of Cloudsdale. Holding the newborn great-great-granddaughter of Platinum, a dear friend departed by time. The quiet joy she felt watching a pleasant day go by in a marketplace while disguised. Presiding over the 984th Summer Sun celebration nor for her benefit, but for the giddy cheering of a random colt in the audience.
Godzilla’s roaring, be it he was actually calling out in indignation to what was mentally attacking her, or just some psychic recollection of the day they helped save Canterlot together from the gyaos; helped to further pull her back to her wits. These abominations of strife and misery, they could be fought. He and others had done it before, and if they were to hype her up so much.. Well… who was she to let them down?
She took a step forward into the eastern gales to rebuke them.
The cold influencing and trying to tunnel into her mind was fought back with fiery abandon. She was Celestia Alexandria Alicor, admired by many and friend to numerous. Both the faces in places bygone, and those still with her. The sun always rose for 1,000 years because she rose to the occasion, in spite of her errors, and forged on for others. Her mistake was not her damnation, no matter how the opposing winds howled. That much was proven when Luna, mind clear of her darker thoughts, ran to the only family she’d known and her sister hesitated not to embrace her.
==============
Inside Harmony’s realm, the watching goddess who'd been weighing options, froze. Something she’d been keeping safe shifted. The glimmering star of magic, the torn-free magic that Bagan had separated from Celestia while she was in transition between Equestria and the human realm, had budged from its holdings. Even as she witnessed it, it nudged forward again under its own power; some of the magical bindings leftover by Bagan’s attack dissipating by the moment. There were dozens of holes torn between realms and space, many of them leading to Equestria. And like two opposite poles of magnets drawn to each other, the huge well of alicorn magic began to slowly work its way towards the human realm.
The magical bindings, what was left of Bagan’s influence and Harmony’s own actions to keep the other god from taking the magic when she thought they were going to steal it, were fraying. The glittering mass composing a rainbow of hues in a sphere resembling a sun yearned to be free. One of the bindings snapped and dissipated, giving the distinct impression that the magic would free itself and reunite with its bearer all on its own in just a few moments.
Just as Celestia felt a presence from a bygone time, in the form of every windigo in the area, focusing upon her and recognizing the alicorn for what she was; Harmony was united with the demigoddess in that feeling of being watched. Somewhere, unseen, Bagan was aware of her; she was sure of that. Either directly watching her or knowing this moment would come, the God of Extinction knew she’d be in this situation. She was made aware again of the strands of vision, those pieces in a far flung corner of her realm that could show at least one potential future. Harmony had never gazed into them for many reasons, but her fellow deity had no such hesitations. They’d grabbed onto it to glimpse what may be ahead once, and then they'd attacked Celestia sometime later.
Or, perhaps another motive was at play then? Either way, what had happened then resulted in the current now. Celestia's power trying to reunite with her, the Element of Magic acting like a bearer was close nearby, the windigos taking notice and closing in. And milliseconds ticking by.
And now, as shown by the tugging Creation felt at her conscious, she too felt compelled. Harmony contemplated, a rare moment of uncertainty putting knots in her gut. Not for hesitation to help the heroes, no; but for how she’d gotten in this situation. She’d intervened more in the last twenty years than she had in the past thousand, despite having once sworn off doing it once. She’d done it once when Wysteria met her fate. She did it again when the kaiju appeared. And since Bagan’s forces had made themselves known, she’d found herself doing it time after time.
Was this a set-up? Some long term plan? A glimpsed future or a guess at prediction? It usually was mortals looking to the happenstances and wondering if it was fate. The goddess... felt a hollowness, a void within with no clear answer.
The goddess didn’t know for sure what that meant…
The eastern gales howled once more, and Celestia stood against them; now pushing forward to block Godzilla from the blasting winds in an act of selfless heroism that once made her more than worthy of several Elements. She paid no heed to the ice forming across her, Celestia refused to yield again or wallow in despair. Sparks of light started to appear across her eyes and bits of the ice started melting even as more formed.
Harmony watched, swallowed her apprehension, and quickly acted. The last binding to hold the Celestia's magic back was blasted free; and her lot was cast into the winds of hopefully fate....
==============
A burst of light flew free from one of the portals, flying across the schoolyard. Even in the midst of his battle with Battra, Boreas noticed the nature of the power and was enraged when he recognized it for its nature. The power of their greatest enemy, multiple types of magic and multiple Elements at once. Seeing the small sun flying free and tracking its trajectory to the rooftop, he shook the sky with a terrifying wail of a roar whilst instantly firing upon Celestia and company’s location. Wind and falling snow was blown backwards as an eastern wind spilling out from the opened portals wrapped around him, causing the onslaught to suddenly burst outwards with bolstered power that doubled the diameter of the beams.
Godzilla saw the incoming blast and set to brace, desperately looking for Celestia as a means to shield her with her sturdier frame as Aria likewise grabbed Adagio and shot into the air. Only he was promptly surprised when a mass like a blinding, miniature sun, instead grabbed onto him and tackled him off the edge of the building.
He felt his right hand become clasped with a left one in a handshake of trust; as a flood of power shot into his body. For a brief instant, coaxed on by the windigo's ambient magic, a jolt of uncertainty and fear gripped at his heart in light of where he was. Just like his fear at the pier, and all that time ago when he had Luna literally throw him out of a city's limits to be sure. That dread which had long lingered in his mind ever since the day it was finalized he would be a walking mountain in comparison to the tiny specks of humans he knew as sapient and was raised with. In spite of his fear, dread was pushed away by the presence of another. Somehow through the blinding light, he could see a confident, simple smile with tears running down its sides; and bore witness to the white light split into three different colors for a trifecta of Elements.
With a torrent of death-dealing energy flying at them and his greatest fear of crushing someone omnipresent, the soft voice, giggling was welcome reassurance. Carrying the kindness of compassion, the courage that laughter brought against danger, and the magic representing the bonds of understanding. A brief flash of being back at Canterlot Castle, back when Celestia first spoke to him as a peer when it came to the duties of royalty, responsibility, and guardianship, came to them both.
“Don’t be afraid, I trust you.”
And just like that, he was not afraid.
A fantastic explosion sounded off on impact, and a thick gout of smoke covered several city blocks. As the large mass of blackness started to clear out due to the churning winds. When it cleared, the point of impact that should have hit the building was revealed instead to be a mass of brilliant light that extended into the stormy skies. A brilliantly glimmering fist that caught and deflected the graviton flares away, letting them careen off into the sky.
As the light faded somewhat to solidify into overlapping, armored plates for scales, the Monster King made himself known. Godzilla's towering form erupted from the smoke, trails clinging to and leaving contrails following the movement of his head and dorsal spines. Drawing in breath, Godzilla promptly blew away the smokescreen with a heavens and earth quaking roar. The reptilian titan brought up his other hand he hadn’t blocked the blast with and uncurled his clawed digits, revealing a glimmering form shining between his fingers. Radiation power came from the light and into Godzilla, who absorbed it as he had the nourishing sun of his world. The seemingly contradictory char and icy growths that were across the arm that caught the graviton blast healed and melted respectively, white sparks of magic crisscrossing the regenerating tissue.
This wasn’t normal radiation, but it was certainly empowering.
The light in his palm dimmed, but didn’t go out. Wings composed of magic uncurled and flexed outwards, similar to but even larger than the sets Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy sported. The Princess Celestia who revealed herself was no longer a short twelve year old, but had grown back to her proper scale and age; with her attire similarly shifting to match. The baggy hoodie and pants were removed and thrown off into the wind, replaced by the same sort of regal white robes she had entered this world with; with the extra bonus of her regalia having extended into a set of sunbeam-hued, practical bronze armor. Her hair had similarly changed as well. Away from the nostalgic, gold and pink of yester-millennia. The rainbow hues, once admired by so many but privately seen as a mark of a mistake by her for so long, was proudly waving in the winds. Celestia reached up and removed her fake glasses, throwing them aside as she smirked at the clearly irate Boreas.
Her eyes briefly looked aside to the numerous portals and flickered with a trifecta of colors. From her perspective, the numerous gateways to other spaces or worlds were filtered until a telling few started to become illuminated with multiple hues of Element magic. A magic she, for the first time in over 1,000 years, felt a palpable bond to.
“I found the girls, can you start your plan without us for a moment?” She said calmly as she hovered next to the reptilian kaiju.
Unable to speak now, a dipped head and snort of blue mists from his nostrils was affirmation enough from Godzilla. He strode forward into the storm, calling out to both Battra and Boreas as affirmation to the former that help had arrived and confrontation to the latter that he had a new opponent.
Merry Christmas and no big we all have busy social lives
Merry Christmas.
And I'm not going to lie. Is this arch ever going to finish? The villains have way too many backup plans, making them a bit overpowered. Even with three teams working together, they still haven't gone down. Maybe if this were the grand finale, I would understand. But this feels like it's going on for too long!
Not that I'm saying it isn't good. I still go back and read the earlier chapters. But this arch feels like it has gone on way too long.
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This is the final chapter of the arc.
First impressions. I like the scale of the Zephyrus fight, and how insane it gets with the dimension warping. The Boreas fight was fun to read. And Celestia had a good moment to literally shine here.
You are writing a novel? Awesome!
Okay, I'm not gonna read this, cause I wanna be surprised when the finale finally comes out. Can you give us an estimate as to when that might be, before or after the New Year? And also maybe send us a link to buy your book once you publish it, because I'm at least interested.
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I hope to have it out in January, probably middle of the month as I don't want to overburden proofers before New Years.
I shall let you all know when I got my novella coming out. It'll be on Amazon kindle for either free (if you got Prime, and I get paid via page read) or a low price (2.99 top probably). Hope you'll like it and if you do, pop a review when the time comes. Helps it get found more.
5705181
Yes I am, thanks
It'll be about 30k words, and is something of a literary version of Dinosaur Planet; following the day in the life of an animal going about its business and weathering challenges the world throws at it.
HELL YEA!
This was…fine. It certainly isn’t a recovery from the last part, but it’s functional.
The biggest positive I can give is that it’s welcomely free of the thesis paper levels of detailed writing that’s held parts of this arc back. So the events flow a lot smoother. The exception being the attack on Celestia but that’s just one part.
The Zephyrus fight was fine, nice mix of powers flying around and the portal gimmick was okay, but the Boreas fight almost felt like an afterthought.
Sadly Celestia’s big moment fell flat for me, partly because of the aforementioned overly detailed writing for it, partly because it felt too similar to Sunset’s. For this to work, Celestia needed to no sell it immediately.
Finally I can’t help but tilt my head at the order of events. The Camp crew miserably fail in part 1, they catch up here in part 2 where they largely proceed to fail again, and then it’s Junior, the guy whose done the most for the heroes this arc other then Twilight, who gets the big turning the tide moment.
I personally would’ve swapped their places.
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Duly noted, thanks for the read! And I'm glad certain parts did still work. I think one of the reasons Godzilla being the calvary plays off the way it does is a change in momentum. Previously in the arc usually the villains managed to reverse the trends to some extent or another with a few exceptions. Here Zephyrus manages to pull off a move that should have swung the odds of the Kaiju brawl back in Boreaus' favor and should have cleared the path for his own endeavor, but the heroes managed to keep the momentum from reversing and set the path for things to fall back into place.
Word salad and over verbiage is definitely a weakness of mine when discussing mental stuff. If anything, going back and rewriting portions of the conflict here in the build up to releasing the promo definitely helped reiterate to me that sometimes less is more. So I'll definitely keep that in mind while polishing off and editing the second half
Seeing the monster Zephyrus on the ropes was the most enjoyable part of the story.
It was especially great to see him getting his clock cleaned by the daughter of the woman he killed and the children he tried to knock off, now grown up and strong enough to fight him.
It makes me excited for the finale.
Although in truth, I think the Hope Spots are being overdone. Or at least, it feels that way with how long this story arc has gone. I'm not trying to put you down, this is a wonderful story. I'm just offering my two cents.
I hope you had a happy new year!
Never expected Celestia would get a power up for the finale. Eagerly looking forward to how it all plays out.